If, after reading the information booklet , you wish to take your enquiry to the next stage please click on the below button and complete the online form. Before doing this there are three very important things to bear in mind, namely:
1. The child in care must have a room of his/her own, and this must be a room that is naturally available, ie not one created by proposing to move a child of your own into the bedroom of a sibling or parent. 2. If you are interested in children up to 5 years of age you must be a non-smoker. For any child older than that you will still not be able to smoke in the house as there must be a healthy living environment for the child or young person in care.
3. Foster carers need to be available to school-age children to fit in with their needs. This includes before and after school, and holidays, and may also include times when a child is not able to be in school. This does make working outside the home full-time and fostering difficult to combine.
Finally, as fostering can be stressful it is very important that you and your family are in a settled situation yourselves: if there are any issues or problems within your own life then this is probably not a good time to pursue your interest in fostering.
If you would prefer to talk through things before proceeding any further then please ring the number in the 'Contact information' box on this page. As all enquiries of this nature have to be checked on our internal database for any past social services contact before an initial visit can be carried out, please ensure that you complete all of the fields in the form.