The fostering assessment and approval process explained

It starts with an enquiry and an initial visit

Every fostering journey begins with an enquiry to a fostering service: your local council (in Northern Ireland, your Health and Social Care Trust) or an independent agency. In England you can only be registered with one service at a time, so talk to more than one first. Most services send an information pack, then arrange a call with a social worker and a home visit, though some use calls or group meetings.

The visit is informal but matters. The social worker will talk through your household, motivation, work and spare room, and answer your questions, so both sides can decide whether fostering is realistic. If you want to go ahead, you complete a formal application and the assessment begins.

Stage 1: checks and references

In England the law splits the assessment into two stages under regulation 26 of the Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011 and its statutory guidance, and the stages can run one after the other or side by side. Stage 1 gathers the facts and checks a service needs to be sure there is no reason you cannot foster:

The service also checks its own records and the council's where you live, and usually asks your employer for a reference. A service that approved you in the last 12 months must provide a written reference, and Form F covers former partners too.

Stage 1 has a deadline. Once the service holds all the information, it must decide within 10 working days whether you can continue, and if not must give written reasons. There is no independent review of a Stage 1 decision, though you can complain about how your application was handled.

• Your name, address and date of birth, and any current or previous marriage, civil partnership or similar relationship
• Everyone else in your household, and your own children whether or not they live with you
• Your home
• A health report, usually from your GP
• Any earlier application to foster, adopt or childmind
• An enhanced DBS check for you and every household member aged 18 or over
• Two personal referees, whom the service must interview

Preparation training

A preparation course is a standard step across the UK. The most widely used is The Fostering Network's The Skills to Foster, revised in 2025, with six sessions: what children need, fostering relationships, a protective and loving home, therapeutic care, supporting identity, and transitions and endings. The open-access version takes three days, as does Foster Wales's course. Some services add first aid and safeguarding training.

Some councils run it before you apply, others during the assessment; gov.uk lists it as a required step.

Stage 2: the Form F assessment

Stage 2 is the part most people picture: a series of visits from an assessing social worker over several months, written up in England on CoramBAAF's Form F, updated in 2025 to focus more on strengths and the child's needs. The regulations require this stage to cover your personality; your religion and ability to care for a child of a particular faith; your ethnic, cultural and linguistic background; your employment, standard of living and interests; your experience of caring for children; and your skills and potential as a carer.

Expect questions about your family history, past and present relationships, education and work, your typical week, commitments and finances. Councils say the questions are detailed and personal, and that honesty is essential. Other adults in the household need their own checks and references, and councils advise talking to your own children early because fostering affects everyone at home. CoramBAAF says Form F is worked through with you, not a questionnaire to complete alone.

When the report is finished you must be given a copy and 10 working days to add written observations, which go to panel with it. If serious concerns emerge part-way through, the service can instead prepare a brief report and ask the panel whether to stop; you get the same 10 working days to respond.

The fostering panel

The fostering panel is a group of people with an independent chair who read the report and make a recommendation. In England, Scotland and Wales every fostering service must have one; in Northern Ireland panels are usual practice rather than a legal requirement. Members typically include social workers, foster carers, people with care experience and health or education professionals.

You will be invited, usually with your assessing social worker, and should get notice and support to prepare. Members will have read everything and will ask about your assessment, training and the fostering you hope to do; you can ask questions too. The panel then recommends whether you should be approved and on what terms, such as the number and ages of children. It recommends; it does not decide.

The agency decision maker

The decision rests with the agency decision maker (ADM), a senior member of staff who must decide personally and cannot delegate, taking the panel's recommendation into account. In England the statutory guidance expects a decision within seven working days of receiving the panel minutes, with reasons recorded. In Scotland the decision must be made within 14 days of the panel and notified within seven days.

If approved, you sign a foster carer agreement setting out what the service will provide and what it expects of you, and join its list of carers available for matching.

How long does it take?

It depends largely on how quickly checks come back. Gov.uk says the English process can take up to eight months, and the statutory guidance expects the panel's recommendation within eight months of your application. CoramBAAF and Foster Wales both describe a typical assessment as around six months, and Scottish guidance says authorities should normally aim to finish within six months of an application. Some councils publish targets of four to six months or about 20 weeks. A DBS check alone can take around eight weeks, longer if you have lived abroad.

If you are not approved

If the ADM is minded not to approve you after panel, or to approve you on different terms, you receive a written notice called a qualifying determination, with reasons and the panel's recommendation. In England you then have 28 days either to send written representations to the service, in which case your case returns to the panel, or to apply to the Independent Review Mechanism (IRM), not both.

The IRM is commissioned by the Department for Education and run independently of fostering services by Coram. An IRM panel looks at your case afresh and sends a recommendation to the ADM, who still makes the final decision; the IRM cannot overturn it. It is not open where refusal rests on a specified offence, and it does not handle complaints about a service's conduct.

Wales has its own IRM Cymru, run by Children in Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland have no IRM; see the nation notes.

After approval: the annual review

Approval is not the end of being assessed. In England, regulation 28 requires a review of your approval within a year and then at least yearly. It gathers the views of you, any child placed with you (according to age and understanding) and any authority that placed a child with you in the past year, and ends with a written report on whether you and your household remain suitable and whether your terms still fit. Council handbooks say it also covers training, any complaints or allegations, health and safety and your safer caring plan.

Your first review must go to panel; later ones go only if the service chooses, often after a significant change or concern. If the service proposes to end or change your approval, the qualifying determination process applies again, with 28 days to respond. You can resign at any time in writing; approval ends 28 days after the service receives your notice.

Across the UK

England

The two-stage assessment, the 10-working-day Stage 1 deadline, the eight-month expectation, the panel, the ADM, the annual review and the 28-day IRM route come from the Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011 as amended in 2013, the DfE statutory guidance and gov.uk. Gov.uk signposts Fosterline, a free advice line on 0800 040 7675, Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm.

Scotland

The Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009 apply. Scottish Government guidance says authorities should normally aim to complete an assessment within six months, with enhanced disclosure checks for applicants and household members aged 16 or over, a full medical and at least two references from non-relatives. The decision maker must decide within 14 days of the panel and notify you within seven. There is no IRM: if refused, you can ask within 28 days for a review by a differently constituted panel, with no further right of review. The first review of approval must happen within 12 months, then within three years of the previous one, or sooner to safeguard a child.

Wales

The Fostering Panels (Establishment and Functions) (Wales) Regulations 2018 require an independent chair, a central list including experienced social workers and former foster carers, and reviews of approval within a year and then at least yearly. Foster Wales says the process usually takes around six months. If you are not approved, the 2018 regulations give 28 days for written representations or an independent review application; IRM Cymru, run by Children in Wales, says applicants have 40 days to apply to it, so check the deadline in your own letter.

Northern Ireland

You apply to your Health and Social Care Trust, through HSC NI Adoption and Foster Care, or to an independent agency. nidirect lists training, an application, a GP medical, an AccessNI check and a social services check, references, a social work assessment and a fostering panel recommendation; you can withdraw at any stage. Panels are usual practice rather than a legal requirement, and there is no independent review mechanism: section 126 of the Adoption and Children Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 would allow one, but at the time of writing legislation.gov.uk showed it as not yet in operation.

Common questions