Can fostering regulations affect the types of placements I can be approved for?

Yes. Fostering regulations can affect the terms of your approval, including the number of children you may foster, their age range, the type of placements you can accept and any specific needs you are assessed as able to meet. The approval must be based on evidence about your household and your ability to provide safe, effective care, rather than on preference alone.

During the assessment, the fostering service considers whether you meet the legal requirements for approval and what approval terms are appropriate. The assessment will usually examine:

• your motivation to foster and understanding of the role;
• your health, personal history, relationships and household circumstances;
• your experience of caring for children and your ability to manage behaviour and risk;
• the space, sleeping arrangements and safety of your home;
• the effect fostering may have on everyone in the household;
• your support network and ability to work with social workers, schools, families and other professionals; and
• your ability to attend training, follow safer-care arrangements and meet the needs of children placed with you.

This information helps the agency decide which placements can be safely considered. For example, an assessment may support approval for one child within a particular age range, while another household may be considered for siblings, teenagers, parent-and-child placements, emergency placements, respite care or longer-term fostering. Approval may also identify particular needs that you have the skills, experience and support to meet.

Your preferences are relevant, but they do not determine the outcome by themselves. You may have a clear view about the age of a child or the type of fostering you would like to provide. The agency must still decide whether that preference is consistent with the evidence gathered during the assessment and with the welfare and safety of children. It may recommend narrower terms than you initially expected if that is what the assessment supports.

The fostering panel considers the assessment and makes a recommendation about whether you should be approved and, if so, on what terms. The agency decision-maker then makes the approval decision. The approval terms should be recorded clearly so that the agency, you and other professionals understand the placements for which you are approved.

Approval terms may cover matters such as:

• the maximum number of children who may be placed with you;
• the age range and, where relevant, the sex of children;
• whether you are approved for one child or more than one child, including siblings;
• whether you can provide short-term, long-term, emergency or respite care;
• whether you are approved for specialist arrangements, such as parent-and-child placements; and
• any limitations or conditions needed to protect children and maintain safe care.

Approval is not the same as being matched with a particular child. Even when a proposed placement falls within your approval terms, the agency must consider whether it is suitable for your household and whether you can meet that individual child’s needs. Factors such as behaviour, health, contact arrangements, education, cultural identity, relationships with brothers and sisters and the likely impact on other household members may all affect the matching decision.

Your approval can change after you are approved. You can ask the fostering service to review or vary your approval terms if your circumstances, experience, accommodation or skills change. For example, you may later wish to be considered for a different age range or a greater number of children. The agency must assess the request and follow the relevant process rather than simply changing the terms informally.

An agency may also need to review the terms if it becomes aware of a change in your household or of concerns about your ability to provide a particular type of care. A variation should be based on the current circumstances and the assessed needs of children. Where the agency proposes a change, you should be told what is proposed and what procedure applies, including any opportunity to make representations where the regulations provide for this.

Before applying, it is sensible to discuss the approval terms you may be seeking with the fostering service. Ask how the agency distinguishes between your preferred placements, the terms it could recommend and the placements it may later consider suitable. You should also ask how changes to approval are handled and what further assessment or training might be needed if you want to broaden your terms in the future.

Regulations therefore do not give every applicant an automatic right to approval for a particular type of placement. They require the agency to make a careful, evidence-based decision that protects children and reflects your actual capacity to foster. Your assessment report should explain the reasoning behind the recommended terms, so read it carefully and raise any point that appears inaccurate or unclear before the decision is made.