"Why I do what I do" Why I'm a Foster Carer / Work In Foster Care. 

I can remember with absolute clarity the moment I realised that I would probably spend my working life with children, and more specifically looked after children.

I was 16 and as part of my English literature GCSE I had to talk to a small group of my peers about something Important to me.  I need to be clear.  I was 16. Kylie and Jason had just left Ramsey Street, Harry met Sally and   What was important to me was getting tickets to see Madonna on her blonde ambition tour.  

But, for some reason the night before I decided to talk about my life at home.  it was something I didn’t talk about a lot.  My closest friend knew my parents were foster carers, but that was probably it.

Fostering is something I think I have always known, Children came, went  and sometimes children stayed. And now over 40  years on, you struggle to place all their names and faces it is so brief.  Sometimes though they never leave you.  Make you a part of who you are. 

 When I was 16, two girls of a similar age had been living with us for most of that previous year.  They hated living with us.  Really hated it.  They were sullen and difficult and generally hard work. It didn’t matter what we said or did. They didn’t care that for the first time in their lives they had been to a hairdresser, had regular baths, homecooked meals, new clothes.  We went on Trips to the seaside, to theme parks, to the cinema, but it wasn’t good enough.    I kept thinking they were ungrateful and I just didn’t get it. Then one day, one of those girls said “you keep me safe, but you don’t make me happy”

Those exact words.  Looked me in the eye. And I didn’t know what to say.  After all those dozens of children living under our roof with  people I had known forever, and that l loved and loved me back unconditionally, it took me that moment to be temporarily placed in her shoes.  I realised what mattered then.  She didn’t Feel safe.  She felt lost and alone and terrified.  She had been moved somewhere she didn’t know, to live with people she didn’t know, and   She didn’t know what was going to happen next. 

I Talked at school that morning about the wave of sadness that came over me,  and then I just kept going.  Talking about other children who had shared episodes of my childhood, and I just kept talking.    About how sometimes I would get home from school there might be a new face at the table sat across from mine.  How I would sometimes hear children cry at night, or watch my mum recover hoarded food from under other children’s beds, and my dad’s midnight trips to local police stations to pick another child up. 

Then I was back in that room. It was silent.  I was worried they had fallen asleep so  I stopped talking.  It might have even been mid-sentence.

My teacher took a deep breath “I haven’t written any notes down, like I was supposed to.  I didn’t know any of that about your family.  I am speechless. “

I realised then that my family were, and still are, extraordinary.  With great resolve and dignity and patience they gave opportunities to dozens and dozens of children. And I knew then that I would never want to stop being part of that in one way or another. 

 So that is why I do what I do now.

 Be part of something extraordinary. Fostering in Kent.