Short term fostering
Short term (task centred) fostering is a type of fostering for children and young people who are either in care proceedings or their parents or caregivers are no longer able to look after them. The aim of short term fostering is to ensure a child or young person is looked after until they can return home, move into long term fostering or become adopted.
As a short term foster carer you would be looking after a child or young person on a full-time basis, you could be preparing a child to return to their own family, to an adoptive family or long term foster carers or helping older children to get ready for living independently. The task can often change whilst the child or young person is living with you.
If you have your own children, you will normally care for children who are younger than your own as we find that this works best with family dynamics.
Read Cathy's story and find out what it’s really like to be a short term foster carer.
How long is short term foster care?
As a short term foster carer, you could look after a child or young person for a few days, weeks, months, or even in some cases a few years.
Each child is different, so it depends on the individual circumstances of how long a child or young person is in short term foster care.
The aim is always to provide the child or young person with a more long term family as quickly as possible, that being long term foster care, adoption or returning to their parents.
Are short term foster carers paid?
Short term foster carers are paid pro-rata for each day of their time, therefore if they had a young person in their care for a day, then they would receive one-seventh of the appropriate weekly fee for any complete or part day of care they provide for a young person.
You can discover more about short term foster carers pay on our foster carers pay information page.
Can I become a short term foster carer?
Yes! There’s no ‘typical’ foster carer and all sorts of people become great foster carers.
Children of all ages and backgrounds need your help, and we accept people from all walks of life to become Foster for Staffordshire foster carers.
- You don’t need to have a big house but you do need to have a spare bedroom.
- You could be a parent, but you don’t have to be.
- There are no age barriers.
- You could be from any ethnic or religious background.
- You could be married, single, in a civil partnership or living in a settled relationship
- You can be working or not working.
As long as you’re committed to helping a child to realise their potential, you could be what we are looking for and we would love to hear from you.
Ready to take the next step or looking for more information about short term fostering?
Enquire online now or call 0800 169 2061 today and we’ll help answer your questions about fostering and short term fostering.
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