What should foster carers keep for a child's life story?

Photos with captions, firsts and milestones, school reports and certificates, drawings and things they made, tickets and cards, and the everyday details: favourite foods, songs, routines and friends.

Who keeps the child's official papers?

Official documents such as a birth certificate or medical records are usually held by the child's social worker or the fostering service or local authority. Check before you collect anything of that kind.

Can I take photos of the child?

Many services have rules about photos and where they can be kept or shared. Check with the child's social worker, and don't share photos publicly.

What happens to the keepsakes when the child moves?

They should travel with the child. Talk to their social worker about what goes and how, and consider a memory box and a book of their letters.

What foster carers can keep for a child's life story

A practical list of the photos, papers and keepsakes worth keeping for a child in foster care, and how to keep them so they mean something later.

Most families keep a child's history without trying: photos on a phone, a drawer of school reports, a grandparent who remembers what they were like at four. Children in care can lose all of that when they move. Foster carers are often the people best placed to keep it.

Social workers usually lead life story work with the child, and many put together a life story book. What you keep along the way gives them, and later the child, much more to work with.

Always check with the child's social worker what your service would like you to keep and how, especially for photos and anything with other people's details on it.

Photos

Everyday photos, not just occasions. Breakfast, the walk to school, their bedroom, the dog.
People and places. The house they lived in, their school, their friends, you.
Caption them with who, where and when. A photo of "a lady at a party" means nothing in twenty years; "Jean, our neighbour, at your 7th birthday, March 2026" does.
Keep copies somewhere safe, not just on one phone.

Firsts and milestones

first words, first steps, first tooth lost
first day at nursery or school, with a photo at the door
learning to swim, ride a bike or tie their shoes
height on a chart or a doorframe, with dates

Papers and things they made

school reports, certificates, swimming badges and awards
drawings, paintings and things they wrote, with their age and the date on the back
birthday and festival cards they received
tickets from trips: the cinema, the zoo, the seaside

If you can't keep everything, keep a little from each year and photograph the rest.

The details only you know

This is the part no record captures, and it's often what adults who grew up in care miss most:

favourite foods, songs, programmes, games and toys
bedtime routines and what helped them settle
funny things they said
their friends' names and what they did together
what they were scared of, and what made them brave

A weekly or monthly letter is a natural place for these. Written at the time, in your words, they keep the ordinary details that families usually remember for each other. There's more in how to write a weekly letter to a child in foster care.

Keeping it safe and easy to find

A pile of loose papers is hard for a child to read later. A little order helps.

One labelled box or folder per year. Put the child's name and the dates on the outside.
Write on the back. A short note on each drawing or photo: who, where, how old.
Photograph what you can't keep. A big painting or a sports kit can become a picture, and the original can go home with the child or be recycled.
Back up the photos in two places. Not just one phone. Ask your fostering service what it advises about storing photos of children.
Keep a short index. One page listing what's in the box makes it easier for the child, or the social worker, to find things.

What to be careful with

Other people's details. Photos with other children in them, and anything with addresses, may need permission before they're shared or kept.
Official papers. These are usually held by the social worker, not by you.
Anything painful. A child may not want to see everything. Keep what tells the story kindly and ask the social worker how to handle anything difficult.

When the child moves on

Keepsakes should travel with the child. Talk to their social worker about what goes with them and how. A memory box, a book of their letters, and a short ending letter explaining their time with you can all help. See writing an ending letter when a child moves on.

Keeping it all together

My Chapters: Letters keeps the letters, captioned photos and memories in one place on your iPhone, encrypted, and binds every letter into a book for the child's life story when you need it. The first month is free.