Kate originally trained as a nursery nurse, but when she looked into fostering it ‘just clicked’.

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.

A favourite memory

A favourite memory with a young person I provided care for is that she and I used to read Harry Potter out loud Harry Potter together. That was our thing. Sometimes we’d include the rest of the family and we’d have two copies of the same Harry Potter book. You’d start reading and you could stop at any point. The person who was there listening had to take over at exactly that point. So it’s a bit of a game!

It was a great fun, and the laughter that came out of that! It went on for a long time – for about three years. Everyday we used to read. It started with just a chapter and then we’d read for an hour. Her reading skills are much better. She can read for herself now, but sometimes we still do go back to Harry Potter and we read a few chapters out loud because it’s a nice thing to do.

Making a difference

Our young person came to us when she was 11. She couldn’t ride a bike and she couldn’t swim – although she liked to think she could. So we’d go out and we would do lots of ball catching games and we would take the bike out and do endless figures of eight – so she could get the hang of riding a bike and get her balance and all that. We facilitated swimming lessons and then we went and did lots of swimming as a family. Playing ball helped with her motor skills. Doing colouring and baking helped with her fine manipulative skills, and her hand eye coordination; that all helped when she started school.

We used to play board games after tea, and that helped her to focus and to understand turn taking and her understanding of rules.

It’s putting in place what she never got when she was little. It’s replacing those skills at a later date because they’re not instinctive. Now we’re seeing the fruition of what we put in place early on.

At least several times a week we sit down to dinner, we talk about our day – we talk about what’s important to us. Is there anything going on in our head that we might need to question or go through? The act of sitting down to dinner, the act of laying the table and eating together and preparing food together – and then the clearing away and taking turns and being in the same space at the same time; that act really, really changes things. It changes people because it brings everybody together. And it means that you do use the space together – the space of being a family. Some of these children weren’t given the opportunity to have a meal, let alone where they had the meal and who they had the meal with. But when you do that and you make that a normal thing, it starts changing the way the brain works – and that is the beginning of changing their lives.

You can make such a big difference to somebody’s life. My best advice to you is pick up the phone, click on that button and find out more. It will be the best thing you’ve ever done.