Meaning & use
foster care
Last updated
Meaning
noununcountable
a system in which a child lives with and is cared for by people who are not their legal parents, usually for a period of time
Grammar: No plural; use it without 'a' or 'the' when talking about the system in general, and with 'the' for a particular arrangement.
Patterns
- in foster care
- go into foster care
- be placed in foster care
After her parents became ill, she spent three years in foster care.
The number of children in foster care has risen in recent years.
He was taken into foster care when he was six.
Common combinations
- in foster care
- She has been in foster care since she was a baby.
- go into foster care
- The brothers went into foster care together.
- be placed in foster care
- The child was placed in foster care with a local family.
- foster care system
- The foster care system is struggling to find enough homes.
Synonyms and how they differ
- adoption
- Adoption is permanent and gives the new parents full legal rights; foster care is usually temporary and the birth parents often keep legal responsibility.
- residential care
- Residential care happens in a children's home with staff, while foster care happens in a family home.
Word family
- foster verb
- to take a child into your family and care for them as a foster parent
- foster parent noun
- an adult who looks after a child in foster care
- foster child noun
- a child who is living in foster care
- foster carer noun
- British term for a foster parent
Commonly confused: foster care or adoption?
foster care vs adoption
Adoption is a permanent legal change of family; foster care is normally temporary and the child may return to their birth family.
Practice
Choose the best completion: 'After her mother died, the little girl was placed ___ foster care.'
Choose one answer.
'In foster care' is the fixed phrase for being part of the system. 'On foster care' and 'at foster care' are not used, and 'by foster care' would wrongly suggest the system itself did the placing.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “foster care”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.