FosterFolk terms of use

Last updated: 14 October 2026.

1 Who we are

FosterFolk is a free public information website about fostering in the UK. It lives at fosterfolk.com.

FosterFolk is a brand of BrightMaker Labs Ltd. BrightMaker Labs Ltd is a private limited company registered in England and Wales. Its company number is 17489442. Its registered office is 2nd Floor College House, 17 King Edwards Road, Ruislip, London, United Kingdom, HA4 7AE.

In these terms, “we”, “us” and “our” mean BrightMaker Labs Ltd, called BrightMaker Labs below. “You” means anyone who uses FosterFolk.

1.1 What FosterFolk is not

FosterFolk is not a fostering agency. It does not approve foster carers. It does not place children.

We are not a local authority fostering service. We are not an independent fostering agency (IFA). We do not assess anyone to foster. We do not decide who can foster.

1.2 Who owns FosterFolk

BrightMaker Labs also runs FosterScope. FosterScope is a service for local authority fostering services. It measures how easy their fostering services are to find online.

Some local authorities pay for FosterScope. Paying changes some things about how a local authority appears on FosterFolk. Section 1.3 lists them. Paying never changes:

• the facts we show, such as pay figures;
• where a local authority appears in any list or ranking;
• what Ask Hazel says about any local authority or other fostering service;
• whether a local authority is described as better than another.

Every local authority can keep its own contact details, events and description up to date for free. Every local authority can correct a fact on any page for free.

If you choose to, you can hear from local authority fostering services near you. That choice is separate. It is off unless you turn it on. Our privacy notice explains it.

1.3 What paying local authorities can do on FosterFolk

A local authority that pays for FosterScope may also:

• change how its own FosterFolk page looks;
• post news on its own page, labelled as coming from it;
• set the tone of Ask Hazel’s local answers for its area (section 4.8);
• keep a local knowledge pack for Ask Hazel that we manage for it (section 4.8);
• get a monthly report on the questions people near it ask Ask Hazel, showing totals only;
• see maps of interest in fostering in its area, showing totals only;
• show messages to FosterFolk readers, which we call placements, labelled as coming from it.

Totals in reports and maps never show a figure for fewer than 10 people. Nothing in them names anyone.

Placements never appear in rankings or in Ask Hazel’s answers. Fostering hubs can buy placements too. Independent fostering agencies cannot buy any of these things.

Our “How FosterFolk works” page will explain all of this when the full site opens.

2 About these terms

These terms apply when you use FosterFolk. By using FosterFolk, you agree to them. If you do not agree, please do not use FosterFolk.

Our privacy notice explains how we use personal data. Our cookie notice explains cookies.

You can use most of FosterFolk without an account. Some parts need an account. Those parts have extra rules, in sections 7 to 9.

3 Information, not advice

FosterFolk gives general information about fostering. It is not advice about your own situation.

Fostering rules can differ between local authorities. They also change over time. Before you make a decision, check with the local authority or fostering service you are thinking of fostering with.

We show where our facts come from. Each pay figure shows its source, the date we checked it and a link. Where a local authority does not publish a figure, we say so. We do not guess.

We work hard to keep FosterFolk correct. But we cannot promise that every page is complete, correct or up to date when you read it. A source can change after we check it.

FosterFolk does not give medical, legal, tax, financial or immigration advice. Some pages explain what an official source says on these subjects. For advice about your own situation, please speak to a qualified professional. If you are a foster carer, your supervising social worker is often the best first person to ask.

Some pages are about caring for a child with specific needs. A person with fostering practice experience reviews these pages before we publish them. They are still general information. They do not replace advice from your supervising social worker or a health professional.

Our eligibility tools explain the rules. They give general answers only. They do not assess you, and they do not predict whether you would be approved. Only a fostering service can decide that, after an assessment.

4 Ask Hazel

This section applies when Ask Hazel opens to the public.

4.1 What Ask Hazel is

Ask Hazel is an AI assistant on FosterFolk. It answers questions about fostering in plain words. It is not a person.

Hazel is not a social worker. Hazel is not a fostering service. Hazel cannot assess you or say whether you would be approved.

4.2 Where Hazel’s answers come from

Hazel answers only from sources we have checked. These are FosterFolk’s own pages and a fixed list of trusted sources. The list includes official government sites, Ofsted, the NHS, and local authority fostering sites. Hazel does not use the open web.

A local authority can also give us a local knowledge pack about its own service. We check every pack in the same way as every other source, before Hazel uses it. Each source has a record of who owns it and who checked it.

Hazel shows the sources for each answer. Answers about money, timescales or who can foster show a source and a date.

A second check compares each answer with its sources. If Hazel cannot support an answer, she says she does not know. She then tells you who can help.

