Lyn and Kenny, Bexhill

What interested us to foster? We came into fostering through a family we knew who fostered teenagers. We spent a lot of time with them and their family for 5 years before we put ourselves forward to foster. Also the timing was important, we had moved to a larger house and had quite a few spare rooms so lots of space to have more than our first two children. We became used to having young people at home as we had had foreign students to stay.

We feel it is crucial that the children we foster are treated exactly the same as our own children. We are all one family and there is no difference.

What do we love about fostering? We love the challenges – lots of different ones. We fostered a girl, a teenager who had a lot of different problems, over time we managed to help her overcome all of these and her life was almost completely turned round. It made her feel good about herself and we felt proud we had managed to help her.

Also the learning, there’s always something new to learn about for example different ideas about how to tackle different behaviours. Being able to understand what’s causing it makes it easier to know how to deal with it. We feel it is crucial that the children we foster are treated exactly the same as our own children. We are all one family and there is no difference.

Also we enjoy meeting other foster carers on the training, we get to know each other, support each other and it’s a good social network..