What is foster care?
Foster care, or fostering, is the term used to describe an approved foster carer offering a home to a child or young person who can’t live with their own family.
Sometimes a child or young person will stay for a very short time before returning to their family, others may need to live with a foster family for a long time.
Some children and young people may have regular contact with other members of their family, even if they cannot live with them.
Children are in need of foster carers in Stockport, Manchester, Cheshire, Lancashire and Merseyside. We need foster carers now more than ever before, so if you're thinking about becoming a foster carer, please get in touch!
I love my foster family very much with all my heart. Thank you for finding them for me.
Together Trust fostered young person
Most importantly, fostering is...
- Offering a secure and caring home to a child or young person who cannot live with their own family
- Providing nurture, warmth and support
- Providing a healthy lifestyle
- Encouraging a child or young person to do well at school or college
- Enabling children and young people to learn how to form and maintain good relationships
- Helping children and young people move to a permanent home, possibly adoption
- Helping young people prepare for independence
- Working closely with social workers and other professionals to help them make the right plan for the child or young person
- Celebrating a child or young person’s success and helping them through any difficulties - we like to call it ‘stickability’
- Having fun with children and young people and knowing you are doing something amazing
Everything that they did for me was brilliant. I got so much support. I was helped to leave care and still get great support three years on.
Together Trust care leaver
What kinds of fostering are there?
Fostering includes short-term, long-term, respite, and specialist therapeutic placements. The biggest needs we have are for foster carers who can look after:
- Children and young people aged 10+ years
- Groups of brothers and sisters
- A young parent under 18-years-old with their baby
- Children and young people with additional needs
- Children and young people from Black and minority ethnic groups
- Unaccompanied asylum seeking children and young people.
All fostering services in the UK operate under a legal framework with regular inspections by Ofsted.
Here’s one of our foster carers describing the impact that fostering has had on their family.
… the longer that they’re with you they become part of your family, you bring them into your family, they actually adapt into your family and you actually start to love them is the honest answer.
Together Trust foster carer - Dave Taverner
The Together Trust is a not-for-profit charity championing the rights, needs and ambitions of looked-after children, people with disabilities, autism and mental health difficulties across the North West.
For over 20 years we’ve been recruiting foster carers to provide stable homes to young people who may not be able to live with their birth families.
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