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Thoughtful, useful reading about children’s needs, caring day to day and making an informed decision about fostering.
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Explore the latest articles from our team, or browse earlier stories and guidance.
No law in England says a foster carer needs a partner, and single people are approved as foster carers every year. Here is what fostering on your own actually involves, from the support network question and the spare bedroom rule to the pay, with the hard parts left in.
Renting does not stop you fostering, and neither does living in a flat. Since 1 May 2026 your landlord cannot use a tenancy clause to block a foster child. Here is what that means, and how the bedroom rules actually work.
No law stops a foster carer from having a job, and availability matters far more than the hours on your contract. Here is what fostering really takes out of a week, which jobs fit around it, and where you stand on pay, tax, employment rights and childcare in August 2026.
Will they know where I live? Won’t seeing their mum unsettle them? What contact with a child’s birth family really involves, who decides it, and how to get a child through the hour afterwards.
Therapeutic parenting sounds like something you would need a psychology degree for. You would not. PACE was built for ordinary carers in ordinary kitchens, and most of it comes down to ten difficult minutes.
Instead of caring for a child alone, you welcome a parent and their baby and help that parent learn to care safely. What the role involves, who it suits, and whether you could do it.
What if the child has been through something terrible and I do not know what to say? Helping a child recover is not about saying the perfect thing. It is about being steady, and being there tomorrow.
Age, postcode, renting, being single. People rule themselves out of fostering over things that simply are not true. We unpick the most common myths so you can judge your own situation on the facts.
Most of fostering looks like ordinary family life: school runs, shared meals, homework at the kitchen table. An honest picture of what a foster carer does from one day to the next.
Tax is the part of fostering people worry about most, and it turns out to be simpler than they fear. A plain-English guide to Qualifying Care Relief, and why most carers pay little or nothing.
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