Private fostering is an arrangement in which a child under 16 (or 18 if the child has a disability), who is not the subject of any legal order (such as a Care Order, Interim Care Order, Sect 20 Accommodated or Emergency Placement Order), and lives in the care of someone for more than 28 days who is not:
- the child’s parent(s)
- someone with parental responsibility for the child
- an immediate relative (see below).
Private fostering also extends to children who stay at a boarding school for more than 2 weeks of school holidays and international students attending schools in the UK and living with host families for 28 days or longer. An immediate family member is defined in the 1989 Children Act as a ‘grandparent, brother, sister, uncle or aunt (whether full blood or half blood or by marriage or civil partnership) or step-parent'.
