WHY US?
Foster Care Pay and Benefits
At Team Fostering, we offer foster carers comprehensive support, including competitive pay, allowances, and a wide range of benefits to help you succeed as a foster carer.
WHY US?
At Team Fostering, we offer foster carers comprehensive support, including competitive pay, allowances, and a wide range of benefits to help you succeed as a foster carer.
We are dedicated to fully supporting your growth as a foster carer, ensuring you receive all the benefits you’re entitled to. Our foster care payments are among the most competitive in the sector, with substantial additional benefits. The amount paid depends on the age of the child, with carers receiving £557.34 per week for children aged 11 and over—equivalent to £29,061.30 per year.
Unlike some agencies, we don’t reduce payments for additional children. For example, if two children aged 12 and 14 are placed with you, your annual foster care pay would increase to £58,122.60 per year. Payments are made every two weeks by bank transfer, and as a foster carer, you are treated as self-employed, meaning no tax is deducted directly.
We pay Foster Carers every 2 weeks by bank transfer. As Foster Carers are treated as being self-employed no tax is deducted from the payment.
Where a child has been assessed as having additional difficulties a higher rate of payment is made. Sometimes there will be a particularly large amount of driving required and in these cases you will be able to claim mileage at 45p per mile. We organise an annual holiday and a program of activities throughout the year which we pay for in addition to your Carer Fees.
*The above fees include 21 nights’ unused Short Break Care allowance. For further clarification on payments, speak to our Recruitment Team or visit our FAQs page.
We also offer access to a Start Up Fund which can be used to buy things like beds, wardrobes and decorations if you don’t have a fully furnished bedroom, or would just like to make it more homely for a child. Find out more about this here.
You need to cover the costs of food, clothing, transport and activities out of payments made to you for children in placement, but most of all you will be providing support and care in your home to a young person at a vulnerable time in their lives.
You can apply for each year that you foster as a qualifying year for your State Pension which will help increase the amount of pension you receive, up to the maximum possible.
Foster Carers are self-employed for Tax purposes and you are able to claim special tax allowances to reduce the taxable amount of the income paid to you. If you have no other taxable income there is normally no tax to pay if you have either 1 or 2 children placed with you and you receive the basic level of payment stated above.
Don’t worry if this seems a bit daunting as we have a special arrangement with a firm of accountants who will complete your tax return and help you with tax for a specially discounted rate.
Foster Carers are treated as working for benefit purposes which means you will be eligible to claim benefits such as Working Tax Credit. For some means tested benefits your income from Fostering is ignored whilst for others it’s your taxable income that is used and due to large tax exemptions you receive as a Foster Carer the majority of your income is non-taxable.
As an additional benefit, Team Fostering invites registered foster carers to apply for £25,000 of life insurance cover with its preferred provider (currently Aviva) up until their 70th birthday.
If cover is accepted by the preferred provider, Team Fostering will pay the premiums on the policy for as long as the foster carer is registered with the agency (or until the policy expires if the foster carer is still registered on their 70th birthday).
If the foster carer is deregistered before their 70th birthday, they can assume paying the premiums themselves or can allow the policy to lapse. Newly registered carers with Team Fostering can expect a telephone call from our policy broker who will take details for the policy over the phone. Please ask our recruitment team for more information.