Overview
On 8 July, the Department for Education published new draft standards and guidance for fostering in England for consultation. These replace the current National Minimum Standards for Fostering (2011), Training, Support and Development Standards (TSDS) from 2012, and Children Act 1989 Volume 4 guidance on Fostering.
We have welcomed the standards which reflect the changing role of foster carers. They set out a stronger framework to ensure foster carers are recognised, trusted, supported and valued for their vital role in creating stability in the lives of children, and acknowledged as the person that often knows them best. One of the most important changes is the expectation that foster carers should be treated as equal partners in the team around the child alongside delegated authority by default. There are also much needed changes to the allegations process to make it fairer and more proportionate, as well as a focus on how to support children to maintain important relationships, support networks for foster carers and therapeutic parenting.
You can read our full statement on the new standards here.
We’ve summarised the new standards and shared the key themes below to help you understand the changes and what it means for foster carers and fostering services.
The Government is consulting on these documents until 16 September 2026. We will be working with our members to feed into the consultation through a survey and focus groups.
The draft standards are organised into three new documents:
1. The Fostering Quality Standards –
setting out what fostering services should do to recruit, support and develop foster carers.
- Recruitment, selection and assessment
- Kinship and family and friends foster carers
- Identity, culture and family relationships
- Knowledge and capability
- Support and supervision
- Delegated authority and everyday family life
- Allegations, concerns and the fair treatment of carers
2. The Foster Carer Development Standards –
outlining what foster carers should know and be able to do within their first year of approval, with duty on services to support them to achieve this.
- Understanding the role.
- Building safe, stable and loving relationships
- Therapeutic parenting
- Identity, culture and the child’s sense of self
- Safeguarding and the child’s safety
- Health, education and everyday wellbeing
- Working with others around the child
3.Guidance for Fostering Services –
explaining how fostering services should meet their legal duties and implement the standards in practice.
- Building safe, attuned, enduring relationships
- Helping children make sense of their story and identity
- Responding to behaviour as communication
- Supporting children’s health, education and rights
- Working alongside the network around the child
Key themes throughout the guidance
1. Foster carers recognised as equal partners in the team around the child
One of the most positive developments is the clear recognition that foster carers are often the adults who know children best, and should be treated as such.
The Fostering Quality Standards state that foster carers should be treated as equal partners in the team around the child and be meaningfully involved in meetings and decisions about a child's life. Decisions should draw on the views of those with the most up-to-date knowledge of the child, often the foster carer.
This is reinforced in the Guidance for Fostering Services, which describes foster carers as core members of the team around the child whose insights should contribute to planning and decision-making.
2. Strengthening delegated authority
The draft standards place a strong emphasis on children being able to experience family life without limitations.
Fostering Quality Standard 6: Delegated Authority and Everyday Family Life states that delegated authority should be the default. Foster carers should be trusted and supported to make everyday decisions and be the primary decision-makers for a child's day-to-day life. Any restrictions should be individually justified, clearly explained and regularly reviewed, rather than based on blanket rules.
The Foster Carer Development Standards also emphasise that carers should understand and confidently exercise delegated authority, particularly when everyday decisions need to be made quickly in a child's best interests.
The accompanying Guidance for Fostering Services states that placement plans should clearly record delegated authority arrangements and which decisions carers can make themselves.
3. More proportionate and supportive assessment processes
Many prospective foster carers will welcome proposals to make assessments more proportionate, flexible and strengths-based.
Under Fostering Quality Standard 1: Recruitment, Selection and Assessment, assessments should:
- Be completed within six months
- Focus on a person's ability to provide a safe, stable and loving home
- Be proportionate and evidence-based
- Avoid unnecessary barriers linked to family structure, housing arrangements or personal history
- Consider what support might enable someone to become a successful foster carer
The Guidance for Fostering Services reinforces this approach by stating that approval decisions should be based on applicants' values, capacity and potential to care safely for children. Health assessments should focus on how health affects caring capacity, rather than requiring extensive medical information. The guidance also outlines how fostering panels should run, including their independence from the fostering services and the expertise of panel members.