4.3 What Hazel will not do

Hazel will not:

• say whether you would be approved to foster;
• say that one local authority or IFA is better than another, beyond what published information states;
• give medical, legal, tax or immigration advice beyond explaining what a published source says;
• discuss a specific child or a specific case;
• answer questions that are not about fostering;
• follow instructions hidden in a message or in a web page.

4.4 Check before you act

Hazel can be wrong. AI assistants sometimes make mistakes, even with checks in place. Always check an important answer with the source Hazel shows, or with the local authority.

When your answer depends on where you live, Hazel may ask for your postcode. You can give your full postcode or only the first part, for example LS6. We store what you give. Our privacy notice explains how we use it and how long we keep it.

4.5 If you are worried about a child or an adult

Hazel is not a safeguarding service. Nobody at FosterFolk watches conversations as they happen.

If a child or adult is in immediate danger, call 999.

If you are worried about a child, contact the children’s services team at the local authority where the child lives. You can also contact the NSPCC helpline.

If you are a foster carer, you can also contact your supervising social worker or your fostering service’s out-of-hours line.

4.6 What you type into Hazel

Please do not type a child’s name or details that could identify a child. Please do not type your own health details or other sensitive details unless you need to for your question.

We store your conversations. We try to remove names, phone numbers and email addresses when we store them.

If you are signed in, we link your conversations to your account. You can see your history and delete it. If you are not signed in, we store your conversations without an account.

We use conversations to check the quality of answers. We keep the question text to find gaps in what FosterFolk answers. We do not use conversations to train any AI model. Our privacy notice says how long we keep them.

4.7 Fair use of Hazel

We limit how many questions anyone can ask in a period. This keeps Hazel available for everyone. Do not try to get round the limit. Do not use automated tools to send questions to Hazel.

4.8 Local answers

Hazel gives local answers for each local authority, from public information and the local authority’s knowledge pack.

A local authority that pays for FosterScope can set the tone of Hazel’s local answers. It can keep a knowledge pack that we manage for it. It cannot change:

• what Hazel does when a message suggests someone is at risk;
• what Hazel will and will not answer;
• the notice under each answer that says what Hazel is;
• any pay or eligibility figure;
• anything Hazel says about other local authorities or fostering services.

We test that Hazel answers just as well for local authorities that do not pay as for those that do.

4.9 Hazel on other websites

Some local authorities that pay for FosterScope may put Ask Hazel on their own fostering website. There, Hazel answers only for that local authority.

These terms do not cover Hazel on another website. That website’s own terms and privacy notice apply. The local authority is in charge of those conversations, and BrightMaker Labs runs Hazel for it. Conversations there never join a FosterFolk profile.

5 Using FosterFolk properly

You must not use FosterFolk to:

• break the law, or help anyone else break it;
• harm, threaten, bully or harass anyone;
• share anything that could identify a child in care, a child placed for fostering, or their family;
• share another person’s personal details without their permission;
• pretend to be someone else, or pretend to be a foster carer, social worker or local authority when you are not;
• advertise, sell, or recruit foster carers for any fostering service;
• send spam or chain messages;
• trick Hazel into breaking her rules, or try to make her answer outside fostering;
• copy FosterFolk in bulk with automated tools, except as section 11 allows;
• upload viruses or harmful code, or try to get into parts of FosterFolk you are not allowed into;
• overload FosterFolk or interfere with how it works.

These rules are about what you post and do. Labelled news and placements from local authorities are not user posts. Section 1.3 covers them.

We may stop you using FosterFolk if you break these rules. Section 8.6 explains how we decide, and how you can appeal.

6 Links to other websites

FosterFolk links to many other websites. These include local authority fostering sites, regional fostering hubs and official sources.

We do not control those websites. We are not responsible for what they say or how they use your data. Read their own terms and privacy notices.

Our links to local authority sites carry a tag. It tells that site the visit came from FosterFolk. The tag does not contain your name, your email address, your postcode or anything else about you.

A link to a website does not mean we recommend it. We list local authorities beside each other in alphabetical order. We do not rank them by pay or by rating.

7 Accounts and roles

This section applies when accounts open.

7.1 Who can have an account

You must be 18 or over to have an account.

You must give true details when you sign up. Keep your password safe. Do not let anyone else use your account. Tell us at once if you think someone else has used it.

7.2 The 4 kinds of account

FosterFolk has 4 roles. One person can hold more than one role.

A local authority member never sees any member’s personal data. A local authority sees only totals, never who joined or who wrote a review.

