Lynnette
I had many previous jobs before I became a foster parent, including working as a night club bouncer! More recently I worked as a Manager in a children’s home, and also in a secure residential unit for children with particularly challenging behaviour.
Some time before joining By the Bridge as a foster parent, I had previously fostered for a local authority, but after having a break I decided that retirement wasn’t for me and felt that my skills could still be utilised to benefit young people, so I looked to go back to fostering. I came along to an introduction evening, and decided that By the Bridge was the place for me to foster – it was friendly and professional and it seemed that the needs of the children were of paramount importance.
I have three teenagers placed with me long-term; two siblings who have been with me for five years now, and another who has been with me for three years.
During the five years I have been part of By the Bridge the company has really grown, but no matter what has changed I have always felt valued and there has been someone at By the Bridge that I could turn to no matter how big or small the problem.
My proudest achievement has been the huge improvement in the academic achievement of the three young people that I look after long-term. When each of them came to me, they were struggling with attendance and behind in all subjects. In the past three years they have reached 100% attendance levels and are consistently achieving fantastic grades. One of the girls was even selected as an ambassador for her school on a foreign trip, and was awarded a Platinum Pupil Award for her achievement. This means that her name has been put on a plaque at the school, and will remain there to set an example to other students.
I am glad that I made the decision to foster for By the Bridge. There have been many challenges along the way that have made me review and reflect, but overall I would not change anything!
If I spoke to a prospective new Foster Parent I would say that they should be prepared to look after children and young people who bring challenges, who will often try to reject your attempts to help them. This means that you have to learn not to take things personally. You also have to realise that you cannot change a child, or undo their life so far – you have to just be there for them, support them, and allow them to be who they are whilst doing your best to make a difference.
Tony and Sharon
My name is Tony and I work full time as a foster parent for By the Bridge. My wife Sharon is the co-foster parent and goes out to work full time for the local Youth Offending Services. Before we became foster parents I worked as a qualified plasterer/multi-skilled worker in the construction/refurbishment trade for over 10 years.
I decided to become a full time foster parent after Sharon and I moved from Outer London to the Midlands. We moved as we felt the area was a better place to bring our own children up in, to be closer to family – also housing is less expensive. Over the years we had toyed with the idea of fostering as Sharon has been in the care/public sector most of her working life and my mum fostered children way back in the sixties when I was very young. With this in mind we chose a house with extra bedrooms.
I started working for a small local company, plastering on a local large development and continued some jobs in London with my old company, commuting 3 days a week. This was a struggle for all of us as I disliked being away from my family and they missed me. I also started to feel the strain physically, especially in my knees and elbows!! We sat down one evening and made the decision to look into fostering seriously. Sharon, due to her current work with the Youth Offending Team did some investigating and By the Bridge was the most highly recommended independent fostering provider and very well spoken of by people within her field. By pure coincidence, we saw By the Bridge’s advert for an open evening in the local paper so I rang them immediately; we were invited to attend the open evening and it all went from there.
Two days after being approved by the panel we were referred a 14 year old girl with complex needs. It was an emergency placement with the prospect of long term care. This young woman is now 16 and will remain with us until she is at least 18. At times it hasn’t been easy but we are so proud of how much she has come on since being with us.
In July we were interviewed and eventually chosen as long term foster parents to a young lad aged 11. He has settled in incredibly well, gets on fabulously with our children and he is an absolute pleasure to have around.
We also offered an emergency short term foster placement for a teenage girl who was experiencing difficulties in her adoptive family. She eventually stayed for 6 months but in that time with our support and regular contacts, bridges were built and she successfully returned home to her family. Mission accomplished! This was one of our proudest achievements to date.
The greatest challenge we find with fostering is probably helping to maintain quality contacts between young people and their families and dealing with the stresses this can cause for the young person and supporting them. We empathise with the parents whose child has gone into care and understand how upsetting this can be – although it can be difficult sometimes to manage all the complex feelings surrounding this.
There are many proud moments – when your foster child comes home with achievement awards and calls from the schools to say how well they are doing; when they give you a big hug and you can see how much they have progressed and how settled they are. Our best moment was having the opportunity to take our 16 year old foster child to Florida for a fortnight. She had never been abroad before. It took months to get her passport and to prepare her for the trip as it was quite daunting for her. Once there, as a whole family we had the time of our lives. She fulfilled her dream of seeing killer whales and her behaviour was brilliant the whole trip.
We are so glad we started fostering. It was the best decision and we have not looked back. Fostering has given us the opportunity to have a parent at home for our children when they get home from school, we have no more worries about child care, and still earn good pay with the added security of excellent training and access to round the clock input from By the Bridge. We would also like this opportunity to say how important and supportive our fellow foster carers and Link Worker are and how we feel part of an extended family in By the Bridge.
We would say to any prospective new foster parents who believe they have the right qualities “go for it.” It is hard work but one of the most rewarding things you could ever do. Never boring, never monotonous, everyday is different just always keep your sense of humour handy! Friends, family and people we have met have all commented on what wonderful work foster families do and the feeling of respect you get from those people is a great reward in itself. Our friends and family have also been incredibly supportive in what we do. One of our relatives has been so inspired by what Sharon and I do that they applied to foster with By the Bridge too!
