Siblings Maya and Gabe begin their process of welcoming a new foster sibling well before they arrive at their Eltham North home.
“We’ve got a whiteboard up that we usually plan our week on but when we’ve got someone coming we erase that and write their name and ‘welcome’, and we usually make a poster and put it up in their room,” Maya said.
“We set their room up all nice for them,” Gabe added. “Sometimes we get information about foods they like, or hobbies they have, and we can put things in their room for that. Younger kids get soft toys, if they’re older we put in books they might like.”
Anglicare Victoria, the state’s biggest provider of out-of-home care, in partnership with amazing foster care families like Maya and Gabe’s, are this Foster Care Week calling for Victorian households to consider opening their homes and their hearts to a child in need.
Now teenagers, Maya and Gabe met their first foster sibling when they were four and six years old. Their family has been doing respite and emergency foster care ever since.
“We’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember,” Maya said. “I think having foster kids when you have your own children, it’s a good idea. It’s just a part of our lives now. A really fun part.”
Last year, Anglicare Victoria oversaw foster care for nearly 800 children and young people and is proud to support about 1000 carers across the state annually.
Fostering can take many forms from emergency and respite care, short-term placements, to ongoing care arrangements, and whether you’re married, single, older, younger, with or without kids, or in a same-sex relationship, working full time, renting or owning – everyone can make a positive difference in a child’s life.
For Gabe, being a foster brother has widened his perspective.
“It’s taught us how to do things, how to look after others,” Gabe said.
“It’s given me a perspective on how hard parenting can be, some parts more than others that you wouldn’t even think of, like even just getting a baby to eat food.”
Despite the challenges, Gabe said he looks forward to one day fostering children in his own home.
“It’s rewarding, it’s fun. I like that it kind of breaks up every day being the same,” he said.
“Some of my favourite moments are just watching them play and becoming more comfortable, or when they finally figure out how to do something. The child we have right now, when she first learned to fist bump. That was awesome.”
Maya agreed the many ‘firsts’ their family had witnessed as foster carers were amazing.
“One of the kids we had about a year ago, when we got the little report they come with, it said they had no words. They weren’t talking. But after being here a couple of days they said their first word,” she said.
“When they come in they’re really nervous, sometimes they don’t even want to get out of the car. Two days later they’ve chilled out. It’s fun.”
Can you provide a safe place for a child in need? Anglicare Victoria runs regular information sessions about all things to do with foster caring. Visit our website to find out when the next one is running near you.
