Mainstream fostering
Some children and young people may need to stay with you for a little while until they can return to their parents or are adopted.
Other children need a stable long-term home where you will support them into adulthood. All of this is called mainstream fostering.
Looking after a child or young person as a mainstream carer means you will be the child’s guardian. Hull Fostering will give you delegated parental responsibility to make certain decisions on behalf of the child or young person. For example, registering the child with a G.P, dentist or taking them abroad on holiday.
As a mainstream foster carer, the child will be a part of your family. They will stay with you for however long the child’s care plan says, or for how long you can accommodate.
As a mainstream foster carer, you can decide whether you would like to be a short-term foster carer or long-term foster carer. You can specify where your skills are best matched.
Some people prefer to care for babies, toddlers, teenagers or sibling groups.
Short-term fostering
When a child cannot stay with their birth family, they often need to stay with a short-term foster carer temporarily, while discussions take place about the child’s future.
Short-term foster care is a temporary arrangement. It is needed until the child or young person can be moved to a foster family for the long-term, or before they can be reunited with their birth family.
As a short-term foster carer, you would be helping a child through a vulnerable and challenging time. You will be giving them the love, stability, care and attention they need to process what’s happening.
Short-term foster carers play a major role in helping lots of children through a difficult time of their lives. Short-term fostering can last from just 2 days to 2 years – depending on the complexities of the child’s situation.
Short-term foster care is the most common type of carer, particularly for newly approved carers.
Long-term fostering
When a judge decides that a child cannot return to their birth family, and it is in the best interests of the child to have the stability of a long-term foster family, Hull Fostering will carefully consider who can offer the long-term care to the child.
If you decide to care for a child long-term, the child will very much be part of your family. The relationship formed between you and the child often lasts a lifetime.
Long-term foster care allows you to have a huge, lasting impact on the development and outcome of a child's life. You’ll be the child’s caregiver and role model and support them into adulthood.
Fostering brothers and sisters
We do everything possible to keep siblings together. Our children didn’t ask to come into care, so considering separating a child from their brothers or sisters when they have already potentially been exposed to trauma would not be helpful to them.
Often a child’s relationship with their brother or sister is what they value most. It can provide the much-needed comfort and a sense of belonging they need during a scary and difficult time.
To foster siblings, all we ask is you can give each child their own bedroom. This is unless the siblings are of the same sex, in which case they can share a room.
As with all types of fostering we offer, you can choose whether you support the children on a short-term or long-term fostering arrangement.
