Will my home pass the fostering home safety check?

Somewhere between thinking about fostering and actually picking up the phone, most people do a slow lap of their own house and start finding fault with it. The stair gate that came off during the decorating. The smoke alarm somebody took down because it kept going off when the grill was on. If you have quietly decided your home is not good enough, here is what the check really looks at, and why most of it costs less than a weekly shop.

Please note: general information, not advice about your own home or tenancy. Correct at 17 October 2026. Sources: the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (Amendment) Regulations 2022 guidance and the Fostering Services: National Minimum Standards.

The standard is a family home, not a show home

The rule that governs all of this is Standard 10 of the Fostering Services: National Minimum Standards, and the wording is kinder than people expect. It asks that hazards are removed “as is consistent with a family home”. That phrase is doing a lot of work. Whoever wrote it knew that a house with children in it has shoes in the hallway and a drawer that does not shut, and deliberately did not ask you to turn your home into a clinic.

The rest is similarly down to earth. Your home needs to comfortably fit everyone in it, and to be warm and clean, and in good order. You need health and safety training, which we provide. A child over three should have their own bedroom, although a baby under two can sleep in a cot in your room, which is why we approve carers with no spare room at all.

One line surprises people: the foster home is inspected annually, without appointment. That exists so a child’s home is seen as it really is, on an ordinary Tuesday, rather than on the one day you tidied for a visitor.

What someone actually walks round and looks at

The visit is a walk round your house with a clipboard and a conversation, and the best preparation is to do that walk yourself first. Crouch to the height of a three year old in each room and look at what they would see. Most of what gets written down is what you would fix anyway.

• Stairs with a properly fixed handrail, and a gate top and bottom if a child under five is coming
• Restrictors on upstairs windows, and a balcony that cannot be climbed
• Medicines, cleaning products, knives, razors, matches, alcohol: out of sight and reach, ideally locked
• Garden gates that lock, and any pond covered, fenced or filled in
• Hot water that will not scald, and a guard on an open fire
• Insurance that covers carrying a child in your car
• Working smoke alarms, and a carbon monoxide alarm where you need one

If you rent, or only the box room is free, neither is a bar to approval. We have written separately about fostering in a rented home or flat, whether you need a spare bedroom, and fostering with a dog or cat already in the house. The other side of keeping a child safe at home, the everyday safer care arrangements, is covered in our piece on safeguarding and safer care.

The gap we see most often is a carbon monoxide alarm

Smoke alarms are the thing everybody thinks of. Carbon monoxide alarms are the thing almost nobody does, and of everything here they are the cheapest to fix and the most serious to leave. You cannot smell carbon monoxide or see it, and the early symptoms look exactly like a winter headache.

The law changed on 1 October 2022. Under the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (Amendment) Regulations 2022, a rented home in England must have at least one smoke alarm on each storey with a room used as living accommodation, and a carbon monoxide alarm in any such room containing a fixed combustion appliance: a gas or oil boiler, or a log burner. A gas cooker alone is excluded. The rules cover private landlords and housing associations alike.

If you rent, that duty sits with your landlord. They must make sure every required alarm works on the day a new tenancy starts and repair a faulty one. Testing and batteries are yours. So if there is no alarm near the boiler, that is an email to your letting agent rather than a trip to the shops. Keep the reply: a carer who chased a landlord and got it fixed has shown something more useful than a tidy house.

Here we would go further than the letter of the law. If you have a boiler or a stove, fit an alarm near it, whether or not the rule bites and whether you rent or own. They cost about fifteen pounds. There is no version of this decision worth saving fifteen pounds on.

Smoke alarms: press the button, bin them at ten years

Two pieces of advice here have changed, and the old versions still circulate.

