Fostering in St Helens

St Helens City Council reports that 1,299 children were in the care of the local authority as at 31 March 2025. While not every child in care will be in foster care, this figure gives a clear sense of the scale of need in the city and why recruitment remains a priority. Around 40% of St Helens’s cared-for children live with St Helens foster families, including kinship carers, which underlines how essential local carers are to keeping children close to schools, friends and familiar communities.

St Helens’s largest cohort is children aged 10+, and the city has a diverse cared-for population, including a significant proportion of children from Black and mixed heritage backgrounds. This means St Helens needs carers with different skills, homes and life experience, not one type of foster carer.

Both routes can be excellent. Local authority fostering, for example through St Helens City Council, places you within a council-led team connected to local services and community resources. Independent fostering agencies are also regulated and inspected by Ofsted and work in partnership with councils to provide placements. Many carers consider IFAs when looking for smaller caseloads, more specialist support or specific therapeutic models.

A practical approach is to compare the supervision you will receive, out-of-hours support, training pathways, matching practices, and what happens between placements, not just pay. Platforms that help you compare Ofsted-rated providers can help you shortlist and contact a few services to sense the fit.

Payments vary by provider, the child’s age and needs, and the type of fostering you are approved for. St Helens City Council publishes clear example figures: around £400 per week tax-free for one child, which equates to approximately £21,000 per year. The council also gives a worked example that fostering two children could be around £800 per week tax-free, equivalent to £42,000 per year.

It is important to understand what is included in those examples and what might be paid additionally, for example certain expenses, transport, or specialist payments. Fostering income is typically treated differently for tax purposes, which is why councils often describe these figures as tax-free. A good agency should explain fees, allowances, and any extras in writing before you progress too far.

St Helens needs a broad mix of foster carers because children’s situations are varied. Across Greater St Helens, councils describe a range of fostering types including short-term, long-term, emergency, short breaks, specialist fostering, parent and child placements, and fostering for asylum-seeking children and young people.

St Helens’s own data shows the largest cohort of children in care is aged 10+, which often increases demand for carers who feel confident supporting teenagers, schools, emotional wellbeing, identity and independence planning. There is also a strong matching focus on culture and identity, meaning a need for carers from a wide range of communities who can support children to maintain heritage, faith and family links.

No. You do not need to own your home to foster in St Helens. What matters is that you have a stable living situation and that your home is suitable for a child, including space, safety and privacy. Greater St Helens’s council fostering guidance states that you can foster if you either own your home or are in a secure rental agreement.

Services will want to understand the security of your tenancy, how long you have lived there, and whether you have landlord permission where required. They will also assess whether you have an appropriate bedroom for a child and whether the home environment is safe and comfortable. If you rent, it helps to be organised early by checking your tenancy terms and being ready to show evidence that you can remain in the property long enough to offer stability.

Start with regulated sources so you are comparing like with like. In England, fostering services are inspected by Ofsted, and you can use the Ofsted reports site to search by location and view a provider’s rating and inspection history. This helps you spot patterns such as consistently strong leadership, training, supervision and outcomes for children.

You can also use fostering comparison directories that bring together Ofsted-rated providers and allow you to search by city, filter and read profiles before contacting anyone. A sensible approach is to shortlist three to five providers, speak to them all, and compare the same core topics: social worker caseloads, out-of-hours support, training, respite, matching practice, and what happens if a placement is struggling.

There is no single fixed number because agency footprints overlap, offices open and close, and some providers cover St Helens from surrounding areas across Greater St Helens and the wider North West. The most accurate way to get a current count is to search the Ofsted reports database by location and category.

St Helens has at least the local authority fostering service plus multiple independent fostering agencies with registered locations in the city, and many more operating across the wider North West region. One North West directory lists 61 Ofsted-registered fostering agencies across the region, giving a sense of the wider local market. If your goal is to choose well rather than simply count, focus on quality signals: Ofsted inspection outcomes, staff stability, carer support and the agency’s specialisms.