Slightly belatedly (Grandparents Day was a few weekends ago!) we are acknowledging the significant input that grandparent figures can have on the lives of young people, either your own or step-grandchildren but also for children in foster care. Thank you Grandparents for all your continued love, support and guidance in all things 😊
However, are you a Grandparent that has started to think about becoming a foster carer?
- Perhaps your own children have grown up, settled down and are now starting their own families, leaving you with a quiet, boring, empty house
- Perhaps you feel that you have plenty of love, care and stability to give, and would like to support the younger generation in your community
- Perhaps in your community you see parents struggle to parent their children with patience and confidence, and could consider working with a team of professionals to encourage and improve parenting skills whilst the parent and baby or toddler are living with you for usually 12 weeks
- Perhaps you may be a grandparent that is caring for a grandchild or other family member on an SGO or other kinship arrangement. Did you know that you can also be considered to foster alongside, and in fact we have several foster carers that do this!
We would be happy to discuss further with you!
Fostering can be tough and you will need to be resilient, but so rewarding to see a child feel secure and open up in your care. The young people may take time to trust you and see you as a safe person, which will bring some challenges. Many children do not want another ‘Mum’ or ‘Dad’ (got one thanks!) however may benefit from older, mature carers that cannot be seen as a threat or in conflict with role of their own parent.
There is no upper age limit to becoming a foster carer however (as a foster carer of any age requires) you do need to have time, energy and patience for fostering. You definitely won’t be the only ones fostering as actually most foster parents are aged 45 years and over, possibly because they are more settled in life and work, and as a mature parent and grandparent you probably will have developed more patience and definitely more experience of all ages of children as they grow up and change!
You do also need to have some basic IT skills and be comfortable using laptops/tablets, emails etc. We do give full training on our systems. We also prefer foster carers to be able to drive and have use of a car, but we can discuss.
Your grandchildren can still visit, and (if you have another spare room) stay over etc, and for any foster child matched with you, we will have considered any impact on your visiting grandchildren, or them on the foster child! You can take foster children on holidays with you.
Please get in touch if you would like more information 😊
By Lynsey Dobbs, Senior Recruitment Officer