Fostering a Child of a Different Faith to Your Own

Somebody rings us and says they would love to foster, then adds, almost as an apology, that they are not religious. Or that they are Christian and the child they have been asked about is Muslim. Or that they could not possibly keep a kosher kitchen. It comes up often enough to be worth answering plainly: you do not have to share a child’s faith to look after a child who has one. You have to make its practice possible, and be honest with the child when you do not know something. That is a smaller ask than most people assume, and a different skill from theology.

Please note: general information, correct at October 2026, not advice about a particular child or household. Decisions about a child’s religious observance rest with their local authority and social worker. The statutory duty is at section 22 of the Children Act 1989, and the standards fostering services work to are the Department for Education’s Fostering Services: National Minimum Standards.

Where a child’s faith sits in the law

A child’s religion is written into the law that governs their care. Section 22(5)(c) of the Children Act 1989 requires a local authority, when making decisions about a child they look after, to give due consideration “to the child’s religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background”. It is a duty on the authority rather than on you personally, but it shapes everything that reaches you: what the care plan says, what the social worker asks about your household, and what gets discussed before a child moves in.

In London this is ordinary rather than exceptional. At the 2021 census, London was the most religiously diverse region of England, with 25.3 per cent of residents, about 2.2 million people, reporting a religion other than Christian, and Muslims 15.0 per cent of Londoners. A fostering household here that could only take children of one faith would be a household that could rarely help.

Ask the child, not a textbook

The first instruction in all three of our own faith training sheets is the same, and it is not about rules. It is: ask the child. There are many ways of being Muslim, Jewish or Sikh, and the version in a textbook will not be the version in the child’s family. Observance is a dial, not a switch. One Muslim teenager will not eat anything that is not certified halal; another avoids pork and is relaxed about the rest. The child is the authority on their own faith here, and asking is not an admission of ignorance. Getting a child to teach you something, about a festival or a food, tends to leave them feeling respected rather than inspected.

Ask early, and ask about specifics rather than beliefs. What did you do on a Friday at home? Is there anything you do not eat? Would you rather go to the mosque with someone or on your own? If the answer is “I don’t know”, that goes to your supervising social worker rather than being guessed at.

What to get ready before a child arrives

Most of the groundwork happens before the child arrives, and it is unglamorous. Preparing to welcome a child is largely shopping and furniture, and faith adds a short list to it:

• Food in the cupboard they can definitely eat. Halal and kosher products are sold in most large supermarkets and carry a label.
• A quiet place to pray that is not the middle of the living room, and water for washing beforehand.
• A prayer mat and a Qur’an, or a Torah. A jug they can fill in or near the bathroom, which many Muslim households use.
• Separate utensils and a chopping board, if they want halal or kosher food kept away from the rest. It costs very little.
• The address of a local place of worship. There may be more than one, and the choice should be the child’s, not the nearest on the map.

Food is the worry, and the easy part

Food is the part carers worry about most and the easiest to get right. Halal means permitted under Islamic law; pork, alcohol and blood are always out, and gelatine and animal rennet catch people out in sweets and yoghurts. Kosher rules are more involved: certain animals are excluded, and meat is never cooked or eaten with dairy, with a wait of a couple of hours between the two. Sikhs decide for themselves whether to eat meat, though those who have joined the Khalsa avoid ritually slaughtered meat, which can include halal and kosher.

Cooking vegetarian when you are unsure solves the immediate problem, and it is a stopgap rather than an answer. A child handed a cheese sandwich for a fortnight because nobody asked has still been told something about how much their life matters here. Take them shopping and buy the things they recognise. As with mealtimes generally, what happens at the table matters more than what is on the plate, and that holds for a festival meal as much as a Tuesday.

Dates you need in your phone

The religious calendar is mostly a matter of knowing dates in advance, which is why it belongs in your phone the week a child arrives. Ramadan moves roughly eleven days earlier each year, falling in February in 2027, so you cannot reuse last year’s date. Fasting is usually taken up around puberty: ask whether the child fasted at home and wants to, and if they do, that means breakfast before dawn, a proper meal after sunset, and telling the school. Jewish holidays begin the evening before the printed date, because the Jewish day runs from sunset to sunset. Yom Kippur means a full day of fasting and prayer, so a child needs the day off school and clean white clothes. Shabbat starts at sunset on Friday. Vaisakhi, the Sikh new year, falls on 13 or 14 April.