The proposals also aim to simplify transfers between fostering services by recognising existing approvals and avoiding unnecessary reassessments unless there are safeguarding concerns.
4. Greater emphasis on enduring relationships
The strongest theme throughout the draft standards is the importance of relationships.
Fostering Quality Standard 3: Identity, Culture and Family Relationships highlights the need to support children's connections with parents, siblings and wider family where it is safe and in their interests. Foster carers should be supported to maintain these relationships and contribute their knowledge when decisions about contact are made.
The standards also recognise the importance of enduring relationships with foster carers themselves. Placement endings should be carefully managed, and important relationships should be maintained wherever possible.
Similarly, the Foster Carer Development Standards place significant weight on helping carers build safe, stable and loving relationships and understanding that one enduring relationship with a trusted adult can be a key protective factor for children in care.
The Guidance for Fostering Services goes further by encouraging ongoing relationships after placements end and recognising the importance of Staying Put arrangements and lifelong connections between young people and former foster carers.
5. A more supportive approach to allegations and concerns
One of the most important changes for foster carers appears in Fostering Quality Standard 7: Allegations, Concerns and the Fair Treatment of Carers.
The draft standards recognise that most concerns should be addressed through support, supervision and reflection. They emphasise that concerns about foster carers should be assessed impartially and proportionately, without assumptions being made.
The standards propose:
- Increased support for carers during investigations
- Keeping carers informed throughout the process
- Access to advocacy where support is not sufficient
- Preserving important relationships wherever safe to do so
- Supporting carers to improve and continue fostering where possible
- Recognising that carers with a strong history of providing good care may return to fostering following concerns being resolved
The accompanying Guidance for Fostering Services adds further protections. It states that:
- Child removal should not be automatic
- Decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis
- Payments and allowances should continue during investigations. However, payments will be kept under regular review, taking account of how long the investigation is taking and the seriousness of the matter. Where there is an ongoing police investigation, continuation may need to be reconsidered
- Carers should have access to records and the opportunity to challenge inaccuracies
The guidance highlights that foster carers should receive fair treatment and appropriate support while concerns are being investigated.
6. Building a stronger support network
The draft standards place a greater emphasis on ensuring foster carers have a strong network of support around them. Under the Fostering Quality Standard 5: Support and supervision, fostering services should provide responsive monthly supervision, peer support network with evidence based models, access to multidisciplinary expertise which can provide preventative, crisis and emotional support and planned breaks to help carers sustain their role.
The standards also recognise the importance of the wider network around the child, encouraging services to consider how family members, friends and other trusted adults can help provide stability, support and continuity of relationships.
This is reinforced through the Foster Carer Development Standards, which highlight the carer's role within a wider team around the child and the importance of working collaboratively with professionals and families.
Overall, the proposals promote a "village" approach, recognising that children and foster families achieve the best outcomes when carers are well-supported, connected and valued.
7. Therapeutic Parenting, Identity and Belonging
Development Standards 3 and 4 highlight the importance of foster carers helping children heal from trauma while developing a strong sense of identity and belonging.
Therapeutic parenting encourages carers to understand behaviour as communication, responding with empathy, consistency and clear boundaries to help children feel safe, build trust and regulate their emotions. The standards also recognise the need for fostering services to provide carers with ongoing training, supervision and emotional support.
Alongside this, carers play a key role in supporting children to understand and celebrate their identity, culture, family history and community connections. Fostering services must ensure carers have the knowledge and confidence to support diverse identities, challenge discrimination and contribute to meaningful life story work.
Together, these standards reinforce that foster care is about more than providing a safe home – it is about helping children heal, belong and thrive.
Consultation
The consultation on these documents is open till 16 September 2026 and includes questions on:
- To what extent do you agree with the principles used to write this document?
- To what extent do you agree with each of the individual proposed standards and guidance?
- Any overall comments on the proposed standards and guidance
- Suitability for kinship carers and meeting their specific needs
- Views on the implementation of the revised standards and guidance
- A proposal to make a clarifying regulatory change so that a foster carer who has given notice can withdraw this notice within 28 days
We will be working closely with our members to share their views.
