Helping a Foster Child Through a Move: What Transitions Really Involve

Every child who arrives at your door is in the middle of a change they did not choose. Some have had a fortnight to get used to the idea. Others have packed in twenty minutes with a social worker waiting in the car. What you do in those first few hours, and again on the day a child moves on, shapes how the whole placement goes.

Please note: this is general information about fostering in England, not advice about a particular child. National figures are Department for Education statistics for the year ending 31 March 2025. Timescales come from the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010 and the statutory guidance on promoting the education of looked-after children. GLF pay rates are correct at August 2026.

What a move feels like from where the child is standing

A child who moves placement loses far more than a bedroom. They lose the smell of a hallway, the shortcut to the corner shop, the friend who saved them a seat, the adult who knew they hate the crusts. Very few children can tell you any of that. What you see instead is behaviour: a boy who is impeccably polite for ten days and then puts a hole in a door, a teenager who stays out until eleven because coming in means noticing where she is.

None of that means the placement is failing. It usually means the child has stopped performing and started testing whether you are another adult who disappears. The first fortnight is often not the hard part. Week six can be.

The first few days in your home

Small, concrete things do more good in the first week than any conversation about feelings. Most of it is about giving a child something predictable to hold on to while everything else is unfamiliar.

• Ask what they eat for breakfast before they arrive, and have it in the cupboard.
• Have pyjamas, a toothbrush and a towel ready that are theirs, not borrowed.
• If there is time, send a short photo booklet ahead: your front door, who sleeps where, the dog.
• Keep the first day boring. No big outing, no gathering of relatives who want to meet them.
• Show them what nobody thinks to explain: the bathroom lock, what to do if they wake at 3am.
• Write down what you notice. Sleep, appetite, what settles them.

There is more detail in our piece on preparing your home before a child arrives. Children read a room, and a bed made up properly says something a welcome speech cannot.

The planning that should sit around a move

There is a formal structure around every child in care, and it is where your voice counts. Each child has a placement plan covering day-to-day arrangements, and their case is reviewed by an independent reviewing officer to a timetable set in law. You are expected to be there and to say what you have seen.

• The first review must be held within 20 working days of the child becoming looked after.
• The second follows no more than three months after the first.
• After that, reviews happen at intervals of no more than six months, and sooner if something significant changes.

That is the tidy version. Emergency placements land at six on a Friday with two sentences of information, and the planning catches up afterwards. You will have your supervising social worker’s number and a duty line answered out of hours.

School is the thing to protect first

If you protect one thing through a move, protect school. It is often the only part of a child’s life that has not changed. In the year to 31 March 2025, 8 per cent of children looked after in England had at least one school move mid-year. Staying in the same classroom, even if it means a longer trip in the morning, is usually worth the inconvenience.

• Where a child cannot stay at their existing school after an emergency placement, the local authority should secure a suitable new education place within 20 school days.
• A Personal Education Plan should be started within 10 working days if a child comes into care without a school place, and reviewed every school term.
• Every school has a designated teacher for looked-after children and every local authority has a virtual school head. Both are yours to contact.
• Continuity matters most at key stage 4. Moving a child during their GCSE years should be a last resort, and the guidance says so.

Our article on how foster carers support children at school covers the PEP in more depth. In practice the most useful thing you do is turn up: to the parents’ evening, to the sports day nobody expected anyone to attend.

Ordinary changes count too

Not every transition is a placement move. Starting nursery or going up to secondary school hits a fostered child harder, because they have less reason to trust the ground will stay solid. Visit the new school before September and walk the route, once with them and once without. Post-16 choices are worth checking locally, because the system is changing: new V Levels arrive in September 2027 and funding is being withdrawn from many BTECs.

When a child moves on

This is the part people rarely ask about at an information evening, and the part experienced carers talk about most. A child leaving hurts, and it is supposed to. Ten per cent of children looked after in England had three or more placements during the year to 31 March 2025, down from 11 per cent, which tells you what a settled year in your home is worth.

• Make a memory box early, not the night before they go. Photographs, a cinema ticket, the drawing that was on the fridge.
• Everything they own goes with them, packed properly. Never in bin bags.
• Write the next carer a page in plain language: what time they wake, what helps at bedtime.
• Be honest rather than relentlessly upbeat. You can be pleased about the bigger bedroom and still say you will miss them.
• Ask early about staying in touch. Sometimes it can be agreed and sometimes not, and that decision rests with the child’s local authority.

Not every ending is the same

Carers talk about “the goodbye” as one thing, but the reasons a child leaves are very different from each other.

• Going home to their birth family. Often the best outcome and still complicated for the child, who may feel excited, guilty and frightened in the same afternoon. Where it is planned the return should be gradual, and the work already done around family time with their birth family is what makes it possible.
• Moving to an adoptive family. Your job is to help a child understand that fostering was always temporary and adoption is not, gently and more than once.
• A short break. Handled well this is unremarkable to a child. Handled badly it feels like rejection, so it helps if it is someone they already know.
• Turning 18. A young person can often stay with you past their eighteenth birthday under a Staying Put arrangement, which is the English scheme for exactly this.

Helping a child get better at change

Resilience is not a trait a child either has or lacks. It builds slowly, and most of what builds it looks like ordinary family life rather than therapy. You need no professional background to do this well. If you are still working out whether you could foster at all, our page on becoming a foster carer sets out what is required.

• Regular one-to-one time that is not a reward and cannot be lost through bad behaviour.
• Enough sleep, and food they recognise. Time outside most days.
• Letting them make small mistakes instead of smoothing everything over.
• Not solving every problem for them, which is harder than it sounds.
• Naming what happens next, even when the answer is that you do not yet know.

You won’t have to do this alone

Moves are the point at which carers most need someone to ring, so that is the part we take seriously. Every GLF household has a supervising social worker who knows the family properly rather than a name on a rota, with support outside office hours and other carers who have had the week you are having. Ofsted inspected us from 21 to 25 July 2025 and rated us Outstanding in all three judgements. Our pay is published rather than negotiated: £479.50 a week for a child under 11 and £507.50 a week for a child aged 11 or over, plus an enhanced fee of roughly £100 to £200 a week more for higher-needs placements. It is one weekly fee per child, paid while a child is placed with you, correct at August 2026.

It is completely normal to read all this and think the goodbyes would be too hard. Most carers think that, then say afterwards that they were never left to work it out on their own.

Frequently asked questions

How much notice will I get before a child moves in?

It varies. A planned move might come with a week or two and a phone call about whether the child suits your household. An emergency placement can be the same evening, with very little detail, because the alternative for that child is worse. You are always free to say a placement is not right for your household.

Will a foster child have to change school when they move?

Not if it can be avoided. Keeping a child at the same school through a placement move is usually the priority, even if it means a longer trip each morning. Where a child cannot stay, the local authority should find a suitable new education place within 20 school days.

What happens to my fee between placements?

GLF pay is per child and paid while a child is placed with you, so there can be gaps between placements. As at August 2026 the rate is £479.50 a week for a child under 11 and £507.50 a week for a child aged 11 or over, plus an enhanced fee of roughly £100 to £200 a week more for higher-needs placements.

What if I don’t think a move is right for the child?

Say so clearly and get it written down. Your view carries weight precisely because you live with the child, and the child’s review is where it is formally recorded. The decision itself rests with the child’s local authority, and your supervising social worker will help you put what you have seen into writing.