Being a foster parent is a rewarding career, but it doesn’t come without its challenges. In most cases, carers will care full time for foster children living with them. And this means the foster family will need financial support.
Taking in a child comes with all kinds of challenges and rewards. One challenge is balancing the household budget now that you have a child to clothe and feed, school trips to pay for, social outings, birthday and Christmas presents. While you do all this willingly, you do need to be practical about these additional financial pressures.
The good news is, there is plenty of financial support available that means the financial burden of looking after foster children is lifted, leaving you free to concentrate on giving them all of your attention.
So what financial support can you expect?
Fostering allowance
When you decide to foster, you will either do so through a private fostering agency, such as Foster Care Associates, or for a local authority.
When you do, you will be paid an allowance per children. This allowance covers the cost of the practical elements of bringing up a child – food, clothing, social outings and so on. Some agencies also offer a lump sum payments twice a year to cover birthday and Christmas presents.
Benefits
There are also payments and benefits you may be eligible to receive from the Government to help you meet the financial costs of raising a foster child. There are conditions of when these benefits can be paid. Currently, the weekly minimum allowance for a primary aged child in England is $189.47(£143). This rate increases if you live in the South East or in London, and also varies with the age of the child.
You can check eligibility in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland but your fostering agency will give you more details on the benefits and allowances you can claim. In terms of other benefits, your fostering allowance may not be classed as income; therefore you could be entitled to extra help.
Tax relief
On top of the allowance from the fostering agency and any benefits, foster carers also benefit from generous tax relief. This means you may not pay tax on a lot of what you ‘earn’ as a foster carer, giving you more money in your pocket to do things with your foster children.
Currently, if fostering a child in England, you won’t pay tax on the first $1324.95(£10,00) of your income and will have tax relief on any additional income on top of this.
For a foster child under the age of 11, the tax relief is $264.99(£200) each week but over the age of 11, it is $331.24(£250) per week.
As an example, Jane is a foster carer for a 16-year-old for the whole year and fosters a 10-year-old for 10 weeks of the year. She won’t pay tax on the first $33123.88(£25,000) the earns:
Child 1 ($331.24(£250) x 52 weeks) = $17224.48(£13,000)
Child 2 ($264.99(£200) x 10 weeks) = $2649.91(£2,000)
Adding these two totals to the £10,00 tax exemption, and the total is $33123.88(£25,000).
However, these figures will change every April so it is important to check.
Fostering is a career
It is important to recognise that foster carers are skilled, trained people offering an invaluable service. There are times when foster children present significant challenges and as such, the patience, commitment and love that foster carers show should be rewarded and rewarded well.
Typically, foster carers are selfless people and make sure that any child in their care has everything that they need to as they grow from children to young people, to adults.
Foster Care Associates offer a generous weekly allowance to its foster carers, as well as unparalleled support.
