A Nottinghamshire couple has shared how they left their public sector jobs to support children in need. Harriet, 55, and David Murch, 59, began their fostering journey 15 years ago as local authority foster parents in the East Midlands.
After a while the pair took a break and Harriet returned to being a pharmacist and David became a police officer again. However, in 2020 the pair decided to go back to fostering at the start of the pandemic.
The pair have described the plunge back into fostering during a national lockdown as a shock to the system, but agree that there "is nothing more rewarding." The pair were home-schooling and entertaining the children during the pandemic, pulling together to make the most of a challenging situation.
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Harriet said: "It was hard! On the other hand, it brought us close together quite quickly, and really helped us to bond. As we couldn’t spend time with friends or family, we had no choice but to get to know each other properly."
Harriet and Andrew are currently supporting a group of three siblings, aged 15, 12 and 10, through Fostering People, and 21 year old Annie also stays with them, as she is a ‘staying put’ placement from their time as local authority foster carers.
Annie first moved in when she was eight with her two siblings, but left to live with another family after a few years, before returning to stay with Harriet and David on an ongoing basis whilst her siblings remained with another family. This was an arrangement that worked best for all of them.
Harriet explained: "We have seen a lot of positives having Annie and our three younger children at the same time. Particularly for our 15-year-old, it has given him a degree of security because he has seen that it is possible to stay past the age of 18.
"It can be difficult to be out in the world on your own at 18. We say to our children that they can stay as long as they like, but we know that we are fortunate to be in a position to be able to offer that."
The pair were inspired to start fostering by Harriet's own upbringing. She said: "I wasn’t able to live with my parents as they were ill, so I thought that I could empathise. We also knew someone that fostered.
"It’s funny, because we assumed that fostering would be the same as bringing up our own children, which is something we felt that we did well, but the two are not quite the same."
Although the pair have devoted years to public service, they explained that fostering is what made them feel they were making a difference. David explained: "In our jobs it was difficult to see how we were making a difference on an individual basis, and we both felt the same.
"With fostering, you know that you are really doing something that is going to change someone else’s life.” The pair say that building trust and strong bonds is a key part of being foster parents, and they recently had a respite foster carer stay in their home to take care of the children.
Harriet said: “We were a little bit apprehensive to be leaving them for the first time, but it’s important that we still take time for ourselves, so that we can give them our best when we are all together. We left for four days, and when we came home… everything was perfect.
"They had tidied up which was just lovely. We thought we were going to come back to a mess! But the best part was that even the 15 year old gave David a hug when we got back, which is something that he wouldn’t normally do.
"We felt like they had missed us, and that put a smile on my face.” David added: “I was having a conversation with the middle foster child about getting older, and what age means.
"And I jokingly said to him that he was going to have to look after me in my old age. He looked at me so seriously, and said that he would take care of me in my old age. That was a really beautiful moment.”
Harriet and David feel it is important to have a good support network around you when fostering, and the pair have two grown up birth daughters that no longer live at home, but live locally and can help out when needed. Speaking about what it's been like to start fostering again, the couple said: "We have been very fortunate with them [Fostering People], we have had a great social worker, and she has been with us the whole way through.
"That support and continuity has been amazing for us as foster parents getting back into it. Since we’ve come back into fostering, and have now raised our own daughters we have much more knowledge and experience.
"We have learnt about why children in care exhibit certain behaviours, and have done lots of training to ensure that we can deal with it safely and with the children's best interest in mind. It can be really hard when the children are rude to you, or they misbehave or you don’t understand where they’re coming from."
They continued: "But in those times we pull together, we remind ourselves why we do this and we use our training. With our training from Fostering People we can always head off problems, and are just better equipped.
"Our approach is therapeutic parenting that is fair.” When asked what advice they would give to those thinking about becoming foster parents, they answered: “Think very carefully. Talk to other people, and prepare.
"Make sure to talk to someone who has actually done it, or is doing it now. And talk to someone who has done it about the impact that it has. It takes over your whole life, but it gives you so much. There is nothing as rewarding as this."
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