Foster Care fortnight 2021 is here and this year is a great theme #whywecare!
So we decided to ask our extended family why they care and wanted to start with this fantastic story about one of our fostering families.
Previously being a social worker, I had worked alongside foster carers
for many years and always admired how they made such an impact in
children’s lives.
I had previously looked into it many years ago but working full time I
could not see how I could give them the time they would need.
When I stopped working to have my children, I felt quite a loss and
missing my work although completely content with being at home
bringing up my children.
I looked into volunteering groups such as Home Start but did not feel it
was right for me.
Fostering had been an idea for some time but was not sure I could do it
as my partner works abroad or away a lot of the time. However, one day
my girls and I were watching the new Annie on telly and both my
children found it deeply upsetting that children could be placed with
people like Ms.Hannigan, and both of them asked why we couldn’t have
the children here.
After long chats with them about the pros and cons and how they might
behave, their need to share their possessions, get angry at times and
also times they will feel very sad and we will need to help them through
those bad days, they were still overwhelmingly excited about our new
journey.
We decided that we still would only like to do Respite so that we could
give several children a chance to make wonderful memories here and
still have time for their friends to come over during the week and have
time with me as well.
We have never looked back and have had the most amazing children
here some suffering the most extreme traumas. We have up to 4
children at a time and my children’s opinion on that is ‘the more the
merrier’. They embrace each child and have become great friends with
nearly all of them. It has taught them empathy, compassion, acceptance
and tolerance and I am so proud of them.
I am overwhelmed with how life changing fostering has been to us,
virtually every weekend, half term and holidays filled with children here.
They travel from near and far and have suffered an array of sadness in
their lives. Our job as we see it is to support them, care for them, listen
to them, respect them and the biggest thing is to give them a good time
and that they leave here with great memories of being able to be a child
again and forget their sad times. What we get back is so worth it, they
race out of the car running to give us a hug with a huge smile on their
face and that is worth everything and why we do it. #whywecare
