Children’s Rights in Foster Care: What a Child in Your Home Is Entitled To

Nobody hands you a leaflet called Your Child’s Rights on day one. What arrives is a folder, and inside it sit the things a child is legally owed: a plan, a review, a visit, an education, time with the people they love, and a way to complain when any of that goes wrong. Here is what a child in care in England is entitled to, who is meant to make it happen, and where to ring when it isn’t.

Please note: general information about the law in England, not advice about a particular child. Correct at 6 November 2026. For the official position see the government’s guidance on care planning, placement and case review, and check the detail with the child’s social worker.

Most of a child’s rights arrive as paperwork

Every child who comes into care has a written plan, and it is not a formality. It says who the child sees, which school they go to, who decides what, and what happens next. Inside it you will usually find a placement plan covering day-to-day life in your home, a health plan and a Personal Education Plan. From 16 there is a pathway plan too. Read all of it, including the parts that look like admin. A carer who has read the plan is the difference between a right on paper and a right that happens, because you are the one who will notice the dental appointment in the health plan hasn’t been booked since March.

Someone independent is meant to check it is working

Two sets of dates are worth putting on your calendar, because they are legal minimums rather than good intentions. Reviews are chaired by an independent reviewing officer, who does not work for the team making the decisions. Visits come from the social worker. If either slips badly, raise it in writing.

• First review: within 20 working days of the child coming into care.
• Second review: no more than three months after the first.
• After that: at intervals of no more than six months.
• Social worker visit within one week of a child moving in, then at least every six weeks for the first year.
• After the first year: every three months if the home is meant to last until the child is 18, otherwise every six weeks.

Older training handouts give the visit pattern as every three to six months. That is wrong, and it matters: a child seen twice a year has far fewer chances to say something is wrong.

An advocate is an entitlement, not a last resort

A child in care has the right to say what they think about their own life, and a right to help saying it. Section 26A of the Children Act 1989 requires every local authority to arrange advocacy for children making representations about their care, and to publicise it. Hardly any child knows. You are not the advocate yourself, and that is the point: an advocate is independent of you, of us and of the council, which is what makes them useful when a child’s view differs from yours. Put the numbers somewhere the child can find them, then let them ring without being asked afterwards what was said. Getting a child talking at all is usually the harder half.

• Help at Hand, from the Children’s Commissioner for England: 0800 528 0731, Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, for any child in care or with a social worker.
• Coram Voice advocacy helpline: 0808 800 5792, Monday to Friday 9.30am to 6pm, or text 07758 670369.
• Become’s free care advice service: 0800 023 2033, Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm.
• Childline: 0800 1111, free, 24 hours, and it does not show up on a phone bill.

Helping a child complain is part of fostering, not disloyalty

Carers find this one hard, so let’s be plain. If a child in your home wants to complain about their social worker, their council, their school or about us, helping them do it is part of the job. A carer who quietly talks a child out of complaining has done more damage than the complaint ever would. Children’s services run a three-stage statutory procedure with published timescales.

• Stage one: a response from the service complained about, within 10 working days.
• Stage two: an investigation with independent oversight, within 25 working days, or 65 if complicated.
• Stage three: a panel of independent people, which should meet within 30 working days of being asked and report within five.
• Councils can refuse a complaint made more than a year after the events, but are not supposed to apply that rigidly.
• Once the council’s procedure is finished and nothing has been put right, the next step is the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

Family time, and brothers and sisters

A child in care has a legal right to stay in touch with their family. Family time is written into the care plan with the detail attached: who comes, how often, where, how long. Only the local authority or a court can restrict it, and only to keep the child safe. The commonest mistake a new carer makes is treating family time as an interruption to the week rather than as the child’s own relationship, which is what it is. Brothers and sisters are a live question. The government has legislated to add them to the contact duty in section 34 of the Children Act 1989 and said it expects to bring that in during autumn 2026; at the time of writing it has not yet started. If a child in your home has a brother or sister living elsewhere, ask what the plan is now rather than waiting for the law. More in our guide to how family time works and how to make it easier.

