Family Time: What Contact With a Child’s Birth Family Really Involves

Almost everyone who rings us about fostering asks about the birth family sooner or later, usually in a slightly lowered voice. Will they know where I live? Won’t seeing their mum unsettle them? What if I don’t like what I see? They’re fair questions, and there are proper answers to all of them. Contact with a child’s birth family, now more often called family time, is one of the most carefully planned parts of fostering, and it isn’t something you’ll be left to work out on your own.

Please note: this page is general information about how family time usually works in England, not legal advice about any particular child. Figures and legal references are correct as at August 2026. For the law itself, see the Children Act 1989 on legislation.gov.uk, and always follow the plan written for the child in your care.

What family time actually means

Family time is the contact a child in care keeps with the people who matter to them. Usually that’s parents and siblings, but it can also mean grandparents, aunts and uncles, a former stepparent, or a family friend the child has known since they were small. It doesn’t always happen face to face. Plenty of family time takes place on a video call or through letters and emails, particularly where a relative lives a long way away or in another country.

The reason it matters is simple enough. A child who leaves home at seven doesn’t stop being their mother’s child. Keeping that thread alive helps them hold on to who they are and where they come from, and if the plan is for them to go home eventually, it makes that return far less of a leap. For babies and toddlers, regular time with a birth parent supports the attachment that shapes so much of what comes later. You can read more about that in our guide to trauma and attachment in fostering.

Who decides, and what you’ll be told

You don’t. That’s worth saying plainly, because it takes a weight off. Decisions about family time sit with the local authority or, where there are court proceedings, with the court. Under section 34 of the Children Act 1989 a council must allow a child in its care reasonable contact with their parents and certain others, and under Schedule 2 it has to try to keep contact going with relatives more widely. The test is always the child’s welfare. If contact would put the child at risk, it can be restricted or stopped.

There’s one recent change worth knowing about. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 adds a specific duty about brothers and sisters, so councils will have to allow reasonable contact between a child in care and their siblings, half-siblings and step-siblings. The government has said it will bring that duty into force from autumn 2026. Sibling contact has been patchy for years, and this puts it on a firmer footing.

Whatever is agreed goes into a written contact plan, which forms part of the child’s care plan. Ask for your copy on day one if it doesn’t arrive with the child. A good plan tells you:

• who the child is allowed to see, and who they are not
• where family time takes place
• how often it happens, and for how long
• whether it is supervised, and by whom
• whether gifts, food or medicine can be handed over
• who does the travelling, and who pays for it
• the risk assessment behind all of the above

If any of that is missing or vague, say so. Your supervising social worker would far rather sort it out in week one than untangle it after something has gone wrong.

Getting a child ready, and picking up the pieces after

The hour before and the hour after are usually harder than the visit itself. A child who has been counting the days can still fall apart in the car park. Talk them through what will happen and when, using pictures if that helps, and be warm about it without winding up their expectations. Plan the route in advance, and if it’s somewhere new, go and look at it together beforehand so the building isn’t a surprise. Get the outfit chosen and the bag packed the night before so the morning isn’t a scramble.

Have a plan for the visit that doesn’t happen. Parents are late, or they don’t come, and a child sitting in a waiting room watching the door is a miserable thing. Know where you’ll go instead and what you’ll do. If you won’t be staying, some carers slip a note into a coat pocket so the child has something of home with them.

Afterwards, let them lead. Some children want to talk in the car; others go quiet for two days and then mention it while you’re washing up. Behaviour often spikes, and it can look like rudeness or defiance when it’s really grief with nowhere to go. Don’t punish it. Wait for a calm moment, name what you noticed, and work out together what would make next time easier. Something physical helps more than a serious conversation: a bike ride, or a film with the lights off and no questions asked.

Children also get tangled up in loyalty. A seven-year-old who has just had a lovely afternoon with you and a lovely hour with their mum can feel they’ve betrayed one of you. Tell them what’s true, which is that liking two people in different ways is completely normal and nobody is keeping score.

