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: Could you make a difference to teenagers?
Following on from our support of the national Foster Care Fortnight 'Career Fostering' campaign in May, we are highlighting our urgent need for people who can offer support to school age children and teens.
We are looking for people and families who can support young people for shorter (emergency) or long term (planned) periods, particularly those children age 13yrs and above who can present a range of demands.
To be able to offer this type of fostering, people would at least need to have the following:
- experience of school age children and their needs
- if parents, older teens or grown up children of their own
- spare bedroom space
Suitable carers could be part of our Payment for Skills Level 4 payment scheme, based full time at home with full range of professional support and training. If you think this could be you, please contact us for more details or complete and send us a Registration of Interest Form.
Important information for enquirers 2009
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 the end of August 2009, we will 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.
We will be reviewing our ability to consider households with pre-school age children from the end of August 2009.
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. We will be reviewing our recruitment needs for Short Breaks in November 2009.
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.
Information Packs (hard copy version of the pages on this site) can be requested by contacting us on: (0113) 247 4747.
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 , 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 2009
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)
To access the Factfile content page, please click on the page title 'Fostering - Factfile (Handbook)' in the fostering pages list below.
CWDC Training and Development Standards
A page providing links to the CWDC site and pdfs of foster carer PDP (Personal Development Portfolio) materials will be available following the launch of the CWDC standards for Leeds foster carers in June 09.