i need advice please...

[morethanyoubargainfor]

We are currently going through the process of becoming a foster family. Heres my problem, i am terrible with words, I know what i want to say just not how to say it IYKWIM.

We are on to the second stage, and they want to know "why do you want to foster". There are lots of reasons we want to do it, but how do i word that. Could you help me put something together if i give you my reasons, PLEASE.

Reasons in the bluntest terms are:

1, I now know i can do it, having raised my ds to 5 without any real problems and far more confidently than i ever thought possible

2, I want to assist a child to either regain life with birth parents or have a successful adoption.

3, I don't want to take the place of birth parents but do want to be a positive role mpdel

4, I feel that i have alot to offer a child reqiuring a foster home, we would like to foster child with SN, an d i have worked for 13 years in this field

5, I believe that every child has the right to feel safe, secured and cared for, and feel i can offer those things

6, I don't want to "Rescue", i want it to be a positive expierence for every body involved.

7,Our son would love to have hte house full with children all the time,(although not sure thats relevant)

8, we are in a good position to do it now, we are faniacially stable and have space in our house that we have just finished building.

9, I want to make a differnce to a childs life no matter how short the placement.

10, Because i love being around children, mainly because 80%of the time i am one!

There are mopre reasons but not ones i have worked out how to put into basic terms.

Thanks for reading this far and any help would be appreciated.

I hope this reads in the way it is intended.

Are you expected to put it in writing or just verbally? Either way I think your reasons are sound ones.

Good luck.

thanks flower, we expected to put it in writing, thats what i was worried about. thanks alot.

Hi, I would take each of your reasons and expand them into a small paragraph each.

Are you hoping for any particular age group?

Age group we would be most intrested in is 2-8 really, although we have already been asaked if we would consider new borns, which we would. Apparently we are quite rare because we want to foster children with Sn and on Long term placements.

We only take newborns now but used to take sibling groups of up to 4 children. We've had a few special needs babies and also a few drug dependent babies.

We are "classed" as short term carers but we have had children 3-4 years before.

that can quite often be the case, i met a foster carer last week who fostered a child at 5 for short term and nearly 20 years later he still lives with them. Babies that are drug dependent would be another consdieration for us, although i appreciate that would be hard work.

Those babies are hard work and heartbreaking work too.

I was asked to take one just before Christmas last year and after careful thinking and considering how dependent he was I turned the placement down. I'm relieved I did, he was placed with an ex nurse and she went through hell for almost 6 months and it almost broke up her marriage.

The ones I've had have not needed medication just lots of close contact and patience.

I can imagine, and then some. It would have to be really careful consideration for us to, I can become ruled by my heart but luckily i have my DH, otherwise known as my logic! He is just as excited about this as i am, he is a little apprehensive about children with special needs because it is the unknown for him, apart from our DS who has hydrocelphalus and hypospadias and had lots of surgeries, and the fact that he is city bussiness man, but we are strong as a couple and work really well together.

Dh's response when I told him I was interested in fostering went something like....

"are you mad woman? we've got three dc's of our own and....... you've just made me have the snip"

He didn't get it at all so well done your DH.

Now after almost 21 years he will change nappies feed babies play hide and seek, you name it and he gets as upset as I when they leave.

I think it helped him because we had been told that we would never be able to have our own child, so we had decided to move out of the city into the country and when we had settled we were going to adopt, obviously our DS had other ideas, as i fell for him during the move, (how i had the energy for that is still beyond me, but hey it worked out fab), so we had looked into adopting, then when our DS was 3 we looked into Link fostering, but decided the time wasn't right what with all our ds surgeries etc,and now we are here 6 years after the initial conversations, but he has done well accepting and being excited about it as well.