Wendie and Adam Blog

“You could help children and young people write the next chapter of their book.” Essex Foster carers Wendie and Adam share what impact you can have on a young person's life through fostering.

Adam and I have been together for almost 40 years and have three children – two sons and one daughter - and 10 grandchildren. We’ve been fostering since 1991 but we only joined Essex County Council in 2021. I have always wanted to foster; I grew up with a neighbour who fostered, and I admired her. I wanted more children as well, so we started fostering when our children were still young, our youngest was just two years old.

We foster children short term which could be a few days, weeks or months, or a few years, we have fostered many children in the past 30 years. We are still in touch with some of our foster children. One child we fostered is now in her 40s and still calls to have a catch up or ask for advice. We love seeing how they are getting on, how they go on to live their lives makes us proud.

Fostering with our birth children was hugely rewarding. Our oldest son could be challenging at times, but when we started fostering his behaviour improved. For our daughter, she got to have sisters. It made us all more understanding and tolerant of people.

One young person we fostered we took on holiday to Cornwall and they started to cry when we arrived, we thought they were upset, but they just looked at us and said this was the best holiday they had ever been on, and we’d only just arrived.

Another young person who we fostered for seven months was shaking and crying almost non-stop when she first arrived on our doorstep, but after two days she was having cuddles with me.

We received a letter and video from one young person saying thank you for everything we did. We didn’t realise we’d had such an impact on this young person. They were with us for seven months and we clicked immediately, but receiving the letter and video was so emotional for us both.

You can have such a positive impact on a child if you give them a chance at life. Fostering can be challenging, and you will hear stories about the challenges, but you are giving a child safety and stability for perhaps the first time in their life.

Our aim is to give our foster children a safe place away from any trauma they have experienced. We have helped move our young people into independent living or back with their birth families. All our foster children need is for someone to be there for them and advocate for them. We’ve helped rebuild relationships with birth families and nurture our foster children to become independent and that is the greatest reward.

If you do encounter challenges the team at Essex County Council are there for you. We have completed a lot of training courses on subjects like being trauma informed, parent and child fostering, and first aid. All the training is of a high quality and support is local.

Fostering has taught me so much about myself as well. You need to have a good sense of humour and patience, be non-judgemental, be understanding and be willing to learn.

If you’re thinking about fostering just give it a chance. Every child deserves a chance, and you won’t know until you give it a try. There are so many ways to fostering, talk to someone at the Council and be open and they will help you find something that suits you and your family.

You could help children and young people write the next chapter of their book.