Fostering with your local council

Starting your fostering journey can feel overwhelming, but you don’t have to do it alone. Local Community Fostering is here to guide you every step of the way.

We’ll answer your questions, offer expert advice tailored to your personal circumstances and help you understand what fostering involves. When you’re ready to take the next step, we’ll connect you with your local council to begin your application.

What is Local Community Fostering?

Local Community Fostering is a partnership between the London Boroughs of Havering, Redbridge, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest, working together to make fostering simpler and better supported across our local area. Our team is based in Waltham Forest, but we support people across all four boroughs.

By sharing our experience and resources, we can give you clear information from the very start of your journey and help you foster for your local council.

We’re here to answer your questions, guide you through the early steps, and make sure you get the local support you need along the way.

Fostering for your local council

foster carer holding one foster child with another foster child in front of them trying out home made biscuits

Why foster with your local council?

By fostering with your local council, you’ll help keep children close to their friends, schools and wider community, which is often vital for their wellbeing. It also means you’ll benefit from dedicated local support, high-quality training and the reassurance that more of the funding goes directly to frontline services for children.

Your local council fostering team have years of experience, a strong understanding of the needs of local children and close relationships with the foster carers in your area. This local knowledge helps ensure that each child receives care and support tailored to their individual circumstances, giving them the best possible chance to thrive.

Make a lasting difference

Local councils are rooted in their communities. By fostering with your local council you help ensure that children in care can stay close to everything that’s familiar.

Coming into care is a major change for any child. Being moved far from home can make an already difficult time even harder. Long journeys to school, missing out on regular contact with family and friends, and being unable to continue hobbies or clubs can all add to a child’s distress.

When you choose to foster with your local council, you’re more likely to care for children from your own area. This helps keep them stable and leads to better results for them emotionally, socially and in their learning and education.

a woman playing jenga with her foster children

One team, working for children

Fostering for your local council means that everyone supporting you and the child, including your supervising social worker and the child’s social worker, are part of the same team, working within the same organisation. This means shared policies, consistent standards and a joined-up approach.

Everyone is focused on the same goal: achieving the best possible outcomes for children in care.

a group of foster children having pizza in the garden together

Support close to home

When you foster with your local council, you’ll receive high-quality support and training locally, so there’s no need to travel far to get the help and development you need.

Local councils care for children from a wide range of backgrounds and circumstances, from newborns to teenagers. Wherever possible, they prioritise placing children with their own approved foster carers. That’s because councils know their carers well: they’ve recruited, assessed and trained them, which allows them to make thoughtful matches that meet each child’s individual needs.

Strong local support, when you need it

Fostering with your local council means you’ll be part of a well-established support network close to home. You’ll join a community of local foster carers and have access to a range of formal and informal support groups, where you can share experiences and build connections.

Your council is a large organisation with deep local knowledge and strong links to local services and resources. This means you’ll benefit from high-quality training and consistent, expert support throughout your fostering journey.

Together, this strong local network helps you provide the best possible care, and achieve better outcomes, for the children you welcome into your home.

A same sex couple of foster carers playing with their foster child in their living room

Councils pay expenses on top of weekly allowances

As a foster carer with your local council, you’ll receive a weekly financial allowance to help cover the cost of caring for a child. In addition, many councils offer extra financial support for things like birthdays, holidays, and other special occasions.

Our partner councils also provide additional benefits, such as council tax discounts, to help you focus on what matters most: supporting the children in your care.

Altogether, this means council foster carers are often very well-supported financially, recognising the vital role you play in a child’s life.

male foster carer with arm around happy fostered child in the kitchen

Supporting your community

When you foster with your local council, you’re not only supporting a child, you’re also helping to strengthen the wider community.

Fostering directly through the council means more of the available funding stays within local Children’s Services. This helps improve the quality of care, support and resources for children in your area.

When councils need to place children through external agencies, it often comes with higher costs and added complexity. By choosing to foster locally, you’re helping to ensure that vital resources are used where they’re needed most, supporting local children more effectively and keeping care close to home.

To find out about how your Council supports foster carers, click the logos below

We’re the choice for people from all backgrounds—single, coupled up, LGBTQ+, renting, or owning—who want to open their hearts and homes to local children and become part of a loved local community.

Fill out this short form and one of our team will reach out for an open and honest chat. Or feel free to call us on 020 8496 3437 or email hello@localcommunityfostering.co.uk.

You’re more ready than you think.

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