The first is how to test one. Press the test button, once a month, and change the battery once a year. You may have read that you should also test an alarm by lighting a match underneath it and letting the smoke drift up. Do not do that. It is not what the National Fire Chiefs Council or any fire and rescue service advises, and holding a naked flame to a plastic alarm in a house with children in it is a risk you have invented for no benefit. The button tests the sensor and the sounder, which is the whole job.

The second is that alarms expire. The National Fire Chiefs Council says a smoke alarm should be replaced after ten years, or by the replace-by date printed on the base. The sensor degrades even with a fresh battery, so an alarm that chirps when you press it may still be past its working life. Take yours down and look at the base. If the date says 2016, that is this weekend’s job.

London Fire Brigade suggests alarms in hallways, landings, living rooms and bedrooms, a heat alarm in the kitchen so burnt toast does not set it off, and nothing in the bathroom, where steam causes false alarms. Make an escape plan and practise it. If a pan catches fire, do not tackle it and do not move it: leave the room, shut the door, get everyone out and call 999. Anyone in London can book a free Home Fire Safety Visit on the London Fire Brigade website or on 0800 028 4428.

Two things people worry about too much, and one too little

Hot water comes up constantly. There is no legal maximum tap temperature for an existing home. Building Regulations cap hot water to a bath at 48C, but only in new homes. Aim lower, around 43C at the tap, and use the test that has not changed in fifty years. Run the bath, swirl it, put your elbow in.

Plastic socket covers run the other way. Electrical Safety First does not recommend them. UK sockets already have a built-in shutter blocking access to live parts, a design the charity calls one of the safest installed in Europe. A cover a toddler can lever out is worse than the socket was to begin with.

The thing people worry about too little is the button battery. The small round ones in car keys and musical birthday cards can burn through a child’s oesophagus within hours of being swallowed. They belong in the locked drawer with the medicines.

What happens if something does not pass

Almost nothing here is a reason to turn someone down. If your social worker spots something, it goes on a list with a date next to it. A quick fix gets done there and then, anything bigger gets a temporary arrangement and the assessment carries on.

Money is the fear underneath the fear, so let us be plain. A carbon monoxide alarm is around fifteen pounds, a stair gate perhaps twenty-five. Once a child moves in we pay £479.50 a week for a child under 11 and £507.50 for a child aged 11 or over, one fixed weekly fee covering both the costs of caring for a child and your reward, with an enhanced fee of roughly £100 to £200 a week more where needs are higher. Rates correct at October 2026. Nobody expects you to spend money you do not have before you are approved.

You won’t have to do this alone

It is completely normal to look round your own hallway and decide you are not the sort of person who does this. What actually happens is that someone from our team walks round with you and names the four things worth changing. Almost always, the rest is fine. We are a small London agency, rated Outstanding by Ofsted in all three judgements in July 2025, and that rating comes from the amount of hand-holding we do at this stage. You will have a supervising social worker who knows your house and your boiler, and who you can ring on a Sunday.

Your home does not need to be new, large, owned or free of clutter. It needs to be warm, safe enough, and somewhere a child can shut a door and feel they belong.

Frequently asked questions

Will someone inspect my house before I am approved?

Yes, as part of the assessment, alongside the rest of the process we set out in what to expect during a fostering assessment. After approval the home is inspected once a year without an appointment, under Standard 10 of the Fostering Services: National Minimum Standards.

Do I need a carbon monoxide alarm?

If you rent and any room you live in contains a fixed combustion appliance, such as a gas or oil boiler or a log burner, the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (Amendment) Regulations 2022 require one. A room with only a gas cooker is excluded. We would ask any carer with a boiler or a stove to fit one regardless.

How often should I test my smoke alarms?

Press the test button once a month and change the battery once a year. Never test an alarm with a match or any naked flame. The National Fire Chiefs Council also advises replacing a smoke alarm after ten years, or by the replace-by date printed on its base.

Can I foster if I rent my home?

Yes. Renting does not stop you being approved, and your landlord carries the legal duty to provide working alarms at the start of a new tenancy and to repair faulty ones.