A temporary kinship foster carer is a relative or friend who is not an approved foster carer but who is asked by children’s services to take on the care of a child in an emergency.
The social worker will have to find out certain information about the temporary foster carer and their household before the child is placed with them. If there is not time for this, these checks will be done as soon as possible after the child has been placed with them.
This will include police checks of the carer and any other adults in the household. Once the social worker has enough information to decide that the carer is a suitable person to care temporarily for the child, they will be approved to foster the child for up to 16 weeks. This can be extended (once only) for an extra 8 weeks, to a total of 24 weeks.
If the temporary carer wants to go on fostering the child after the 24 weeks is up, children’s services should assess them to be a fully approved foster carer. If they are not fully approved as foster carer by the end of the 16 weeks (or in some cases 24 weeks) the child should not remain in their care.