Why foster with us?

There are many reasons to foster with Wakefield. Unlike independent fostering agencies we’re 100% not-for-profit. Our carers receive financial support, allowances, a comprehensive training package, a personal support worker, and a range of other benefits.

Payments and allowances

We’ll pay you a weekly amount based on the child's age to help cover the day-to-day costs of looking after a child such as bills, food, clothes, travel, school dinners and pocket money.

Weekly payments

Skills-based payment

In recognition of the level of your fostering skills, you will also receive an additional weekly payment. This is based both on your level of experience and what, if any, additional needs the child/children you look after may have.

Holidays and special occasions

You’ll also receive two weeks’ allowance to cover the cost of holidays, plus one week’s allowance to help towards birthdays, Christmas or other religious holidays.

As a foster carer you’ll need to register as self-employed with HRMC. Here’s some useful information on tax for foster carers.

Additional allowances

We also pay special allowances to cover items such as clothing when a child first comes to live with you, educational school trips, and health and educational expenses, basic bedroom furniture and linen.

We'll help with your mileage payments for certain activities involving the children and their care.
If you need items such as buggies, car seats, fire guards and so on, you can borrow these from us.

Training and development

In addition to the excellent ongoing support we offer, there are opportunities for training and development to help you gain appropriate skills.

Our foster carers are expected to attend training sessions - your supervising social worker will work with you to help develop your skills, achieve your training objectives and support your development needs.

You may have the opportunity to gain qualifications such as NVQ Level 3 Working with Children and Young People.

There are a number of mandatory training courses which all carers must attend and keep up to date with such as training standards development, first aid, therapeutic crisis intervention, participation and voices, safeguarding, and child sexual exploitation. We also offer a number of online courses which cover a variety of different subjects. 

Support from your social worker

Support is available immediately, from the application process and throughout your fostering career.

Our carers all have a professionally qualified link worker who will visit you at your home regularly, usually every four to six weeks.

Support will be on hand to discuss with you the needs of the child/children you are looking after and how to deal with other people involved in the care of the child, for example teachers and other support services.

Support groups

There are a number of support groups for our foster carers which provide:

• Induction group for carers in their first year of approval.
• An opportunity for you to meet other foster carers.
• Training on specific issues around fostering.
• Practical advice and support.

Transfer to us

If you're already a foster carer and are interested in transferring to Wakefield Council then please contact us.

You don't need to tell your current fostering agency that you’re thinking of transferring, but you’ll need to resign from them if you decide to transfer to us.

Here are some of the reasons to transfer to us:

• You're more likely to have children placed with you than with an independent agency.
• We’ll guarantee any payments you're getting from your current provider when you transfer.
• Our financial resources are put directly into supporting children in the Wakefield district.