Foster Families Have Heart

In October, we celebrate National Foster Family Week. We’d like to take this opportunity to recognize the enormous contribution that families who foster children make to our community and the positive impact they have on the lives of children and families.

Thank you for leading with your heart. Thank for your flexibility. Thank you for understanding that parenting within a ‘system’ is hard for everyone and is sometimes very frustrating. Thank you for transitioning our children into your home and treating them like your own, while also understanding that their life story means they will have many unique needs and reactions, and being a child in care also means we will have higher expectations of you. Thank you for supporting the children who leave your home. For letting them know they will be missed and remembered and how sad you are to see them go – how saying good-bye is hard – while also giving permission for them to be very excited to go home.

Being a Caregiver for our children in care is complicated. Our children are complicated, our system is complicated, and your emotions will be complicated. The one thing that is not complicated is that, by leading with your heart, and taking the risk to love our children and honour their family, you will be giving each child a life experience that will be part of them forever. You and your family will have experiences that will change you forever as well. Your heart will break and stretch and grow, and you will learn much more than you thought possible. You will be exhausted and you will be invigorated. You will be challenged and you will challenge. You will make a difference

Yvonne is a foster parent for the Children’s Aid Society of London & Middlesex and birth mother of two children.