Fostering is an incredibly rewarding career, looking after children and young people whose family are no longer able to care for them. We work with a diverse range of foster carers; many have had their own children or have experience in working with children, while some others may not have had caring responsibilities for children before.

As an ethical fostering agency that puts children’s futures first, we often hear from parents who are considering fostering a child but aren’t sure whether this is possible with their own children at home…

Of course, while it isn’t essential to be a parent to be eligible for fostering a child, it does offer an advantage if foster carers have experienced caring for children, whether through direct parenting or work experience. If you have your own children at home, this will not necessarily prevent you from fostering another child or young person in need of a home. In fact, many of our current foster carers have some of their children still living in the family home and in some instances this can be beneficial for any children that become cared for in the same home, promoting relationships among peers and building social skills. Many of our foster carers are moved by the prospect of looking after a child in need when thinking about their own children, and the differences in each of their early lives. 

At Team Fostering we are conscious that children, including birth children of foster carers and those children in our care, should remain at the centre of all agency decisions. This child-centric approach embodies our comprehensive matching process, where our teams work hard to ensure any child referred to you for care is well-matched with foster carers’ own family circumstances. To this end, our commitment to protecting all young people does mean that we have some restrictions in this area, and unfortunately if you have children under the age of 10 we will be unlikely to consider you for the role at present.

Children in the home over 10? You may be eligible to foster, but we encourage you to speak to an expert at Team Fostering who will discuss with you:

  • the impact fostering will have on your own children and family as a whole
  • how to manage looking after a child and your own sons or daughters
  • some fantastic real-life stories from sons and daughters of our current foster carers
  • how the matching process works to consider your own children 

We are currently recruiting foster carers across the North East, Yorkshire and East Midlands. Whether you have parenting experience or not, we’re here to answer any questions you have and offer full training, weekly foster carer pay and 24/7 support. If your children are below 10, it might still be worth contacting us for some general guidance about becoming a foster carer.

You can contact us in the following ways:

  • call us on 0800 292 2003
  • email info@teamfostering.co.uk
  • submit an online enquiry form by clicking here

Team Fostering is an independent, not-for-profit fostering agency that invests surplus funds into foster carers, children and young people. As one of the UK’s ethical, private fostering agencies we have local offices dotted across parts of Northern England including in Leeds, Sheffield, Middlesbrough, South Normanton and North Tyneside.