Brian and his husband Julian started talking about fostering while sitting around a pool in Cyprus. When they returned to Cyprus a year later, they were sat talking to their young child they had fostered.
“In September 2014, whilst on holiday in Cyprus, sitting around the pool, my husband, Julian and I got to discussing fostering. – We had talked about having our own children quite often over the previous 10 years together, but as we are a same-sex couple, we knew that obviously it wouldn’t be quite so straight forward! …..so we wondered if fostering was something we could do!? Could we open our home to troubled kids? …Could we care for vulnerable children? And if we did, would we be strong enough to say “Goodbye” when the time came?
We thought long and hard and in the end we made a decision! – We decided, upon return from our holiday, that we would set the ball rolling and begin our fostering journey.
I remember being extremely nervous when the whole process began…….. it was all so new and unknown to us. After one phone call to Capstone, that ‘ball’ was well and truly rolling. We had initial meetings set up, we had packs sent through the post to us and we suddenly had a reel of phone numbers to ring if we had any questions or queries.
It was amazing!!! …….because it was all completely new to us, we knew we wanted a fostering agency that could offer a lot of ongoing support, and we instantly (literally) felt like we had it!!
The “process” to get us to approval was the part we completely dreaded. We thought it would be gruelling and we thought it would take forever, and we weren’t looking forward to it at all!!!!
…….of course, we couldn’t have been more wrong!!!! – It ended up being such an easy, gentle process, with numerous visits from social workers and assessors over the coming months who would assist us in all the aspects we were required to fulfil. It really felt like a supportive, guided process and before we knew it, in March 2015, 6 months after that first phone call, we went to panel and were approved as foster carers!
It was only a month later, in April 2015 when our first child, a 14 year old boy, was placed with us.
-In September of 2015 we returned to Cyprus on Holiday and it felt so amazing to be there, sittting around that same pool where we had been discussing the possibility of fostering 12 months earlier, but this time we were sitting there, with our foster son!!
...Fast forward to March 2017 – Julian and I have now been approved foster carers for two years. That little 14 year old boy is still with us and is now almost 17 years old, and A 6 year old boy also now lives with us and has been here for a little over a year! ….It is so incredible to see just how well both boys are doing, and just how far they have come in such a short amount of time!!
It is a little crazy to think how fast this past two or three years have flown by, but in all honesty – making that decision to foster was the best decision we could have ever made!! …..It completely changed our lives and continues to do so on a daily basis!! …..don’t get me wrong, it certainly can be stressful and completely exhausting, but when all is said and done, we wouldn’t have changed it for the world!!!!!!”
We caught up with Brian in 2022. Watch his fabulous video about fostering below:
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