Fostering provides amazing opportunities - carers

Fostering children can be "daunting but amazing" experience, a carer has said.

The comments come as Guernsey's Family Placement Service launched its Foster Care Fortnight this week - which includes hosting a fun day at Saumarez Park on Saturday - appealing for more carers to support young people in the island.

It said the fortnight aimed to shine "a light on the everyday realities of fostering and the profound difference foster carers make in children's lives".

Cathy and her husband have fostered 10 children across six years. She said at first, foster caring could seem like a challenge but ended up being a fulfilling experience.

"It's quite daunting, we don't have our own children so we were on a very steep learning curve," she said.

"But we were really well supported by the team and family placement and it made the process much easier to to align with the support."

Cathy said her biggest motivator for fostering was to "provide those opportunities" the children might not have experienced before.

She said: "It's an amazing opportunity to be able to provide structure and boundaries but also fun and activities and adventure and holidays."

Senior social carer Vicki Tennant said there was a need for a wide range of foster carers as with children "it's not necessarily going to be a one size fits all".

She said: "Foster care is something that in regards to numbers is always going to go up and down as people naturally come in and out of it and their lives change for a variety of reasons.

"Unfortunately it's something that there's always going to be a need and demand for whilst the social work teams do the work with the birth families.

"So we just need to have the ability to have more foster carers so we can do appropriate matching and make sure the children come in and their needs are being met by the carers with the right skills."

The service said it would be holding drop-in sessions for people interested on the following dates:

• Beau Sejour Leisure Centre on Wednesday from 15:00 to 19:00 BST
• Guernsey Parkrun at Pembroke Bay on 23 May, which starts at 09:00
• Beach House, Pembroke on 23 May from 09:00 to 11:00

Team manager Cath Black said the fortnight gave the service an opportunity to thank all foster carers in the bailiwick for their "remarkable commitment to caring for some of our most vulnerable children".

She said: "We are fortunate to have dedicated foster carers, over half have been fostering for more than ten years - every foster carer plays a crucial role in helping children feel valued, supported, and safe.

"Whether someone can offer short term care, long term stability, or specialised support, their contribution can be life changing."

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