*This is a paid collaboration*
If I say the words foster care what are the first thoughts that come into your head? Foster care is one of those societal topics that unless it directly affects you it can be absent from your life and in turn your awareness. Apart from knowing it can be either a short or long term arrangement (often required in an emergency) that’s where my knowledge ends.
Compass Fostering – one of the UK’s leading foster care companies who work to find truly supportive and loving homes when they’re needed most for children and young people commissioned research with both foster carers and the wider public to discover more about fostering and the attitudes/preconceptions people may have about fostering as a whole.
My first learning curve was that there are over 53,000 children and young people in foster care – that’s a staggering number and one that is seriously underestimated by 77% surveyed. Go back and read that number again: 53,000.
The decision to foster is one that isn’t taken lightly, requiring great commitment and the research showed that almost half of active foster parents have given homes to more than five foster children, while 22% of foster parents have cared for more than 10 different youngsters.
Opening up families through fostering is one that takes key skills. The survey also found that public surveyed also identified qualities needed to have in order to care for vulnerable children and young people: patience, kindness, empathy, resilience, motivated. The skills required to be a foster carer are monumental and the decision to become one is not to be taken lightly and I imagine not always easy but the reward of being part of a child or young person’s journey must be one of great pride and reward.
I’ve spoken before about actively not wanting to have more children and how the constant questioning about ‘just having one child’ is tiresome, inconsiderate and intrusive – people often ask what happens if later on, I want a child; I’ve given this thought and I’d seriously consider how to expand our family through fostering and/or adoption.
Our concept of families has been transformed over the years to mean so much more than just a mother, father and children born biologically within that unit. The growth of what family has come to encompass can only increase our capacity for love. Fostering can be an important and loving component of how a modern-day family unit looks.
To find out more about fostering, including the allowance, benefits and support available to carers, visit Compass Fostering.
