Working While Fostering

Can you foster and work at the same time? We unpack one of the most asked questions with Hilary Armstrong and Helen Browne from Barnardo’s Northern Ireland Fostering and Adoption team. We start where most enquiries start: the moment someone picks up the phone and asks, “Is full-time work a barrier?” Our answer is realistic but encouraging, because the real question isn’t whether you work, it’s whether you can create the time, flexibility and stability a child needs. 

We get clear on the money side too, without dodging the awkward bits. Helen explains the difference between the foster carer allowance (for the child’s day-to-day costs, linked to age) and Barnardo’s fee (recognising a carer’s skills and time). We also talk about why “being available” is not just a nice idea: many children coming into care have lived through trauma and too many moves, and those early weeks can be make-or-break for helping them settle. Add in meetings, looked after child reviews, training and appointments, and you can see why work patterns need careful thought. 

From there we move into the practical solutions that make fostering doable: strong support networks, approved safe care, and employers who genuinely understand fostering. We discuss fostering-friendly workplace adjustments, career breaks, and the recent uplift in qualifying care relief that helps many carers with tax. We also cover what happens between placements, fostering on benefits, and what’s different about foster to adopt and adoption finance. If you’re weighing up fostering with us and wondering how it would fit around your job, this conversation gives you a grounded starting point. 

Subscribe for more honest conversations, share this with someone who’s been “mulling it over”, and leave us a review so more people can find support and take the first step.

Learn more about fostering and adoption with Barnardo’s:
 https://www.barnardos.org.uk/get-support/fostering-and-adoption

To arrange a no-strings call visit
https://www.barnardos.org.uk/foster/register-to-foster

To ask a question, give us some feedback or make a topic request, email Ness at: vanessa.haynes@barnardos.org.uk

Changing childhoods, changing lives.

Transcript

Ness 0:06

Welcome to Let's Talk, the Barnardo's Fostering and Adoption podcast. Each episode we will meet team members and families from right across our fostering and adoption services. We are hoping to get behind the scenes so we can learn what it's really like to foster or adopt. Today we're going to be talking about working while fostering. And with me on this session is Hilary Armstrong and Helen Browne, who both represent the Northern Ireland fostering and adoption team. Hello both. Hi Ness.

Hilary 0:48

Hi. Hi Ness.

Ness 0:49

I am interested in fostering, but I have a question. Maybe I'm full-time working and I want to know what our policy is. Who wants to start? Do you want me to go first?

Hilary 0:59

I can say probably, yeah, just that person picking up the phone, taking that step of finding out more. I suppose I never really underestimate what a big step that is for people and how it feels. For me, I want to know that that's an encouraging conversation. So when people speak to the staff from I suppose any Bonardo's family placement team, uh particularly within fostering, because we know adoption sometimes has its own nuances,

Is Working a Barrier to Fostering?

Hilary 1:32

that they are well received. And that actually most people are out working. So it's kind of normal for me to imagine that someone ringing us up will have a question around whether they can continue to work when they're fostering. And again, for me, uh it's very much I see that as us giving people some basic information and trying to maybe take them through the next steps so that they don't see it, you know, it's not portrayed to them or um put across to them as if you work, that's an immediate or an automatic barrier or going to be an issue for you. I think, Ness, what I would say is that um we we have some examples of people who foster for us very well and have been able to make that work for them while they've continued to work. And if we look at our own stats, we probably have about a fifth of our households, couple households, where both people are maintaining paid employment uh alongside fostering. One person typically is doing that in a much more part-time basis, and maybe has had to go away and think about that and consider that while they're moving through that inquiry process, and at the end of it, maybe their work arrangements are going to look different, but they're able to find a way to make it work.

Ness 3:07

Can you say anything more about that? Because I'm assuming it's relatively flexible depending on the circumstances of each foster carer and child, is it?

