Foster carers make a real difference to children’s lives, providing a stable loving home with the support and encouragement they need to flourish and do well. For some people, fostering is a way of ‘giving something back’ to the community. For others, it’s a rewarding career that fits well with family life.
Fostering Allowances
Fostering Allowance Example
Fostering is a professional role with extensive training and ongoing support. We provide a generous weekly allowance plus expenses.
Because we’re a local authority fostering service, you’ll know you’re helping local children and you can be sure of regular placements, especially if you’re considering fostering as an alternative to traditional employment.
Our generous weekly allowances range from £211 to £559, per child, per week. We support you to provide the most vulnerable children in our area with a good standard of living whilst they’re in your care.
We pay the £559 per week allowance to carers providing placements for children with significant additional needs and meeting certain criteria.
On top of your weekly allowance you will receive and additional allowance for Birthdays and Religious holidays as well as expenses for travel when taking the foster child to appointment and meetings.
As well as the 24/7 support from our social workers and other foster carers we offer membership to The Fostering Network, as well as their fostering magazine they offer helplines for practical support with advice and guidance on all aspects of fostering. There is also the opportunity to join the Foster Care Associates who act as the voice of our foster carers. They meet regularly and put on events for the fostering families and support foster carers with any issues they might have.
If you are a carer on our tier 2 looking after a sibling group of 2 aged 14 and 16 your payment would be £553.83 per week if the placement was long term then you would also receive an additional £1669.09 birthday, Christmas and Holiday allowance.
This would give you a total of £2,539.02 per month or £30,468.25 per annum tax free.
Fostering allowances are only paid when you have a child or children in your care. Foster carers for Blackburn with Darwen are classed as self-employed and therefore responsible for completing your own tax returns. You can find help and guidance for these through your FosterTalk membership provided by Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council.