7.3 Verified foster carer status

A verified foster carer badge shows that FosterFolk has checked that a member fosters. You can get it in 2 ways:

• by signing up through a personal link that your local authority sends you; or
• by asking us to check a document, such as a recent letter of approval. You remove everything from the document except your name and your fostering service. A trained moderator checks it. We delete the document once we have checked it.

Kinship carers can get a “verified kinship carer” badge in the same ways.

Your badge shows your region, not your local authority. You can choose to show your local authority. We advise against this in a small authority, because it can make your household easier to identify.

Once a year, we ask you to confirm that you still foster. If you no longer foster, your badge changes to “former foster carer”.

A local authority can tell us that a household is no longer approved. If it does, we ask you to confirm before we change your badge. We tell the local authority nothing about what you do on FosterFolk.

A badge proves that someone fosters. It does not prove that their advice is right.

If you get a badge by giving false information, we will remove the badge and close your account.

7.4 Closing your account

You can close your account at any time in your preference centre. When you close it, we delete your profile as our privacy notice explains.

We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms. Section 8.6 explains how.

7.5 Referrals

You can tell other people about FosterFolk. We may record that someone joined after you told them, so we can recognise you on FosterFolk.

We do not pay for referrals. We give no reward that depends on anyone enquiring about fostering or being approved.

Some local authorities run their own schemes that reward people who refer a new foster carer. FosterFolk does not run these schemes. We show what each local authority publishes about its scheme, with the source. The local authority decides who gets a reward, under its own rules.

7.6 Member perks

This section applies when perks start, which will not be before July 2027.

Later, we may offer perks to verified foster families. A partner we have checked might give a discount or a free family day out.

A perk never depends on any step towards becoming a foster carer, from an enquiry to approval.

No partner may photograph or publicise children in foster care.

Perks never appear on a local authority’s page.

We will publish full rules for perks before they start.

8 Community content and moderation

This section applies when the community opens.

8.1 Your content

“Your content” means anything you post on FosterFolk. That includes questions, answers, posts, your profile, your display name and any picture you add.

You own your content. You give BrightMaker Labs a free licence to host, show, copy, store and adapt your content on FosterFolk. “Adapt” includes removing details that could identify a child or a household. The licence also lets us publish an answer we accept into our question library, labelled “a foster carer’s view”. It lasts while your content is on FosterFolk.

You are responsible for your content. Make sure you have the right to post it. Make sure it is true where you present it as fact.

8.2 Protecting children and families

The children that foster carers look after have a right to privacy. Please protect it.

Do not post anything that could identify a child you care for or have cared for. That includes names, photographs, schools, exact places, dates of birth, and details of court cases. Do not post anything that could identify a child’s birth family.

Before your post goes live, FosterFolk checks it for details that could identify a child. If it finds any, it shows you a safer version. You choose whether to use it. A moderator may still remove details that could identify a child.

8.3 What we remove

We remove content that:

• is illegal, or that we have reasonable grounds to think is illegal;
• could identify a child in care, a child placed for fostering, or their family;
• shares someone’s personal details without their permission;
• bullies, threatens or harasses anyone, or attacks people for who they are;
• encourages or explains suicide, self-harm or an eating disorder;
• is spam, advertising or recruitment for any fostering service;
• makes a damaging claim about a named person that the poster cannot support;
• breaks any other rule in these terms.

Foster carers sometimes need to talk about hard subjects. These include self-harm, eating disorders and trauma. We allow posts that ask for help or share experience in a careful way. We remove posts that encourage harm or give instructions for it.

8.4 How we moderate

Before Ask the Community opens, every question and answer is checked by a moderator or an editor before it is published.

When the forums open, most posts appear straight away. Moderators review posts that members report. Automated tools hold back obvious spam and clear breaches of these terms for a moderator to check.

Our moderators are trained volunteers who are verified foster carers, and our own staff. Moderators follow written guidance. Hard cases go to our staff.

8.5 How to report content

Every post and answer has a “Report” button. You can use it whether or not you have an account. Tell us why you are reporting it.

We look at every report. We act faster on reports about children’s safety and illegal content.

FosterFolk is not a safeguarding service. If a child or adult is in immediate danger, call 999. If you are worried about a child, contact the children’s services team at the local authority where the child lives.

If we find content that appears to show child sexual abuse or grooming, we report it to the National Crime Agency, as the law requires.

8.6 Our decisions, and how to appeal

If we remove your content or restrict your account, we tell you what we did and why. We tell you which rule it broke.

We may:

• remove a post;
• edit a post to remove details that could identify a child;
• warn you;
• stop you posting for a time;
• remove your verified status;
• close your account.

What we do depends on how serious the breach is and whether it has happened before. We close an account at once for a serious breach, such as sharing child sexual abuse material or threatening a child.

