Private Fostering Awareness - Somebody Else's Child

What is Private Fostering?

Professionals working with children and young people have a shared responsibility to work together to ensure that all privately fostered children are well cared for and are safeguarded from harm.

Professionals can play an important role in helping to identify private fostering arrangements and providing information to carers and parents who may be unaware of their responsibility to notify the Local Authority. This session will help define that role and how you can support the identification, assessment and supprt for those children living in private fostering arrangements.

Private foster carers are legally required to notify their council but many do not, often because they do not know that they have to. This means that Children’s Social Care is unable to check whether the child is being properly cared for.  It is vital that Children’s Social Care is aware of such arrangements so that they can safeguard and promote the welfare of potentially vulnerable children. Ideally, notification should come from the parent and carer but professionals can also play an important role, as they are often the people who have the first contact in explaining to private foster carers and parents that they have a duty to notify the local authority.