Our Work | Foster Care Advocacy | The Fostering Network

As the UK’s leading fostering charity, we are the essential network for fostering and we bring together everyone who is involved in the lives of children in foster care.

We support foster carers to transform children’s lives and we work with fostering services and the wider sector to develop and share best practice.

We work to ensure all children and young people in foster care experience stable family life, and we are passionate about the difference foster care makes. We champion fostering and seek to create vital change so that foster care is the very best it can be.

Did you know...

approximately 70,000

Children live with just over 52,000 foster families in the UK.

This is nearly three-quarters of almost 100,000 children who are in care and who live away from home on any one day in the UK. Many of these children are in care due to abuse or neglect.

Foster families give children the love, support and stability they need. This is often their first positive experience of family life. We are here for every fostered child and their carer.

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Our vision

Our vision is for foster care in the UK to flourish, as the voices of children and young people are heard and placed at the centre of Government plans, empowering a vibrant fostering community to work together to meet the unique needs of every child and young person.

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Our purpose

Our purpose, as the UK’s largest fostering network, we are dedicated to supporting, enriching, empowering and, where necessary, restoring, the vital bonds between those who work together to offer love, warmth, stability and hope to children and young people.

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Our golden thread

We believe that relationships are the golden thread running through every fostering story.

We believe working in partnership builds a connected fostering community where everyone is valued, respected, and treated as equals.

We believe when foster care is embraced by society, every child and young person has the best chance to make and maintain stable, loving relationships and can look towards the future with hope and ambition.

Our strategic goals