One of the questions we get asked most frequently at Orchard Fostering is ‘can I foster if I have my own child?’ The simple answer to this question is: Yes! If you have your own children, you are well equipped to offer a caring, nurturing and loving environment to a child in care. Experience is everything and your experience with your own children will stand to you when you are in a foster care scenario.
While you can foster if you have your own child, it does bring up further considerations and questions. Read on to find out more about the impact fostering a child can have on your own children, tips for encouraging bonds between your own children and the child in your care, and support suggestions for helping integrate a child in care into your own children’s daily lives.
If you’re interested in foster care, please reach out to Orchard Fostering today. We’re available on the phone or via email – you can also fill out a form directly on our contact page.
How will my children be affected if I foster?
Bringing a new person into your family environment is going to provoke change in the dynamics of your household – especially among your own children. It’s important, then, to be prepared for the effects and impacts of fostering a child on your birth children. Your child may react in challenging ways, as they deal with a new person entering their world. They might become upset about the reduction in focus on them, as well as the disruption to their all-important routine. At Orchard Fostering, we offer supports to deal with these potentially challenging reactions – so don’t worry, we’ll help you and your children through it.
Of course, fostering a young person will massively benefit your own children. Firstly, fostering will teach your children lessons in empathy and kindness – allowing them to witness and experience acts of care toward others. They will also learn to work with you and the child in your care, as they make up an essential part of the foster care team – this will help them work on their teamwork skills (a great trait to have in school and beyond). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, your children will develop bonds of friendship and kinship with the children in your care, forging connections for life with their foster sibling.
Encouraging bonding with your own children and the children in your care
We’ve written a lot about the importance of bonding with your foster child – but what about the bonds forged between children in care and the children of their carers? Forming bonds is important, especially if you want to mitigate some of the more challenging reactions from your own children. There are an array of bonding ideas in our Advice section, from outdoor activities to rainy day plans. All of these will be useful in forging bonds between your own children and the child in your care.
One thing worth noting is the importance of the first day – if you can include your own children in as much of the first day as possible (without overwhelming anyone), that will go a long way towards creating a lasting bond between the children in your home. Make sure to set aside some ‘getting to know you’ time on that first day, to start building the foundations of a strong relationship.
Support for integrating your own children with children in your care
At Orchard Fostering, we offer birth children preparation training prior to commencing fostering. This training helps your birth children understand the needs of your foster child and allows them to be involved in the process – reducing any feelings of being left out. As well as training, the assessing social worker for your foster child meets with your birth children throughout their visits. This ensures that they have input into the process and are heard as part of the family. Further supports include our birth children support groups and our Young Person Ambassador Board. In our support group, birth children come together for peer support and get help with any issues from our social care team. The YPAB is a mixture of birth children and foster children – they represent the voice of young people within Orchard Fostering and inform child-led policy and practice within Orchard Fostering.
If you’re interested in foster care, please reach out to Orchard Fostering today. We’re available on the phone or via email – you can also fill out a form directly on our contact page.