School and money: the entitlements that go missing quietest

Education is where a child’s rights are easiest to lose, because everyone assumes somebody else is on it. Every child in care should have a Personal Education Plan, reviewed termly, and extra money follows them: the pupil premium plus rate is 2,690 pounds for 2026 to 2027, paid to the local authority, which decides how much to pass to the school. Ask what yours is spent on. The answer should be something you can name out loud.

• A child in care for 12 months or more with no Child Trust Fund gets a 200 pound government payment into a Junior ISA, locked until 18.
• Pocket money is normal practice rather than a statutory amount, so agree the figure openly at the start and revisit it as the child gets older.
• A young person who came to the UK alone has every entitlement any other child in care has, plus an immigration position needing its own attention: see caring for a young person who arrived here on their own.

Our article on backing a child at school covers the Personal Education Plan and the designated teacher properly.

The ages that matter, and the ones old charts get wrong

Training packs circulate with age charts in them, and some are years out of date. Teenagers ask about these directly, so it is worth having them right.

• Marriage and civil partnership in England and Wales: 18, with no parental or judicial consent route at 16 or 17. This changed on 26 February 2023. Scotland is still 16.
• Education or training: compulsory until 18 in England, not 16. School can end on the last Friday in June if they will be 16 by the end of the summer holidays, but then it is A levels or similar, an apprenticeship, or 20 hours a week of work alongside part-time study.
• Paid work: from 14, and from 13 only where the council allows it. Under 14, only with a performance licence for theatre or modelling.
• Criminal responsibility in England and Wales: 10.
• Voting: 18. A bill before Parliament would lower it to 16, but it is not law yet, and a bill is not something to promise a 17 year old.

Sixteen changes the paperwork before it changes anything else

A 16th birthday sets off entitlements that run on for years, and the usual failure is that nobody reads the pathway plan until the week before the 18th. The council must write that plan at 16 and give the young person a personal adviser until they are 21, or until their 25th birthday if they ask. The money is real: a 2,000 pound higher education bursary from the council for someone going on to university, and up to 1,200 pounds a year from the 16 to 19 bursary for staying in full-time education. Every council must also publish a local offer of its own housing and money support, and new statutory guidance on that took effect on 30 September 2026. From the same date a young person who has been in care cannot be found intentionally homeless. Print your borough’s offer and leave it where they can read it alone.

You won’t have to do this alone

Spotting a missed review, or sitting beside a 15 year old while she rings an advocate, is easier when someone experienced is a phone call away. At Greater London Fostering you get a supervising social worker who knows your household, out of hours support, and training that covers this ground before you need it. We are a small independent agency in London, rated Outstanding in all three judgements by Ofsted after its July 2025 inspection. Our fee is one fixed weekly payment while a child is with you: 479.50 pounds a week for a child under 11, 507.50 pounds from 11, with an enhanced fee of roughly 100 to 200 pounds a week more where needs are higher. Nobody expects you to carry the Children Act in your head. Asking early is what good carers do.

Frequently asked questions

Am I allowed to read a child’s care plan?

Yes. You should get the information you need to look after the child, and the placement plan in particular is written for you as much as for anyone. If parts have been held back, ask the social worker why, in writing. Sometimes there is a good reason and sometimes an oversight, and you won’t know which until you ask.

Can a child complain about me, or about the agency?

Yes, and they should be told how. A complaint is not evidence you have done something wrong. It is a child using a route that exists so concerns get looked at by somebody impartial, and your supervising social worker will talk you through it.

Who pays for an advocate?

The local authority. Advocacy for a child making representations about their care is a duty on the council under section 26A of the Children Act 1989, so there is nothing for you or the child to pay. The national helplines above are free too.

Does a child have to see their family if they don’t want to?

No. Family time is the child’s right, not something they owe anyone, and their wishes about it belong in the care plan and the review. If a child says they would rather not go, that goes in your recording and in a call to the social worker that week, not saved for the next review.