“My working day starts at about 7am
every morning, when I wake up, get myself together and write up the
logs of the progress that the young person I’m fostering has made
the day before. He gets up around 8am and gets himself ready for
school. We have breakfast together at 8.20am before leaving for
school at 8.50am. When we arrive about half an hour later, I leave
the young person in the care of the educational staff at school
before returning home to plan the rest of the day’s activities.
I pick the young person up from the school at 3.20pm before
sitting down for a meal together as a family at 5.30pm.
After that it’s off out again together. We’ll go do something
stimulating for the young person such as ice skating or bowling.
It’s stimulating for me and my wife too by helping us keep fit and
sharp.
We usually get back in about 8pm before the young person has to
go to bed. It’s certainly a long day, but a hugely rewarding one
too.
We also all head out together at the weekends and in the
holidays. Last summer my wife and I took the young person we care
for to Cornwall. It was the very first time he had been to the
beach and in the water in his fourteen years. He was splashing
about and shouting about what a great time he was having when all
of a sudden he ran out screaming at the top of his voice. I asked
jokingly whether he had seen a shark or something. “No” came the
reply in all seriousness “a piece of seaweed just bit me!”
The biggest kick from my job is seeing the young person I’m
fostering come on in leaps and bounds; just seeing him smile and be
genuinely happy is enough to make anyone’s day. Like with any other
career it has its good days and its bad days, but the good days so
far outweigh the bad that it’s a massively rewarding career to be
involved with. The level of personal, financial and practical
support we get means that I wouldn’t swap it for the world.”