Preparing to Welcome a Foster Child: What to Do Before They Arrive

The call tends to come at an ordinary moment. You are halfway through the washing up, or sitting in a supermarket car park with the engine off, and your supervising social worker asks whether you could take a nine year old who needs somewhere to be by teatime. Sometimes you get a fortnight. Sometimes you get four hours. Here is what to do with whatever time you have, and what really does not matter.

Please note: this is general information about fostering in England, not personal, legal or medical advice. The statutory timescales below come from the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010 and Department for Education statutory guidance. NHS entitlements and GLF’s pay rates are correct at August 2026. Rules and rates change, so please check the linked sources or ask us.

The call, and the questions worth asking on it

Before anything gets bought or moved, there is a conversation. Your supervising social worker will tell you what is known about the child and ask whether you think your household is the right place for them. You are allowed to say no, and saying no to one child does not count against you. What surprises most new carers is how little is known at that point. That is usually not the agency holding things back. The child came into care this morning and nobody has the full picture yet.

Ask what you can anyway, and write it down while you are on the phone:

• The child’s age, and in plain terms why they are coming into care today.
• Which school they attend, and whether they will be staying at it.
• Health needs, plus any medication or allergies.
• What they actually eat, and anything they will not touch.
• Their faith, and anything about it that shapes daily routine.
• What family time has been agreed, and when the first one is likely to be.
• Which decisions have been delegated to you, from haircuts to sleepovers to medical consent.

The paperwork you should be given

Every child placed with you should have a placement plan setting out how the placement will meet their needs. Under regulation 9 it is normally prepared before the placement is made and signed by the people involved, but where a child is placed in an emergency the regulations allow up to five working days. In practice a same day placement often arrives before the plan does. Chase it politely, and keep chasing, because it is the document that tells you what you are allowed to decide on your own.

Expect a planning meeting with the child’s local authority social worker and your supervising social worker, either just before the move or shortly after. Raise the awkward practical questions there rather than saving them up: who pays for the school trip, whether the child can be photographed, what happens at half term.

Getting the room ready, and why it should not look like a hotel

There is a strong temptation to make the bedroom perfect. Resist it a bit. A room styled to within an inch of its life can feel like a museum a child is afraid to touch, and it quietly says that everything here already belongs to somebody else. Clean bedding, a lamp that gives warm light rather than a bare bulb, a bed obviously made for them, and then some empty space. One empty drawer says “this is yours” better than a wall of new cushions does. Our piece on whether you need a spare bedroom to foster covers what is and is not required, including babies under two, who can sleep in a cot in your own room.

The shopping worth doing before they arrive

You will not get this exactly right, and that is fine. Aim for the things that are miserable to be without at nine o’clock at night in a strange house. Most of it costs little and none of it is wasted, because the next child will need it too.

• Food you know they like, plus a couple of easy meals for a day when nobody wants to cook.
• Toiletries, including a new toothbrush still in its packet.
• Pyjamas and underwear in roughly the right size, receipts kept.
• A plug-in nightlight. It costs a few pounds and earns its keep in the first week.
• A phone charger, because teenagers often arrive without one and it matters enormously to them.
• A cheap holdall, so a child’s belongings never have to travel in a bin liner again.

Money should not be what stops you buying something a child needs on the day they arrive. At GLF you are paid one weekly fee covering both the child’s allowance and your reward: £479.50 a week for a child under 11, and £507.50 for a child aged 11 or over, correct at August 2026 and paid per child while they are placed with you. Higher needs placements attract an enhanced fee of roughly £100 to £200 a week on top. There are no one off payments for birthdays or Christmas, because we would rather the weekly figure was honest and predictable than dressed up with extras you have to apply for.

Safety check and safer caring

Walk your home and garden as though you have never seen them, with the age of the incoming child in mind. A three year old and a fifteen year old make very different risks out of the same house. Then sit down with everyone who lives with you and go back through your safer caring policy. It is a live document, not something you wrote once for your assessment.

• Medicines, alcohol, cleaning products and sharp tools out of reach or locked away.
• Stair gates, window restrictors and cupboard catches where the child’s age calls for them.
• Smoke alarms tested and a way out of the house that everybody knows.
• Ponds and garden tools made safe, and gates that actually latch.
• Bathroom and bedroom routines agreed out loud: who knocks, who waits, how mornings work.
• A conversation with your own children about what will change, and what will not.

School, the doctor and the dentist

Two systems start moving around a child as soon as they become looked after, and knowing the timescales helps you spot when something has been forgotten. The first statutory review of the care plan must happen within 20 working days of the child becoming looked after, the second within three months of that, then at least every six months. The initial health assessment should be done by that first review. Afterwards, health assessments happen at least every six months for a child under five and at least every 12 months from their fifth birthday.

Education has its own clock. Where a child is placed in an emergency, the Personal Education Plan should be initiated within 10 working days of them becoming looked after, wherever they are living, and if their existing school cannot continue the local authority must secure a suitable new education placement within 20 school days. Our article on how foster carers support children at school covers the designated teacher and the virtual school head.

On the practical side, sort the registrations early:

• Register the child with your GP, and find out who holds consent for what.
• Get them onto a dentist’s list, and book an eye test if one is due.
• Children under 16, and those aged 16, 17 or 18 in full time education, get free NHS sight tests, dental treatment and prescriptions.

The first night

Lower your expectations of the first night and you will almost certainly have a better one. A child who has just been moved will not be curious about your house rules or grateful for the bedding. They may be silent, or furious, or unnervingly polite. Feed them something plain, show them where the toilet is and how the light works, and leave the tour until tomorrow.

Whatever they brought with them matters more than anything you have bought. Keep every item safe, even the broken ones, and never throw away a bag of clothes that smells of somewhere else. A memory box you make together over the following weeks is one of the quietest and most useful things a foster carer does. If the behaviour of those first days catches you off guard, our piece on trauma and attachment explains what is often going on underneath it.

Family time may start straight away

Contact with birth family, which the sector calls family time, is often arranged within days rather than weeks. You may be asked to do a handover at a contact centre, or to supervise a phone call from your kitchen. For a lot of new carers it is the hardest part of the first fortnight, so it is worth reading about what family time really involves before the first one lands.

You won’t have to do this alone

It is completely normal to read a list like this and think you have already forgotten something. Every carer does. What carries you through the first week is not the shopping. It is that someone answers the phone. You have a named supervising social worker who knows your household and visits regularly, an out of hours number answered by a real person from our own team, and other GLF carers who have had exactly this week and can tell you what helped. Ofsted inspected us from 21 to 25 July 2025 and rated us Outstanding in all three judgements, and you can read the full report. If you are still wondering whether any of this could be you, becoming a foster carer with GLF explains how the process starts.

Frequently asked questions

How much notice will I get before a child arrives?

It varies enormously. A planned move can give you a fortnight and even a couple of visits beforehand. An emergency placement may give you a few hours. If short notice worries you, say so during your assessment: carers can be approved for planned placements rather than emergencies, and your availability is yours to set.

What if I do not get the placement plan before the child moves in?

In an emergency that is fairly common, and the regulations allow up to five working days. Ask your supervising social worker to chase it and keep a note of what you have been told verbally in the meantime, especially anything about medication and allergies.

Do I need a spare bedroom to welcome a child?

For most children, yes, they will need their own room. A baby under two is the exception, because they can sleep in a cot in your bedroom, and GLF is actively looking for carers who want to look after babies. If you are unsure whether your home works, ask us before you rule yourself out.