I am currently working as a foster care caseworker - a postion I find rewarding and enjoyable (for the most part *smile*). Yes it can be exhausting, and incredibly heart wrenching at times, but for now this is where I believe I am meant to be. In the past I was a foster carer and did
this for around 14 years. I started off caring for teenagers in crisis, then moved on to caring for hard to place kids 0-18 yrs. Some of these children had disabilities, or extremely challenging behaviours, yet I found each one
of them brought something special to my life. Still today, I think of them often and wonder where their lives have taken them and what they're doing now.
An added bonus has been the fact that some are still in contact with me from time to time, or have done so over the years - it's great to see that one person can, and does, make a difference in the lives of the ones who have come into their lives, even for a brief time.
I encourage you to think about fostering children who are in need of care, and to make the step of contacting your local agencies to enquire about the possibilty of being a carer. The children and their parents are in desperate
need of help, maybe you are the person who can meet that need. At the same time, I would encourage you to think over clearly the impact that doing care will have on your own family unit.
It does impact on your lives and that needs to be considered and recognised prior to jumping in wholeheartedly.
If you don't consider the impact, yourselves, your own family, and the precious little ones you'd be caring for will be damaged, rather than helped and no-one wants to see that happen.
In the Links below please be sure to spend time searching around the sites.
They have heaps of information there but links etc need to be followed as some of them are not easily navigated. Some of the pages you will perhaps find confronting as a carer because they deal with important issues that some children have faced in foster care - still they are an important read as many children have been done a great injustice by the system, and sadly by the Carers whom were meant to be helping them and providing a safe haven for them. |
