Fostering a child is a lifestyle decision. The role of foster carer covers many bases from advocate to confidant and everything in between. You will cook, clean, and mitigate all while listening, advising, speaking up, and making plans of action. It is one of those essential professions in society that has a highly rewarding feeling attached and when you make the decision to become a carer, you really will be able to change young people's lives. These are five clear reasons why that's true.
The Difference Between Turmoil and Security
As a foster carer, your home will become a space that is all about safety, security, and anchorage. When a young person comes to live with you, there is a high possibility that they are coming from a place of turmoil. This could be emotional turmoil or chaos in their home that is out of their control. They will be hypervigilant, anxious, and wary; three things that take practice to navigate successfully. Becoming a foster parent with an agency like fosteringpeople.co.uk means you have the opportunity to give the child a slice of peace and security in the face of all that disruption. The value of this is worth more than words.
Demonstrating Prosocial Engagement
Prosocial, as opposed to antisocial, engagement is valuable for any child and especially those in care who may have more intense, negative experiences of adults and society. Through demonstrating prosocial behaviour, and all the benefits it brings, you are re-establishing boundaries, re-affirming positive ways forward and presenting the world in a safer light.
Opening Access to Education and Employment
Education and employment are arguably two important avenues for all young people. Yet for a lot of children coming into the care system, their understanding and engagement may be low and stunted in these areas. Your job will be to facilitate their re-engagement and put things back to where they ought to be. For a young person learning how to be an independent human, having access to this information and healthy connotations about the world of work and learning is going to be extremely beneficial on many levels.
Providing Opportunities for Healing
Everyone has some healing to do at some part in their lives. For children who come into care, you are never fully aware of what they lived through before they came to your door. It could be highly traumatic. A part of your job will be to open the door to therapeutic services and provide the platform for safe healing.
Facilitating Healthy Attachment
Attachment is the thing that guides our perception of how to forge healthy, secure relationships. This will be one of the most important things a foster child needs to learn, especially one with adverse attachment models. This will be a long process, and you may only scratch the surface. The simple act of showing up and providing security will already start the journey of re-learning what healthy attachments are.
Fostering changes lives. As a carer, you step into a role of extreme importance and will be doing a job where no two days are ever the same. It is rewarding, fulfilling, and somewhere to impact real, positive change.
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