Hi Lissie,

I work for a Foster Care Agency although I am not a Caseworker myself. From what I understand there is no age limit and often older couples are viewed favourably because they have stability and maturity. For long-term care they look for people who have good health and prospects to parent the child/ren to adulthood so I suppose if a baby then an 18-20 year period.

The average age of children needing fostering is about 8-10 years so the chances of fostering littlies is lower. There is a huge demand for sibling groups, so if, for example you were willing to take 3 or 4 siblings at one go for permanent care you would have a good chance because a lot of people can't do this due to space and other children etc.

You can go to your nearest DoCS office or contact a Foster Care agency direct such as Anglicare, Banardos, Centacare etc. Also look in your local paper because Agencies advertise regular, sometimes with general recruitment ads and sometimes with urgent direct requests regarding specific children.

You will fill in an initial enquiry form and someone will visit your home and make sure you seem suitable and your home is suitable. If that goes ok you usually attend some training and submit an application form. You then have to go through all the police and working with children checks etc.

That's just a general idea - as I said I'm not a Caseworker.

One other thing is that the Government has made it easier for people to adopt children they are fostering in an attempt to minimise the disruption to foster children. That is only a recent thing.

Good Luck!

Jane

Kim,

Thanks for the reply. Its so hard to try and make a decision about adoption or long term foster care - all i know is we want to share our life with a little person.
I really really hope and that you get orders to have long term care of the little one in your care. Getting closer to making a decision and from what i read on the websites about fostering there is no upper age limit - it just depends on whether or not we are suitable in their eyes. Kim - so i guess the first step for us would be to have a Doc's case worker come out and see us? Then what happens after that? Just would like to get a feel for things first if you know what i mean. Any advise you have would be great.
Again i so hope things go your way :goodluck2: