Foster carer view: Supporting birth children in fostering families
Genevieve and her husband Neil have been fostering for three years. They have one birth child, William, aged 9, and are fostering two siblings, aged 8 and 14, on a long-term basis. To mark Children of Foster Carers Month, Genevieve has shared some tips for those considering fostering, but are apprehensive about how their birth children might adapt to the change.
My husband and I decided to take the leap and start our journey towards becoming foster carers during Covid. I had worked in children’s residential care for over 20 years, so knew how desperately foster carers were needed. I figured we had nothing to lose and thought ‘if we don’t try now, we never will’.
The application process was long, but we understood why. Our son William was five when we started the process and of course we had some concerns about how he might be affected by bringing new children into the home. However, we wanted to make sure he felt part of the process and understood why we were fostering. We spoke to him about the different experiences that children have and why they need families like ours to help them. We started by providing support (respite) care for children to make sure fostering was right for our family and we always made sure he knew who was coming and when.
We now foster two siblings on a long-term basis, aged 8 and 14. William absolutely loves having them in the family and I am incredibly proud of how he has adjusted to the changes in our home and the way he understands other people’s families and experiences.
Of course, there are challenges. Meeting the needs of all three children is a balancing act. Arranging activities for each of them and having and making sure they all have 1-1 time, as well as making sure we take time for ourselves, takes a lot of organisation. This means taking time for ourselves is rare, but we do try to plan for it!
We always make space for William to share how he’s feeling with us – usually during our quiet reading time before bed. This gives him consistency and 1-1 time, and is usually when he’ll talk about anything on his mind.
We have had occasions when we’ve cared for children going through a crisis and show some challenging behaviour. When this happens we always make sure William is okay and he has his room as his safe space.
Fostering has given us so many skills as a family – including adapting quickly to change and organisation. William loves having siblings to play with and even before we fostered we had a busy household, so he’s used to having lots of people around.
If you’re considering fostering, then we encourage you to just take the next step to find out a bit more. You can always stop, take a break when needed and start off with approved support care, like we did, to see if you like it.
Our top piece of advice is to include your child or children from the start, so they feel like they’re a part of the decision making. We also have an incredible social worker too who has arranged placements that work well with our family, with regular supervision. We are with a local authority fostering service and they are brilliant at involving William in all of their activities for fostering families, so he feels part of a big fostering family.
We always have an understanding that sometimes fostering doesn’t always go to plan, and that’s okay.
