How Long Does It Take to Become a Foster Carer in England?
The honest answer is six to eight months from your first enquiry to the Agency Decision Maker signing your approval. Some people get through in five months. Some take twelve. The variation is almost entirely explained by how quickly Stage 1 checks come back, whether referees are responsive, and how efficiently the fostering service manages their workload — not how suitable you are.
Here is what actually happens at each stage.
Stage 1: The Factual Phase (Weeks 1–10)
Stage 1 begins when you submit a Registration of Interest to a fostering service — either your local authority or an Independent Fostering Agency. Under the Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011, the service has 10 working days to decide whether to proceed with a formal Stage 1 assessment.
Once they confirm they are proceeding, several checks run in parallel:
Enhanced DBS check. This is a Disclosure and Barring Service check for you and every household member aged 18 or over. It includes a check against the barred list for those prohibited from working with children. DBS checks typically take two to four weeks, though complex histories or address changes can slow this down.
Local authority checks. The fostering service contacts every local authority where you have lived for the past 10 years to check for any social services involvement. This is one of the most common sources of delay — some local authorities are slower to respond than others.
GP medical. Your GP completes a full health assessment. This is not about finding perfect health; it is about establishing that you have the physical and mental stamina to care for a child. The assessment form goes to a panel medical adviser, which adds a processing step.
Three personal references. A minimum of three referees are required in England. A social worker from the fostering service will interview each referee — by video or in person. Referees who are hard to schedule add weeks to the process.
If you are a couple, all checks apply to both of you. Stage 1 typically takes eight to ten weeks when checks proceed without complications.
Stage 2: The Form F Assessment (Weeks 10–28)
Stage 2 is the analytical phase. It centres on the creation of the Form F — formally the Prospective Foster Carer Report — a comprehensive document produced by your assessing social worker that analyses your life history, relationships, skills, and readiness to parent a child with complex needs.
The 2025 revision of the Form F by CoramBAAF introduced a more strengths-based and trauma-informed framework. Rather than a simple biographical account, it analyses how your own experiences equip you to understand and support a traumatised child. Key areas covered include:
- Your family history and childhood, explored through genograms (family tree diagrams)
- Your adult relationships, including any significant previous partners (ex-partners are required referees)
- Your parenting approach, whether you have biological children or not
- Your support network, mapped through an ecomap
- How you manage stress, conflict, and your own emotional regulation
This typically involves six to ten home visits with your assessing social worker over a period of four to six months. Some services batch visits more intensively; others spread them over the full six months depending on their caseload.
Skills to Foster training
Alongside the Form F visits, you attend the Skills to Foster preparation programme — six sessions developed by The Fostering Network, mandatory under England's National Minimum Standards. Groups typically run across several weekends or evenings. You cannot be presented to the fostering panel without completing this training.
The Fostering Panel (Week 28–32)
Once the Form F is complete and Skills to Foster is done, your application is presented to the Fostering Panel — a statutory body required under Regulations 23 to 25 of the Fostering Services Regulations 2011. The panel reviews your Form F and makes a recommendation on whether you should be approved and on what terms (number of children, age range, gender).
You are invited to attend the panel meeting. It lasts about an hour. Panel members typically ask about your support network, how you would handle contact with birth families, and your understanding of specific challenging scenarios. Most applicants find it less intimidating than they expected.
After the panel, the Agency Decision Maker (ADM) — a senior officer within the local authority or IFA — makes the final decision. The ADM has seven working days to respond to the panel's recommendation.
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The Independent Review Mechanism
If the ADM proposes not to approve you, you receive a "qualifying determination." You then have 28 days to either accept the decision or apply to the Independent Review Mechanism (IRM), an independent body that can hear your case and make a fresh recommendation.
This step is rare, but knowing it exists is important. The IRM is not bound by the fostering service's original decision.
What You Can Do to Avoid Delays
Get your referees ready early. Contact your three referees before you submit your Registration of Interest. Warn them they will be contacted and asked to make themselves available for an interview.
Organise your address history. The 10-year address history for local authority checks needs to be accurate and complete. Gaps or inconsistencies slow down responses.
Book your GP appointment promptly. Some GP surgeries take several weeks to fit in medical assessments. Request this early in Stage 1.
Prepare your home documentation before Stage 2. Your assessing social worker will need to see evidence that you have a spare bedroom that meets the National Minimum Standards — essentially, a private space for the child with adequate lighting, heating, and appropriate safety features. Having this documented in advance removes a potential hold-up.
Be responsive to your social worker. The single biggest variable in your timeline is your own availability. Assessments that stall for months often do so because the applicant has long gaps between visits, takes weeks to return forms, or is unavailable for scheduled sessions.
The England Fostering Approval Guide sets out the complete Form F structure, what the panel typically asks, and the practical preparation checklists — including a document folder template — that help carers move through both stages without unnecessary delays.
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Download the England Foster Care Quick-Start Checklist — a printable guide with checklists, scripts, and action plans you can start using today.