Salary up to £22,420 per year, with tax-free benefits.

Are you looking for a meaningful career with life-changing potential? If you live in a loving, stable home and can offer a vulnerable child a safe place to live, becoming a Foster Carer could be the vocation for you.

Who can be a Foster Carer?

To undertake this role, you must provide a safe and caring home environment for children to live in on a short- or long-term basis.

The essential criteria you will need to meet include:

Being passionate about making a difference to children.

Having the right to work in the UK and being a permanent UK resident.

Being over the age of 21.

Have access to a Computer/Laptop and have good IT skills

Speaking fluent English.

Having a furnished spare room that is not used by anybody else.

Being committed to undergoing training and development.

Working in partnership with the team caring for the child/young person.

Foster Carers are paid to house and look after children who are temporarily or permanently unable to live with their birth families. You will work from home as part of a professional team committed to turning children's lives around.

As a Foster Carer with Five Rivers Child Care, you will receive excellent benefits, which include:

A highly competitive fostering allowance of at least £440 per week for every child you care for (this weekly allowance can be as high as £660 for some Foster Carers; in most cases, the fostering allowance is tax-free).

24/7 support from our local fostering teams.

Training and career development opportunities.

Up to fourteen days holiday allowance, with additional days accruing to reward longevity of service.

Options to look after children on a short- or longer-term basis.

Why become a Foster Carer with Five Rivers Child Care?

Helping young people in need: our Foster Carers give children a chance to have a brighter and happier future – what could be more rewarding than that?

Lifestyle: fostering gives you flexibility, and you can work from home. In some cases, it is possible to combine fostering with other work, too, depending on the needs of the children in your care.

The chance to launch a meaningful career: Foster Carers are child care experts working with a team of professionals; they receive specialist training and career development opportunities.

Financial benefits: for many of our Foster Carers, fostering is their primary source of income. At Five Rivers, we offer competitive pay, paid respite and other benefits.

Join a social enterprise: Five Rivers differs from many foster care providers. We are a social enterprise, which means you will join a cause-driven organisation with a strong social mission to support children, families, and communities.

Join a progressive organisation - we work in partnership with our Foster Carers and value their feedback. We listen to and work with our Carers by co-hosting local, regional, and national forums to share feedback to shape our services.

Fostering is extremely rewarding. Still, it can be challenging, so we invest in our foster carers by providing leading training, 24/7 support, and psychological expertise to help them do their work with children. You will be part of a special community of Foster Carers and join local support groups and buddy schemes.

Click 'apply' to speak to our carer enquiries team to learn more about the role and decide if fostering is right for you. You can also find out more about fostering with us by clicking apply.

Five Rivers Fostering jobs

Foster Carer