• Place you with a family where you will be safe and will be well treated. [50]

Your welfare and interests are the most important consideration and Child, Youth and Family takes great care in choosing caregivers. You are entitled to the highest standards of care.[51]

• Arrange a placement that gives you continuity.[52]
  
  This means that they must try to find a foster family in the city, neighbourhood or community where you have lived previously and to place you where you can continue to have contact with your parents, brothers or sisters, friends and other family members[53]. You should be allowed to have your clothes, toys, personal possessions and pets with you wherever possible. If possible, you should be able to continue at the school you have been at.
  

• Find caregivers who share your cultural background.[54]

You should wherever possible be placed with a family of the same race, culture and religion as you. For example, if you are Maori, preference will be given to a placement with a family that have links with your whanau, hapu or iwi.

• Find a placement where your personal and cultural identity will be recognised and respected.[55]

Your personal identity includes the right to be called by your own name and to be treated as an individual with your own personality and preferences[56]. Your cultural identity involves having your nationality and culture recognised, accepted and supported by your foster parents and members of their family and community.

• Arrange a placement where you will feel loved and have a sense of belonging.[57]

A foster family should provide you with more than just a bed and regular meals. You should be accepted as a full member of the new family and not be treated differently from other children in the household.[58] The Caregivers’ Handbook says that caregivers should ‘give appropriate love, positive messages and acceptance to children in their care and to offer them support, guidance and understanding’.[59]

• Be placed in a situation where you can have regular contact with your parents and other family members[60]

You should be able to have direct contact with your parents on a regular basis unless it is shown that such contact is not in your best interests.[61] That means you should be able to visit or receive regular visits from your parents or have contact with them by phone, email or text messaging at regular intervals. Opportunities for regular contact with other family members that you wish to keep in touch with should be available.[62].