• contents
• keywords & contacts
• quick guide
• forms library
• values
• contact us
• search

Types of Fostering - the fostering teams provide a range of services including:

1. Long-Term & Permanent Foster Carers: who make a commitment to care for a child or young person until they reach independence.
   
   Children and young people who are placed in this type of placement will often have significant contact with their birth families, but are not able to live at home.  These placements are arranged in a planned way and mean that the child or young person will remain in your care until they are ready for independence or they reach adulthood. Such placements will often provide a lifelong relationship for all concerned.
2. Short-Term or Task Centred Foster Carers: which include placements where the plan is for a child to return home or move to an alternative permanent placement.
   
   Short term carers provide a service to children from a wide range of ages and backgrounds with a remit to care for children either on an agreed short-term basis to meet specific time-limited needs; while the child's needs are being assessed; or while court proceedings are underway. Short Term Placements, can involve caring for up to three children or young people for a specified period of time, whilst a decision is made about their future.  These placements provide opportunities for assessment and often high levels of contact with birth families. Carers will often be involved in working with children, young people and birth families to support a return home, or should this not be possible, preparation for a move to an adoptive or permanent family placement.  
   1. Emergency Care
      
      This involves a group of carers who have agreed to work with the emergency duty team and be available at short notice to care for children or young people in an emergency.  This care episode is only intended for very short periods of care, such as over a weekend or overnight.
   2. Respite & Day Care
      
      In this scheme; which will be linked to the Aiming High Scheme for Children with Disabilities (2009); a child or young person with disabilities will join families for short periods of time on a regular basis. The idea is to ensure that the child or young person remains in the care of their birth family but has regular visits or stays with an alternative family.  This enables families to stay together by providing them with regular periods of respite.  Alternatively you might provide respite care when another foster carer has a break or attends training courses.  The respite provided can be for overnight stays up to twenty-eight days or day care.
3. Remand Foster Carers: who offer placements to young people who have been remanded to the care of the local authority by the courts.
4. Mother & Baby Foster Placements: offer placements for Mother's and their baby to receive guidance and support whilst in the placement to meet the needs of the developing child.
5. Family and Friends Carers: These Carers have been called Connected Persons since April 2011 as this group of carers now includes people who are not related to the child but who know them well see Placement with Connected Persons Procedure. These Carers are sometimes known as Kinship Carers or Regulation 24 carers (formerly known as Regulation 38) and they are approved to look after a specific child or children. These carers are family members or friends who knew a child or children before they became Looked After by Lambeth. Children should be placed with Friends or Relatives as Carers and Lambeth seeks to positively promote this where it is the best means of meeting either long-term or temporary needs. If the placement with a relative or friend is longer than 6-weeks then the carers must be assessed and approved as a Family & Friend Carer through the Fostering Assessment route.

End