At Chrysalis Care, we pride ourselves on centring the voices of children and young people, our foster carers and our staff team, as we value the insights that everyone brings.  Each of us have something valuable to share and in this blog, we are delighted to highlight the views of one of our foster carers, AH, who told us her reason for becoming a foster carer.

“Over the years, since the days of Live Aid and more recently, Comic Relief, I have seen so much pain and suffering on the news every day, towards the treatment of children. 

Back then, I gave a bit of my money, did my “bit”, made myself feel better.I never really thought about it too much more until my sister told me she was going to become a Foster Carer. I replied “Why?!!”.  At the time, I thought she was crazy!

My naïve understanding of foster children was that all came from very bad backgrounds…I was very much mistaken.

May I add that was well over 15 years ago and I lived in my own happy little bubble, not caring to look outside of it. It wasn’t until I met the first child placed with my sister, that my whole world changed! Along with my perception of who foster children were,  I 100% admit now that I was so wrong on so many different levels! 

Her first child was just a young girl looking for a family and someone that cared, she changed my way of thinking at once.  We spent a lot of time together and it was through her that I decided that I could offer a child a home and some sort of normality.  I decided that I had some love to give. 

14 years later, I can honestly say it’s been the best thing that I have ever done. 

I have had the privilege of being part of children’s lives and making a difference. Furthermore, I have the opportunity to work with birth families and again my opinions were changed. I was shattered at the realisation that things went so much deeper than my thoughts; their family just wanted what was best for their child. At the time, it was just too hard for them but they loved their children and their children loved them.

I think of myself as a caretaker, a teacher, an ambassador, a chef, taxi, makeup artist, hairdresser and clothes shopping buddy. I’m not finished, the list goes on….an agony aunt, sister, auntie, cousin and a friend. Most of all, I am a parent-figure who is there, no matter what; a constant, solid friend in my child’s life, for the good the bad and the ugly.”