Fostering a Child

Fostering is a way of providing a stable family life for children and young people, who are unable to live with their parents at a point in time. This allows children the chance to thrive in a safe, secure, loving and caring home environment with foster carers. The children and young people placed with foster carers are from a diverse range of backgrounds and will display different behaviour depending upon their various experiences.

All children and young people are different, making it difficult to define a “typical child”. However, what you can expect is that, as with any child or young person, they need security, stability and the chance to develop and thrive with carers who understand what is fostering and have empathy for the child’s situation.

Becoming a foster parent is an important decision. A lot of determination and commitment is necessary throughout the fostering process and a lot of forethought is necessary before you embark on the process. Sunbeam is always here to help. On our website you will find a range of information about becoming a foster parent and the challenges and rewards that go along with fostering.

Fostering differs from adoption in that foster children remain the legal responsibility of the local authority and/or the birth parents whereas adoption ends the child’s legal relationship with birth parents.