You have to be 21 years old or above to foster but we would look for some life experience, as it can bring understanding, empathy, and valuable life lessons to the fostering role. There is no upper age limit, as long as you are physically and mentally fit enough to care for a child or young person. Some foster carers continue to care for children well into their 70s. A full medical would be required as part of your assessment.

We recruit and support foster parents across the North West of England, Stoke-on-Trent and surrounding areas. Please use our coverage map for more information of our office locations. We deal with each enquiry individually and if you live outside of the North West or Stoke-on-Trent areas, we may still be able to assist you but our fostering team will need a chat with you first, so please do contact us.

Yes, you can but it is ideal that the foster child is the youngest child in the family, although it can work where teenagers have been placed alongside much younger birth children. We would ideally not want a foster child to be the middle child in a family. We would also consider how we match foster children around your children to ensure the match works well for everyone. We would usually consider an age gap of about 2 years to ensure the foster child is not set up in competition with your child. Your children would be involved in the assessment process because it is important that we are confident that everyone is committed to the fostering journey. It can be really challenging for children to share their parents with foster children so this needs to be considered carefully. Ultimately all children and families are different so what works with one will not work with another so it is important to talk it through openly and honestly.

You don’t need any special training or qualifications to foster – we’ll provide that. All our foster parents receive therapeutic training and ongoing support to develop the skills they need to help children thrive. What you do need is to be able to offer support, nurture, patience, resilience and have the space (you will need to be able to provide a child with their own bedroom) to care for a child or children who are unable to live with their own birth families.

This does not preclude you from fostering. However, your own health and needs, together with the child's needs will be paramount to us. Fostering is challenging, a medical will be undertaken with your own GP to ensure that fostering will not exacerbate any issues you may have.