In summary, watching a young person grow, achieve and develop is the best feeling in the world.
Karen and Andy
Andy and I have been approved to foster with By the Bridge since 2006.
I used to work as an Intensive Care Nurse and then specialised in Paediatric Hospice Care. Andy worked as a HR Manager in the NHS and that is how we met.
After having our own family we applied to foster with our local authority – this lead to us adopting a child.
I saw an advert for By the Bridge and the company sounded really different so we went along to an Introduction Evening and liked the feel of the place as soon as we walked in. All of the information was about quality of care and a professional approach to fostering and we knew that By the Bridge was the right company for us.
We have looked after several children and young people – most recently a mother and her baby. This was hard work as the levels of observation needed to be high, even for the night feeds!, but we really enjoyed it and they both flourished. I felt a bit like a grandmother as the mum needed mothering as well as needing help with how to be a mum herself. With four children of our own we were able to model a busy yet stable family life.
We are so proud with the outcome – although we were told that this young woman and her baby probably wouldn’t be able to stay together they made such good progress that they were able to move into their own home. The young mum was very sad and anxious to leave us but since then we have kept in touch with phone calls and visits and we all went out for a family meal to celebrate her birthday.
By the Bridge training is excellent and I really value the group supervision meetings – sharing experiences with other foster parents and the staff team really helps. By the Bridge is very proactive in looking at all the latest research; it is the first company to offer a Certificate in Therapeutic Fostering, this is an academic course that lasts a year. Now that I have successfully moved on our mother and baby I will have the time for this course and am booked to attend in 2010.
Jane and Brian
My name is Jane, my husband Brian and I have been fostering with By the Bridge since March 2005. Before my fostering career began, I was a PA to a Director of Royalties at a music company. Brian has continued to work in the field of telecommunications whilst we foster.
I had always wanted to work with children, but I was used to being treated as a professional, and this was something that was really important to me. It was, in fact, one of the main reasons why I chose to foster with By the Bridge; when I first went to an Introduction Evening I was made to feel that I would be treated as a professional in my work with the children, and I felt that I would be valued for the work that I would be doing.
Our fostering career began when a young person was placed with us in an emergency, we have worked with several children on an emergency basis since then, but we have also provided regular respite for two young siblings over a long period of time. We have one boy placed with us long-term; he has given us real fulfilment as foster parents. We feel that we are accompanying him on his journey through life, and can see the difference that our work is making to him.
My greatest challenge so far has been trying to access appropriate education for this child who had experienced so many difficulties with school life. I feel that I completely overcame this though, as not only did I manage to get him into a school, I also managed to help him enjoy it. This positive step has helped him to make some truly amazing achievements.
It was a huge moment for both Brian and I when our foster child felt comfortable to call us “Mum and Dad”. When he went into hospital after an accident in the summer he was very low and feeling really sorry for himself. At this point, he looked to Brian and I for support, and this meant so much to us, as we knew that it meant he felt that he could absolutely trust us to always be there for him, no matter what. Possibly my proudest moment was seeing all of my foster children playing important roles in their school Christmas productions this year – I was bursting with pride!
I am so glad that we decided to foster. It has fulfilled every expectation that we had, and although there have been many challenges along the way, we have never really looked back. As the primary foster parent, fostering allows me to work with children in a way that no other job would allow, yet I am also still a professional in my own right.
I always recommend By the Bridge to prospective new Foster Parents as this is somewhere that the children always come first, and where Foster Parents are given the recognition that they deserve for the, at times, very difficult work that they do.
Desi and Errol
Before we made the decision to foster I(Desi)was a registered childminder and Errol was a Post Office manager. I had known for a long time that I would like to foster as I love working with children. Errol and I wanted to provide a warm and loving home and to make a difference in children’s lives. At the time that my eldest daughter moved away from home, leaving us with a spare bedroom, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.
I responded to a By the Bridge advertisement, and applied to become a foster parent after attending an introduction evening. I liked the honest, up-front answers to my questions and I got the feeling that I would be valued as a professional for the work that I would be doing. For me this really was going to be a career move, and By the Bridge just made it all feel right.
Since we began fostering we have looked after a lot of children on an emergency or short-term basis. These have included young babies, and teenagers up to seventeen. We have also looked after a sibling group of three – this is always a challenging task logistically as you usually need to be in three places at once when all the children are doing different activities, but Errol and I are very good at sharing out the work at home!
The biggest challenge that we have faced was actually the first young person that was ever placed with us. She was a teenage girl who had not had the best start in life, and had a lot of difficulties. However, we formed a fantastic relationship, and Errol and I both still feel that the proudest moment in our fostering careers so far was seeing her through to independence, and knowing that we had helped her to get to that point in her life.
We have never looked back on our decision to foster. There have been many challenges along the way, but with the help of By the Bridge we have overcome these and strived to provide the right outcomes for the children that we look after.
I feel that By the Bridge is very supportive of its Foster Parents, but also we are treated as professionals and earn a professional wage – this is a career to us, and therefore these things are important too. By the Bridge are centred on what is best for the children and for the foster families, and I think that this shines through in all of the wonderful achievements that happen so often. I would recommend anyone who was interested in fostering to just go along to a By the Bridge introduction evening – you will be hooked, we were!
