This week at Homefinding is meant to have started with Bleak Monday or Blue Monday. A day when we abandon our resolutions and we are supposed to believe it is the most depressing day of the year.  I am not sure how much of these studies can be believed or how much weight they deserve to be given. It is also the day most new year resolutions start to wane.

New Years resolutions often focus on our appearance, our health or career. However, it would appear that none of these things will necessarily lead you to feeling the time you have spent has been fulfilled. They key to our happiness seems to be all connected to other people. The people we spend our time with, the relationships we make and investing a lasting commitment to those people.

Our foster families often forge relationships with each other and the children they look after and their families, fulfilling and rewarding relationships that last a lifetime.

Fostering broadens your horizons, and it opens you up to a whole bigger world. All too often the world we live in stretches from our home, our local supermarket, to our children’s schools and we don’t often deviate very far.

When you are part of a fostering family, you get to meet a whole range of other people you normally wouldn’t meet. People who’s start in life vary from your own. Children from other cultures and backgrounds. Fostering families meet other fostering families, and share experiences.  You get to work in partnership with other professionals in schools, hospitals, all striving for the best outcomes. Opening your eyes up to just how many adults are involved in keeping vulnerable children safe.

All of this isn’t without its challenges but at the same time it is incredibly worthwhile. So at a time when gym membership starts to look like a poor investment or the diet and dry January aren’t workingout as you had hoped, it might be a good opportunity to think about making a change in your life that lasts. Applying to foster might be a change that you can make and one that propels you in to next year and the next.

Making changes for the better not only for yourself but others.