Fostering - Our Journey to become foster carers

Use Locally - Issue 11 March 2014

SPOTLIGHT ON

FOSTER CARE ASSOCIATES Our Journey to Fostering Nearly two years ago we reached a crossroads in our lives. I was made redundant from work and knew that at my age getting another job would be hard.

Somehow we managed to turn this catastrophe around and look at it in a different way – part of me saw it as a wonderful opportunity to finally do something I had always wanted to do, something that I may never have had the courage to do if I wasn’t unemployed.

What had I always want to do?

I wanted to make a difference to a child’s life – not quite in the extraordinary way some people can – by going to a country ravaged by famine and rescuing homeless children, but if I could make a difference to just one child here in UK I would feel that it had been worth it.

So I looked around to see how could I start and I found that it was going to be a long process and that at any time during it I could change my mind. Many times during the selection process, I felt that it may not be for us as a family and many times we sat and talked through issues that it brought 8

up for us all. My children were concerned they were being replaced, my husband thought I was having empty nest syndrome and I thought at times that I would never be able to cope with the issues looked after children faced.

During the training/selection process, we found out more about ourselves and each other and gradually we looked at

things differently and grew to understand that we weren’t replacement parents for foster children, but carers for them while they couldn’t be at home. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse, but it certainly

helps me to understand some of their behaviour and allows me to see the situation through their eyes – after all how would I feel if I had been wrenched from my family and installed in a house with a ‘happy family’?

(It’s hard enough going to stay with friends or relatives for a weekend, never mind for the foreseeable future!).

Then came the most

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Use Locally - Issue 11 March 2014

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nerve-wracking interview of my life. My husband sailed through it serenely but I was extremely nervous. This was the panel that would authorize us to foster and although they were very nice, it had been a very long time since I had sat in front of a panel of three at interview, never mind six! Several questions later and we were asked to wait outside to await their decision. Happily they decided that with all our neuroses and bad habits we were OK as would-be foster carers.

There are masses of training opportunities too if you feel that you would like to attend them and indeed some are compulsory. The lesson being you don’t have to be perfect to look after children as really there is no such thing as perfect families and perfect parents.

Now the real business of looking after children would begin and we waited anxiously for the calls to come saying our first child was on their way. If we felt we could cope with them we would then be given information about their history and be asked to make a decision as to whether we could help and be a match for that child.

Use Locally - Issue 11 March 2014 stability and boundaries and although they don’t know it yet, they may thank you one day in the distant future for the time and routine you gave them, for the breathing space you gave their families and for the values and morals that you showed them are right.

As new carers we may still be romanticizing the entire issue, but I prefer to think that I can make a difference to just one child, and that is something to This is the point at which lots of be proud of. stories have a happy ending and I have to say sometimes that isn’t so. We have been having What about you? children on respite from their If you think you have the regular carers and this has given patience, commitment and us an insight into how it is to enthusiasm to foster a child have someone else live in your or young person, have a house with you as part of your spare bedroom and a family – in a way it’s an easy willingness to learn, contact way to start. We are meeting FCA on 0800 023 4561 or children with all sorts of issues, visit www.thefca.co.uk. many that we have never faced FCA welcomes applications before and that we are learning from single parents, married to cope with and it’s and co-habiting couples as undoubtedly extremely well as same sex couples. rewarding.

Celebrating its 20th I can’t promise you a perfect anniversary this year, FCA child in need if you do consider was founded by a social fostering – but then a perfect worker and a foster carer. child wouldn’t need you. It’s the Today the organisation is troubled youngsters that need still founder owned and prides itself on making a positive and lasting difference for children and families.

(This is a very personal account of my family’s journey to becoming foster carers and as such may not be used elsewhere, without our permission)

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