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.

Were we up to the job?

Our social worker Fran certainly put us through the mill. Over the next nine months Martin and I were subjected to the most intimate questioning either of us had ever experienced. Every week, Fran grilled us on our views about everything from religion, childcare and discipline to racial issues, homosexuality and education, as well as detailing our entire life histories.

We were interviewed together and apart, and by the end I realised I'd told Fran things that nobody else knew about me.

We had to supply two referees, be checked by the police for any criminal records, undergo health checks with our GP and attend a social services-run training course.

We learnt some useful lessons about positive discipline - that is, discipline without smacking, which is essential for fostering, as well as 'safe caring' (to avoid allegations of sexual abuse). We listened, open-mouthed, as we were advised to avoid tickling and wrestling games, never to tell bedtime stories inside the bedroom and not to wander around the house in our pyjamas.

Entering a different world

Despite the intense grilling, we remained committed. And after a nail-biting meeting before the panel (a large group of social workers, teachers and health care workers), we were finally approved as respite and emergency foster carers in October 1998.

We received our first foster child less than two weeks later - and our first lesson about the flexibility of social services 'rules' when faced with a child to place and a shortage of carers.

It had been agreed that we would foster children from the age of newborn babies up to no older than Amy, who was then ten. This was so that she would never feel pushed out by an older foster child.

Our first placement was 15-year-old David, who had mild learning difficulties, and stayed with us for a week to give his regular foster family a break. Despite our apprehension at the words 'teenage boy', most of the time he was polite, helpful and rather endearing.

One less than happy experience

A couple of months later we fostered Jane, a ten-year-old girl with a mental age of five - an experience that drove me to the brink. She was traumatised by abuse. The slightest fright, such as the noise of a dentist's drill, could send her into hours of screaming. I was completely out of my depth and the placement broke down after nine weeks. Thankfully, Jane is now living happily with 'project care' foster parents, who are highly experienced, better paid and specially trained.

The toddlers are coming

A brace of toddlers arrived next: a two-year-old boy with behavioural problems, and his one-year-old brother. By then Jack was two and I was six months pregnant with our third child. It was a tiring three weeks - mountains of nappies, rows of highchairs - but I look back with pleasure. They were lovely children and their tired teenage mum had a decent rest.

Entertaining angels unawares

Then something unexpected happened. Tabitha came for two weeks to give her mother - who suffers from Huntington's Chorea (an incurable genetic disease) - a break. Right from the beginning, she fitted into our family as if she was meant to be there.

Three years on, Tabitha stays with us for four nights a week. When her mother becomes unable to care for her, she'll live with us full time until she's grown up. As far as we're concerned, she's our fourth child, and we love her.

While fostering has often been wonderful, it's not always easy. Occasionally it can leave you weeping with frustration and wondering why you ever started in the first place. Nobody would do it for the money (£60 a week for a child under five, rising to about £115 for a youngster over 15, to include food, travel - and size ten trainers).

To make fostering work, you need energy and patience - and everyone in the family has to be in agreement. Your own children end up fostering too, whether they like it or not - especially if they're sharing their bedroom with the new arrival, as Amy did several times.

You have to be sure that it's right for everyone. It works for us, and for me it's the most rewarding job in the world.