Well, hello everyone, I suppose I should introduce myself, My name is Simon, I am a 30 year old male foster carer for Nexus Fostering.
I suppose many of you are asking the question why? Why me? Why did I decide to become a foster carer?
I will be totally honest with you, I don’t think I can remember a single moment when a firm decision was made, there was certainly lots of discussions between myself and my partner at the time, who is now my wife.
I think it is safe to say, that my wife probably planted the seed and set us off on this incredible journey. Her parents had provided respite care for a local charity and she had seen the rewards that could come from it.
I will be honest, when i started looking into becoming a foster carer, I had no idea what to expect, I thought I had whatever was needed to provide these children with a safe and caring environment to grow up in, but I didn’t know, I had no way of knowing. I knew that I had experienced a varied and challenging childhood, and I overcame these challenges but would this be enough?
As our assessment went on the assessor asked more and more questions and the more we spoke the more I thought, “Yes, yes, we can do this, and do it well.”
So that was then, this is now, since our approval as full time foster carers, we have cared for children of all ages from all backgrounds, we have got married and had our own birth child.
How has it changed my life you may ask? I don’t know, this is my life, I am 30 years old and I am about to deliver an 18 year old in our care to her university halls of residence and it feels like only yesterday that I was starting university. I can assure you, there was no-one prouder than my wife and I at the school on the morning of her results. But that’s another blog for another day….