Voices of a Fostering Family: Georgia’s blog No. 1

Georgia, aged 15 is a birth child in a fostering family in the South West. She has agreed to share her experiences of what it’s like to support and provide care for children placed with her family.

This is the first of her short “snapshot” monthly blogs.

“ I’m a 15 year old girl I’m one of three birth children, I have one younger brother who is 12 and a younger sister who is 10 we’ve been fostering for three years. We currently have two placements who are both aged 11 – a girl and a boy, they’ve both been with us for a couple of months. Our placements are mostly a laugh and well-behaved they are like one of us. They can be a bit annoying at times though (like any brother or sister I suppose).

This month has been a struggle for one of our placements as he’s finding out whether he’s going to stay in care or go home. I can understand what he’s going through as we’ve had placements before in the same situation. I like helping and making jokes with him about the whole situation this helps him through it and that makes me happy.

Our other placement is happy at the moment as it was her birthday and she got everything she asked for. She also had her best friend stay over for her first ever sleepover! It was good to see her laugh and smile. That’s all for this month.”

“Make a Difference” is a Five Rivers participation project which encourages young people to share their ideas, experiences and achievements.

These are Five Rivers’ 3 Participation Principles: Participation is valued and the views of children and young people are taken seriously; All children are given the same opportunities to be included in decision making that affects their lives; Participation should be a fun, creative process and children’s and young people’s achievements rewarded and celebrated.