Fostering Allowance and Rewards

When will I receive the fostering allowance?

You’ll receive bi-weekly fostering allowance payments once a child or young person begins living with you.

What does the fostering allowance cover?

Our foster carer allowances has two parts:

• Expenses – this covers the costs of caring for a child and includes things like groceries, clothing, entertainment and opportunities for their personal development.
• Professional fee – this rewards you for your hard work and dedication to your role as a foster parent.

Money matters, which is why we offer generous fostering allowances to help you meet the needs of children in your care while also recognising your professionalism and expertise.

We regularly review payments to ensure our foster families don’t struggle to make ends meet due to the rising cost of living and inflation.

Check out our fostering allowance calculator below to see how much you could receive.

Our Benefits:

At FCA, we acknowledge and value your work as foster parents. You go above and beyond for children and young people, so we do the same for you. Once you’ve been an approved FCA foster parent for over six months, you’ll receive two bonus payments each year – £250 in summer and £250 in winter.

When you foster with us, you can also benefit from our exclusive referral scheme. If you refer a friend and they become an approved foster parent, you’ll receive £1,500. Once they’ve been fostering with us for a year, you’ll receive another £1,500.

Additional rewards

We don’t do things by halves. When you foster with FCA, you’ll also be part of our STARS scheme, one of the most generous reward and loyalty schemes. This scheme recognises and rewards foster parents for changing the lives of children and young people in their care.

Our Stars scheme includes:

• Shine - our monthly Time to Shine Awards celebrate the incredible contribution our foster parents make within our community, offering prizes and recognition as a sincere thank you for their dedication and hard work.
• Together – to celebrate your time as part of the FCA family, you’ll receive a personalised gift or experience for each fostering milestone you reach.
• Appreciation – We organise yearly local events across the UK to thank our foster parents; this can include lunch or afternoon tea – and there is always lots of cake! We also recognise the birth children of foster parents who play an essential role within the fostering family.
• Reward - In addition to the summer and winter bonuses, we also offer an annual appreciation bonus from £150 up to £1,000 depending on your length of service.
• Savings – We provide all of our foster parents with access to our rewards platform where you can take advantage of fantastic discounts across hundreds of high street names, online stores and supermarkets. From theatre tickets and theme park adventures to National Trust properties and local cinemas, our discount scheme also helps make family days out more affordable.