Kelly and her husband Alun became foster carers with Foster Wales Caerphilly 6 years ago. Kelly was only 29 when they started their fostering journey. They have two children of their own and foster primarily children aged 11+.
We spoke to Kelly about their experiences and wanted to know more about why they decided to foster and what it means to them.
“Fostering was always something that I knew was a good thing.”
Kelly’s parents have been foster carers since she can remember. It was inspiring for her, and she remembers always thinking it was a good thing to do.
“It was always something that I thought, you know, maybe we’d be good at that. But I think the turning point for us was when we moved house, and we had an extra bedroom and it just kind of made sense.”
The process went smoothly for them, and Kelly recalled that they had their first placement a few months later.
Kelly’s children were 10 and 4 at the time of approval, so their preference was to foster children of similar age to them.
“We wanted to blend the ages in, and we didn’t want to start again with a baby because we didn’t think that that would kind of fit into our children’s type of routines and lives.”
She added:
“My parents only ever looked after babies, so I’ve never seen anybody older, and we went older.
“I didn’t know everything because what I’ve learned now is ‘your parents foster’ and ‘you foster’ are totally different things.”
No two experiences of fostering are the same. Every foster carer’s story is different, and there are no two children who are the same. For many carers this is what makes fostering so appealing and keeps it interesting – you never know what challenge it will bring you and what it will teach you.
“You’ve got to be able to connect”.
Most people already have skills and characteristics that would make them great foster carers; some of them don’t know that for example patience, empathy, or the ability to organise things are already enough.
Kelly said that fostering taught her that she has to be calm and understanding and be able to quickly see things from different perspectives. She added,
“It’s taught me that you’ve got to be organized because you’ve got things like family time, school meetings, dentists. Sometimes you need to be able to think on your feet, basically.”
“Occasionally, you’ve got to be the comfort blanket when they want to cry. Sometimes you’ve got to be, and I don’t mean this literally, the punching bag.
If they want to verbally get their anger out, you’ve got to take it and be able to just keep calm and just step away. I learned it works to step away and come back to the situation a bit later once they’ve calmed down.”
“Fostering has taught me a lot of lessons on how to communicate and listen because a lot of people are quick to jump in and give advice. You need to be able to listen first before you can advise.”
Fostering is a process and a never-ending learning curve. It rewards you and it changes you. Kelly said,
“I definitely think fostering has changed me and I think that’s not for the worst, I think it’s for the best. I think it’s made me 100% a better person. Kelly six years ago and Kelly now are two different people.”
“I absolutely adore it”.
Asked about the biggest challenge of being a foster carer, Kelly said,
“Some of these children have presented me with problems that I didn’t even know existed. My children never had any of these problems. I never had experience with this before, so it’s taught me to definitely take a step back and think about things before I act.”
It can be challenging on occasion, but fostering shows you that nearly every problem has a solution. Foster Wales Caerphilly provides excellent support, and Kelly said:
“If I encountered something new that I never experienced, I would go to my link worker for support. She’s incredible; she’ll give me support at any point of the day.
Also, the recruitment officer, is incredible. She’ll give me support and she’s the salt of the earth.”
I also use the internet a lot. I’m going to try and find as much information as I can. I love to learn and find out new things!”.
Foster Wales Caerphilly also provides learning opportunities to foster carers so they can develop understanding and knowledge about certain issues. For Kelly, the training on specific issues around young people’s behaviours has proven to be helpful.
“This one teenager who stayed with us liked to go out on the weekend and come back home a bit drunk. I enrolled myself on an alcohol course to try and get up to date with the training. Then they could come to me with something, and I knew what to advise, what to watch for, or how to react.”
The importance of self-care.
Foster carers are often experiencing a lot of emotions, they are being exposed to many challenges and often their lifestyles are busy. In all of this they often forget to take care of themselves and their own wellbeing.
Kelly spoke about the importance of self-reflection:
“Every night when I go to bed I just sit and I think what went well today, what didn’t go well today in any situation. Could I handle it a bit differently? And then I get up the next morning and I go again. If I think I did something wrong the day before I correct it.
It’s kind of like, for me as well, a little bit of self-care because I can check myself as well. While I’m in this quiet time, I find it very, very therapeutic. That’s what personally works for me.”
Self-care is a support that you’re giving to yourself. Caring about others can sometimes make you forget about your own needs. Kelly added,
“I’ve only discovered it about seven months ago when for the first time I felt a little bit burned out. I realised I haven’t really done much for myself.
Some people go for a walk, meet a friend, or even have a spa day. For me it’s the meditation sounds. I’ll pop my headphones in and just lie on the bed listening to sounds maybe for 15 minutes. It brings me back down. I’ve never known the importance of it until I started doing it.”
“Treat them as equal, not like you’re above them”.
Despite it being occasionally a challenge, Kelly says she loves it. She likes to keep busy. It’s about finding your way in fostering. One person likes the house to be quiet, Kelly loves her house to be filled with people and laughter. She said, “I love the madness (laugh)”.
“When they all come in from school and they all sit at the table and they all chit chat about their day, for me it’s normal. I can’t cope with quiet; I love it!”
Fostering gives Kelly energy and motivation to get up in the morning. She and her husband currently foster three teenagers along with raising two biological children. Asked about fostering teens, Kelly said:
“I think people’s negative perception about teens in foster care is because of the media. The reason for that is they’ve only ever heard the horror stories. In reality, there are probably 100 lovely stories and maybe 5 horror stories.
