Leeds City Council arranges care and support for around 1,300 children and young people. Most of these children are looked after for shorter or longer periods by Leeds foster carers. We need foster carers from all backgrounds and circumstances to help make a real difference to the lives of children and young people in Leeds. We introduced a new 'Payment for Skills' fostering service model in 2008, providing a comprehensive range of professional support, financial assistance and training for our foster carers.
Recruitment news: fee paid career fostering campaign 2009 -10
Started November 2009, we are continuing to raise awareness of the need for people who can care for school age children and youngsters (mainly age 10ys and above). You may have heard or seen our campaign advertising which includes radio (Magic 828) and on Leeds First buses.
These children require full time support and can often have complex needs. We are also looking for carers who can offer intensive fostering support to a parent and child (often young mums and their babies) as part of our parent and child fostering scheme. We are looking for people who need to meet the following minimum criteria
- child care experience, preferably of school age children and their needs
- if parents, own children minimum age 13yrs or above
- spare bedroom space
Suitable carers could be part of our Payment for Skills Level 4 scheme, based full time at home in self employment. You would receive a weekly professional fee, comprehensive support and training.
If you meet the above criteria and want to find out more about these exciting career fostering opportunities, you can Register your Interest online or download a pdf registration of interest form. If you need to discuss your interest in the career fostering campaign, please contact us on (0113) 2474747
Important information for enquirers:
1. Enquirers with pre-school age children
The Fostering Service regularly reviews its foster carer recruitment priorities to best meet the needs of Leeds looked after children and young people.
Our major priority at present is to plan for meeting the placement needs of school age children age 10 yrs and above. Another is the need for carers who can look after children who have some complex needs. For these commitments, we require foster carers who do not have have pre-school age children of their own. Until further notice, we need to prioritise registered interest in fostering from people who do not have pre-school age children in the household.
This will help us better match people's household circumstances to our priorities for children and young people needing priority placements. We already have a range of people and families with pre-school age children who have a registered interest and who are waiting to start assessment and preparation.
We appreciate that for people with pre-school age children who have a fostering interest, it may be disappointing we cannot pursue your interest at the moment. However, your interest is important to us - please contact us if you need further advice.
2. Interest in Planned Short Breaks Fostering
Due to the high number of people awaiting assessment for this scheme, we are unable to take enquiries /applications for our Planned Short Breaks fostering at the moment. We will be reviewing our recruitment needs for Short Breaks in March 2010.
For advice on becoming a foster carer, please contact us on (0113) 247 4747. Our office hours are 08:30 – 17:00, Monday to Friday.
You can also email us via the link on this page.
You may Register your Interest online or download a pdf registration of interest form and print and post to us. Our correspondence address is
Leeds City Council Fostering Service, 3rd Floor West, Merrion House, Leeds LS2 8QB
Information for Leeds City Council approved foster carers 2010:
The Fostering Service is developing new website pages to enable approved foster carers to access electronic versions of a selection of the Factfile (Handbook) content and CWDC (Children's Workforce Development Council) foster care training and development standards materials.
Factfile (Handbook)
Find out more information about the Factfile content please see Fostering - Factfile (Handbook)
Standards, training and development
To access the CWDC (Children's Workforce Development Council) standards materials and other training and development information, please see Fostering - standards, training and development