Emergency Fostering: What Happens When a Child Arrives the Same Day

A social worker rings at four in the afternoon. There is a nine-year-old who cannot go home tonight. You have until teatime to decide.

Please note: this is general information about how fostering works in England, not legal advice about any particular child. The statutory position here is correct at August 2026 and comes from the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010.

What is emergency fostering?

A placement that starts at short notice. Usually the same day. Sometimes at eleven at night.

Something has happened where the child was living, and there is nowhere for them to sleep tonight. A parent taken into hospital. Police protection after an incident. A home that has stopped being safe. Another placement that has broken down at speed.

The reason changes every time. The urgency does not.

How much notice will you actually get?

Sometimes a few hours. Sometimes forty minutes.

Our placements team rings you, tells you what we know, and you say yes or no.

You are allowed to say no. Carers say no all the time, because the school run does not work, or because there is already a child in the house who needs a settled week. It does not count against you and it does not change what you are offered next.

What will you know about the child before they arrive?

Less than you would like.

In a planned placement you get a referral, a placement planning meeting and a fortnight to read. In an emergency you often get a name, an age, a reason, and whatever else has reached the duty social worker by teatime.

Things that usually turn up later:

• medical history, including allergies and any medication
• which school they attend, and whether they can get there tomorrow
• who is allowed to see them and who is not
• whether they have brothers or sisters placed somewhere else
• what frightens them

That gap is uncomfortable. It is also normal. Nobody is keeping you in the dark. The information genuinely does not exist yet, and part of your job in week one is helping to build it.

What do the first few hours look like?

Quieter than you expect.

A child who arrives at half past nine at night in someone else’s car is not ready to talk. They may not eat. They may not take their coat off. They may be extremely polite, which is often harder to sit with than shouting.

What carers who do this regularly say helps:

• Show them the toilet and where you sleep. Small and practical beats warm and overwhelming.
• Offer food without making it a meal. Toast counts.
• Do not ask what happened. That is somebody else’s job, and asking can damage an investigation.
• Say out loud what happens in the morning, even if the answer is that you do not know yet and you will find out by nine.
• Let them keep the coat on.

The first night is not the moment to prove you are a good carer. It is the moment to be boring and predictable.

What do you need in the house?

Less than people assume. A drawer, not a shopping trip.

• a spare toothbrush and a towel
• pyjamas in two or three sizes
• a phone charger with the common connectors
• bread and milk, plus something sweet in the cupboard
• a nightlight

You do not need a decorated bedroom. Leave the room plain enough for the child to make it theirs.

If you are thinking about babies, the room question works differently, and we have written separately about whether you can foster a baby without a spare room.

Who do you ring at eleven at night?

Us. Someone answers.

Every fostering service in England has to provide out of hours support. What differs between agencies is who picks up and whether they know your household. Our supervising social workers each support around six families, so the person on the other end is not reading your file cold. There is more about that on our page on the support you get as a foster carer.

Children placed with us also carry a pocket-sized card with contact details on it, so they have a way of raising a worry that does not depend on you.

Does the paperwork still happen?

Yes. It happens afterwards instead of beforehand.

Regulation 9 says the local authority must prepare the placement plan before the placement begins, and where that is not reasonably practicable, as soon as reasonably practicable after it starts. Emergencies are the situation that second half was written for.

The child’s reviews then follow the pattern in regulation 33: the first within twenty working days of the child becoming looked after, the second within three months of the first, and after that at intervals of no more than six months.

One correction worth making, because it appears in a lot of fostering guides. You will read that the placement planning meeting happens five days before the child arrives. That is the shape of a planned placement. In an emergency, the meeting comes after the child is already asleep in your spare room.

Do you get paid for an emergency placement?

Yes, from the first night, at the same rate as any other placement.

• £479.50 a week for a child aged 0 to 10
• £507.50 a week for a young person aged 11 or over
• a higher fee, roughly £100 to £200 a week on top, where a child’s needs are greater
• a contribution towards your council tax

Those are per child, for every week they are placed with you, and they are correct at August 2026.

Foster carers are treated as self-employed, and most pay little or no tax on this because of Qualifying Care Relief. We have set out how that works in our article on tax and Qualifying Care Relief, and the rest of the package sits on our page about foster carer allowance and pay.

How long does an emergency placement last?

Anything from one night to the rest of childhood.

Some children go home within days. Some move on to a matched carer within a few weeks. And some stay, because the emergency placement turns out to be the settled one and the plan changes to fit the child rather than the other way round. That is often how long-term fostering begins.

Which is why we ask emergency carers to think hard before saying yes. You are not agreeing to one night. You are agreeing to the possibility of much longer.

How many carers does the country actually need?

Ofsted counted 42,190 fostering households in England in the year to 31 March 2025, down 1% on the previous year and down 7% since 2021. In the same year 8,290 people applied and 2,050 were approved.

The Department for Education recorded 81,770 children looked after in England on 31 March 2025. Of those, 54,820 were living with foster carers.

That gap is why the phone rings at four in the afternoon.

Is emergency fostering right for you?

It suits you if your week has slack in it. Someone at home, or work that bends. A car helps, because much of Norfolk and Suffolk is a long way from the nearest school by bus.

It does not suit you if you need to know what next Tuesday looks like.

That is not a failing. It is a good reason to look at short-term or long-term fostering instead, where placements are planned and you get proper notice. Our page on what fostering involves sets out the different types.

Fostering is not about being ready for anything. It is about being steady when something happens.

You will not be doing this on your own

Ofsted inspected Fostering Hearts from 18 to 22 November 2024. The report calls us “a good agency with outstanding leadership and management”.

One of our carers told the inspectors: “My supervising social worker has been an absolute lifeline for me. I feel so much more confident in my role because of her.”

Emergency placements are where that matters most. The call comes in, you say yes, and then someone has to help you sort out the school run, then the GP registration, then family time. And the fact that nobody sent any clothes.

That someone is us.

Frequently asked questions

Can you do emergency fostering if you work?

Sometimes, if your work is flexible or you work from home. A child who arrives at short notice may not be in school for the first few days, so someone needs to be around. If your hours are fixed, short-term or respite fostering usually fits better.

Do you have to accept an emergency placement when the agency calls?

No. You can decline any placement, and carers do. Saying no when the match is wrong is good practice, not a black mark.

Can you take an emergency placement without a spare room?

For a child over two, you need a spare bedroom. For a baby under two, a cot in your own room can work, and we take baby-only carers on that basis. In our more rural areas you will usually need to be able to drive.

How quickly can you be approved as a foster carer?

Around four to six months from your first conversation to panel, covering the home visit, Skills to Foster training and the Form F assessment.

What if the child arrives with nothing?

That happens often. We can get money to you quickly for clothes and essentials, and your supervising social worker will chase the local authority for the child’s own belongings.