What's involved

There can be many reasons why children or young people are unable to live with their family including family breakdown, bereavement and abandonment. Fostering offers children and young people an opportunity to live in a safe, stable and caring family at a time when they are unable to live with their own. 

Fostering is often a temporary arrangement that is put in place while we work with the child or young person, and their family support to resolve the issues which led to them needing to be looked after. Fostering supports children and young people in a nurturing and loving home environment, allowing them to feel safe and secure and to develop and thrive at an unsettling time in their lives.

Helping a child of any age grow up in a safe and nurturing environment can have such a positive impact on their life and can be one of the most purposeful, rewarding, life-changing things you could do for them. It is a real opportunity to make a difference to the lives of others, a role to be proud of.

Caring for children of all ages

Wandsworth needs foster carers to look after children and young people of all ages. Fostering ages can range from babies who may be looked after until they are found an adoptive family or returned to their birth parents, to teenagers who may need a foster home until they can live independently or are reunified with their family.

Although the ages of children needing to be fostered is varied, in Wandsworth we know that more fostering is needed for older children and siblings. We also know that this presents different challenges in the support needed to care for them and have reflected this in our fees and allowances structure.