You can appeal any decision. Use the link in the message we send you, or contact us (section 15). A different moderator or a member of staff looks at your appeal. We tell you the result.

9 Reviews of local authorities

This section applies when carer reviews open.

9.1 Who can write a review

Only a foster carer verified to a local authority can review that local authority. You can write one review of each local authority you are verified to. You can update it.

You can be invited to review by your local authority, or you can ask us to verify you yourself. Every local authority can invite its carers, free, whether or not it uses FosterScope.

A local authority that invites its carers must invite all its approved carer households. It must not choose only some. It confirms this to us when it creates the invitations.

9.2 What a review must be

A review must:

• be about your own experience as a foster carer with that local authority;
• be honest;
• not be written for any reward, payment or favour from anyone;
• not name or identify a child, a birth family, or another foster carer;
• not name a member of staff in a way that blames or attacks them;
• follow the other rules in sections 5 and 8.

You must not review a local authority you work for. You must not write a review for someone else.

9.3 How we check and publish reviews

A moderator reads the written part of every review before it is published. Moderators check reviews against these rules only. They do not check whether a review is positive or negative.

We publish low ratings in the same way as high ratings. A local authority cannot hide, delay, change, rank or pay to remove a review. Nor can anyone else.

We publish reviews without the reviewer’s name. We do not show any reviews for a local authority until it has a minimum number. This helps stop anyone working out who wrote a review.

A local authority can reply in public to a review once it is published.

We show how many carers were invited and how many reviewed. This helps you judge how far the reviews reflect all of the authority’s carers.

Reviews never affect a local authority’s place on FosterFolk, or any ranking or score that BrightMaker Labs publishes.

9.4 Who runs the reviews

FosterFolk is run by BrightMaker Labs. BrightMaker Labs also provides FosterScope to some local authorities. Whether a local authority uses FosterScope never changes which reviews appear or how they are scored.

9.5 If you think a review is untrue

Anyone can tell us that a review breaks these rules or is untrue. Use the “Report” button on the review, or email hello@fosterfolk.com.

We look at the review against these rules. We may ask the reviewer for more information. We may remove the review, or part of it. We tell the person who complained and the reviewer what we decided.

We do not remove a review only because it is negative.

10 Our content and other people’s content

10.1 What we own

BrightMaker Labs owns the words, design, graphics and software of FosterFolk, or uses them with permission. You may read, share and print FosterFolk pages for your own use. You may link to any page. You may quote short parts if you name FosterFolk and link to the page.

FosterFolk and Ask Hazel are names used by BrightMaker Labs.

Some pictures on FosterFolk were made with AI. They carry a credit that says so. They never show a real person.

10.2 Public data we reuse

Some of our information comes from public bodies, under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Our postcode lookup and area data use the ONS Postcode Directory and ONS boundary data. They carry these statements:

• Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right.
• Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right.
• Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0.

Our Ofsted information comes from Ofsted’s published reports and data.

Some information comes from GOV.UK and legislation.gov.uk. GOV.UK states that its content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except where otherwise stated.

Pay figures and contact details come from each local authority’s own website. Each one shows its source and a link.

10.3 Our open pay data

We publish our pay data as an open dataset, with its method. Its own licence applies to it.

11 Copying FosterFolk with automated tools

You must not copy FosterFolk in bulk using automated tools, except:

• search engines that follow our robots.txt file;
• the open pay dataset, under its own licence.

12 Our responsibility to you

FosterFolk is free. We provide it as it is and as available. We may change, pause or stop any part of it.

We are not responsible for:

• decisions you make based on general information on FosterFolk, without checking with the local authority or fostering service;
• what other websites say or do;
• content that other members post, until we know about it and have had a fair chance to act;
• loss of business, profit or income;
• any loss we could not reasonably have foreseen.

News and placements labelled as from a local authority are that local authority’s own words.

Nothing in these terms limits our responsibility for:

• death or personal injury caused by our negligence;
• fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation;
• anything else the law does not allow us to limit.

13 Complaints about FosterFolk

If you are unhappy with FosterFolk, tell us. Use the contact details in section 15.

Complaints about how we use your personal data have their own process, in our privacy notice. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Complaints about community content, moderation decisions or reviews follow sections 8.6 and 9.5.

14 Changes to these terms

We may change these terms. Each version shows the date it starts. We keep earlier versions on this page.

If a change matters to account holders, we tell them by email at least 48 hours before it starts. If you keep using FosterFolk after a change starts, the new terms apply.

15 Law and contact

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales can hear any dispute about them.

To contact us, email hello@fosterfolk.com. Our postal address is our registered office: BrightMaker Labs Ltd, 2nd Floor College House, 17 King Edwards Road, Ruislip, London, United Kingdom, HA4 7AE.