Archive Website of the UK government

Categories of foster care

Emergency

When children need somewhere safe to stay for a few nights

Short-term

When carers look after children for a few weeks or months, while plans are made for the child's future

Short breaks

When disabled children, children with special needs or children with behavioural difficulties regularly stay for a short time with a family, so that their parents or usual foster carers can have a break

Remand

When young people are remanded by a court to the care of a specially trained foster carer

Long-term

Not all children who need to permanently live away from their birth family want to be adopted, so instead they go into long-term foster care until they are adults

'Family and friends' or 'kinship'

A child who is the responsibility of the local authority goes to live with someone they already know, which usually means family members such as grandparents, aunts and uncles or their brother or sister

Specialist therapeutic

For children and young people with very complex needs and/or challenging behaviour