20th August, 2024
Lynne and husband Chris began fostering in 1990 after a career in the police, when their eldest child was young. They had a break while they raised their family and then returned to their calling when their children had grown up and left home. They currently live in Marlow with their three foster children. Lynne told us,
“I’ve had many jobs in my life, but there is nothing like fostering.”
“I absolutely love fostering, you ask anybody that knows me, and they will say I'm the most passionate, enthusiastic person about fostering purely from a selfish point of view. It's just really fun to have these children in our lives, to be able to go on holiday with them, to be able to go to the cinema with them, to see them.”
“I was just talking to a parent the other day and she told me, ‘You're so lucky.’ She said, I've got a birth child with significant issues going on and there is nobody to help me. But in the fostering world, you've got a team of people to help you.
So, for instance, say we needed an education health care plan, if I was a birth family, I wouldn't know where to start. But we've got education advisers here, I've got my supervising social worker, there's a whole team of people to help me get through the tricky times, because looking after children, any child is tricky. There are times when life is difficult for all of us, but the difference is the support that you get.
Although we are a full-time fostering family, we have loads of time to ourselves. The children go to school, our eldest goes to work. So, during the day we have all the time for ourselves.”
“Our eldest looked after son, he just won the Pride of South Bucks award and my heart nearly burst when he was standing there getting his awards and we're thinking, you know what? We played a part in that. Our middle son, when he was in the Lord Mayor's parade, again, you are so proud of the children and the difference that you can make in their lives.
Fostering keeps you young at heart, our eldest loves theme parks so for his 18th birthday we went to Disney World. There we are on the motorbike ride, Tron, in Disney World, hanging on, having the time of my life. Would we be doing that if we didn't have children? We probably wouldn't.”
“It's a lifestyle choice and something that I would choose to make every single day when I wake up.”
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