Helen 3:17

Yeah,

Allowance, Fees, And The Reality

Helen 3:18

I mean, I don't mind sort of chipping in about the fee and the allowance, which are two different things. So um the allowance is paid to all foster carers, regardless of whether they foster for Barnardo's or Trust or whoever. So, and that's age... ...that it's kind of it's broken down into age. So you will get slightly more if the child's older, and you will get slightly less if the child's younger. And that's just to account for uh their clothing, food, things that household just basically the uh basic costs of helping a child um grow and develop and uh and and and some some recognition of how expensive it is to um raise children, particularly today. Alongside that, Barnardo's offer a fee. And the fee really is... Barnardo's has been operating for 45, almost up to nearly 50, years now as a fostering agency, since 1979. And uh that was based on the premise - and it was one of it was the first uh professional fostering uh arrangement um in Northern Ireland - where there was the recognition that people uh found it hard to foster if they weren't getting some allowance, some money that would enable them to maybe uh either stop working and be at home with the children, a child, children, or um or work in a flexible way, or where there maybe was a tag team within the house where one was out working and the other wasn't. So it was based on the premise that there would always be someone um available at home. Um I suppose over the years that has developed as we've begun to think about, you know, people's security around jobs. I happen to think, and I might differ from Hillary a bit on this, that we still need, um should say first of all, I do understand the economic um position that families do find themselves in now, and we are in need of the right people coming forward to foster. But I suppose I'm weighing that up against the fact that many of the children that get referred to us are highly traumatized children who've had lots of moves within the care system, potentially prior to moving uh to us. And we need dedicated people. I suppose we're not looking to - and it's particularly for children who maybe are preschool or out of school for other reasons - uh, we wouldn't want substitute carers supporting that foster home. Or after school clubs that would create further time out of the house. These are children that need to settle. That doesn't mean that in time, maybe when a child is in short -to- longer term care, that that isn't something that could be weaved into the daily life of that foster home. But I think we do need people in those, particularly in those early stages, to be very available to the children. Um it's not just about their well-being, it's it's about uh the demands that's made of them as foster carers in relation to uh meetings, looked after child reviews, annual reviews for themselves, training, things that will come up and will and we need that degree of availability.

Ness 7:24

And I suppose one of the things you just touched on there is about um who can look after the child if the foster care is unavailable. I it probably would surprise someone who didn't know very much about fostering that where birth children you might be able to have a friend or family member babysit. It becomes a more complicated concern when you're dealing with a child who technically isn't yours. You can't make that decision on your own. So you have to think about who can look after that child when you're not available.

Helen 8:01

Yeah, I suppose we'd be looking at safe supports for that child and whether that is um family members um who may step forward as part of the support network. Um, and those would be more natural supports that we would encourage as much as possible. I mean, there's also um young people who may have their own family or own friends that they would want to maintain links with, and again, we would be looking to try and support that where possible, you know, maybe visiting a friend or being, you know, or or back visiting a foster carer they once lived with, or an important, or maybe even for some, they're in a shared care arrangement with their own uh birth families. There's never one picture of what fostering is like, it's all very, very different. And I suppose the best thing to do would be to contact us and talk about your own very specific situation, and you know, so we would we don't really rule anything out, we're really part of this conversation is really just about looking at maybe even highlighting the complexity of it all.

Hilary 9:27

So, I mean, I would just say, you know, Helen Helen has talked about the fee that carers receive and how the allowances are broken down into two parts, essentially, money that we view as being for the foster carer skills and the time commitment they're giving to caring for the child, and then money that is for the care of children and all the associated costs of that. And it is a bit of a cushion that we hope you know supports people who are coming forward. I mean, when I think about the families that have been able to navigate this, you know, they've been able to find a way through, they've been able to say, well, look, I you know... I think for me, I always

