What does emergency foster care involve?
When we think of fostering, we tend to think long term placements, however, there are so many different elements to fostering. It is not just a long-term placement, in some cases, fostering can become an immediate short-term placement on a one-to-two-night basis. This is called emergency foster care and it involves providing care at short notice.
Children and young people also babies who need to stay somewhere else because of safety concerns, can be placed in emergency foster care as required.
What is Emergency Foster Care?
Emergency foster care is a type of placement in which a vulnerable child must be placed into care under very short notice, usually in under 24 hours. There is no planning or introduction that take place beforehand, and usually the placement is a short term one. The vulnerable child is placed until an appropriate placement has found by the fostering agency.
Reasons as to why a young child can be placed into emergency foster care, could be because of an unsafe, unstable child’s home environment. This could be due to unexpected circumstances such as the death of a carer or due to health problems.
The main objective of emergency foster care is to make sure that the child in need is kept safe, protected, and secure on a temporary basis.
How Long Does Emergency Foster Care Last?
As discusses above, emergency foster care placements are a short-term arrangement, in some cases just night or two. During this arrangement the social worker and relevant individuals has time to reasonably assess the child’s family situation.
During this time, if the circumstances are right, then the child can be looked after by a family member until the whole situation is established. On very rare occasions, emergency foster care placements can last many weeks or months, and if appropriate, can even become a long-term arrangement.
Discuss Emergency Foster Care with Caring Hearts Fostering today
If you are interested in being an emergency foster care provider and would want to learn more about the emergency foster care procedures, please contact us as soon as possible. You can call us on 020 8810 6380 to chat with one of our dedicated staff members casually.
We can offer you all the information you need about fostering a child or adolescent, as well as answer any questions you may have.