Fostering is about progress, not perfection

Gaining an insight into fostering 

Although you don’t need any experience to become a foster parent, Jamila’s experience with her sister’s foster children helped her gain an insight into what it’s really like to foster. 

She said: “I’ve done some respite for my older sister on three different occasions. I went and stayed at her house while she went abroad. I was looking after her four children alongside my own while still going to work. So, it was a bit tricky, but it was fun. And I thought, you know what? I could definitely do this.” 

Balancing work with fostering 

Some foster parents choose to work and foster. When Jamila became a foster parent, she had every intention of giving up work, but her employer was flexible, allowing her to work around her fostering commitments. 

She said: “I started fostering a little boy, so told my head teacher that I would have to leave my position because I had to drop him off and collect him at particular times. My head teacher said, ‘If we accommodated that, would you be happy to stay?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, why not?’ 

Jamila continued to foster and work full-time for a year before dropping to part-time hours, making it easier for her to keep up with the household demands of raising children as a single parent.  Alongside her foster parent training, she also started to apply the knowledge she gained at school to her fostering role.  

She said: “At school, we always have to do regular training. We’ve completed the trauma-informed approach, therapeutic teaching and emotional coaching. I’ve also been to some special needs schools and picked up ideas from them. All these things help you understand and manage children’s behaviour.” 

It’s a family affair 

Since becoming a foster parent, Jamila’s two brothers have also joined her and her sister at FCA. The four siblings have created a family support network that benefits both them and the children they care for.  

Jamila said: “We are so blessed because we are family, making it so much easier to get support, ideas and advice. We offload to each other because, as a foster parent, you need to offload sometimes and share our practice.”  

“It helps our foster children feel less isolated because they see other foster children within the wider family. Our birth children learn empathy and understanding because they have to share their homes, mums and belongings.”  

Jamila and her family share their practice, learning from and leaning on each other. Her background of working with children with disabilities meant that she could help her sister’s foster child communicate.  

She said: “When he started living with my sister, he could only make noises. I used my experience working with children with communication difficulties and helped my sister teach him Makaton and PECS. He can now sign the alphabet and is starting to sound out words. He’s really benefited from our family network.”  

Celebrating diversity 

Jamila and her family are Muslim but foster children from various cultures, ethnicities, and religions. They let the children lead the way when exploring their identities and celebrate occasions together. 

 She said: “We look into their backgrounds, prepare food from their culture, and respect and support the different religions of our foster children. One child wanted to do Christmas, so we did Christmas, and we’ve celebrated Easter and Diwali. When we celebrate Eid, all our children get Eid money and can be involved in as little or as much as they like.”  

Jamila believes that creating an inclusive environment teaches children and young people valuable lessons. She said: “That’s one thing within our family – if someone has a different religious or cultural background, we’ll respect and support it. I think it teaches the children that everyone can follow whatever cultural or religious belief they like, but we can all respect their choices and celebrate with them if we want to.” 

Enabling children to be children again 

Jamila loves her role as a foster parent and as a teacher. She said: “I’m so passionate about all the work I do. I love working with children, so I could work every day. It’s like my gym because I get a kick out of it and just really want to keep on going.” 

Jamila shared her advice for those considering fostering, she said: “Don’t look for massive changes because massive changes might not always happen. It’s the small things that count, like seeing them smile and knowing they are happy, content and able to be a child again.”  

Whether you’re single, in a couple, or part of the LGBTQIA+ community, if, like Jamila, you have a passion for making a real difference to children and young people, we’d love to hear from you.