Fostering
Fostering is caring for someone else's child in one's own home – providing family life for a child who, for one reason or another, cannot live with his or her own parents, either on a short or a long term basis. Foster parents/carers provide a stable family environment, nurturing the child to help him or her develop and succeed.
Out of home care in Ireland is provided either in residential units or by foster carers in their own home.
Ireland has had a long history of foster care, with approx 90% of the children in care at present being in general or relative foster care.
