A simple letter template for foster carers

If your fostering service asks for a weekly or monthly letter to the child in your care, it helps to have the same shape each time. You stop staring at a blank page, and over months the letters read like chapters of one story.

Here's a simple template. Copy it into whatever you write in, and change anything that doesn't fit your service or your child.

The template

A letter for [child's first name] [Dates the letter covers, e.g. 5 to 11 October 2026] · Letter [number]

Hello [name],

This week… [One or two sentences about the week as a whole. Was it busy, quiet, sunny, rainy, a school holiday?]

Something that happened. [One moment, told like a short story: where you were, who was there, what they did or said.]

Something new. [Something they tried, learned or managed for the first time, however small.]

Something that made us smile. [A funny remark, a game, a kindness.]

People you saw. [Full names and who they are: "Mrs Hughes, your class teacher", "Jean, our neighbour".]

Coming up. [Something they're looking forward to next week.]

[Sign-off, e.g. "With love,"] [Your names] · [Date written]

Add one or two photos, each with a caption saying who is in it, where and when. The child may not remember any of it, so the caption does the remembering for them.

Tips for each part

• The heading. Dates and a letter number make the letters easy to put in order later, for the child and for the social worker.
• Something that happened. One moment, told well, beats a list of everything. "We went to the harbour" is a fact; "You counted eleven boats and chose the red one with the striped sail" is a memory.
• Something new. First swim without armbands, first word, first sleepover, first time trying broccoli. These are the details families usually remember for each other.
• People you saw. Use full names and roles. In fifteen years, "your teacher" won't mean anything; "Mrs Hughes, your Year 2 teacher" might help them find her.
• Coming up. Keep it to things that are planned and certain. Don't promise contact, moves or treats that might not happen.
• Sign and date it. Many services ask for this, and it shows who wrote it and when.

For a monthly letter, use the same parts but pick the best two or three moments from the month.

If the week was hard

You don't need to pretend every week was lovely. Describe what happened rather than using labels, say how you helped, and end with something steady. There's more on this in writing about hard weeks and family time.

The part templates don't fix

A Word template gives you headings. It doesn't stop photos jumping around the page, or the letter looking like a form. Making something that feels like a keepsake usually means the laptop, fonts, margins and page breaks, at the end of a long week. That's a design job, and nobody expects foster carers to be designers.

My Chapters: Letters is an iPhone and iPad app that does that part for you. You write in your own words on your phone, with ideas suited to the child's age, and every letter comes out designed, numbered, signed and dated, with captioned photos. It sends to the social worker with the child's reference number, and binds every letter into a book for their life story. The first month is free.

Related guides

• How to write a weekly letter to a child in foster care
• Example letters for children in foster care, by age
• What to keep for a child's life story