Who will care for the children?
Foster parent Lucy Hines describes the highs and lows of looking after her vulnerable charges
'Fostering? Why do you want to do that?' After three years of fostering I still get asked that question. I don't have to hesitate before replying: 'because we have a great family life and we want to share it'.
It's much more complicated than that of course. My husband Martin and I learned through bitter experience that to foster well you need time, love, energy and lots of patience. In the beginning, all we wanted to do was 'borrow' a foster child for one weekend a month, take him or her to a theme park and send them home with a smile on their face.
Three years down the line, our entire family's lives have been changed permanently by the experience.
A family transformed
My desire to foster came to a head in 1998, when our son Jack had just turned one. Martin and our daughter Amy, now 13, didn't argue, so I called social services.
We passed the safety test with flying colours: our house was on a quiet road and boasted stair gates, smoke alarms, cupboard locks, a securely fenced garden and - best of all from the social workers' point of view - a mother who didn't work (although working parents can foster older children).
That was just the beginning. The screening process for fostering is quite rightly almost as thorough as it is for adoption. Once approved, we would be looking after some of the city's most needy children, who might be in care for reasons ranging from family illness, bereavement and physical or sexual abuse to parental alcoholism, drug addiction or pre-adoption.
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