Fostering in Ealing

Make a difference to the lives of Ealing children.

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Caring for children and young people who live in Ealing

Choosing to foster for Ealing Council means that local children and young people who are unable to live with their families can remain geographically close to their family home.

In most cases they can continue going to the same school or nursery, church or faith group and regularly see the friends they have made. Most importantly, they can continue to see their parents, siblings and extended family members on supervised visits without having to travel too far.

Foster carers are ordinary people who provide something extraordinary to the children they look after. Although challenging, the rewards of helping a child can last a lifetime.

Benefits, allowances and support

Foster carers in Ealing are given allowances to reward them for their skills, as well as providing for the expenses involved in looking after the child.

The allowance covers the needs of the child, calculated on their age, a fee and training element for the carer, based on their level of skill.

Weekly combination of fostering child allowances, fees and training element (1 April 2025 to 31 December 2026)
Age of child or young person Band 1 Band 2 Band 3
0 to 2 years £323.53 £368.11 £425.06
3 to 4 years £326.53 £371.11 £428.06
5 to 10 years £350.53 £395.11 £452.06
11 to 15 years £382.53 £427.11 £484.06
16+ years £424.53 £469.11 £526.06

In addition to this allowance, foster carers receive:

  • highly competitive fees and allowances – recent payment uplift of 18.5%
  • a professional fee, serving as an income payment for their efforts. Foster carers can receive up to £516 per week from the allowance and fee combined, or £938 for a baby and parent
  • additional allowances for holidays, Christmas, birthdays, clothing and mileage
  • additional allowances for the child’s daily expenses, such as savings and pocket money
  • full council tax exemption for Ealing residents and reimbursement for out-of-borough carers
  • free parking in resident-controlled parking zones (CPZs) borough-wide
  • discounts at council leisure centres
  • free garden waste collection for residents within the borough
  • dedicated therapeutic support from in-house clinical psychologists
  • dedicated out-of-hours support
  • peer support through the Mockingbird scheme
  • access to bespoke training and other incentives
  • support from your designated supervising social worker (SSW) who will ensure you have access to all the resources and any training that you might require
  • membership to Foster Talk, The Fostering Network and other peer community groups to support you on your journey

Note:

  • fee uplift from January 2025
  • council tax exemption for band 2 carers and above whilst child is in placement
  • parking and garden waste incentives from April 2025, for band 1 carers and above

Transfer to Ealing

If you are already a foster carer and thinking about changing agencies, we will try and make the transition as smooth as possible for you and fast-track your application.

As a local authority, we have children who need fostering placements and would prefer to place our children with our own carers. This means that you are likely to have a wider choice of placements.

Everything we do happens in Ealing – training, support groups, contact with children’s families, school runs and so forth. As an Ealing carer you would only have Ealing’s children placed with you, and so would only need to work with one local authority.

The children’s social workers, the fostering social workers and our psychologists all work in the same teams to provide one joined-up service, so we can work in the Ealing way – One team around the child, all there to support you.

We pay competitive rates for fostering as well as paying retainers, holiday and birthday allowances and providing all carers with free membership to The Fostering Network.

As an experienced carer you might like to consider taking your fostering on to another level and becoming a specialist carer, able to take on children who has experienced significant harm or trauma. As well as an extensive support package carers also benefit from an enhanced allowance.

What are the steps to becoming a foster carer with Ealing?

Step 1 - Make contact

Call Foster with West London on 020 8753 1075 or join us to hear more at one of our information sessions. During this initial call we will provide you with advice and support you to make a decision as to whether it is the right time for you to foster.

If you are ready to progress with your journey to becoming a foster carer, an initial enquiry will be completed over the phone to learn more about you and your family. If you meet the initial screening criteria, you will be passed to the local authority you want to foster for who will book an initial home visit and a member of the team will visit you.

Step 2 - Training

Attend our Skills-to-Foster 3-day course which will equip you with essential skills required to care for a vulnerable child or young person. Attendance at the course forms part of the assessment process and all applicants are required to attend. 

Depending on when the training course starts, you may be invited to attend the course before the assessment begins or during the assessment.

Step 3 - Assessment (Stage 1 and 2)

Once we have completed your initial enquiry and an initial home visit has been carried out, a decision will be made to progress to Stage 1.

Both you and your allocated worker will sign an Assessment Stage 1 agreement outlining the process involved. During the Assessment Stage 1 a number of checks, required by the government under the fostering regulations, will be undertaken which includes:

  • your local authority
  • probation
  • finance
  • employment
  • education

In addition to the above, we will complete personal references and education checks for your children. You will be expected to undertake a health assessment with your doctor. We will need to complete a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check on you, your partner and any members of your household who are over 18 years old.

We will also agree on a timeframe for this work to be undertaken. You will be offered the opportunity to undertake Skills-to-Foster training at this stage.

Upon completion of Assessment Stage 1, you will be allocated a social worker to carry out an assessment of your background, life experiences and the qualities you would bring to fostering.

This is called Assessment Stage 2 of the fostering process. This will be reviewed halfway through by the principal social worker within the team to check any plans that need to be put into place.

Step 4 - Approval

You will be invited to a Fostering Panel that will assess your application alongside the government fostering regulations and make a recommendation for your approval as a foster carer and the final decision will be made by the agency decision maker shortly after.

Step 5 - Post-approval

You will be enrolled on our payment system and allocated a supervising social worker who will help you prepare yourself and your home for a child or young person coming into your care, and your life as a foster  carer begins!

After one year, you will go back to a Fostering Panel which will review your first year as a foster carer.

Start today

If you would like further information, with no-obligation, please send us your details and one of our fostering team will get in touch with you.

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