Sponsor a cat pen for £5 a month

We rely on volunteer fosterers to provide temporary homes for the animals in our care. At present our branch only fosters cats. If you are looking to foster other types of animal please contact another RSPCA branch or centre.

How can fostering help?

Fostering an animal can help our cats recover from neglect, abuse, illness or injury - taking the first steps towards finding a new, loving forever home by learning to trust and live with humans.

When you foster an animal you'll also be freeing up space in our cattery so that we can rescue more animals in desperate need. Many animals that we take in have either suffered or are not used to the care and affection that they deserved. Living with a foster family helps to provide them with one-to-one care, allowing them to build up their confidence and get used to a normal lifestyle.

At our branch, the cats we foster are either very nervous, or have health conditions. If a cat is friendly and healthy, they will be rehomed straight away and not fostered, so if you are looking to foster a cat like this you may be best placed to look at another branch or charity. We do not accept applications from student or multi-occupancy households.

The process

1. You want to foster

Thank you for being interested in joining our fostering service. We are always looking for people to join our fostering network even if we don't have a cat available at the moment.

Alternatively you may have already found a fostering opportunity via our social media.

2. Complete our application form

Perfect Match form for Cat Fostering

Your form will be reviewed by our team of volunteers and they will be in contact if they require further information.

3. Virtual Home Visit

If you are a match, our team will get in touch to organise a virtual home visit which will be held via video call. This will allow us to discuss your form, see your home and talk about cat care in order to approve your home for fostering.

A COVID-19 assessment will also be completed at this point.

4. Joining our fostering network

If your home visit is approved, we will add you to our fostering network.

Where we have a cat available to foster, we will contact you to discuss the cat. We will also send as much information as we can about the animal, including photos and videos where available, so that you can understand the animal and their behaviour.

We will then send you a fostering agreement to be completed.

5. Handover

A date and time will then be arranged for you to collect the cat from our cattery in Romford.

You'll be provided with a starter kit of carrier, bowl, litter tray, scratching post, blanket and toys. Unless the cat is on a special diet, we ask our fosterers to provide food and litter.

If a cat has a health condition, we pay for their medication and related vet treatment.

6. Support and Adoption

We will be in regular contact with you during your foster process. This will be arranged with your allocated volunteer.

If you have any issues we are always here to help.

While our fosterers are not prohibited from applying to adopt a foster cat, they will need to go through an application process in the same way as an adopter would.

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