What Support Do Foster Carers Receive?

People usually ask about the child first. Then, often right at the end of the phone call, the real question comes out: what happens at nine o’clock on a Sunday night when something goes wrong and I have no idea what to do? This article answers that, setting out who will be around you as a foster carer and what the law actually requires, along with where training and money fit in.

Please note: this is general information about fostering in England, not personal financial, legal or tax advice. Figures and requirements are correct as at August 2026 and rates change, so check current figures with us or on GOV.UK. The framework is set out in the Fostering Services: National Minimum Standards and the Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011.

The people who will be around you

Fostering is often imagined as something you do by yourself, in your own house, with the door shut. In practice you become part of a small team that forms around one child, and you are the member of it who knows that child best. Some of those people work for the agency and some for the local authority. It helps to know who does what before you need any of them.

• A placement officer at the agency, who looks at referrals from local authorities and works out which children might be a good match for your household.
• Your supervising social worker, usually shortened to SSW. This is your social worker rather than the child’s, and they are the person you will speak to most.
• The child’s social worker, employed by the local authority, who holds overall responsibility for the child’s care and stays with them for as long as they are a looked-after child.
• An independent reviewing officer, who chairs the child’s reviews and keeps the child’s plan honest.
• The wider network: school staff and the designated teacher, the virtual school, a GP, sometimes CAMHS.

You are not a bystander in that group. You are usually the only person in the room who saw what happened at bedtime, so your notes and your view carry real weight. Our page on becoming a foster carer walks through how it all fits together.

What your supervising social worker actually does

Your SSW is the practical answer to the Sunday night question. The national minimum standards require that every approved foster carer is supervised by a named, appropriately qualified social worker who holds meetings with them, and that at least one visit a year is unannounced. Those supervision sessions are where you talk about how a placement is going and how you are holding up. There will also be less formal home visits, so your SSW gets a feel for how your household runs.

The unannounced visit makes people nervous, so let us be straight about it. It exists so that a social worker occasionally sees your home on an ordinary day, without you having tidied up first, because that is part of how children are kept safe. Nobody is looking for a show home.

The frequency of planned supervision is set by each agency’s own policy rather than by a national number, so it is a fair thing to ask any agency you speak to: how often would you see your SSW, and how many households does that worker hold? Ofsted inspected GLF from 21 to 25 July 2025 and rated the agency Outstanding in all three judgements, recording carers describing the support they receive as “second to none”. The full report is on the Ofsted website.

Help outside office hours

Children do not have crises between nine and five. The standards require every fostering service to run an effective out of hours advice and support service, so there is always someone to ring. What varies between agencies is who picks up. At GLF, alongside the out of hours service, carers can contact their own supervising social worker directly for advice, which Ofsted noted in the same inspection. Ringing a familiar voice who already knows your household beats explaining everything from scratch to a duty worker who has never met you.

Use it. New carers often sit on a worry for three days rather than seem as though they cannot cope. A small question answered on Tuesday is usually cheaper than a difficult situation on Friday.

The meetings, and roughly when they happen

Fostering comes with a rhythm of meetings. They are less daunting once you know the pattern, and much of that pattern is fixed in law rather than left to the agency.

• Placement planning meeting. The child’s placement plan should be prepared before a placement starts, or where that is not reasonably practicable, within five working days of it beginning. This is where you find out what decisions are delegated to you, such as haircuts and sleepovers, and what you must ask permission for.
• The child’s reviews, sometimes called LAC reviews. The first must happen within 20 working days of the child becoming looked after, the second no more than three months after that, then at intervals of not more than six months.
• Personal Education Plan meetings. A looked-after child has a PEP, and virtual school heads are expected to arrange for it to be reviewed each school term.
• Your own annual review. Your agency must review your terms of approval within a year of approval, then at intervals of not more than a year. Your SSW leads it.
• A health and safety check of your home, during your assessment and then annually.

