Shante's Blog

“It’s been an opportunity to embrace difference.” – foster carer Shante shares her story

Fostering is something I’ve wanted to do since I was 18. I studied social work at university, then went into social work myself. I’ve always had an interest in supporting young people and families.

When my partner and I bought our own house, we realised we had space for a young person. We wanted to offer a safe place, a home and a family to support them with their future aspirations.

Our journey began roughly a year ago. The application process was long, but that was our choice – we went at our own pace, and that gave us time to decide whether supported lodgings was for us and how that would work with our family. We had to consider our capacity, as both my partner and I work full-time, but we decided to go ahead.

Our first young person came to live with us in February 2023, feeling confident that he was the right fit for our family, and that we would be right for him.

Our young person is a 17-year-old asylum seeker whose life was at risk while living in Iran. He fled his country for safety reasons.

In the six months that he’s been with us, he’s made huge progress, and he is also much more confident. He’s in college full-time and is now looking for his first job. He has integrated so well with us, and even with our wider extended family. He’s become a real part of the family and we do lots of social activities together, like shopping, bowling and skating.

A large part of our care is supporting him to live independently – he can now cook for himself, do his own laundry, and budget his finances.

It’s also been really nice to see him develop friendships in the town where we live.

 A lot of people might worry that the language barrier would be challenging – this was one of our worries at first – but this shouldn’t deter people. We’ve found ways of communicating, from using Google Translator to having translators in meetings. We’ve even supported him to learn English.

It’s so important for black and minority ethnic backgrounds children in care to feel represented. It’s about embracing all cultures – we try to champion his culture, which is very different from ours. Being a Supported Lodgings carer has provided us with an opportunity to share our culture, too. Our family is of African and Caribbean descent, so we’ve had the chance to share our cultural food, and our young person has cooked his own cultural dishes for us. It’s enabled us to learn about both of our countries and embrace difference.

To the black and minority ethnic backgrounds community, I would say that the support from Essex County Council has been there from the very beginning, even when we were deciding whether or not it was right for us. It’s a process that we’ve been able to take at our own pace, and we’ve been supported all the way through.

We’ve encountered no form of prejudice or discrimination throughout the process – if anything, we’ve been encouraged to talk about our ethnic background and culture. This is also shared with the young person from the very start. We were offered the opportunity to introduce ourselves and our family, allowing our young person to ask any questions they might have.

It’s also really important to realise that there is no certain age you have to be to become a Supported Lodgings carer. My partner and I are in our early thirties, so some might consider us to be a young family with less life experience, but children in care benefit from carers of any age and any ethnicity. Fostering and being a Supported Lodgings carer is for everyone.

To find out more about fostering you can attend one of the online information events where you can speak with the team and foster carers and ask any questions you may have.