Where will I live?

 

When a local authority is deciding where you will live while you are looked after (where you will be ‘placed’), they have to do everything they can to make sure that you:

  • Live near your home
  • Can get on with your education without it being affected
  • Live with your brothers or sisters if they are already looked after.

If doing any of these things would put you in danger, then the local authority will do what they think is best for you. Sometimes local authorities don’t have enough foster carers or children’s homes, and so they may take you to live in a different area. This can also happen if they think you would be best living in a residential school, or a therapeutic children’s home (what's this?).

If you have a disability, the local authority has to make sure the place where you are going to live is right for you and gives you what you need. This includes making sure your carers have the right equipment to help you.

When you become looked after you will usually go to live with another family in their home, called a foster family, or into a house with other looked after children who are cared for by a few people who work there, called a children’s home (or residential care).
 
Many children who are going into care for the first time don’t know what a foster family or a children’s home is, and have lots of questions about what it will be like. The information here is based on what lots of looked after young people told us they thought it would be useful to know.

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