Training that keeps going after approval

Before approval you will do preparation training, usually the Skills to Foster course, plus first aid and safeguarding. After approval the learning carries on. In England you need to evidence that you have attained the Training, Support and Development Standards within 12 months of approval, or within 18 months if you are a family and friends carer. Your agency must also keep a personal development plan for you, setting out training that suits your experience and the children you care for.

Some of that training is procedural. The part carers tell us changes daily life is the part about why a child behaves as they do. Every GLF carer is trained in trauma and attachment, because a child who hides food or rages over a cancelled trip makes far more sense once you understand what their nervous system learned to expect.

Money is part of being supported

Nobody fosters for the money, and fostering still has to be financially workable or you cannot give it your full attention. Being clear about the numbers is part of supporting a carer, so here are ours. As at August 2026, GLF pays:

• £479.50 a week for a child aged 10 or under.
• £507.50 a week for a child aged 11 or over.
• An enhanced fee, generally around £100 to £200 a week more, for placements with higher needs.

That is one fixed weekly figure covering both the cost of caring for a child and your professional reward, paid per child and only while a child is placed with you. There are no separate one-off payments for things like birthdays, which makes budgeting predictable. For context, the government’s national minimum allowance for London in 2026 to 2027 runs from £205 a week for the youngest children to £309 for a 16 or 17 year old, so our rates sit well above that floor. There is more on our foster carer pay page.

Foster carers are treated as self-employed and register with HMRC, which sounds worse than it is, because Qualifying Care Relief means most carers pay little or no tax on their fostering income. For 2026 to 2027 the relief is a fixed £20,440 per household per year plus £435 a week per child under 11 and £515 a week per child aged 11 or over. We talk this through with every carer, and there is a fuller explanation in our article on whether foster carers pay tax.

Support for the harder parts

Some of what fostering asks of you is difficult, and an agency that pretends otherwise is not being honest with you. Caring closely for a child who has been hurt can wear you down over months in a way that is easy to miss from the inside, something often called compassion fatigue. The warning signs tend to be small: feeling stuck, dreading the school run, snapping at people you love. Naming it early to your SSW is the sensible thing to do rather than a confession of failure, and the options run from a short break for the child with another carer through to practical changes in the support around you.

One other thing worth knowing. If an allegation is ever made against you, the standards require that you have access to independent support during the investigation, separate from the agency. Very few carers ever face that, and knowing the safeguard exists still helps.

Then there is the support other carers give each other, which no agency can manufacture. Support groups and WhatsApp threads are where you find the person who dealt with the same thing last spring. Getting ready before a child arrives is far less lonely with that network behind you.

You won’t have to do this alone

GLF is a small agency, and we have kept it that way on purpose. It means your supervising social worker knows your household rather than your file, and that we can move quickly when something needs sorting. You do not need to be a perfect parent or an expert in child development. You need to be reasonably steady, and honest with your team when things are hard. We will build the rest around you. It is completely normal to have questions at this stage. Most people who end up fostering with us started with one nervous phone call and no idea whether they were suitable.

Frequently asked questions

How often will I see my supervising social worker?

There is no single national figure, because the frequency of planned supervision is set by each fostering service’s own policy. What is required is a named, appropriately qualified supervising social worker who holds meetings with you, including at least one unannounced visit a year. Ask any agency you are considering how often you would meet, and how many households that worker supports.

Is there really someone to call at night or at the weekend?

Yes. Every fostering service in England must run an effective out of hours advice and support service. At GLF, carers can also contact their own supervising social worker directly for advice, which Ofsted noted when it rated the agency Outstanding in July 2025.

Do I have to do more training once I am approved?

Yes, and your agency provides it. In England you need to evidence that you have attained the Training, Support and Development Standards within 12 months of approval, or within 18 months if you are a family and friends carer. After that your personal development plan sets out ongoing learning suited to your experience and the children you care for.

What happens at my annual review?

Your agency must review your terms of approval within a year of your approval and then at least once a year after that. Your supervising social worker leads it, and it looks at how the year has gone, your training, and whether the ages or number of children you are approved for still fit your household. It is a two-way conversation rather than an exam.