Homestudy
Once you have submitted your application form a social worker from the fostering team will work with you to complete an assessment of your family. This assessment is commonly referred to as the homestudy. The social worker will visit you and your family at home to assess both you and your family’s suitability to foster. The homestudy will include looking at the skills and experience you already have as well as areas that may need further development and support.
During the assessment social work staff will discuss your application to foster with your own children. It is sometimes said that it is families, not adults who foster. It is certainly true that if you are accepted as a foster carer then children and young people placed with you will have an impact on everyone in your household – including your own children. It is important that you chat with your children at an early stage, and check out how they feel about being part of a family that fosters.
Sometimes it may be that following these discussions you decide to put an application on hold for a couple of years. Sometimes it may simply mean that you are careful about the age and gender of any child who you foster in order to minimise their impact upon your own children.