After seven years as a foster carer, Kim has often had the same conversation with friends and acquaintances, that foster caring was something they’d love to do – “one day”.
“My response is generally ‘what’s stopping you now?’ said Kim, who along with her partner Michael, is a foster carer with Anglicare Victoria in Melbourne’s inner-west.
The couple look after two boys aged nine and 22 months and are now calling on others take on the role and help ease a chronic shortage of foster parents both in Melbourne’s west and across the state.
“People don’t realise it’s really flexible,” said Kim, 25, who began fostering while in a previous relationship.
“You have so much say in what placements you take and how long for. I didn’t start diving in the deep end taking a long-term placements. I started out doing respite and emergency care just doing what I did when I could.”
Fostering can take many forms fromemergency and respite care, to ongoing care arrangements, and can be done by adults whether they’re married, single, older, younger, with or without kids, or in same-sex relationships.
Carers don’t even need to own their own home.
Kim and Michael look after their two foster children at a home they rent in the Maribyrnong council area.
The couple, who were recently engaged, met in 2022 which served as 31 year old Michael’s introduction into fostering.
“I have found it challenging, I’m not gonna say it hasn’t been, it has opened my eyes a bit,” said Michael who as a secondary school teacher, had plenty of experience working with children.
Now a fully accredited foster parent, it’s a challenge he’s glad he took up.
“It’s a rewarding journey to be on, being able to watch the kids grow and hit milestones.”
Anglicare Victoria support program manager in the west, Spiros Drakopoulos, echoed Kim and Michael’s sentiment that foster caring was an especially fulfilling way to make a difference to a young person in need.
“In the Maribyrnong and Hobsons Bay area, and across the western suburbs, there’s a real need for more foster carers to give kids in need a safe place to stay,” Mr Drakopoulos said.
“Opening up your home to a foster child is one of the biggest ways you can make a difference to a young person who really needs it.”
To learn more visit: https://www.anglicarevic.org.au/our-services/foster-care/fostering/
