Supporting Children with Disabilities: How Five Rivers Ensures Their Needs Are Met in Finding The Right Home
Thursday 23 October 2025
Last updated: Thursday 25 September 2025
At Five Rivers, we take the challenges that come with being a Foster Carer seriously – which is why we make ourselves available to our carers 24/7. As a social enterprise, we prioritise people over profit and ensure we invest in our services so we can provide better support to our Foster Carers and the children in our care.
There is an urgent call for Foster Carers who can provide a safe and loving home to children with disabilities. Many children in foster care have a wide range of conditions that can impact their daily lives, such as sensory disabilities, additional learning needs and mobility difficulties.
Welcoming a child with disabilities into your home can be incredibly rewarding, while it may come with its own set of challenges, you can be assured that our dedicated team will be there to support your family and the child in your care. Our team work hard to ensure we find the right home for our children, offering support for both Foster Carer and child throughout. One of our Fostering Team Managers shared some insight into how we ensure our children’s needs are met in finding the right home.
How do you support a child with disabilities when choosing the right home for them?
Five Rivers usual matching process would take place, with initial discussions about the carers ability to meet the specific needs of the child. If specialist school provision and medical care is needed this would be discussed as part of the matching process. Children would not be introduced to carers until all professionals agree they could meet the needs of the child. Where possible a transition period would take place with the carers going to meet the child in their current provision or home and the child having an opportunity to visit the carers home before moving in as well.
What criteria do you use to determine a good match between a Foster Carer and a child with a disability?
Carers would need the skills required to care for the individual child, this would be discussed as part of the pre-matching discussions and may include adaptations to the house, medical training, availability of special education in the local area and access to community medical staff if needed.
What role does the child’s voice play in the matching process?
The Local Authority Social Worker (LASW) would be responsible for sharing the views of the child with us; however, it is not always possible to ascertain what the views of the child are and at a minimum, we would assume they want to feel safe, loved and included.
What training do Foster Carers receive to prepare them for caring for a child with a disability?
Carers who offer homes for children with disabilities have often come from a working background where they have cared for children with additional needs. Medical training is provided by the community nursing teams; we also offer training in Makaton sign language and moving and handling as needed.
We would not match a child where our carers did not have prior experience in caring for children with complex needs. For children with neuro diversity, any match would be supported by our Clinical Services Team through the Red, Amber, Green meetings (RAG*) and the Integrated Child Management Meeting (ICMM) assessments.
*The RAG meetings depend on how settled the placement is, Red being at risk of placement breakdown, Green being settled.
What kind of ongoing support do you offer to Foster Carers with disabled children?
Our carers receive the same level of support as our other Foster Carers, but they may have a wider team around the child if there are ongoing health needs.
Do you prioritise carers who have professional or personal experience with disability when finding a home for a child with specific needs?
Yes, when matching children with additional needs.
What are some of the common challenges in matching children with disabilities to foster families and how do you address them?
The most common challenges would be adaptations to foster homes and two carers always being available. We would not match a child if there were challenges, we could not overcome.
How do you balance the needs of the child with the capacity and preference of the foster family?
The needs of the children will always be paramount, if we do not feel our carers have the skills or experience to look after the child, we would not match them. Discussions with your Supervising Social Worker (SSW) take place before any match is considered and if we do not feel the carers can meet the child’s needs, we would be transparent about the reasons why.
If a home isn’t the right match for a child, how do you make changes with care and sensitivity?
A child would not be matched if the home was not right for the child. Where a placement breakdown occurs, a Pre – Learning from unplanned endings meeting (pre-LUPE) would be held to inform any future fostering families. When a child leaves their carer outside of what is noted in their child in care plan or in an unplanned way the Team Manager, supervising social worker and clinical team meet to consider why the placement has broken down and how we might prevent a similar occurrence for another child in the future. The outcome informs future matching with the carers.
Children are given photos and a narrative of their time with carers which goes with them as part of their life story work, which is a therapeutic process for children and young people to understand their past life experiences.
How do you measure long term success and wellbeing for children with disabilities in foster care?
We measure success through young people’s achievements, stability in placement and progress they make in education and with their health.
Find out more about how we support our Foster Carers
We don’t underestimate the challenges that come with being a Foster Carer, and we’re here to support you every step of the way.
Find out more about training and support for our Foster Carers