At Affinity, we're proud to have been consistently rated Outstanding by Ofsted for the outcomes that we secure for our children and young people, and for the support we offer our foster carers. We’ve provided outstanding care to children and young people across Essex, Kent, London and Lincolnshire for over 10 years.
Affinity was founded in 2013, by Andy’s mother Denise, and her business partner Carole. Both retired a few years ago, and Andy came on board to lead the agency in 2017, holding tight to the original founding aspirations. Affinity has always striven to ensure that we provide a professional, welcoming, and friendly fostering service for carers, children, and local authorities, and we continue to enhance and empower young lives all these years later.
Fostering is a means of offering a safe, secure and nurturing home to children and young people who are unable to live with their own family.
Children may need to come into foster care for a variety of reasons, such as parental illness or medical emergency, short term problems in the family which require space for resolution, domestic violence, child neglect and abuse, or adoption breakdown to name just a few.
Fostering can be a short-term or task-defined arrangement but equally it can be planned for a significant period of time, up to the age of 18 and even beyond. Very often plans are subject to change. This is why it is so important to foster with a team who can support the children and carers and advocate for the needs of children and young people when it comes to planning and matching with the placing Local Authority.
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When you become an Affinity Foster Carer, you will benefit from all the support you need to make your fostering journey a success. We know that confident, skilled, well-supported foster carers make for settled, happier children. Whilst the most important support will be from your Supervising Social Worker, there is a wealth of other support available to you from therapeutic support and fostering mentors to a summer payment for every child in the household and an annual conference with first class training, dinner and an overnight stay.
At Affinity, we pride ourselves on the support we offer our foster carers and work really hard to build on the fantastic service we offer. We seek feedback from our foster carers and our children, and these views shape our service.
All foster carers receive a weekly allowance which is intended to cover the costs of looking after a child. The allowance you receive will depend on a number of factors including:
- The fees agreed by the placing Local Authority
- The specific, individual needs of the child
- The type of fostering the foster carer specialises in
Typically, you can expect an allowance of between £409 per week per child for a standard fostering arrangement. This allowance would increase significantly if you were caring for a child with additional needs. The majority of foster carers do not pay tax on their fostering income.
If you currently claim welfare benefits, you are likely to be able to continue to do so whilst fostering. Payments from fostering do not count towards income when calculating whether you are eligible for means-tested benefits, such as income support, child tax credit, housing benefit and more.
