How Do You Help a Child Settle Into Your Home?

A child might arrive with a bin bag and an hour’s notice. Or you might have weeks to get ready, with a photo of your spare room already on its way to them. Either way, the first few days matter, and there’s a lot you can do to make them easier.

Please note: the school timeline below reflects current Department for Education guidance on Personal Education Plans, correct as of September 2026. This is general information, not advice about a particular child’s education. See the government’s statutory guidance on promoting the education of looked-after children for the full detail.

What Should You Have Ready When a Child Arrives?

You will not always get much warning. Sometimes it’s days. Sometimes it’s hours.

A few small things help in that first evening:

• Pyjamas and a toothbrush in roughly the right size
• Their favourite breakfast cereal, if anyone has told you what it is
• A short book about your home, made in advance if you can, with photos of their bedroom, the pets, the street outside
• A few toys or games left out where they can see them, not packed away in a cupboard

None of this fixes how strange the day feels. It just gives a child one or two things that aren’t strange.

A teenager’s list looks different. Think a phone charger, a favourite snack, maybe a football shirt hung somewhere visible rather than a teddy on the bed. What matters isn’t the object itself. It’s that something in the room already says you were expected.

How Long Does It Take a Child to Settle In?

There’s no set answer, and anyone who gives you one is guessing.

Some children settle within a fortnight. Others take the best part of a year, with a run of good weeks broken up by a bad afternoon that seems to come from nowhere.

Government figures back this up in a roundabout way. Among children who have been in care continuously for at least two and a half years, 69% had lived in the same home for two years or more. Stability tends to build over time. It rarely arrives on day one.

Watch for the small things instead of one big turnaround moment: a child who starts leaving their bedroom door open, who asks what’s for tea before you’ve said anything, who stops flinching when a door closes upstairs. Those are the real markers. Nothing flips like a switch.

You do not need to get everything right straight away. You need to keep turning up.

What If a Child Has to Move to a New Home?

Sometimes a child’s time with you was only ever meant to be short. Sometimes plans change, and a child moves on sooner than anyone expected.

Either way, you can make the move gentler:

• Tell the new carers what the child likes, what makes them laugh, what food they will actually eat
• Help them pack their own things, not just the practical ones
• Put together a memory box: photos, a ticket stub, a drawing, anything that says this happened and it mattered
• Talk about what they are gaining, a bigger garden, a school nearer their friends, rather than only what is ending

A memory box doesn’t need to be expensive or clever. A shoebox with a favourite toy, a photograph and a drawing says more to a child than any conversation about how important they are.

Read more in Life Story Work: Helping a Child Hold On to Their Own Story.

What About School?

Most children keep their existing school if it’s at all possible. Moving school on top of moving home is a lot to ask of anyone.

When a change can’t be avoided, every child in care needs a Personal Education Plan: a document setting out what they need to catch up and settle in. The law requires this within 20 school days of a child becoming looked after, and it’s good practice to update it whenever they change school.

You are not writing this alone. It’s put together by the school and the local authority’s virtual school team, with your supervising social worker involved too. Your job is simpler: know what the child you’re caring for likes about school, what worries them, and say so in the meeting.

Do They Still See Their Family?

Usually, yes. Family time carries on unless a court has said otherwise.

It can bring up a tangle of feelings, excitement, sadness, nerves, sometimes all in the same afternoon. A child might come back from seeing their mum quiet and prickly for no reason you can name. That isn’t a sign anything has gone wrong. It’s usually a sign the visit mattered.

Read more in The Importance of Maintaining Family Ties in Foster Care.

What Happens If They Move Back to Their Family?

Sometimes the plan all along was for a child to go home. When it happens, expect a mix of excitement and nerves, from the child and probably from you too.

Where it’s possible, the move happens gradually: a weekend visit, then a longer stay, building up rather than one hard cut-off date. That’s the local authority’s plan to make, though you’ll usually help prepare the child for it.

It’s fine to feel the loss when a child leaves your home to go back to their family, even when it’s the outcome everyone hoped for. Your supervising social worker is there for that conversation too, not only for the harder days while a child is living with you.

You Will Not Be Doing This on Your Own

Every Fostering Hearts carer has a supervising social worker who supports around six families, not sixty. You’ll hear from them often, not just when something has gone wrong.

If a child arrives without warning, that’s covered too. Read Emergency Fostering: What Happens When a Child Arrives the Same Day for what a same-day arrival actually involves.

And trust doesn’t arrive with the removal van. It’s built slowly, the same way you’d build it with anyone. Read How Do You Help a Foster Child Learn to Trust You? for what that looks like day to day.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Should I Have Ready Before a Child Arrives?

The basics: pyjamas and a toothbrush, plus something to eat that they’ll actually recognise. A short book about your home and family, with photos, helps too if you have time to make one.

How Long Does It Take a Child to Settle Into a New Home?

There’s no fixed timeline. Some children settle within weeks, others take much longer, with good stretches and hard days along the way. Government figures show that stability tends to build over time: 69% of children looked after continuously for at least two and a half years had lived in the same home for two years or more.

Will a Child Have to Change Schools When They Move In With Me?

Not always. Many children keep their existing school. When a change is unavoidable, every child in care must have a Personal Education Plan within 20 school days of coming into care, arranged between the school and the virtual school team, with your supervising social worker involved.

What Is a Memory Box?

A small box of things that matter to a child: photos, a drawing, a ticket stub, a favourite toy. It goes with them if they move to a new home, so their story travels with them.