Who Can Foster?
Foster parents are people who care deeply about children and want to make a positive difference in their lives. As a foster parent, you will provide love, support, and encouragement to help young people feel valued and safe. You’ll be there to laugh with them, comfort them, and inspire them to reach their potential. Fostering is about creating a welcoming and nurturing environment where children can grow, thrive, and achieve the things that matter most to them. What truly makes a great foster parent are the values, beliefs, and attitudes that put children’s needs first and create a stable, caring home.
To become a foster parent, you need to…
- Be 21 or older
- Have a room for the sole use of the young person.
- Drive or have easy, consistent access to a car
- Live in or fairly near Middlesbrough, Stockton, Darlington, Hartlepool, Redcar, Newcastle, Durham, Sunderland and Washington
- Be a British Citizen or have indefinite leave to remain

Qualities, skills and values of foster parents:
Some of the qualities, skills and values you really need to foster are:
- Compassion – You can empathise and understand the experiences and emotions of children in care. We give you training so that you understand some of the reasons why children might be feeling and presenting themselves or their emotions in certain ways, but that ability to empathise and show compassion needs to be an existing skill.
- Patience – everyone needs some patience and understanding. Children may need time to adjust and trust, especially when they first enter their new home, but they also need appropriate boundaries too.
- Flexibility – No two days are the same with fostering, and no two children are the same. You’ll need to be adaptable and able to cope with different situations. You’ll also need to be able to accommodate the needs of children from a range of backgrounds and with different life experiences.
- Resilience – Foster parenting is super parenting. As well as being really rewarding, it can be emotionally demanding. You’ll need to be able to overcome challenges and work through the tough times, supported by our fostering community.
- Communication—Building relationships with a wide range of people, including children, birth families, social workers, other foster parents, and our staff, is an essential part of fostering a child. Our training helps you tailor your communication to children who might have experienced trauma.
- Commitment—Whether you are a short-break / short-term foster carer or parent or enter fostering with longer-term placements, you’ll need to be committed to doing your best to provide a warm, safe, loving home for children and meet their needs.

Some other things to think about:
- Your health – how fit and well are you, and will you be in the future? Lots of people do foster with some health issues, but you and we need to be sure they won’t stop you from fostering effectively.
- The money and your job – usually, the main foster parent doesn’t work, but sometimes people work part-time, and the foster or one member of the household works. Our fostering fees help you to focus on fostering full-time, and there are lots of tax benefits. You need to be sure you’re in the right place financially to foster.
- Your past – everyone has things that happen in life, and sometimes this means a criminal record. We always look at everyone’s specific situation.
- Your experiences – including the skills you’ve gained through your life as a result of experiences and any experience you’ve had with children and young people. This could be through work, volunteering, looking after or interacting with children in your wider family or at home.

Want to learn more about fostering? Get in touch with our amazing team who can answer all of your questions about fostering!
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