What is the difference between fostering and parenting?

While foster parents have responsibility for taking care of children whose families of origin are unable to look after them, there is a distinction between fostering and parenting. This is particularly regarding legal status and assistance from local authorities.

Here’s what you need to know from Beacon Fostering about how fostering is different from parenting.

Legal designations and responsibilities

Parents are defined as someone with legal responsibility over a child, and applies to biological and adoptive parents. They hold all responsibilities over their child or children.

Foster carers, or foster parents, on the other hand, do not have legal responsibilities over children who they are looking after on a temporary basis. Any decisions regarding the child’s needs are made and shared between the child’s parents and the local authority. However, sometimes a foster carer can receive additional responsibilities.

Financial support

Foster families receive allowance and a salary from their local authority or fostering agency, to help with clothes, education and other necessities for the child they are looking after. If you have your own children, whether biological or adopted, you don’t receive such allowances, though you may be eligible to claim child benefit.

Preparation

Although you will receive training as part of your journey as a foster carer, you may still find yourself accommodating a foster child on a last-minute basis, often with little warning. They could arrive in the daytime or late at night, with either a backpack or only the clothes on their back. There is little time to process such changes, unlike the adoption process or when you are about to birth your child.

If you’re interested in discovering more about providing foster care in Cheshire and other areas of the North West, get in touch today.