Bradleigh and Ricardo Blog

“Fostering is so natural, like waking up in the morning and breathing. We don’t know where we would be without fostering and without these children.” Essex foster carers Bradleigh and Ricardo share their love of fostering.

Ricardo and I have been together for five years and fostered children for two. We currently have one young person with us full time who will remain with us until he is 18 years old and a child who is four years old.

Fostering has allowed us to start the family we were so desperate for. Surrogacy and adoption are still options but fostering spoke to us more. We wanted to help young people in Essex who needed a stable and safe home. Working with children has always been a part of our lives; my family fostered children and through Ricardo’s career he worked at nursery’s with 0-5 year olds.

After chatting about how we would be able to start our family, we went along to a fostering information event. We spoke to a lot of wonderful foster carers there, something just felt right, and we signed up on the day to find out more about fostering and being assessed as foster carers.

Ricardo and I are 27 and 30 years old and are one of the youngest couples that foster with Essex County Council, and we want to stress that age isn’t a barrier when fostering. If you are ready for fostering, you have a spare room, you have love and patience and time to give a young person, then fostering could work for you.

Fostering has changed our lives to the degree where we can’t see our lives without it. It’s just so natural, like waking up in the morning, I don’t know where we would be without fostering and without these children, we love it so much.

It’s challenging at times, but very rewarding in so many ways. Our youngest foster child was still in nappies when he came to us and had no routine. After two weeks he was using the potty and was more settled and into a routine. It’s small things like that that make you feel so proud of what you are doing.

There will be challenges along the way, but we know we are supported by Essex County Council. When you first become foster carers there is a lot of training to do initially and then training is available whenever you want on a myriad of different topics. We have learnt so much from the training we’ve done, it is fantastic, and we reflect a lot on the training to help us in our own situations.

We want our foster children to have a safe and stable home and to have fun, all we ask is that they’re open and honest with us, as we are with them. Honesty and trust are big things.

If you’re thinking about fostering, go to an information event, speak with foster carers, but don’t overthink it. You get so much support and training, and it is the most rewarding job you will ever have.

Where would these kids go if there weren’t foster carers? We’ve never looked back, we started fostering one child, then after a year we knew we could do more so opened our other spare room to take another child.

Fostering is open for everyone, any age, any gender, any sexual orientation, don’t let anything stop you. Just get in touch or give it a try and find out for yourself and you could help kids in Essex who really need it.

To find out more attend one of the online information event where you can speak with foster carers like Vanessa and ask any questions you may have.