Tony and Kim have been approved foster carers with Sunbeam for over 6 months and have one child in their care placed shortly after their approval. The couple have their own son aged 10 years and the family have taken to fostering with excellent motivation and dedication.
Tony’s brother became a foster carer with our sister company Pride Fostering and this started the couple’s interest in becoming carers also. “Prior to this we had never really thought about fostering, but when we saw how much his brother and wife enjoyed it and how rewarding they found it, we decided to look into it too.” The couple have many attributes and a loving home to offer “Personally we felt that we would be able to offer children a home, along with the help and support that they would need at a very difficult time in their life.”
The couple enjoyed the assessment process stating “It was extremely thorough but at the same time gave us the chance to talk about ourselves.” Due to the couple having a good understanding of fostering already they worked well with their assessing social worker. “Our social worker was fantastic and never once did the process feel intrusive. We were expecting the approval panel to be quite daunting, however everybody made us feel very welcome and relaxed.”
Following their approval, Tony and Kim were keen to gain hands on experience however they were apprehensive about their first placement, “We had to make a few changes around the house as we didn’t know the age of the child we would have. We were also quite anxious, especially wondering how our own son would react to another child in the house.” The couple worked hard to ensure that both children settled well into the new routines, “It has been quite a challenge for our own son to now have another child around the house. Some sacrifices have had to be made, and on the other hand someone to play with where previously he had to wait for friends to be invited over. They have had some disagreements but generally things work out okay!“
The couple has shown a true commitment to fostering and are keen to learn more, “We are now well into our training that is provided by Sunbeam. The training sessions are extremely informative and we feel that we are learning so much from them. After each session we come home with a better understanding of why children behave the way they do and how this behavior relates to the experiences they have had.”
