Angel has been fostering for 6 years and has helped with a number of transitions for both individual children and sibling groups. We spoke to her about helping children in care to move on to adoption.
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Christmas can feel very different without children around to share the magic. Michelle (54) and her husband Paul (64) have been foster carers for 10 years. Each year they keep the joy of Christmas alive through their work with Fostering Rotherham’s Mockingbird Hub.
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Robert and Justine became foster carers 6 years ago and love helping local children in Rotherham by fostering for their council. The couple do task-centred foster care, which can range from a one night stay to up to two years while the local authority assesses what is best for the child’s future care.
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Amanda and Martin have been foster carers for 10 years, mostly caring for older children and teenagers. They started out fostering with an independent fostering agency before moving to Fostering Rotherham 6 years ago. The couple were pleased with the support they received from Rotherham during the transfer and haven’t looked back since.
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Anthony and Joyce have been foster carers for exactly 26 years until they recently retired. During that time they have fostered and cared for over 198 children needing either emergency placements or respite care. The couple have also fostered 13 children on a long-term basis, each one becoming one of their fostering family.
Kerry and her partner Michael have been fostering for eight years with Fostering Rotherham. The couple, who both work full-time and have two birth sons aged 11 and 15, are part of the Families Together initiative and provide respite care on a regular basis.
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Natalie and her husband have been fostering for eight months. In that time they have given respite care twice for one little girl, and have been looking after a little boy since he was born.
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Janet and her husband, Steve, have been foster carers for over six years and specialise in caring for children with additional needs. For their first two years as foster carers, Janet and Steve provided Second Home foster care (also known as Respite care), to a number of Rotherham families. By providing Second Home Care, Janet and Steve were able to give families much needed breaks; and it also provided a great opportunity for Janet and Steve to discover whether fostering was right for them.
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Craig and his husband Dave have been foster carers for almost 3 years. In that time they have fostered one child who has lived with them for the duration of their time as foster carers. Having worked in a youth hostel, Craig always knew that working with young people in need would be a big part of his life. Craig explains that their decision to become foster carers was an easy one: “being married and having a spare room, the topic of children inevitably came up, we thought about our options and fostering just seemed ideal. We could provide a family environment and also try to make a difference, not just for ourselves, but for children and their birth families”.
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Emma has been fostering for six years and in that time has looked after 27 children and young people in the Rotherham area, ranging from birth to teenagers, providing emergency care, respite care, and short-term placements.
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After volunteering at her local Sure Start Children’s Centre, mother Samantha made the rewarding leap to become a foster carer. Here she explains how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted life for her family and their looked-after-child.
Steph and her family have only been foster carers for four months, but Steph says in that time the free courses and support available from the Fostering Rotherham Team have helped them gain a “wealth of knowledge” to enable them to care for children.
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Once Christine made the choice to go from owning and running a baby stall to being a foster parent, she never looked back. Now she cares for two teenagers and her fostering family is her number one priority. Lockdown has brought its own challenges, but it's also been a time of coming together.
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As a supermarket employee, Vicky is always going the extra mile to help people. During one of her shifts, Vicky found herself talking to an elderly lady, holding her hand, and helping with her shopping. This experience made Vicky realise that she wanted to do more to help the most vulnerable.
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Each October, we join the The Fostering Network in recognising, thanking and rewarding children and young people for the important role they play in welcoming fostered children into their families. Earlier this month we had the privilege of speaking to birth siblings Aidan, Callum, Josh and Sadie to discover why they love being part of a fostering family.
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Here at Fostering Rotherham, the wellbeing of the children and young people in our care is our ultimate priority. We strive to promote the importance of developing a positive identity with our looked after children and encourage children and carers to embrace diversity in our community. We provide carers with specialist support and appropriate training for children in care who may have a different cultural heritage or religion to their own. Read on for Poppy and Dale’s fostering story as they share their experience of fostering children from a range of diverse backgrounds.
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With father’s day coming up, we spoke to some of our fantastic fostering fathers about their experience of father’s day as a foster carer.
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Fearne had always wanted to be a foster carer, telling us “I have always wanted to foster, to be able to provide the best opportunities for children that may have not got what they deserved and can achieve and provide them with a welcoming and loving home.”
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