Foster Carer TSDS: The Standards and the 12-Month Deadline

Every newly approved foster carer in England has to evidence the Training, Support and Development Standards, and the usual deadline is 12 months from approval. If you are a kinship carer, you may have 18 months — or you may not, depending on whose procedures you read. That inconsistency is real and it is worth understanding rather than guessing at.

What the standards are

There are seven, and they cover the core of the fostering role rather than specialist topics:

1. Understand the principles and values essential for fostering children and young people
2. Understand your role as a foster carer
3. Understand health and safety, and healthy caring
4. Know how to communicate effectively
5. Understand the development of children and young people
6. Safeguard children and young people
7. Promote positive outcomes for children and young people in foster care

They are described as a national minimum benchmark. The 12-month requirement is attributed to the Fostering Services National Minimum Standards 2011, and the Fostering Regulations 2011 separately require a fostering service to provide foster carers with training, advice, information and support as appears necessary in the interests of the children placed with them.

The deadline, and the disagreement

The 12-month figure for newly approved carers is consistent across every source we checked. The kinship position is not.

One of those manuals contradicts itself, giving 18 months for kinship carers and then stating that the requirement for all carers to complete within 12 months is written into the National Minimum Standards 2011.

We are not going to resolve that by picking the answer we prefer. If you are a kinship or connected persons carer, get your deadline in writing from your own fostering service, and ask them to say which document it comes from. The practical point is that an 18-month understanding is not safe to assume.

Extensions do exist in practice. One authority's procedures note that a minority of carers need longer than twelve months — citing literacy or language difficulties, and complex placement issues such as a disruption or an allegation — and treat renegotiating the timescale as acceptable and good practice. That is local policy rather than a national entitlement.

How you evidence it

Through a workbook, and there are different workbooks for different fostering types, including family and friends carers and short break carers.

Evidence comes from two directions. Observations, which include professional discussion in supervision and meetings. And written evidence — reflective writing, a daily log, reports, emails, supervision records, written feedback from professionals, or certificates. Each section is signed off by your supervising social worker and their manager, and you receive a certificate on completion.

Two carers in the same household can use the same workbook. Evidence-gathering starts before approval, through the Skills to Foster preparation course, so you arrive at approval with material already in hand.

If you hold other relevant qualifications, you are not expected to repeat learning simply to meet the standards — existing evidence can be transferred and referenced. Note that this is a transfer of evidence rather than an exemption. We found no source stating that foster carers who are social workers or teachers are exempt, which is a common assumption and not one we could substantiate.

Where it sits with Ofsted

Completion forms part of Ofsted inspection of fostering services, and the 12-month requirement is written into the National Minimum Standards. What we could not find anywhere is published data on completion rates, or any statement of how Ofsted weights them.

For services, the exposure is therefore at the aggregate level: a cohort of carers past their twelve months without a completed workbook is an inspection finding waiting to happen, and the records of non-compliance that procedures tell services to keep are exactly what an inspector would ask for. Our guide to Ofsted's training expectations covers how training evidence is approached more broadly, and designated safeguarding lead requirements sit alongside it for services with their own staff.

After the standards are done

Completion is the start of the development framework rather than the end of it. Fostering services run core and mandatory training that carers are expected to attend, and the National Minimum Standards require personal development plans that are reviewed and evaluated, training designed to reach harder-to-reach carers, and safeguarding training for all household members — including the service's own children where they are of sufficient age and understanding.

Online and independent learning generally counts but must be evidenced in the way your service specifies, which is a common source of lost credit. Portfolios transfer between fostering services on request if you move, so the record is portable even though the approval is not.

What to check rather than take from this page

Three things, because the source material is older than it should be for a requirement this widely applied.

The national guidance is a 2011 document produced by the former Children's Workforce Development Council, and most of what is published about the standards now comes through local authority procedure manuals that reproduce it with local additions. Your kinship deadline, your service's extension policy, and the specific workbook for your fostering type should all come from your own service in writing. Where this page and your service disagree, your service is the one that signs off your workbook.