What prompted me to apply to become a foster carer?

Foster caring doesn’t always have a positive presence, the stories you hear are always the bad ones, the ones where the young person has become overwhelmed and reacted in a challenging way. So why choose to go into fostering?

"I know it sounds a bit mad but from the point of not knowing what my future held, I now had a purpose." - Julie, Foster Carer in Assessment 

Hi, my name's Julie and I’ve been a teacher for the past 24 years working with special needs and in particular deaf children. From this I have a passion for working with young people, helping them to overcome their difficulties to become the best version of themselves. My husband Rick and I have two adult sons who no longer live at home and two gorgeous dogs!

Since the boys left home, we had occasionally talked about fostering, but always come back to the same things stopping us from applying. What if the young person was more than we could deal with and the horror stories we heard came true? More importantly, we couldn’t risk giving up regular, well-paid jobs and the security we had. So, we rattled about in our empty house. I hated the quiet and loved looking after my granddaughter, and friends’ grandchildren, filling the house back up!

Then I had a bombshell, at the age of 58, I was made redundant! Once my initial panic settled, I began to see it as a cloud with a silver lining, we started to talk about fostering again and while looking through Facebook I filled in the Blue-Sky enquiry form. At that point, I wasn’t really committed to anything and thought no more of it. Then I got a phone call from Marcus at Blue Sky. In that short conversation, he made me feel that I had so much to give that would be of value I came away feeling… euphoric! I know it sounds a bit mad but from the point of not knowing what my future held, I now had a purpose.

"Blue Sky was so welcoming and supportive. Nothing was too much trouble for them" - Julie, Foster Carer in Assessment 

Rapidly the forms and emails began to arrive, yes there were many and it was a little overwhelming trying to think about the details of our lives like where we had lived since birth! Luckily for me, I had my mum to check with, Rick did the best he could. It might sound corny, and no I’m not being paid for saying this, honestly but Blue Sky was so welcoming and supportive. Nothing was too much trouble for them. If I forgot something, which I still do, the team at Blue Sky would happily give me the information again. So, from that point, we began our training to foster, and every preconception that we had was blown away...