Speaker 10:12

think nowadays it actually takes people quite a long time sometimes to build up a career. We know that the world of work for people can, you know, people aren't aren't nowadays going into a job that they stay in for 10 years, 20 years. It can take young people actually a number of years to find a kind of stable position in their career. People are also having to sometimes save a lot longer than they would have 10 years ago, 15 years ago, when I probably started in the world of fostering. And we'd kind of a rigid rule then that if people were in a partnership coming forward to foster, you know, it was kind of clear one person needs to be able to step back completely from work, and that was, in many ways, there's in some respects, there was more families, I think, out there where there was perhaps one person um maybe thinking about retiring early, maybe thinking about wanting to change how their life was configured, maybe with their own existing children. Whereas I think now we know we're living in a time where families are under so much pressure financially already. Taking risks, for people, I think with finances is is sometimes like a non-negotiable for people. So for me, I I wouldn't want people coming forward with the prop... the right motivation to support children, help children that need a really good home. I wouldn't want those people to think I'm gonna have to give up my career, I'm gonna have to, you know, because to me that feels like a really huge mean loss for people actually. And I don't know how people could easily balance that. You know, they have the motivation, they want to um do something really worthwhile for children in the care system, and then they're thinking, gosh, imagine if I had you know worked so hard for this. So that's I suppose why I kind of think look, let's have conversations about this, let's hear about your situation and think about... tease it out. It really is about teasing it out, and I suppose one thing I think that has been really good that happened in 2023, which was the government, I suppose, coming forward to support people stepping forward to foster more. And I'm not sure how how how well this is known, but you know, we call it the Qualifying Care Relief, but it was upped really considerably. I can't actually remember what the figure was before then. I think it might have been around the 11,000, 12,000, but now it sits around the around 19,000 pounds that people can um receive as an income from fostering before they have to start paying uh tax, national insurance, and all the rest of it. And that was really designed um to you know, by the State, to support people coming forward to foster. Um, and you know, we know that foster carers are self-employed, um, and they have always really been self-employed, but I think that was, you know, certainly some foster carers have reflected to me that we have that they found that in itself was a big change that they felt was really supportive uh in helping them to maintain to stay fostering. So they were already fostering, but you know, they weren't ever really having to think about whether they could continue to foster because they actually felt, well, you know, our efforts are being recognized um by the government, which is really, I think, really important. But you know, we've talked about well, how do people make it work? I mean, for me, I think it the best examples I can think of are are those people that have a really good support network, um, people who have fostering friendly employers.

'Fostering Friendly' Employers

Speaker 14:30

Um, it is a thing that um certainly Fostering Network um are encouraged companies to sign up to the Fostering Friendly Charter. Um, and that uh certainly in meetings that I go to, I hear sometimes colleagues that we have talk about that. Um and what about Hilary?

Ness 14:52

Can I sorry, can I interrupt there? Can you give me a little bit more detail about what fostering friendly might look like in a company?

Hilary 14:58

So, for example, like adjustments, that flexibility that Helen talked about, that those employers would give people paid time off to attend meetings. I mean, I'm sure there are considerations about you know how far that can go, but certainly um people who are work for um many charities and for local Trusts here, you know, that they can avail of that. Um, I think sometimes those employers will uh be really seriously consider if someone is thinking about fostering and puts forward, you know, a request to work term time arrangements or you know, to have their their hours adjusted. Um and there are good examples of that. But you know, I think it probably is on a case-by-case basis, but it it's something that is growing.

Ness 16:02

Can I ask a question as well about what happens when a foster carer doesn't have a placement in so they don't have a child with them currently, but they're a foster carer, they're waiting for their their between placements. Are they still getting a fee or is that something they need to consider when they come into fostering?

Helen 16:24

I suppose that really plays into what Hillary's been talking about, you know, just that idea that if you have need a certain income for your household um and you're dependent on fostering, you cannot be assured that that will happen for you if the child is not placed no longer with you or children are no longer with you. So

