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February 2026

Ascent Fostering Team
In News

What Is the Difference Between Adoption and Foster Care?

The Difference Between Adoption & Foster Care

Both adoption and foster care provide children with safe, nurturing homes when they are unable to live with their birth families. While they share the same aim of helping children feel secure and supported, they differ in purpose, legal status and the role of the carers involved. The key difference is permanence.

Adoption offers a permanent legal family for a child. Foster care can offer long-term care and stability, but it is not legally seen as a permanent arrangement. The child usually remains legally part of their birth family, and foster carers support the child as part of a wider professional team working towards the child’s long-term plan.

What Is Therapeutic Foster Care?

Therapeutic foster care involves parenting, caring for, and supporting children and young people who have often experienced trauma, loss or disruption in their early lives. The focus is not only on providing a safe home, but also on emotional development and positive relationships. To help the child heal and make sense of their early life experience.

Foster care can provide children with emergency, short-term or long-term care. Many children live with foster families for several years and experience stability and belonging within that home. However, fostering is not permanent in a legal sense. As the child remains under the care of the local authority and connections with their birth family are often maintained.

As a therapeutic foster carer, you provide:

  • A safe, stable and nurturing home
  • Consistent routines and emotional security
  • Therapeutic parenting that supports recovery from trauma through building meaningful relationships
  • Look past their presenting behaviour and show curiosity into their inner world and what their behaviour may be communicating, and reflect on how this could relate to their early life experiences
  • Understanding, patience and resilience during periods of change and uncertainty

Foster carers work as part of a professional network, alongside social workers, therapists and the fostering agency. They receive ongoing training, supervision and therapeutic support to help meet the child’s individual needs.

What Is Adoption?

Adoption is a legal process through which adoptive parents become a child’s permanent parents. Parental responsibility transfers fully to the adoptive family, and the child becomes a permanent legal member of that family.

Adoption is usually considered when:

  • A child cannot safely return to their birth family
  • A permanent legal family is required to meet the child’s needs

Following adoption, social care involvement usually reduces, and adoptive parents take full responsibility for all aspects of the child’s care.

Key Differences Between Adoption and Foster Care

Foster Care

Adoption
Can be long-term, but is not legally permanent Permanent and lifelong
Child remains legally part of birth family Legal ties to the birth family change
Foster carers work as part of a professional team and hold Delegated Authority. Adoptive parents hold full parental responsibility. Adoptive parents can legally change their child’s name.
Ongoing support, supervision and training provided Less ongoing professional involvement
Focus on stability, healing and support. Focus on permanent family membership.

Two Different but Equally Important Roles

Adoption and foster care both play vital roles in supporting children who cannot live with their birth families. Adoption provides lifelong legal permanence. Fostering provides stability, care and emotional support for children over the long term, while recognising that the child’s legal and family identity remains important.

Foster carers offer consistency and nurturing relationships while longer-term plans are followed, whether that is returning home, long-term fostering or adoption. Their role is central in helping children feel safe, understood and able to thrive.

Understanding the difference can help you decide how you would like to support children in care. If you would like to learn more about becoming a therapeutic foster carer with Ascent, you may find our guide to fostering helpful.

 

 

 

If you would like to find out more about fostering and the amazing difference you could make in a young persons life. Give usa call on 0203 757 0070 or click HERE to receive a call back. We’d be happy to answer any questions you may have on fostering and take you through the process.

Ascent Fostering Team
In News

Do Foster Carers Get Paid or Receive Financial Support?

One of the most common questions people ask when considering fostering is: “Do foster carers get paid?”

The simple answer is yes. Foster carers do receive financial support. Fostering is an incredibly rewarding role, but it also comes with real responsibilities and costs. To make sure carers can provide a stable, nurturing home without being out of pocket, foster parents receive a fostering allowance. And may also benefit from tax relief and access to certain benefits.

We believe foster carers should be properly supported. Both emotionally and financially, so they can focus on what truly matters: providing excellent care to children and young people.

Understanding Fostering Allowances

Foster carers receive a weekly fostering allowance for each child in their care, which Ascent pay fortnightly. This allowance is designed to cover the costs of caring for the child, including:

  • Food and clothing
  • Transport to school, appointments, family time, or activities
  • Pocket money and hobbies
  • Household expenses
  • Special occasions and celebrations

At Ascent, our fostering allowances are designed to reflect the real costs of caring for children, ensuring that our carers are never financially disadvantaged for the incredible work they do. As we are a therapeutic fostering agency, our fees reflect the complexity and wrap-around support we provide to the foster carer, child and professional network.

Tax Relief for Foster Carers

Foster carers benefit from a special tax scheme introduced by HMRC called Qualifying Care Relief. This makes the tax process straightforward and often means that carers pay little or no tax on their fostering income.

Under this scheme:

  • You can earn up to a set tax-free allowance each year for your fostering work (currently £18,140 per household, plus an additional weekly amount for each child in your care).
  • If your fostering income stays below this threshold, you don’t need to pay tax on it.
  • Even if you earn more, you’ll only pay tax on the amount above the allowance.

This system recognises the valuable service foster carers provide and ensures fostering remains financially sustainable for families.

Benefits and Additional Financial Support

Foster carers may also be eligible for certain state benefits, depending on their circumstances. These could include:

  • Child Benefit: Usually not paid for foster children (since the fostering allowance replaces it).
  • Universal Credit: Foster carers can usually claim Universal Credit for themselves, but the fostering allowance isn’t counted as income when calculating entitlement.
  • Council Tax Reduction: Depending on your income and local authority, you might qualify for a reduction.

Each carer’s situation is unique, so at Ascent, all our foster carers are registered with Foster Talk, who are able to offer independent support and advice on fostering finances.

Fostering Is Not Just About Money — But Support Matters

While financial support is an important part of fostering, most carers will tell you that the true rewards are emotional rather than monetary — seeing a child grow in confidence, smile again, and feel safe for the first time.

Still, we know that practical support matters. That’s why Ascent provides clear information about allowances, pays on time, and ensures that our carers are never left uncertain about what they’re entitled to.

In addition to allowances, we offer a robust support, including support from a qualified social worker, a Therapeutic Consultant, an Out of Hours service, Stay over Breaks (sometimes known as respite), training and events.

At Ascent, we value the work our foster carers do and ensure they’re supported in every way — financially, emotionally, and professionally. If you’re thinking about becoming a foster carer and want to understand more about the financial support available, our team is always happy to explain how it works and what you can expect.

 

 

 

If you would like to find out more about fostering and the amazing difference you could make in a young persons life. Give usa call on 0203 757 0070 or click HERE to receive a call back. We’d be happy to answer any questions you may have on fostering and take you through the process.

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