Hi, and welcome to the Young People at Heart. I’m Gary and, together with my wife Davina, we founded Young People at Heart, a fostering organisation that has the young people at the heart of everything we do. Many people think young people only refers to the young people in care but we recognise that birth children are a key part of the caring team. We’ve included this part of the website to explain a little bit about what it’s like being a young person whose parents are foster carers with Young People at Heart. We would like to improve this section of our website with some real life stories or examples of what it is like fostering other young people in your home so if you have ideas to make it better, please let us know. You could speak to me at some of the events I attend or ask your parents or one of my Young People at Heart colleagues to let me know your ideas or simply contact us through the blue ‘contact us’ box on this page. We’d love to hear from you.
I’m a young person whose parents foster
So what is fostering?
Fostering is when a young person goes to live with a foster family because they can’t live at home with their family. Sometimes this is because their family isn’t able to look after them (they might be ill for example) or they might be having problems and need time to sort them out.
How long will my family foster each young person for?
That is a very good question. Sometimes, a young person is planned to be in foster care for a short time, other times longer and sometimes until they are old enough to look after themselves.
What is Young People at Heart?
We are an independent fostering agency and we find foster families for young people who need a foster home. One big difference is that we are a ‘not-for-profit’ agency so we don’t pay profits to shareholders or investors. Any surplus is used to try and make the lives of young people in care better but we also like to arrange activities for the children of foster carers so if you have any ideas for fun events, let me know. We will post details of events for young people in this section of our website.
Let people know how you feel
If you are worried or something is bothering you, we all want you to be able to tell someone about it. Having a young person living with your family can sometimes be a worrying or upsetting time so it’s important that you let your parents know how you are feeling. Your family will also have a social worker from Young People at Heart as well as a support worker and they will help in any way they can. We will be running support groups for young people where you can meet other young people who foster and share experiences, thoughts and ideas about fostering. You can also let us know any good news stories or anything we could do better through the ‘contact us’ box on this page.
Contact us with your ideas
If you would like to share your ideas or simply contact us then please click the link below and complete the form on the contact us page.