Fostering with HOME is different to fostering with any other agency. We know there are people, like you, who have all the skills, experience, passion and commitment to foster but simply don’t have the space. Property is a practical barrier and one that we will enable you to overcome.
We've summarised some of the more frequently asked questions on property below:
At HOME, we are committed to helping you find and move into a new home with enough space to care for children and young people. We understand that saving up a deposit and first month’s rent is difficult with the cost of living continually rising and then there’s actually moving your belongings and buying additional furniture for a bigger house.
​
Our Carer Financial Package is designed to support with this and more details can be found here.
HOME will help foster carers to identify and secure a private rental property.
​
This will give us flexibility to meet your needs and find larger properties throughout Greater Manchester where our families want to live, close to their communities and networks of support.
​
From the start of your assessment process, we will work with you to understand what your property needs are going to be and then we can work with you to secure your housing as your assessment progresses.
Absolutely. It’s one of the reasons that we’ve chosen to look at the rental pathway first as we develop. Greater Manchester is a huge area, and we don’t yet know where our amazing carers will come from. We understand that you will be a part of community, close to family and friends and that’s really important for your support as you foster.
You are welcome to find your own property though we do have a property specification that any house our carers live in must meet.
Some of the considerations for the property specifications are listed below - these are not immovable and we’ll work closely with you as we look to identify suitable properties together:
​
Features
​
-
Large kitchen
-
Shared communal areas or extra space for office/games rooms
-
Garden space
-
Separate toilet
-
Main bathroom plus shower room in larger properties.
-
Property in good condition
-
Garage would be preferable
Size
​
-
3, 4 or 5 bedrooms
-
Semi-detached or detached properties
-
Some terrace properties may be suitable for foster carers looking after only 1 or 2 children/young people but are unlikely to be appropriate for larger sibling groups.
​
Location
​
-
Semi-rural/urban.
-
We’d like to build clusters of HOME foster carers living within 30 minutes commute from one another.
-
Good transport links for foster carers and children
-
Close to local services such as schools, GP’s etc.
-
The tenancy agreement is between you and your landlord, but we will support you in checking that agreement works for you and for fostering.
In addition to your tenancy agreement with the landlord, you will also be asked to sign a Foster Carer Grant Agreement that lays out the arrangements in respect of the funding linked to HOME Moving Grant and Rent Subsidy, your notice period and responsibilities should you no longer wish to foster and the other expectations in terms of maintaining your home and the duration of your fostering career.
We hope that because of our property specification, and support when identifying your property that these should be minimal. However, if concerns do arise, you would notify your landlord as well as ourselves and we will support you in ensuring that they act quickly in getting the issue rectified.
Our service is aimed at those people who don’t currently have the space to foster or would like to foster more children than their current property can support.
​
If you own your own home but were wanting to foster more than one child, then if you wanted you could always let your owned property and move into a rental property through HOME.
Or if you were interested in offering children who live with our carers a break and some individual time away from their main home, then we are also looking to recruit a small number of ‘respite carers’ in our service. This might be a good option if you wanted to explore how you manage fostering on a smaller scale before fully committing to a house move and caring for more children.
You would need to talk to your current social landlord about your existing tenancy and the implications for you should you choose to move out. If you live with other people, it may be possible for one of them to take over the tenancy agreement and protect that property should you wish to move back to it in the future but that would need to be discussed with your current provider.
From the start of your assessment process, we will have talked to you about your current tenancy agreement, it’s length, end date and any notice period. We will work with you to ensure that you are able to give notice to your existing landlord in a timeframe that works for everyone.
We have ensured that the combination of the Fostering Allowances / Fees you will receive plus the HOME Rent Subsidy payments will be more than sufficient to cover the rental on a bigger property.
​
If you are struggling financially, we’d ask you to alert us at the earliest opportunity so we can work together to look at what can be done. We also have an Urgent Assistance Fund within our offer.
​
Ultimately, your tenancy is at risk if your rent is not paid outside of these circumstances and so working with us openly and raising any financial issues early is extremely important.
We understand that people's lives do change and there may come a time when you no longer feel that fostering is right for you.
We need to be sensitive to the exit points of foster carers from our homes and the impact that this will have on the children in their care. Our intention is to recruit the very best carers, match carefully into your care and support families so that unplanned exits are avoided.
We consider a planned exit to involve carers giving HOME at least 6 months prior notice of their intention to leave the service. It will give sufficient time for the tenancy notice to be served as well if necessary.
This will give HOME the very best chance to plan transition arrangements with the Placing Local Authority regarding arrangements for the children and make sure this incurs the least amount of disruption possible for them.
It will also give HOME the time to work with you to understand where you might want to move next, whether that is to your own owned property or another rental property. Wherever possible we will ensure the continuity of care for children and young people by working with you to remain with HOME, even in a different property.
If the placement(s) do need to come to an end we will work with the children's social worker to help find alternative families for the children potentially within the wider HOME cluster of carers.