Find out about the different types of fostering

Children and young people of all ages and from different backgrounds, may need a foster home for a wide variety of reasons and for shorter or longer periods. In Coventry we need people to become foster carers who have a wide range of different skills and experiences to support them.

Foster carers require skills and qualities such as being: 

• Relational and restorative
• Empathetic 
• Resilient 
• Confident
• 24-hour committed 

The type of fostering you could provide will very much depend on you, your lifestyle and the needs of your own family.  In Coventry, we are recruiting for the following types of fostering:

• Mainstream fostering:  This can mean anything from an overnight stay to a period of several months, or in some situations, years.  Foster carers provide a temporary place to stay until the child can return home to their own family or a longer-term arrangement can be made. Long-term fostering allows children to stay in a family where they can feel secure, and their needs are met, whilst staying in touch with their own family.  Mainstream fostering includes caring for unaccompanied teenagers.  As well as the normal tasks of supporting teenagers with their education, self-help and social skills, foster carers working with these young people will need to work with interpreters and learn to overcome everyday language barriers, respect the child's cultural identity and background and upskill your understanding of the country they come from.  

• Out-of-hours fostering:  Out-of-hours foster carers care for children and young people who need an immediate foster home outside office hours.  Where these arrangements are needed out-of-hours, foster carers will be contacted by a member of the service. The expectation is that these children will remain with the carer until the next working day although the arrangement may be extended with the carer’s agreement. A retainer payment is made to the carer(s) on the rota, with the expectation that they will be available for any child who needs to be cared for out-of-hours.

• Next Steps fostering:  We need to recruit therapeutic foster carers to support children with complex emotional and behavioural needs and require foster carers who can provide skilled, intensive foster care in a family home setting.

• Parent and child fostering:  These foster carers provide a safe, family-based care arrangement to a new or expectant parent (most often the mother) who needs some support and guidance around caring for their child.

If we can provide more information about the above care arrangements, please call our team or come along to one of our events.