Simon

Simon and his wife, Lisa, have been fostering in Gloucestershire with Community Foster Care since 2018.

Simon was a Youth Worker and his career has always revolved around helping provide support in a community based way. As he and Lisa’s family grew, they felt it was important to use their skills, as parents, to help young people in more than just a youth work capacity.

What is your favourite thing about fostering?

Their favourite part of fostering is seeing the elements of successes, where you see a young person develop or when they hear from the school about how different that child is now, than they were when they first came into placement. The best part is seeing those changes in the young person themselves, “when they got a spelling test right, or they want a hug, or they’re just enjoying being part of a family - it just makes you flutter inside when you see those moments.”

What have you found are the most challenging parts of fostering?

As for the more challenging parts of fostering, Simon says, “I think that fact it is someone else’s child that’s coming into your home, with a whole batch of backgrounds which clash - they’re bound to clash - with your setup and your structure, and that’s not their fault and it’s not your fault. It’s just trying to come to terms with that and meet in the middle about what works and what doesn’t work for you and for them.

I suppose on top of that, because that’s to be expected, the biggest challenge is all the bureaucracy and the adults that are around those foster children. It’s very different than bringing up your own children when you’re being observed, they’re being observed and they’ve got therapists, and teachers, and social workers, and everybody else that’s looking at their life in a microscope. They can’t be a ‘normal’ - if there is such a thing - child and trying to help them in a family situation when all those people are, sort of, swimming around in a fish bowl trying to help them - ‘normal’ is very challenging.”

Why did you choose to foster with Community Foster Care?

With so many independent fostering agencies to choose from, we wanted to know why Simon and Lisa decided to foster with Community Foster Care. Simon says, “Well, first and foremost, it’s a charity. There are far too many things in the social care world which is about making money off people’s misery and a charity is about giving something back and I feel that’s what fostering should be. [Young people are] already vulnerable, so they don’t need anything else added onto that. This is about their background and it’s about helping them to go forward and a charity is all about helping and being ethical in it’s way forward.

What would you say to someone thinking about fostering?

Lots of people come into fostering from word of mouth recommendations, so we asked Simon what he would say to anyone thinking about fostering, he says, “Do it! Do your research, find out from foster carers, find out from agencies what their ethos is like. Find the real stories and the real challenges. Speak to me, speak to the other foster carers that are around and see the good things and the bad things because it is a challenge but it’s a rewarding challenge, so do it!”