Fostering is the temporary or long-term care of a child/children who can’t live with their parents or relatives and is placed with a registered foster carer or family.
Long-term fostering: Ongoing care, usually until adulthood, for children who can't return to their birth family and do not want to be adopted.
Short-term fostering: Looking after children for a few weeks or months while plans are made for their future.
“Family and Friends” or “Kinship” fostering: Caring for a child known to them or who is part of the family, such as a grandchild or younger sibling etc.
Emergency fostering: Urgently providing a safe place to stay for a few nights. This is often unplanned and can come with less than 24 hours’ notice.
Respite and short breaks: Temporary care for children with disabilities, special educational needs or behavioural issues, while their parents or usual foster carers take a break.
Remand fostering: Caring for young people who’ve been remanded by a court; specialist training to be this type of foster parent is normally required.
Fostering for adoption: Fostering babies or young children which the foster carers plan to adopt. When fostering for adoption, employees would be entitled to adoption pay and leave from when the child comes to live with them, subject to meeting eligibility criteria.
Foster parents currently don't have a specific family-friendly leave available to them unless they are fostering to adopt. In that case, if they meet the adoption leave and pay criteria, they would be eligible for Adoption Leave. Otherwise, the support available is limited and no specific fostering statutory leave exits.
However, foster parents employed by you, are still protected under general employment law - they have the same employment rights as any other employee and the protection against discrimination remains:
Employers should consider flexible and inclusive approaches, including:
Carer’s Leave
The Carer’s Leave legislation, introduced in April 2024, allows any employee with caring responsibilities to request time off to support a dependant. A dependant is defined as anyone who relies on the employee for care, and eligible employees are entitled to up to two weeks of unpaid leave within a 12-month period.
Emergency Dependants Leave
Your leave of absence policy should set out whether paid leave is available for emergency dependants leave, as well as the duration and any conditions attached to such leave.
Unpaid leave
In the absence of a relevant policy, or where existing leave entitlements are insufficient, it may be appropriate to consider granting unpaid leave as a supportive measure. However, be mindful that doing so may set a precedent for future cases. You may wish to review and update your leave policies to ensure they provide a consistent and equitable framework for managing such situations.
Where you become aware that an employee is a foster carer or is in the process of becoming one, a supportive conversation can go a long way to understand their circumstances. Consider discussing:
If you’re looking for support with family-friendly leave and employment matters, contact your EPM Advisory team early for support and guidance. Need tailored advice on supporting foster carers in your School or Trust? Discover more about the HR advice we offer by talking to our team!