Short Term Fostering

🏡 What Is Short-Term Fostering?

Short-term fostering (also called temporary fostering) is a placement that supports children and young people until longer-term plans can be made. This could mean reunification with their family, a move to a long-term fostering arrangement, kinship care, or adoption.

These placements can last anywhere from a single weekend to a couple of years, depending on the situation. What remains consistent is the need for nurturing, stable care that prioritises the child’s emotional wellbeing.

🌱 Why Children Come into Short-Term Care

Children arrive in short-term placements for many reasons:

• A sudden family crisis or illness
• Concerns about neglect, abuse, or unsafe home environments
• Parents struggling with addiction, mental health or housing instability
• A delay while court decisions or care plans are finalised
• Waiting for a permanent match with long-term carers or adoptive parents
• Remand placements during legal proceedings

In every case, the child needs the same thing: a space where they are safe, seen and supported while the adults around them find clarity and direction.

🧠 What Children Need from Short-Term Foster Care

Children in temporary placements may be confused, overwhelmed, or unsure who they can trust. They may be processing sudden change — or bracing for more.

As a short-term foster carer, you’ll play a crucial part in:

• Creating stability during instability
  
• Providing emotional containment for difficult feelings
• Helping the child maintain routines and connection to school, friends, and identity
  
• Offering a sense of belonging, even if it’s not forever
• Supporting transitions — whether back to birth family or into a longer-term placement

You may also liaise with birth families, social workers, therapists or adoptive families to help ease those transitions and ensure the child’s voice is heard throughout the process.

🤝 Our Therapeutic Approach to Short-Term Placements

At Wholistic Fostering, we understand that short-term doesn’t mean shallow. We treat these placements with the same level of depth, preparation, and support as we would for long-term care.

Every child, regardless of how long they stay, deserves:

• Trauma-informed parenting
  
• Gentle routines and secure boundaries
  
• Curious, non-judgemental adults who want to understand their world
• Opportunities to heal — even in small steps

Our therapeutic team works closely with carers to personalise support, offer reflection and insight, and ensure you never feel like you’re doing it alone.

💡 What You Get from Short-Term Fostering

Short-term fostering is one of the most flexible and varied types of care. You may support one child for a week, or have multiple children pass through your care over time. Each story is different, and so is the way you’ll show up for them.

Carers often find this kind of fostering:

• Extremely rewarding, knowing you’re helping a child through a key moment in life
• Well-suited to carers with other commitments, or those who want to try different types of fostering
• A great fit for new carers building experience and confidence
  

A valuable way to develop close relationships with professionals and families working toward longer-term care plans

🛠️ Training and Support for Short-Term Carers

As with all our placements, we wrap our short-term carers in the same level of support and guidance. You’ll receive:

• A dedicated Supervising Social Worker
  
• 24/7 on-call support for anything that comes up
• Local training on attachment, trauma, transitions and therapeutic parenting
  
• Regular opportunities for peer connection and reflective space
  
• Help building relationships with other professionals involved in the child’s care

Short-term foster care can be emotionally demanding — and we’re committed to ensuring you’re never holding that space alone.

🧡 When Short-Term Becomes Something More

Sometimes, what begins as a temporary placement grows into something deeper. We’ve seen short-term carers fall in love with the children they’re supporting — and with the role itself. Many go on to take long-term placements, adopt, or specialise in areas like therapeutic or sibling care.

Each short-term placement is a chapter in a child’s life. For some, it’s a turning point.

👣 Could You Offer a Child Safety and Stability While the Future is Decided?

Short-term fostering might suit you if you:

• Have flexibility and patience
• Are interested in fostering but want a varied and adaptable experience
  
• Are committed to making a difference, even if it’s just for a short time
  
• Are open to supporting children through uncertain, transitional phases
  

Want to be part of a therapeutic, supportive fostering community

✨ Make a Meaningful Difference — Even If It’s Just for Now

Children may not remember every detail of their time in short-term care — but they will remember how you made them feel.

Warm. Safe. Wanted. Worthy.

If that sounds like something you could offer, we’d love to hear from you.

👉 Enquire now about becoming a short-term foster carer with Wholistic.