Between Placements & Retainers

Helen 16:55

um we don't offer a retainer. Um, you know, there would be a notice period by either the placing Trust or ourselves, and the carer would know that the placement would come to an end and their funding would come to an end. When we look at retainers, is more when we've foster carers who agree to bring child or children into their home, and for whatever reason there's been a delay, um uh court date or something that has delayed their admission, we would negotiate with the Trust for um retention uh of that placement and a fee, some financial reward for that. And to be honest, we rarely get pushback because the Trusts are so eager to secure a good match, particularly with Barnardo's, because we have um a very good history of um maintaining placements and um uh uh you know few disruptions. So I think that's um you know, we we certainly pride ourselves in that. So um that's when we would see, you know, maybe there the benefit of that kind of long run into a placement that's meeting the needs of children and uh and allows for really good preparation for on the part of the foster carers and ourselves, where we can, you know, maybe front load some training or uh that would prepare them then for the placement that's coming down the line. So um, but when they're in when carers, I mean your initial question was when they're in between placements, um there wouldn't really be that opportunity. So sometimes some carers take the opportunity to say, I will, you know, we would like to maybe just take a bit of a pause and recognizing that there wouldn't they be an income during that period. Um, but also allows them to be in control of their situation. Whereas um I'm aware of some agencies that operate a retainer, but they're then under a lot of pressure to say yes when they maybe mean no to Do you mean that the foster carers are under pressure to say yes from the agency? Because they're receiving a retainer from the uh Trust or other agency that would have them sitting feeling, well, I am receiving a level of income and therefore I should say yes. So um, and maybe feeling a level of um pressure from the agency. Um so you know, so I think it would come at both levels, the their own their own sense of um feeling guilty about receiving money when they don't have children in placement, but also um the Trust making them be or the other Local Authority making them feel that they should be saying yes. So what not not receiving that money in between placements allows for a much, I think, for a much more measured approach to the next the next stage, and hopefully it's at a pace that um you know foster carers um can you know you know appreciate and that we that that they um certainly all they need to say to us is we don't need much of a gap in between for whatever reason they may a child might be children may be moving on in a planned way and they may say, look, only we only need a couple of weeks here to you know get ourselves sorted and then we'd be ready to run again. So that's what we look for, you know, foster carers who say, um, and we work with them, and there's no there's no finite period. Um, obviously there's a need out there, and we all, you know, we're all getting referrals every day, but um we work with them for the most the best match that we can possibly achieve for them.

Ness 21:30

I'm hearing it loud and clear that the priority really is finding the best possible match for the children, and there are so many children who need a family, and we obviously want to keep our highly skilled foster carers that we've bought through assessment. We want they are very valuable to us, and we also want to make fostering doable for them financially. We want it to be, but I equally I can hear the the double edged sword of seeing fostering as a job that you just talk about when when actually you're talking about a sort of formal retainment. That's really I think that's all very helpful. I would just like to say the other message I'm getting very clearly is that we are very flexible in terms of the kinds of foster carers that are coming to us. We're going to take you on an individual case-by-case basis, and we want to have the conversation with you because every family and situation is different, and every child in the service, every child looking for a family is different too. So we're just keen to find the right match each time.

Can You Foster on Benefits?

Hilary 22:51

Probably what I would say Ness about benefits is no. Although some benefits are means tested, as you know, and we what our advice usually to people who ring up and make an inquiry and say, you know, explain what benefits they're receiving. As a first port of call, we give them that really important message that it's not a barrier, but that they should go back and speak to the jobs and benefits office or whoever they link in with who should be able to guide them to make sure that their own particular situation, whatever their circumstances are, um they can, you know, just present that and find out if if there would be an impact on them. Certainly, I've had people say recently that they could... people who have told us that when they made those inquiries, that the jobs and benefits people were actually really eager to answer their queries accurately, give them really good information because they have an investment as well in trying to um uh promote fostering um with people. And in fact, I've I've in the last six months gone to a jobs fair uh through a jobs and benefit office, and one of the big messages that the guy who was running it said was we just say to people, you know, who are looking for work sometimes. This is something you could think about. It depends what skills and attributes you have, but very often people who maybe have worked in teams, who've worked with children already, already have a lot of what you know we're we're looking for. So I thought that was really interesting because I'd never really seen that happen before, but again, that's really supposed societal shift um and maybe just more efforts um at you know bigger, higher level um to try and you know make sure we are reaching as many people as possible who have a thought in their heads that they maybe want to do this someday. I mean, I've heard you say it before, Ness. I think is it is it around five years or something like that, that people generally they mull it over, it germinates with them, they maybe talk to friends or whatever. So I don't think there's too many people out there that just today or decide they want to do this and start embarking on the journey. That's not what we hear, and we're here to try and bring people through that process. And again, you know, we've touched on this before. It sometimes isn't for everyone, but it's only when you go and you find out about it and you hear more, um, and we will always be able to, you know, bring the voice of foster carers into that process so that people are hearing from the people that are doing doing doing it themselves rather than you know social workers typically, um, and that it feels you know as tangible and as real as possible.

