Why choose your local authority – IFA vs LA

Children and young people are our key focus

As we are a not-for-profit organisation, our full mission and purpose is to ensure that all children and young people under our care are placed locally in homes where they are supported to thrive, with foster carers who have the time to address their specific needs and help achieve the best outcomes for every child. By fostering with your local authority, more budget becomes available for us to invest directly back into our service, further improving the lives of our children and young people and our offering for foster carers. 

Keeping local children in the city they love

Fostering with Plymouth City Council means that you will help us in our mission to keep children local, in the city they know and love. This is vital to ensure that children and young people can maintain relationships that are important to them, remain in their current schools and other clubs or groups, and allow them to feel confident in their surroundings.  

If a child or young person comes to be placed with an Independent Fostering Agency (IFA), they will be placed amongst a pool of foster carers that can span nationally, meaning that the child or young person may have to relocate to a place they have not been before, making it difficult to maintain important relationships and causing disruption to their routines.  

First placement priorities

When a child comes into the care of the authority, we aim to place them with one of our local authority foster carers as a priority, meaning that as a foster carer, you will go little time with an empty bed. Should there not be a suitable placement available with our local authority carers, children and young people will be matched with a carer from an IFA, or be placed in a residential placement, at which point, this could be national.  

Local support

When fostering with Foster for Plymouth, you will have access to comprehensive support for all of your needs or queries, so you’re never alone in your foster caring journey. The support you will receive includes: 

• Your own Supervising Social worker who will visit you regularly to offer support, advice and encouragement 

• Access to 24-hour support through our daytime duty team, who are available 08:30 – 17:00, and our out-of-hours service who operate 17:00 – 08:30 

• Invitations to regular local in-person and online support groups, providing valuable opportunities to meet other carers and form friendships 

• Buddy scheme for practical support from an experienced foster carer 

• Invitations to regular social events for Plymouth foster carers, including coffee mornings, family outings, celebration events and carer-only sessions.  

• Opportunity to join our Mockingbird programme, where you can enter a constellation to form bonds with other carers, engage in small group family activities and have additional round-the-clock support.  

• Access to our Foster Carer Portal, a member-only platform for booking events, managing paperwork and reports, and accessing useful information.  

Strong community amongst our carers. 

Our carers and team have built a strong community amongst our children, young people, carers and team, and we host regular social catch-ups to maintain this. These events are the perfect opportunity to bond, share advice, and talk about life outside of fostering. With our carers and team all based locally, someone in the community is never far to offer support.  

With an IFA, as the pool of foster carers can sometimes be national, training or social events can often be a more considerable distance from your home town. 

Mockingbird Constellations

We have partnered with The Fostering Network to implement their Mockingbird Scheme within our offering. Mockingbird Constellations are a way for us to build small units which contain a number of foster carers and the children in their care. This allows for foster carers to build friendships, receive help with looking after the children in their care, and is also a valuable place for the cared-for young people to build relationships with other looked-after children. For single carers, this is a brilliant opportunity to be a part of a wider fostering unit or family. Being a part of Mockingbird is optional, but we are building more constellations to allow more carers to get involved.  

Generous Pay, Allowances and Council Tax Exemptions

We understand that pay and financial allowances are an essential element in your decision to become a foster carer, and this is why we offer generous payments and allowances to our foster carers. This includes payment per child in your care, regardless of their age, a reward payment for the foster carer, plus generous allowances including clothing allowance, birthday and holiday allowances.  

In addition to this, Plymouth City Council is offering council tax support, which means we will help with your council tax or cover it completely.

To find out more about our competitive payments, head to our financial calculator.

Training and Development opportunities

As a local authority, we facilitate our carers to develop their skills, and this is why we have a huge range of local training and development opportunities, which are all funded to ensure that our carers can care confidently. We have some training which is mandatory for all of our carers, but in addition to this, we’re always happy to help you build your skills and develop as a carer, benefitting local children, so we offer additional training for specific areas of expertise including Therapeutic Parenting, Foetal Alcohol, Paediatric First Aid, Makaton and many more. Importantly, all of our training and development opportunities are local or online, so you never have to go far.  

PCC as a fostering-friendly employer

Plymouth City Council understand how important it can be for some people to be able to maintain their jobs whilst fostering, and Foster for Plymouth are keen to help you where we can. Plymouth City Council have taken the step to become a Fostering Friendly Employer, meaning that if any team member opens their home to foster, they can access additional support at work, and there are clauses in our HR policy which support their fostering journey.