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Social Work vocabulary · Children, Families and Care

Foster care

Meaning in social work, with examples

nounCore term

In social work, foster care means: A form of care in which a child who cannot live with their own parents lives, for a short or long time, with another approved family.

In Turkish: koruyucu aile, koruyucu aile hizmeti, koruyucu aile yanında bakım

How it is used

The adults are foster carers (UK) or foster parents (US), and they foster a child. A child is placed in foster care or with a foster family. Foster care is different from adoption: legal parental responsibility does not pass to the foster family in the same way.

Example sentences

  1. The two brothers were placed in foster care together.

  2. We are looking for more foster carers who can take teenagers.

Common collocations

  • place in foster care
  • foster carer
  • foster family
  • short-term foster care
  • long-term foster care
  • kinship careCare of a child by grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings or close family friends when the parents cannot look after them.
  • adoptionThe legal process by which a child permanently becomes a full member of a new family and parental rights pass to the adoptive parents.
  • placementThe home or setting where a child in care or an adult needing care is placed to live; also a period of supervised practice for social work students.
  • looked-after childA child who is cared for by a local authority, for example in foster care or a children's home, either under a court order or with the parents' agreement.

More terms: Children, Families and Care

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