Adoption & Financial Support

Ness 26:23

Did briefly mention adoption and we have a fostering to adoption service, don't we? Is there anything that someone who might be interested in that area should know about finances? Because adoption is different, as you alluded to earlier.

Helen 26:39

I I suppose the um like we like I explained about the allowance for fostering uh some adopters uh depending on whether they're foster adopting siblings or their own circumstances, financial circumstance, um they could be in receipt of that similar allowance. I think it's pretty much the same uh rate, but that's not guaranteed year on year, it's reviewed, so it's uh it would be something that would have to be negotiated and agreed on. The adoption itself, there is no fee attached to adoption, uh pure adoption. Now, if you were to come through um a more of a foster to adopt arrangement, there could be that you may foster that child be in receipt of a fee on top of your allowance as the run-in to adoption. And that's a very much like we've been talking about um in this podcast, it's very, very much to do with um the individual and the and and particularly the child and and children where they're at um and the legal process and everything else. So there's a many factors that will determine that without getting too technical. Um so it's possible that even if you're thinking long-term about adoption, that there could be some funding around that in the initial stage, but not guaranteed really is an answer. I think I just want to touch again on you know what Hillary was saying about um you know people's financial arrangements generally, that to not be afraid to ask your employer, you know, say to your employer, I'm thinking of fostering or adopting. Barnardo's as an employer has great family-friendly policies around both fostering and adoption. So if you happen to work for Barnardo's, please contact us because we know as they they employ us and they maybe employ you to make contact with us and to think about some form of career break. Um, but maybe it's worth, even if you worked for your organization for some time, ask about their family-friendly policies because you might be surprised that maybe some of them have changed over the years. So you might think you know them. And but um, you know, there there could be family-friendly policies lurking in your in your uh with your employers that you you're not aware of. So please um make contact with your people team or your HR team and and uh you might you might be in for a surprise. That's an excellent surprise.

Ness 29:44

That's an excellent piece of advice. Do you have any last thoughts you want to share before before we uh bring this to a close?

Hilary 29:59

I mean, I would just probably I can't remember if either of us said this before, but at the end of the day, no matter what, Ness, we're looking for people that are going to be able to make fostering their priority. So whatever adjustments or reconfiguration they have to think about and make in their lives, fostering can be their priority. But we understand that people maybe can also have scope to maybe be able to work or do more as well. And I mean, the other thing I would say is, and we didn't talk about this, I mean, I think we've really good examples as well in our service of people who came forward to foster, and they were able to avail of career breaks. So again, they were able to go to their employer and say, you know, I mean, I can think of one or two people who said, you know, this is something I've wanted to do for such a long time. You know, I nearly spent 10 years pondering this, thinking about this, thinking about when was the right, when was going to be the right time to do this, and and and I I have to do it now, I have to move it forward. But they were able to sort of, you know, communicate that to their um, you know, their manager, their boss in such a way that they could favorably say, well, look, you know, you could have avail of a career break here. So, you know, there's a bit of security for someone as well. And uh, you know, it means that if it didn't work out or whatever, you know, it just did maybe didn't happen to be the thing for them, they could then, after probably a set period of time, go back to that position again. And I can I can joyfully tell you that the people I'm thinking of that are in my head here, they they actually didn't go back to their jobs. Um, they they were enjoying fostering so much and getting so much from it uh that they were able to eventually just reach a place where they said, Look, actually, you know, I'm gonna just step out of that job now, you know, had a career break for a year, two years or whatever. Um, I'm very happy fostering now, and that's my sole focus.

Ness 32:13

That's really, really helpful. I want to thank you both, Helen and Hilary, uh, for talking with me today on the awkward subject of money. And if you'd like to know more and just have a very friendly, no strings attached conversation with your local service, I will put a hyperlink in the details of this podcast, and we will look forward to speaking to you very soon. Thanks for listening to this episode of Let's Talk, the Barnardo's Fostering and Adoption Podcast. To learn more about fostering and adoption with us, search for Barnardos online or find the link in our programme description.