Fostering Sanctuary-Seeking Children
Fostering sanctuary-seeking children—also known as unaccompanied asylum-seeking children—is a unique and impactful way to offer safety, stability, and compassion to young people fleeing conflict, persecution, or hardship. These children arrive in the UK alone, often scared and unsure of what lies ahead. As a foster carer, you can provide the care, understanding, and security they need to begin rebuilding their lives. At our agency, we offer specialist training and ongoing support to help you navigate cultural and emotional needs with confidence. By opening your home to a sanctuary-seeking child, you’re offering not just shelter—but hope, healing, and a fresh start.
What is Sanctuary-Seeking Fostering?
Fostering sanctuary seeking children involves providing a temporary home for a child who is awaiting placement with a permanent family or who is in the process of seeking asylum. Foster families play a critical role in helping these children feel safe, secure, and loved during a time that can be very challenging and uncertain.
Are you Suited to Fostering Sanctuary-Seeking Children?
Fostering sanctuary seeking children in the UK can also be challenging. Depending on the child’s background and experiences, foster families may need to provide specialist care that requires additional training or support.
In addition, foster parents may also need to be prepared to work with social workers and other professionals, such as translators and lawyers, to ensure that the child receives the appropriate care and support.
Despite these challenges, many families find that fostering sanctuary seeking children in the UK is an extremely rewarding experience that offers a sense of purpose and fulfilment.
Benefits of sanctuary seeking children
One of the main benefits of fostering sanctuary seeking children in the UK is the opportunity to make a positive difference in the lives of vulnerable children and young people. By providing a safe and supportive home environment, foster families can help these children to heal from the physical and emotional wounds of their displacement and loss.
Moreover, fostering sanctuary seeking children in the UK can be a rewarding and enriching experience for the foster family. Many families who have fostered sanctuary seeking children report feeling a deep sense of fulfilment and satisfaction from helping children in need and often form close bonds with the children they care for.
Why choose Match Foster Care?
Match Foster Care is an independent, non-private-equity-owned, fostering agency designed with the desire to help children fulfil their full potential, even when they can’t be in the direct care of their families. Training and support will be provided by our multidisciplinary professionals who accompany you along the fostering journey: a registered nurse, support workers, education workers and a therapeutic practitioner.
Testimonials
Short-term fostering typically refers to foster placements less than two years in length. Here children stay with you while others finalise their legal care proceedings, which can take a few months to complete. As a rule, short-term foster care is more common among young children.
Therefore, with short-term fostering, you may not know how long they will stay with you once they arrive.
Long-term fostering, sometimes known as permanent fostering, means that it is agreed that a child or young person will remain living with your family through to adulthood. The child is still part of the care system, which means that there will still be regular meetings and you will continue to have the support of a team around you. For many children living in foster care, a long-term arrangement gives them the reassurance and security that they need, helping them to feel a full member of your family.
Respite fostering is where you provide care for children always with other foster carers. This is usually for a weekend or for a couple of weeks while the child’s usual foster parents have a break.
Droitwich Office
Severn House, 30 – 32 Ombersley Street West,
Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire,
WR9 8QZ
Stoke-on-Trent Office
3-5 Vale Street,
Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire,
ST4 7LR
