A Now Foster Story: Fostering has been, hands down, the best thing that I have done over the past decade
Sara is our CEO at Now Foster. She started fostering in her mid twenties, when a child she was volunteering with came into the care system. Since then, Sara has had experience of family breaks and emergency placements. She managed these alongside a busy job as a charity CEO in Oxford, where she lives.
What drew you to becoming a foster carer?
I grew up in Spain as part of a multi-generational family, living in a busy block of flats where everyone was in and out of each other’s homes. When I started living in England, the idea of the nuclear family completely baffled me, it felt so lonely! All my family and chosen family was far away, so I started doing more community work, volunteering with children and with older people. One of the children I had met in the community came into foster care, and I trained as a foster carer to support her.
What are the rewarding moments of fostering?
It’s amazing being alongside a small person as they become an engaging and opinionated adult. We have been able to share lots of fun and joyful moments: learning how to swim, enjoying trips to the West End together, exploring the UK and Spain together. I didn’t grow up in England, so being a foster carer has also given me a fantastic opportunity to do all the things I didn’t do as a child, from going to Legoland, to learning about the wives of Henry VIII.
Through fostering I’ve met some amazing children, but also incredible adults in their lives — birth families, social workers, other foster carers. It’s cliche to say it takes a village to raise a child, but those adults have inspired me to develop my fostering skills and I’ve also made some great friends!
Can you tell us about a fostering moment that made you laugh?
Once I was caring for three boys who were 1, 13 and 15, and didn’t speak much English. Soon after they came to my home, the big brothers started saying ‘oopsie daisies’ every time there was a fall, a wobble or anybody dropped anything. I realised it was what I had been saying about 10 times per hour, as the little one was learning to walk, and he was falling over frequently! This was both hilarious (did I really say ‘oopsie daisies all the time!?), but also a reminder that you can be such an incredible influence on children, and they will pick up so much from you, even when you don’t even notice.
What are the challenging moments of being a foster carer?
Life is not linear for any of us, and sometimes children in your care will have a wobble, whether it’s about school friendships, exam results or a tricky experience with their birth family. Sometimes I wish I had a magic wand to fix it all when things are tough. However, the only thing that you can do is to be there, and provide the loving space and consistency they need — and you need to remember that often, that is enough.
Every parent will tell you that it is tiring to care for children, and that’s not different when you are a foster carer. I have done respite and emergency care alongside a really busy CEO job, and sometimes when Monday rolls around and you have been chasing a child the whole weekend you realise you are exhausted! You need to make sure that you have a good support system around you.
What do you think makes a good foster carer?
As a foster carer you need to have a never ending amount of curiosity to figure out how you can be the best cheerleader, supporter, advocate and parent to the child in your life. When you think you have cracked the code, well, something changes again! A foster carer approaches this lightly, and provides bucketloads of consistency through a strong relationship regardless of how rocky things may be for a child as they navigate school, friends and growing up.
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