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

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.

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.