Fostering is a way of providing a nurturing and safe environment for somebody else’s child in your own home when they are unable to live with their birth family. A foster carer needs to provide a safe, secure and stable environment so that children and young people can recover from any potential traumas they have experienced. Foster care is about giving children and young people the opportunities to reach their full potential.
There are many factors that may lead to children being fostered. Children may come into care due to illness, relationship problems, family breakdown, or perhaps a situation where the child’s welfare is threatened.
Many children who require foster care have experienced some degree of neglect, and/or physical, emotional or sexual abuse. All of them will have experienced loss and separation from their birth family. Even if the child presents a happy and smiling front, their past experiences will almost certainly have an effect on their behaviour and development.
Some children express their emotions and feelings through difficult or challenging behaviour, such as tantrums or being withdrawn, aggressive, clingy, rejecting, or over-compliant. Other children may act older or younger than their years, or as a result of being placed with many different foster carers, may not know what is expected of them. They may also find it difficult to develop trusting relationships with adults.