When family time happens in your home

Some contact takes place at a family centre, some at a park or a soft play, and occasionally in your living room. If it’s going to be your home, agree the ground rules with the child’s social worker before anyone arrives, not on the doorstep:

• what to do if the family arrives early, or brings someone you weren’t expecting
• that the social worker has told them there is no smoking in your house
• having a second adult in the building, who doesn’t need to sit in the room but can be called on
• putting anything valuable or breakable away, and alcohol out of sight, well before the doorbell goes

None of that is about expecting the worst. It’s the same thinking behind any safer caring arrangement: clear boundaries protect the child and you, and they stop small misunderstandings turning into something formal.

Why your notes matter more than you would think

Recording family time feels like paperwork until you see what it’s used for. Write down how the child was in the hours before a visit and in the days after it. Mood, sleep, appetite, anything they said. Note the practical stuff too, like a parent arriving forty minutes late for the third week running, or a contact room next to a building site where nobody can hear each other.

Those notes go into the child’s looked-after review, and the timings are set in law. The first review happens within 20 working days of the child coming into care, the second within three months of that, and after that at least every six months. Family time arrangements are looked at again each time. When a social worker argues for longer visits, or for moving them out of a formal centre, your records are usually the evidence they’re standing on. Nobody else was there at bedtime.

The parts that are genuinely hard

It would be dishonest to pretend this is all straightforward. You may sit across a table from an adult who hurt the child you’ve spent three months settling, and be expected to be civil. You may find it easier than you expected, and feel guilty about that too.

A few things make it manageable. If a family member complains to you about the council or the placement, be kind and redirect them to the social worker rather than taking it on. If you’re asked to supervise contact and you don’t feel comfortable doing it, you’re allowed to say no. And never arrange contact off your own bat, however reasonable it seems in the moment. A quick unapproved meeting can put a child at real risk and puts you in a very difficult position. If something feels unsafe during a visit, remove the child calmly if you safely can; if you can’t, step away and call the police.

In an emergency a council can suspend contact that a court has ordered, but only for up to seven days. Anything longer needs to go back to court. Knowing that boundary exists is reassuring when a situation is moving quickly.

You won’t have to do this alone

Every one of our carers has a supervising social worker who knows their household properly, plus out-of-hours support for the evening when a visit has gone wrong and you need someone to talk to before bedtime. We’ll go through the contact plan with you, sit in on the difficult conversations, and push back on arrangements that clearly aren’t working for the child. Ofsted inspected us in July 2025 and rated us Outstanding across all three judgements, and what carers told inspectors about support was a large part of that.

Fostering is paid work, and we’re straightforward about the money. At Greater London Fostering you receive £479.50 a week for a child under 11 and £507.50 a week for a child aged 11 or over, paid per child while they’re placed with you, with an enhanced fee of roughly £100 to £200 a week more for placements with higher needs. You can see the full picture on our foster carer pay page.

England needs more people doing this. Ofsted counted 42,190 fostering households in March 2025, and the number of approved mainstream foster carers has fallen 12 per cent since 2021, while around 56,400 children were living in foster care. You don’t need a professional background or a partner to do it; our page on who can foster covers what’s genuinely required, and what fostering involves day to day gives you an honest picture of the rest of the week.

Frequently asked questions

Will a child’s birth family know where I live?

Not as a rule. Your address is treated as confidential, and family time is normally arranged somewhere neutral such as a family centre or a public place. Contact only happens at your home if that has been risk assessed and written into the plan, and you have a say in that decision.

Do I have to supervise family time myself?

Sometimes you’ll be asked to, and often you’ll simply do the drop-off and collection. If you’re asked to supervise and you don’t feel comfortable with it, you can say no. Tell your supervising social worker why, so an alternative can be arranged.

What if contact clearly upsets the child?

Record what you see and raise it with your supervising social worker and the child’s social worker straight away. Distress after a visit doesn’t automatically mean contact should stop, since it’s often the child processing difficult feelings, but the arrangements can be changed. Your notes are what the review will look at.

Can I arrange extra contact if the family asks me to?

No. Every arrangement has to go through the child’s social worker, even one that looks harmless. Unapproved contact can put a child at risk and would be treated seriously by the agency and the local authority.

Does having contact with birth parents mean the child will go home?

Not necessarily. Family time happens whatever the long-term plan is, including where a child stays in care until they’re eighteen. Its purpose is to keep the child connected to their family and identity, and the plan for where they live is decided separately.