What Rights Does a Child in Foster Care Have?

A child who moves in with you does not hand over their rights at the door. Some are written into law. Some are written into their care plan. Knowing which is which makes your job clearer, not harder.

Please note: this is general information about the law in England, not legal advice about any individual child. Statutory timescales and figures are correct as at August 2026. The rules sit in the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010 and the Children Act 1989. Your supervising social worker and the child’s social worker will tell you what applies to the child in your home.

Do Foster Carers Hold Parental Responsibility?

No.

Parental responsibility stays with the child’s parents. Where a court has made a care order it is shared with the local authority. As a foster carer you get delegated authority instead: written permission to make the ordinary daily decisions, like a haircut or a sleepover.

What sits inside that permission is agreed in the child’s placement plan, and it varies from child to child. One nine-year-old’s plan might let you sign the consent form for a swimming lesson. Another’s might not. Ask on day one rather than guessing on day five.

Who Else Is Around the Child?

You are one adult in a team. Every child in care should have access to:

• their own social worker, employed by the local authority that looks after them
• an Independent Reviewing Officer, whose job is to check the local authority is doing what the care plan says
• an advocate, if they want help putting their views across, under section 26A of the Children Act 1989
• an independent visitor, someone appointed to visit and befriend them, under section 23ZB, where that is in their interests
• a personal adviser once they reach 16

A child can say no to an independent visitor. If they object, the local authority does not keep proposing one until they change their mind. That right to refuse is part of the point.

How Often Should the Child Be Seen and Reviewed?

This is the detail carers most often get told wrong, so here it is straight from the regulations.

Social worker visits, under regulation 28:

• within one week of the placement starting
• then at least every six weeks for the first year
• after the first year, at least every three months if the placement is meant to last until the child is 18, otherwise still every six weeks

Statutory reviews of the care plan, under regulation 33:

• the first within 20 working days of the child becoming looked after
• the second no more than three months after that
• then at least every six months

Older guidance and a fair few agency handbooks say reviews happen quarterly. They do not. The three-month gap applies once, between the first review and the second.

What Plans Will the Child Have?

Four documents, sometimes five. You will see all of them.

• the care plan, which sets out the whole picture and where the child is heading
• the placement plan, the practical one about living with you, including your delegated authority
• a health plan, covering the initial health assessment and reviews after it
• a Personal Education Plan, reviewed at school with the designated teacher
• a pathway plan from 16 onwards, if the child is approaching leaving care

Read the placement plan properly. It is the one that answers your Tuesday morning questions.

Does a Child in Care Have the Right to See Their Family?

Yes, and it is a right rather than a favour anyone grants.

Family time, which you may hear called contact, is set out in the care plan: who the child sees, how often, where, for how long, and who supervises. Only the local authority or a court can restrict it, and only to keep the child safe. That decision is never yours to make on the doorstep, however difficult a particular visit has been.

Your part is the practical bit, and it matters more than it sounds. Getting a child to a family centre in Norwich on a wet Thursday, then sitting with whatever comes home afterwards. We have written separately about keeping family ties going in foster care, because it is rarely as simple as a diary entry.

Does the Child Get Their Own Money?

Yes. Pocket money comes out of your fostering allowance, and the amount is agreed at the start and reviewed as the child grows. There may be limits on what it can be spent on, and those should be written down rather than invented later.

A child who has been in care continuously for 12 months also has a Junior ISA opened for them through the Share Foundation, with an opening government contribution of 200 pounds. They can start making choices about it at 16. They cannot touch the money until they turn 18.

Small amounts, handled openly, teach a lot. A young person who has never held a bank card at 17 will struggle at 19.

What If the Child Complains About You?

They are allowed to. Say that out loud to yourself now, because it lands better before it happens than during.

Every child in care can complain to the local authority about their care, and can ask an advocate to help them do it. They can ring Help at Hand, the Children’s Commissioner’s service, on 0800 528 0731. Nobody needs your permission first.

Most complaints are not allegations. A lot are about a confiscated phone, or a decision about family time that the child had no say in. Those are worth hearing. Carers who treat a complaint as an attack tend to have a harder few weeks than carers who treat it as information.

If something more serious is raised, your supervising social worker and the agency’s process take it from there, and you will not be left to work it out alone.

What About School?

A child in care has the same right to education as any other child, plus a Personal Education Plan and a virtual school head in the local authority whose job is their attainment.

In England a young person can leave school on the last Friday in June in the school year they turn 16. They must then stay in some form of education or training until 18, whether that is sixth form, college, an apprenticeship or a job with training attached. Being in care does not change that, and it does not close doors later either: plenty of care-experienced young people go on to university, as we set out in our piece on whether foster children can go to university.

And When They Turn 18?

The rights change shape rather than stopping.

• a personal adviser until 21, or until 25 if the young person asks for it to carry on
• a pathway plan, reviewed at least every six months
• a setting up home allowance from the local authority for the basics of a first flat
• a 2,000 pound higher education bursary from the council if they go into higher education

Support to 25 is no longer tied to being in full-time education. That changed under the Children and Social Work Act 2017, and a lot of paperwork still has not caught up. If you are told a 22-year-old care leaver only qualifies while studying, that is out of date.

Many young people also stay living with their foster family past 18 under Staying Put.

You Will Not Be Doing This on Your Own

Rights on paper only work if somebody in the house takes them seriously. That is mostly you, and we build the scaffolding around you.

Children fostered with Fostering Hearts carry a pocket-sized card with the numbers they need if they want to raise a worry, including numbers that do not go through us. Our Youth Council has written questions that get put to the fostering panel, so the young people in our care have a say in who gets approved to look after the next child. Our independence workshops cover first aid, vaping, and rights and entitlements, taught to the young people directly rather than explained to them second hand. And we have a lead education consultant who tracks how children are actually doing at school, not just whether a Personal Education Plan exists.

Your supervising social worker supports around six families. Small enough that they know the child’s name and which review is coming up.

You do not need to memorise the regulations. You need to notice when something is not happening and say so. We will do the chasing.

Frequently asked questions

Do foster carers have parental responsibility for a child in their care?

No. Parental responsibility stays with the child’s parents, and is shared with the local authority where there is a care order. Foster carers are given delegated authority for everyday decisions, and what that covers is written into the child’s placement plan.

How often does a social worker visit a child in foster care?

Within one week of the placement starting, then at least every six weeks for the first year. After the first year, at least every three months where the placement is intended to last until the child turns 18, and otherwise every six weeks. This is set out in regulation 28 of the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010.

Can a child in foster care make a complaint about their foster carer?

Yes. Any child in care can complain to the local authority about their care and can ask an independent advocate to help. They can also contact Help at Hand, the Children’s Commissioner’s advice service for children in care, on 0800 528 0731. They do not need their foster carer’s permission.

Does a child in foster care have savings?

A child who has been continuously in care for 12 months has a Junior ISA set up through the Share Foundation, which receives an opening government contribution of 200 pounds. The young person can make choices about the account from 16 but cannot access the money until they are 18.

What support does a young person get after they leave care?

A personal adviser until they are 21, or until 25 if they ask for it to continue, plus a pathway plan reviewed at least every six months, a setting up home allowance, and a 2,000 pound higher education bursary from the local authority if they go into higher education.