Our foster carers open their hearts and homes to children in need.

Information about types of foster care, becoming a foster carer, supports available, and more.

Providing a safe, nurturing and caring environment & connecting children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds with foster carers who can help them maintain their cultural identity and sense of belonging.

Do you see foster care and adoption as two sides of the same coin? If you’d like to find out whether fostering is right for you, it’s important to understand these two choices are very different.  

Lisa* didn’t expect her foster care experience to turn out quite like this: zipping around supermarket aisles, sourcing ingredients to make her first Samoan curry.

Most people begin their foster care journey with little more than a spare room and a desire to provide a home for a child in need. That’s all Lisa* had when she saw an online ad calling for more foster homes.

During National Families Week, we reflect on the importance of the family as a unit in the life of the child, and recognise the value of Life Story Work in keeping a child in care connected to their family.

When Kim* and her husband first started with SSI’s Multicultural Foster Care program, they thought they would ease themselves into foster caring with short-term care arrangements.

When Kim* and her husband first connectedwith SSI’s Multicultural Foster Care program, they thought they would ease themselves into foster caring with short-term care arrangements.

As a single woman, you may think that she does not fit the mold of your typical foster carer. But when Victoria talks about the children she supports through the SSI Multicultural Foster Care program, one thing is abundantly clear—she is a born carer.

A new family resource for children and young people in foster care from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds will be launched by Settlement Services International (SSI) in Bankstown, Sydney, today.My Life and Me, a life story book with a cultural focus, was developed by SSI to address the loss of identity and belonging experienced by CALD children in care.

Hear from SSI foster carers as they speak about their experiences and learn about the support they receive from our staff.

SSI’s foster carer Alaweia Kual has been recognised as a finalist in the 2017 NSW Grandparent of the Year Awards for her valuable contributions to the community both as a kinship carer for her grandson and as a community leader supporting newly arrived refugees from her home country of Sudan.

Foster Care Week shines a public spotlight on what SSI knows only too well – that foster carers play an integral role in the lives of vulnerable children and young people in out-of-home care.

Garry and Natalie* are often told that their foster children are blessed to be in their care. However, they see it differently. “We are the ones who are blessed to have them in our home,” Garry said.

After almost nine years of being the foster carer for three siblings, Iqbal is preparing for the children to be returned to their mother who is now ready to care for them herself. Iqbal admitted she was upset and worried about the children leaving her, but she knows they want to be with their mother and that this is the best outcome.