fb

Blog

Foster Carer

Fostering Vs. Adoption

Fostering Vs. Adoption

When looking to change a child or young person’s life, someone may look into fostering or adoption. Both choices make a great benefit to a child or young person’s life. Providing them with love and care, something that they may not have had before. But many people are unsure of the difference between fostering and adoption.

What is fostering?

Foster care is a system in which a child or young person has been placed into. A child can be placed into foster care for various reasons, such as; neglect, abuse, abandonment or they may just not be able to stay with their birth family at a given time.  This provides a child or young person to live within a stable family life providing them with the chance to thrive in a safe, loving and caring home environment with foster carers.

Foster carers will look after children and young people at their home, providing them with every day normalities, such as; taking them to school, doctors, dentist appointments and making sure they have a healthy and balanced diets.

When a child is in foster care, the legal responsibility of the child or young person remains with the local authority and/or the birth parents. Foster care is intended to be a short term placement until the child or young person is granted a permanent placement in another home or if the young person reaches the age of 18.

Foster carers receive their own dedicated social worker to support them throughout their fostering journey. This will be by, attending regular meetings with the foster carer. Have frequent telephone calls and meetings to ensure the foster carer feels supported and needs any additional help. Foster carers receive regular training’s to develop them further. Regular support groups are also held for the opportunity for foster carers to meet other foster carers and share their experiences.

What is adoption? 

Adoption is when a person takes full custody of a child or young person which is permanent. This process legally removes the rights and responsibilities from the child or young person’s birth parents. In some cases, adoption is done by a biological family member, however this is not always the case. When a child or young person is adopted all rights are transferred over to the adoptive parents.

There are two types of adoption. One is open adoption where by the child or young person’s biological parents and adoptive parents discuss the adoption. There is also closed adoption where the adoptive parents and biological parents have no connection.

Adopters will receive support from the social services which places the child or young person with them. Adopters will receive post-adoption support from the agency that approved them.

To conclude, both fostering and adoption can positively help and change a child’s life for the better. Although fostering and adoption is a major decision, at Sunbeam we have created an information guide to help you decide if fostering is right for you. To speak to a member from our recruitment team, please contact us on 02087 990 930 or fill out our call back request form and member from our team will be in contact.