Chapter 8: Children living with foster carers

• 1. What is foster care
• Public fostering
• Private fostering
• 2. Benefits for foster carers
• Child benefit
• Means-tested benefits
• Universal credit
• Employment and support allowance
• Pension credit
• Housing benefit
• Scottish child payment
• Non-means-tested benefits
• Disability benefits
• Carer support payment
• National insurance credits

When a child goes to live with foster carers, there can be benefit issues for both the foster carer(s) and the child’s birth parent(s). This chapter explains what happens to foster carers’ benefits. For information about what happens to the birth parents’ benefits when their child goes to live with foster carers, see Chapter 6.