Foster carers Gary, Elizabeth and daughter share their stories

Elizabeth: We just do what we can do to give the children who come into our lives the best possible outcome

Gary: Putting a smile on their face, that's what makes it all worthwhile. A standout experience for me would be when we took the children sledging, which you would just think that's just a normal thing to do, and you just expect that they've been sledging before you know. In the and they never been, and I do, sorry, and they just had so much fun. And it's just the little things like that that you do with them, like playing football with one of the boys and them say,  'Oh, no one's ever done this with me before'.

Elizabeth: It's really lovely just to be part of their fostering journey and help just shape them in like a positive way, be a positive role model for them.

Gary: That's the sort of thing that really makes a difference to your life.

Elizabeth: Our fostering journey started in 2022 when we were approved to foster.

Gary: And we had three boys when we first started to foster, which was a challenging start, would we say.

Elizabeth: We had a lovely situation with them, with their family, to work alongside their family, who were really struggling and just needed a bit of extra help.

Gary: It was quite clear that the parents really cared about the children and really loved them and wanted them back. And you know, the children we had really wanted to go home,

Elizabeth: And the oldest was having a really difficult time, and we just didn't know what to do. And so we rang, and our social worker answered the phone, and it was like five o'clock on a Friday night. She answered the phone, and she was just like, 'It's okay, I'll talk through it'.

That was just really helpful, just to have someone there who could just talk us through it. Yeah, sometimes things are really difficult, but you are part of a bigger care team, all working for the same outcome, which is just the best for the children who you are looking after,

Gary: To see the transition, and not just the children, them changing over a period of time, also the parents. And working together, we are still in touch with them now, and it's nice to have a happy ending, because at the end of the day, the ultimate goal is to have them go back to their birth parents, which is, which is what happened, which was a really lovely experience to see them go home.

Elizabeth's daughter: The work they do is amazing. I can see it in the children, and you know, it's because of us all as a family, but specifically my mum and Gary, they have brought that out of them. And it's really nice to watch and to see and be a part of that.

Elizabeth: At the moment, we've got two girls. They're part of a sibling group of four.

We have the six year old and the seven year old, and the seven year old has a rare chromosome deletion. The youngest has been most affected by trauma from the things that she's seen.

Gary: They've been through really tough times, and when you see them really happy, yeah, it just makes you feel so good about what you doing. And you know that that's why we got into fostering, because it's really when these children have come from such difficult times, and you can just put a smile on their face, that's what makes it all worthwhile.

Elizabeth: I think one of the most significant times for us was when we got asked to take two little girls whose mum was going into hospital to have a baby.

Gary: She didn't have any family, so they just needed help and looking after.

Elizabeth: She just had no one, and she just needed someone to look after her kids while she went and had baby number three. So they came to live with us for just a short time of five days.

Gary: When you do emergency [fostering], you know they're not going to be there for very long, so you just have to try and make it as fun as possible. It's quite difficult, because obviously it must be, I can't even imagine myself. What it must be like to go into a stranger's home and then suddenly feel like you're part of the family. But that's what we try and do, is just try and make them feel at home as quickly as possible.

Elizabeth: One of the biggest surprises in foster care that we found is that sometimes, yeah, families just need that support. They've got no one to look after the kids. It's not just that stereotypical case of, you know, neglect or abuse towards the children. Sometimes it's just that there's no one to look after them in family emergencies. If you are thinking about fostering, I would just say, do it.

Gary: You'll make a difference to so many people's lives, and it'll be the biggest thing and the best thing you've ever done.