×
Request an Information pack or register your interest
Fill in the form below to request an information pack
Is Fostering the Right Choice for Your Family?
At Foster Cares Ltd, we know that fostering is a big decision that affects everyone at home. We value involving every family member in this choice, believing it creates a loving environment for the child coming into your home.
We encourage open conversations among family members. Let’s discuss how fostering might change your routines, family dynamics, and relationships. Together, we’ll address any concerns and provide the guidance needed throughout the fostering journey.
Our team at Foster Cares Ltd is dedicated to supporting you through the challenges and joys of fostering. We offer thorough training, ongoing help, and connections to experienced foster carers. Together, we can make a real difference in the lives of children and young people who need it most.
If you’re considering fostering, reach out to us. We’re here to discuss the process further and address any questions you might have. Let’s embark on this meaningful journey together, creating a brighter future for vulnerable children and young people.
There are many positive attributes that can be gained for birth children having foster children in their home. These include:
Sharing their time and belongings with a child who comes to live with you is a great life lesson for them – and will help them develop into more of a selfless person as they grow up.
A child coming to live with you is likely to be from a different upbringing or background, or even religion and culture, than your birth children. This provides a great opportunity for them to learn and educate themselves from them socially, culturally or understand a different religion.
Spending so much time together under the same roof can allow for great friendships to blossom between your birth children and a child that comes to live with you.
With the variety of placements you’re likely to experience as a foster carer, your birth children will get the chance to meet many young people from different walks of life, develop their social skills and appreciation for difference as they do.
Some of the common challenges that foster carers may face when a new child goes to live with them includes:
Some birth children may find it difficult to share their belongings, as well as their parents time and affection.
Your birth children may witness inappropriate behaviour from a child that comes to live with you and may believe it is acceptable and begin to mimic them. For example, a child coming to live with you will have had different experiences of what is acceptable or not acceptable behaviour or have witnessed situations that result in them having different ways to manage their feelings.
It’s possible that you might look after a child from a different religion or culture, which could be a challenge for your birth children. As a foster carer, it’s important to help children maintain their cultural identity – but if this is something your birth children have no experience in, they may not want to participate or understand without support from their parents
Part of being a foster carer can involve a number of different foster placements. This can provide inconsistency to your birth children, they may struggle with this for example they may not know what to do when questioned by peers as to why they have different children living with them frequently or they may struggle initially with changes to the household dynamic.
Here at Foster Cares Ltd we recognise and value that birth children of foster carers’ wellbeing is paramount, and as your independent fostering agency, we’ll work closely with you to ensure we support your children in the adjustment to being part of a foster family.
Before you begin fostering, explain to your birth children what fostering will entail, and how it will affect them. Including different children coming to live with you at various times which may provide some inconsistency. You also need to devise a plan with them about how they will share their belongings, and how you will share your time between them. If they understand early on that they’ll need to learn to share, they’re likely to adapt to the situation much faster.
Addressing unwanted behaviour e.g copying behaviours, is integral to ensure any wanted behaviour of your birth children is maintained. Explain that children coming to live with you have had different experiences before living with you and this has an impact on how they manage being sad, happy or act out in a way that’s inappropriate. Advocate birth children do not copy this behaviour.
Ensuring your foster child and birth children get along is not always possible in every placement. However, it’s your job to Support their relationship’d that by doing so it has the best chance of blossoming as it can. Explain to your birth children the different experiences that a foster child may have had before living with you has had, and encourage them to play together, talk and get along as a family.
We have spoken to M (9 years) and K (15years) who are birth children of foster carers at our agency. Their families have been fostering for three years and they have answered some questions about things that can go well and some of the things that happen that can be hard if you are part of a fostering family.
Here is what they said……….
M – 4, 1,2,3 and 5 months old
K- 7 ranging from 4 – 18 years
M– Very excited & happy to play with other children
K– Excited, nervous & happy
M – enjoy playing with them and see them smile. Having someone else to play with.
K – giving people a break from their normal foster homes when they stay for respite. Long term gives the child a second chance at life to feel loved and make new memories.
M – Been on holiday. I enjoyed reading to them and playing games. Face painting and crafts
K – Lots of day trips and sharing things I have done when I was younger with them
M – Feeling sad when they leave me
K- When children kick off, hit your parents, trash the house and seeing the child hurt
M – It was hard when we had children for a long time then left. We got pictures of them, and I felt happy they were happy.
K – When my mam got hit and kicked and I wanted to protect her. Made me feel upset as we let the child in the house, and they treated my parents like that. CAMHS, social workers, mam and dad helped.
M – I like our home full of children and making them laugh.
K – Hard and difficult at times but also fun.
M- More children happy and smiling to play with.
K- No Foster Cares are great. We need more fun filled days out.
K – Have birth children support groups / days out to give them a brake. Support buddies.
Fill in the form below to request an information pack
