Fostering offers children and young people a home while their own parents are unable to look after them.

There are different types of foster care:

Emergency fostering: Provides children with a place to go at any time of the day or night if it is essential to remove a child from a particular situation.

Short break/respite fostering: Foster carers may look after a child one weekend a month or for the occasional weekend.

Short–term fostering: Children are looked after for a few weeks or months and returned to their families as soon as possible.

Long–term fostering: Foster carers look after children in a safe and supportive environment when they cannot return to live at home.

There are lots of reasons why children need fostering and some of these may include a family member’s illness, parent’s drug or alcohol abuse or abuse and neglect.