Celebrating the Extraordinary in the Everyday
Every day, foster carers across the UK are changing young people’s lives in ways both big and small. We’re celebrating these incredible individuals, not because they are superheroes, but because they are ordinary people who choose to open their hearts and homes.
Many people think fostering is out of reach, that it requires special skills, qualifications, or the ability to create life-changing results overnight. The truth is, foster carers come from all walks of life — nurses, bus drivers, accountants, retail managers, and more. What unites them is not a job title, but a simple, powerful desire to make a difference.
You don’t need to be extraordinary to foster. But by bringing your own life experience, compassion, and commitment, you have the power to make an extraordinary difference to a young person’s future.
“We want to highlight that you don’t need to be superhuman, that you don’t need to arrive bursting with childcare skills and experience, and by the very fact that you used to be a nurse, a bus driver, an accountant or a retail manager means that the life experience you bring will only ever augment your role as a foster carer.”
Read the inspiring stories of real foster carers, and how they’re making extraordinary differences.
Kate has been a foster carer with TACT since 2017. She originally trained as a nursery nurse, but when she looked into fostering it ‘just clicked’. She has shared her fostering story with us:
My background is that I trained as a nursery nurse many years ago. Shortly after that I became a military wife and then I raised my own daughter.
One day a friend said to me “Do you know what, you should have a look at fostering.” And something clicked. So I decided to do a bit of research. That is basically what brought me to fostering.
The support from TACT East Midlands – it’s been spectacular. They’ve always been good, I’ve felt they’ve always had my back – always been there when I needed them. But also, they’re a nice group of people. I’ve known them for a long time now.
Aileen has been a foster carer with TACT since 2014. She learned a lot from the young people in her care; from arts and crafts right through to adjusting expectations to be in line with the needs of her young people. She has shared her fostering story with us:
My favourite thing about being a foster carer is watching young people develop from sometimes a frightened young person, or a young person who is unsure of where they are going, into blossoming young adults who go to university or college or get an apprenticeship.
My last young man who got himself into little bit of bother: we’ve now got him in the Princes’ Trust learning a trade. It’s about being positive, not looking at everything that’s negative and helping them to develop confidence in their own abilities, so they can move on and realise that they can do things.
The support from TACT has been superb. I have the finest Supervising Social Worker that any person could ever have. She is absolutely brilliant.
Trina has been a foster carer with TACT since 2009. She was helping out at a school, when one of the teachers recommended fostering to her. She decided to look into it. She has shared her fostering story with us:
Many years ago I was helping out in the local school, and one of the teachers was a TACT foster carer and she kept saying to me ‘you could do this – the way you are with children’. So it was actually one of the school teachers that got me into this.
So I gave TACT a call, hoping that they were going to take me seriously – and I’m still here 17 years later.
You don’t need to be extraordinary to foster
You don’t need to be extraordinary to be a foster carer. What matters most is providing a stable, supportive, and caring environment for a child. Many people mistakenly believe that foster carers must possess exceptional skills or qualifications. But it’s the everyday qualities; patience, empathy, reliability, and a willingness to listen that make the biggest difference.
Children in care benefit most from genuine connections from someone who is present in their lives. Someone who offers encouragement and creates a safe space for them to thrive – enabling them to eventually gain independence and to forge their own path in life.
You don’t need to be extraordinary to foster, but conversely the everyday care, patience, empathy and willingness to make a difference that you will bring to fostering can achieve the most extraordinary outcomes.
Start Your Fostering Journey. Make An Extraordinary Difference.
