Changing your career in your 40s

Progression and a competitive salary

While money isn’t the main reason people choose to foster, fostering is a profession and, as such, you deserve to earn a professional fee.

At Fosterplus, we believe the work our foster carers do is essential, and that they should be paid to reflect the care and dedication they put into changing young lives. That’s why our fostering allowance and benefits package covers the cost of caring for children and rewards you with a professional fee for your hard work and care.

Once you start fostering with us, you’ll receive an allowance of between £18,182 and £28,738 per child, per year. This depends on where you live, the age and number of children in your care, the type of fostering placement you choose and your experience. The allowance is generally tax-free and won’t affect any benefits you receive.

You will also be entitled to our rewards and discount schemes, paid respite or extra holiday allowance, the chance to earn additional income through our Refer-a-Friend scheme, and lots more.

Transferable skills

Whether you’re a manager or a team member, a nurse or a teacher, work in marketing or retail, or anything else, you would have picked up significant skills that can be transferred to fostering. These include empathy, being a team player, listening to others, compassion, organisation skills, patience, resilience, understanding, analytical skills, note taking, and so much more. All of these play a big role in caring for a vulnerable child.

When you combine these with your dedication to making a difference, as well as the foster training you’ll receive from Fosterplus, you’ll have everything you need to become an amazing foster parent.

Fostering with birth children

If you have your own children at home, fostering can be an immensely positive experience for them too. Let’s have a look at some of the benefits fostering can have on birth children:

• Building relationships - your children could build beautiful life-long bonds with your foster child.
• Learning to share - sharing is a great life lesson for children and will help them develop into more selfless and empathetic people as they get older.
• Social skills - you’ll have the opportunity to provide care for a number of foster placements, and this will give your children the chance to meet young people from many different walks of life, helping them to develop their social skills.
• Learning and understanding - your foster children will come from different backgrounds, possibly from different cultures or religions, and this can provide a great learning opportunity for your birth children.

The happiness and well-being of your birth children are paramount and we’ll work with you to ensure we make the best foster placement match for you and your whole family.

Flexibility

Fostering is a flexible role that allows you to work from home. This can be hugely beneficial if you’re looking for a career change at 40. As you get older, your personal life gets busier with partners, children, and family, who you want to spend more time with.

Working in a career that offers flexibility allows you to achieve a healthier work-life balance. It’s also possible to work and foster too, as long as you’re still able to meet the needs of a child in your care. We recognise that not all households have two incomes, or that people simply desire to keep a part time job for themselves, so we’ll work with you to understand if this could be a possibility.

Changing lives

There has never been a more critical time to become a foster parent. With a national shortage of foster families and around 30,000 new children entering the care system each year, we’re simply not seeing enough people coming forward to care for vulnerable children.

You could be the person that makes all the difference. Fostering is an active profession that pushes you, challenges you, and fills you with joy. It helps the next generation of children grow up in a secure and healthy home, helping to pave the way for a positive future full of optimism and hope.

As a foster carer, you’re not only a parent but a role model and a teacher and you can help the children in your care overcome trust issues, build up their confidence, feel loved, and give them the opportunity to grow into successful and happy adults.