Foster carers, Sally and Annabelle, encourage others to consider fostering
With people across England facing bleak employment prospects as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, two of our foster carers, Annabelle and Sally, believe that more people should consider fostering in this time of uncertainty.
Annabelle, a former customer service manager for a bank, and her wife, Sally, were approved as foster carers in October 2013 and have since provided a loving home for 10 young people on a number of placement types including respite, short term and long term. The couple, who have been married for seven years, are currently long-term foster carers to three siblings who they are hoping to adopt later in the year.
After working in a bank for many years, Annabelle realised she wanted to work with children so decided to make the move into the care sector along with Sally. Their roles included residential care and teaching at a school for children and young people with autism, but they knew they wanted to explore fostering at a later point in their careers to support vulnerable children.
Annabelle is now a full-time foster carer while Sally continues to work as a teaching assistant at a specialist school near their home, so she can be close to the family. Annabelle said: “After working in jobs that were devoted to helping children, it made us both want to make a difference to the lives of young people in need. We considered both adoption and fostering, but after looking into it we found that foster care was closer to what we’d been doing in our careers and we were really impressed with the amount of training and support on offer. It felt like the natural next step for us and we haven’t looked back since we started fostering.”
Reflecting on their time with their three foster children, Annabelle said: “Becoming foster parents has been such a rewarding experience for us both. Lots of children can deliberately try and push you away at first as they’ve been through a lot but coming out the other side of that to find them feeling safe and blossoming is an amazing feeling. We’ve seen all of the children we’ve looked after overcome their own obstacles and really thrive with us.”
Speaking about the misconception around members of the LGBT+ community fostering, Annabelle said: “No one should be discouraged from fostering because of their sexuality. Everyone has been so supportive of us and we didn’t experience any barriers when we began our fostering journey. I’d urge anyone considering fostering to not be put off by these misconceptions and to just go for it.”
For more information on fostering, book a call with us or you can apply to foster here.