"Our family foster"
Transcription
Hello…
Louis: Hi, I am Louis. I am thirtheen years old and I have been fostering with my family for four years.
Hannah: Hi, I am Hannah. I am nine years old and I have been fostering with my family for four years.
What do you do with your foster children?
Hannah: Sometimes I go downstairs and sometimes I might be watching TV with them, or play with them with their little toys and stuff. Sometimes they come into my room and watch Fireman Sam or something on my iPad.
Louis: It depends really on the children we have at the time – when it started off, when we first started fostering and it was brand new to us we only had one child which was a little bit easier because there was four people compared to one baby, but now over time we got used to it and now we have three children. We come down to help occasionally, I admit I don’t do it as much, but I know when I do come down it is a great help.
Why are your roles important?
Louis: I think our roles are important – we just kind of there as a more of failsafe so when things get too loud we can be there to help, which I think – it just makes us happy to think we can be there to help out when there’s loads of little children running around rampant (laughs).
What’s hard about fostering?
Louis: There are sometimes when you have to, compared to doing the things you’d like to do, you have to do the things they want to do.
Hannah: Otherwise, I just love having them around.
What do you like about fostering?
Hannah: I really like it because I know if Louis’ out or something then I can always play with the boys.
Louis: These little children – because they look up to you so much, they know that you’re looking after them so they really will show love and affection towards you. So they’ll always just sit down, listen to you, they’ll want to play with you, ask you to do things for them – that’s the thing that I like. They really want to get to know you.
What was it like at the beginning?
Louis: When we were first told be our parents that “Hey, we’re going to start doing fostering?” I had no idea what to expect. I think it’s kind of changed us in a way. But for the better – definitely for the better.
Hannah: We like it when they first come because it’s like a new person’s arriving and you don’t know what they’re like and they could be a really happy person or they could be a really sad person, but you always know from when they first come they’re always changing throughout until they’ve gone.
What support do you have?
Hannah: Definitely if you have a social worker – definitely if you feel you need talk to someone, definitely do it, don’t just keep it to yourself. And also you can speak to your parents about it.
Louis: Originally, I remember, quite a while ago, we were given a bunch of different numbers you can contact – there’s a list of who you can contact. Obviously there’s your parents, loads of social workers. You’re never going to be alone whilst fostering.
Anything else you’d like to say?
Hannah: I think it definitely would have been useful to know it was definitely going to be very fun, because it’s definitely really nice having the boys around.