We’ve had many teenagers in our home. I would say teenagers are probably the more fun placements. In many ways, they are also much easier. You don’t have to get up at night and feed them like you have to with a baby and you haven’t got someone attached to you 24/7 like you have with the baby too.
I’ve always had positive experiences. Of course, there’s been bumps. Nobody’s perfect but I think with teenagers, you need to be a certain type, they need a different type of care.”
Kelly believes that younger people can make better foster carers for teenage children. Teenagers don’t respond very well to strict rules and being told what to do.
“You need to try to find the common ground with these children, hear them, and treat them as equal, not like you’re above them. I think that’s why maybe my younger age helps; I still remember being their age and I still remember how I felt being 16-17”.
But it’s also very important to be a parent to them, as well as a friend, and I always had their respect.
I’ve had positive experiences with all of my teenagers. I mean, they still text me now every single day just to say hello, or for advice.”
In Kelly’s view, a person who can’t compromise and bend rules a little bit will have a hard time connecting with teenagers.
“I can understand the importance of wanting to go on your phone with your friends. I can understand the importance of staying up a bit later sometimes to watch this new Netflix documentary. I’m not going to say, “Phones off, TV off at 9:00 PM, no discussion”. This is not how these things work anymore. More likely, if you are watching a really good Netflix show, I want to watch it with you! (laugh).
If you try to throw rules onto teenagers, they will start to resent you. That’s the fastest way to placement breakdowns.”
Kelly believes that the success in fostering teenagers lies in creating an environment of equality and openness.
“I never had issues with anybody storming out of the house or running away. Maybe because I always try to come in at that angle of being equal, and open to listening.”
Her and Alun try to encourage young people to talk to them about their problems and have open conversations about topics often considered a taboo.
Fostering teens keeps you current and up to date with the world. Kelly laughed at the various teen slang she’s been taught over the years and admitted that being around teenagers makes her feel young at heart.
“Sometimes when we laugh, I feel like I’m their age. My husband’s 42 and he’s very young at heart, so I think that he also blends easily with teenagers. When we are all together at home and we’re joking, it’s very light-hearted and easy-going.
I want them to feel like they can always come to us when they are unsure about something and feel comfortable having difficult conversations too.”
“They come to us injured, but when they leave we bleed.”
The biggest reward of fostering is seeing young people transform. Kelly said that she wants to see them moving on as better people than when they first moved in.
She feels that the best thing about fostering is being able to send these young people into the world feeling loved and secure.
“I want them to feel secure here, to have time to laugh, have affection and I want them to have good memories.”
Children aged 11+ need stability and guidance. I always call this age the moulding years. That’s when we can have the biggest impact – we’re teaching them what’s right and what’s wrong and a little bit of respect and also some distance to the world around them.”
Fostering moment that stuck with me.
This year’s Foster Care Fortnight theme is Fostering Moments. I asked Kelly if she can remember any particular moment from her fostering journey that stuck with her. She told me a story that sums up so much about fostering.
“There was one moment with my youngest; he was four years old when he came to us. Absolute whirlwind. I never met a child like him. He wasn’t good in school. He wasn’t good at home. On occasion he did make me question if I should keep fostering – he was a difficult child, and it was early in my fostering journey.
He couldn’t write. He couldn’t do anything. Maybe about nine months after he came to us, I was working with him on holding a pen. Not writing, just holding a pen.
Then one day he came in with a little scrap of paper that he’d made in school. And he’d written himself “mum” and drew a love art for me.
It was like one of the first ever times when he’d written, and he doesn’t normally call me “mum”. He still calls me Kelly to this day, but obviously he recognises I’m the mum in the house.
That was five years ago. I’ve still got that piece of paper in my purse. I will never throw this piece of paper out, ever. It’s my favourite thing in the world and I think he taught me a lot of lessons, especially about how to be calm, collected, how to work with the process. You have to put time in, and you have to give them time to be able to go somewhere. He is 10 now and he is at the reading age of a 12-year-old.
These are those moments where you think that they haven’t come very far, but then you realise they have come so far…”.
“Leave me in my happy land.”
Asked about her plans for the future Kelly without a doubt said that she won’t quit fostering. She feels so devoted to helping young people in Caerphilly that she can see herself fostering until she retires.
“I got so much good come out of this and I don’t think I would quit.
I want to do this until I retire. Fostering gives me energy and motivation in life.
Some people like to complain and be negative about some things in fostering, and I say, ‘Leave me in my happy land’, I love it!”
“Making an enquiry is non-obligatory.”
If you’re thinking about fostering, just contact your local authority fostering team Foster Wales Caerphilly. That’s the first and the easiest step you can take.
The team will be able to talk to you about fostering, answer any questions you have. There is no obligation to process into application, but you will know if fostering fits your lifestyle and circumstances.
Kelly said,
“It’s very important to get information from your local authority because they all have different ways of doing things. Speaking to Foster Wales Caerphilly gives you more in-depth picture of what goes on in your local authority fostering.
You can also come to one of the recruitment events, some of us will be there, real foster carers, so you can ask questions and find out if it’s for you. Who better to ask than someone who’s actually doing it!”.
Thinking of becoming a foster carer like Kelly and Alun?
If you live in Wales, visit the Foster Wales website where you can find all the information and contact your local authority service.
Living in Caerphilly, Wales? Send us a message or give us a call on 0800 587 5664 (or text ‘foster’ to 78866) and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
