Mardi Lumsden
Perhaps one of the greatest examples of hospitality is welcoming a stranger into your home.
Thousands of foster carers around the country do just that everyday – they invite an unknown child into their home and welcome them as a family member.
Uniting Church member and former director-general of the Queensland Government Department of Child Safety, Norelle Deeth, says foster carers are very special people.
“It takes a very special person to become a foster carer,” she says. “They need perseverance, tolerance, good parenting skills and, most of all, unconditional love to rebuild faith, hope and love in an abused or neglected child."
“It can be a thankless role. Abused children can bring learned and dysfunctional self protective behaviours into a home. But with time, patient endurance and love, foster carers can turn around the lives of our most vulnerable children and young people. That's very rewarding.”
Maureen Hamilton and her family have fostered 50 children in the last 10 years.
“Hospitality plays an enormous part in fostering,” Maureen says. “When children first come into a home it is the impression of how they are respected that remains with them.”
The family’s first foster child was a streetwise 11-year-old.
“My eyes, and those of my own four children, were certainly opened to what it was like to live with a child who had been living on the street for some time,” she says.
Maureen says challenges ranged from seeking support for the children to struggling with decisions made by the Department. “Children coming into care are traumatised, if not from the treatment they received at home due to neglect or abuse, then from the mere fact of being separated from their family. They are usually heartbroken when they are removed.”
Support and training from groups like Lifeline Community Care Queensland’s Families Plus have helped Maureen understand and care for her foster children.
Hayley Lingard is manager of Lifeline’s Foster and Kinship Care, Specialist Care and Placement Support Services for Families Plus.
Hayley says the Foster and Kinship Care program recruits, assesses, trains and supports foster carers to meet the daily needs of foster children.
“Being a foster carer is an extremely challenging and rewarding role," says Hayley. “Our support is aimed at trying to make this role manageable for the entire fostering household as we recognise that this role impacts all members of a family.”
Peter and Tanya Cranna are foster carers to three siblings in a long-term placement, meaning they will legally care for the children until each child is 18-years-old and then longer if the children and the Crannas choose. Peter says the joys and challenges of foster parenting, like all parenting, can be summed up in the journey of a child’s development. “It really is the joy of seeing the children reach their potential, develop the tools to tackle the challenges of going through the teenage years and ultimately be someone who contributes positively to society."
“And from age-based achievements such as learning to swim and ride a bike to looking people in the eye when talking to them and using good manners to sporting and academic achievements.”
Tanya agrees: “The joy of fostering is watching the children grow and blossom into fulfilling adults. Another joy is to see children being returned to their families.”
After trying to have children of their own for many years the Crannas looked to God for guidance. “We explored fostering because we wanted the parent experience,” says Peter. “Looking back it is easy to see the hand of God all through the journey. The support of family and friends was enormous and has remained so. We have the opportunity to continue to be a witness to Jesus through our role-modelling and encouragement of faith conversations.”
Since her husband passed away Maureen Hamilton, and her daughter Nicole, have continued to foster children.
“I guess it is because of my faith that I do fostering,” says Maureen. “I love the children but I also feel that God has been generous in giving me a wonderful family as a child and I have been blessed with four loving children. Fostering is my way of sharing this gift with other children and families and at the same time enjoy their children’s company."
But she says it's important to remember that foster children have families of their own. “Families Plus instilled in us that the children who come into our care are not ours and we are only there as part of their journey – love them but let them go.”
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