Why foster?

Every 15 minutes, a child in the UK comes into care and needs somewhere steady to stay.

Young people need an ordinary home with someone in it who keeps things predictable for them. Fostering takes the life you already have, the routines, the meals, the school run, the evenings in, and makes room in it for a child requires some consistency.

Every day, foster carers see the impact that they have. It could be a child who arrives frightened or withdrawn who then gradually starts to settle. They start sleeping properly, going to school, finding they can trust an adult again. It doesn't happen quickly and it isn't always easy, but carers describe it as some of the most worthwhile time they've spent.

There's also what it does for you, which is harder to anticipate before you start. You become a significant person in a child's life at the point they most need one, and that shapes how they see themselves and what they believe is possible for them. Carers often say fostering changed how they understood their own family and their own capacity, which they didn't know the size of until they were asked to use it.

The need is real and it's growing. There are over 81,000 children in care across England, and the number of approved foster carers has fallen 12% since 2019, with around 3,000 new carers needed each year just to replace those leaving. Every child who can be cared for locally is a child who stays near their school, their friends and the parts of their life that still make sense to them.

You wouldn't be doing it alone. Every foster carer in London has a supervising social worker, training before they start and as they go, and other carers who understand what the week-to-week actually involves.