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a potential foster parent, you believe that you have the skills to cope with older children, the demand for foster homes for the older child is always higher than that required for infants.

How the age group chosen fits with your family life.

In assessing the age group that your family are considering fostering, it is important to look at your own family unit and decide how the age you have chosen will fit with your children. Children are unpredictable, and jealousies can occur at any age, though by discussion and forethought can be overcome, choosing an age range that will blend easily into your home routine.

How to introduce your children to the idea of fostering.

The children that make your family are part and parcel of the family unit that will be disturbed by the introduction of troubled children. By involving your children in a learning process and explaining how certain children find themselves with less security, and are less fortunate, and keeping the channels of communication open with your own children, many of the hurdles of fostering can be taken away. This is also a very valuable time for your children at whatever age they are to learn about give and take, although it is vital to the success of fostering that they also feel very secure that what you offer foster children will not detract from your love for them as children.

By involving your children in decision making processes as important as foster care, you may be able to involve them in a very positive way by asking their ideas about how your family can help those children with less chance in the world, and by constant involvement, your own children will not feel shunned or left out of a process which, in effect, is going to change their childhood, whether or not that intention was there in the first place or not.

Taking this a step further, think about the attitude of an only child who is about to get a brother or sister. The change throws them into turmoil, because it's an unknown quantity. By discussing the idea with them, you are helping them to understand the process better.

*Whether the applicant feels capable of dealing with emotional turmoil

Children placed in care will always have emotional turmoil, though the extent will be different in each individual case. The background of children that need fostering means that the child is at a juncture in their lives where they do not have the normal family security that is expected in life, and emotional turmoil is inevitable. Assess your capabilities

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