School is where faith turns into paperwork

School is where faith turns into paperwork, and it helps to get ahead of it. What actually comes up is uniform and sportswear, whether halal food is on the menu, how PE and changing work, somewhere private to pray, and permission to leave for Friday prayers. Promoting a child’s education means raising these with the designated teacher early, in one conversation, rather than letting them surface one crisis at a time. Absence for a religious holiday is easier to agree in September than the week before.

One school question has a clear legal answer. A kirpan, the small ceremonial sword worn by Sikhs who have joined the Khalsa, is one of the five articles of faith worn at all times. Carrying a bladed article in public, and on school premises, is an offence under sections 139 and 139A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, and both sections provide a defence where the person had it “for religious reasons”. So the conversation with a school is about how, not whether: kept secured and out of sight under clothing, with a sweatband over the kara during sport. The dastar, the turban, is not a hat. Nobody but the child should touch it, and it is called a dastar or a patka, never a headscarf.

When a child wants to stop, or wants to join in with yours

Now the difficult bit, because it is what carers actually ring up about. A child says they do not want to go to the mosque any more. Or they ask whether they can have a stocking at Christmas like everyone else in the house. Or a girl who wore a head covering at home stops wearing it.

You do not decide this, and you are not supposed to. A child’s religious observance is not a household rule you set, and it is not a matter for a quiet arrangement between you and the child either. Our own training is blunt about it: speak to your supervising social worker before anything changes, in either direction, and that includes inviting a child into your own religious practice, however small and well meant. A child’s parents may hold firm views about head covering at the same time as the child is working out their own, and holding both without picking a side is what a supervising social worker is there to help you think through. What helps most is making it safe for the child to say any of it out loud without a row following.

Faith is one strand of a child’s identity rather than the whole of it, which is why this sits alongside what we have written about fostering a child from a different cultural background, and why it comes up so often for carers looking after a young person who came to the UK on their own. If your own faith is part of why you want to foster, we have written about that too, in fostering and the Christian faith. Be ready to name prejudice, too. A child called names for what they wear or will not eat needs to hear you say, out loud, that the problem is the person doing it.

You won’t have to do this alone

Our foster carers do this with a supervising social worker who knows the household, out-of-hours support, and training that includes the faith and culture material behind this article. Nobody expects you to arrive knowing when Yom Kippur falls or how to read a kosher label. The expectation is that you will ask, and that somebody answers.

Greater London Fostering was inspected by Ofsted in July 2025 and rated Outstanding in all three judgements. Our carers are paid a single weekly fee covering both the allowance and the reward element: as at October 2026 that is 479.50 pounds a week for a child under 11 and 507.50 pounds a week for a child aged 11 or over, per child, while a child lives with you, with an enhanced fee of roughly 100 to 200 pounds a week more where a child’s needs are higher.

Frequently asked questions

Can I foster a child whose religion is different from mine?

Yes. There is no requirement to share a child’s faith, or to have one yourself. What is expected is that you make the child’s practice possible and ask rather than assume. The duty to give due consideration to a child’s religious persuasion sits with their local authority, under section 22(5)(c) of the Children Act 1989.

Do I have to keep a halal or kosher kitchen?

Usually not. Ask the child what they want to follow, because households vary a lot. Halal and kosher products are labelled and sold in most large supermarkets, and a separate chopping board and set of utensils is enough for many children. Cooking vegetarian covers you while you work it out.

What if the child stops wanting to practise their faith?

Talk to your supervising social worker before anything changes. You cannot decide a child’s religious observance on your own, in either direction, and that includes inviting them into your own practice.

Can a Sikh child wear a kirpan at school?

Carrying a bladed article on school premises is an offence under section 139A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, but the section provides a defence where the person had it for religious reasons. In practice the conversation with a school is about how it is carried, rather than whether it can be worn at all.