Steve Newe's blog

My wife and I have always wanted a big family. When the last of our 4 children left for university and I took early retirement we decided it was the perfect time to consider fostering.

Our first placement in 2015 was a 5-year-old boy and he is still with us now.

He was a very troubled little boy when he arrived. At the age of 5 he was utterly confused, scared and the consequence of that was him having emotional outbursts. It was heart-breaking to see and challenging to cope with. We question whether we’d have been able to continue without the support and training provided by Essex County Council.

You initially want to rush in with love and cuddles thinking that will make them feel better, but that didn’t work. The trauma informed therapy and support from the team turned that all around.

In his short life our foster child had lost his home, his parents and his sibling, whilst also engaging with several different professionals. We learnt that he was probably terrified of losing yet another person, so he was pushing us away before he thought we were going to push him away. 

It wasn’t just love and cuddles that he needed. It was in fact, time, stability and to feel safe.

What really brought that home was when he said to us, at the age of 5, that if his own mother got rid of him then he wouldn’t expect anyone else to keep him in their home, no matter how much they loved him. It was actions and not just words that he needed.

The training has also helped me to see the world through his eyes. He is hypervigilant and even something routine for many of us, such as a phone ringing, can be very stressful for him. He instantly wants to know who it is and what they want, worrying that it might be about him and that he needs to move on. If the phone rings now I explain what it is straight away, so he doesn’t allow the anxiety to build unnecessarily.

It’s rewarding when you suddenly realise, he hasn’t done that for a while, and you find him mirroring your behaviour.

Only the other day he articulated that he was angry but still loved me. It means so much that he was able to express himself verbally without lashing out.

He has gone from being a sad and anxious child with the lowest self-esteem to a generally happy, inquisitive and cheeky young lad.

The experience has also been rewarding for our biological children. When our foster son first arrived, he could not hold a pencil, draw, read or write but our daughter taught him how. He is now such a confident little reader who is reading to his class and can follow construction plans to build sophisticated Lego models. That has influenced our daughter's life choices massively. She was doing a doctorate in engineering at university but has since taken up a career as a teacher and she is wonderful at it.

My advice to anyone thinking about fostering is to do your homework, ask a mountain of questions, and talk to as many people as you can for a ‘warts and all’ realistic portrayal. Don’t expect to make a big change straight away. It’s all about those small but consistent changes over a period of time.

Once on board don’t be afraid to raise your hand for help. With perseverance and the support of Essex County Council though it’s turned out to be one of the most rewarding jobs.

It’s been one heck of a roller-coaster ride, but at least we have ridden that together when he may have faced that alone. 

Find out more by visiting www.essexadoptionandfostering.co.uk/fostering. Or call our friendly team on: 0800 801 530.