Limerick foster mother - 'It has opened our eyes to the trauma going on in other homes'

There are currently over 6,000 children in care in Ireland and this figure is growing every day.

Unfortunately, a lot of children in Ireland cannot live with their own family, either on a short-term or long-term basis and are therefore brought into State care.

This could be because of illness in the family, the death of a parent, neglect, abuse, violence in the home, or sometimes it can be because the parent or family is not coping and they need respite or long-term help.

Foster parents are often the safety net for children in those situations; parents like Mary Hennessy from West Limerick.

Ahead of Focus on Fostering Week, the Limerick Leader spoke to a proud and loving foster mother who welcomed a foster child into her family in Christmas of 2022.

Mary has three adults sons of her own, and when they all left the family home, she felt she still had space in her heart to give a child in need a loving and stable home.

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She said that her interest in fostering was sparked by a friend of hers who has been fostering children for many years.

"We were empty nesters," Mary said. "So we chatted about it, and we said we'd go for it and see how we got on with the application process to see if we could get approval".

Mary came across Fostering First Ireland who helped her with every step of the way in fostering a child and the process took about ten months in total.

Mary got a phone call during the Christmas period of 2022 asking did she want to take an eight-year-old boy for nine days.

The nine days then turned to 28 days and then that turned into Mary fostering the boy permanently.

"He's happily still with us today. He was eight when he came into care and he's just coming on 12 now, so he's been with us since," Mary said.

"We literally got a phone call the evening before to ask would we take him and we said 'yes, we will.' He arrived the following day at 2pm.

"Everybody was home for Christmas and there was lots of beds taken up. So we had our grown-up adult sons who had to bunk together, which they hadn't done for many years to make a room available for him. So, it was very hectic. But to be fair, he settled in quite quickly with us".

"He took up a lot of new hobbies. Where he had been previously in his birth placement, he wouldn't have had the opportunity for much hobbies or activities. So he loves cycling and he recently got a new bike. 

"We're going off now later on, I'm picking up some of his schoolmates and we're going off to the Aquadome in the afternoon".

Mary described fostering as "very rewarding" but said "it's like the Irish weather, there's the high tides and there's low tides. I suppose in our case, the high tides, thankfully we haven't had as many as maybe other placements might have.

"It is challenging, you know, to take a child that you don't really know and with a family background that you have very little information about. But I suppose we have a great support team".

With Fostering First Ireland, Mary has a link social worker who is always on call to help or answer questions.

"We can contact them Monday to Friday and we've an out of hours service so over the holidays or Christmas, there's always somebody on at the end of the phone for us.

"If you have a medical emergency or if the child has an incident, maybe a behavioural incident or maybe experienced some harm or that, you always have somebody at the end of the phone through the agency to answer to us".

Mary said that the whole experience has been very fulfilling for her and her family and it has especially opened up their eyes to circumstances that they would otherwise take for granted.

"One thing I have found with it is that our adult sons, I think it was an awakening for them as well to see another part of society.

"As they were growing up, they weren't aware of the trauma that would have been going on in other families and that children growing up maybe weren't safe and secure in their birth placement.

"It's probably opened their eyes a little bit, you know, that they appreciate a little bit more how they were brought up and they see what's going on in the fostering area".

Mary said that there are children in hotel rooms and AirBnBs waiting for placements and said that there is a crying need out there for foster placements around the country.

She said that "for any child to be taken away from their birth family, no matter what the situation is, it's traumatic because at the end of the day, you know his mum is still his mum, and his dad is still his dad".

Mary's foster child meets his mum and his siblings once a month.

"But on the flip side of it then is that they're taken into care for a reason. The situation merits that, you know, for the child's own safety, they need to be taken out of that situation".

"I don't think he's going anywhere long-term, he has become an integral part of the family. He's really much loved here now, I must say. If the situation had been that he was to go back to his birth family, we would all have been heartbroken to be honest with you".

Mary would highly recommend anyone who is able to and who would be interested in fostering, to do so.

"There's a very slow uptake of foster parents coming forward. I think that it is a very rewarding thing to do. It is challenging, but there is support for that out there through the agencies," Mary said.

If you are interested in fostering a child, you can send an enquiry to www.fosteringfirstireland.ie or call Fostering Advisor Jess directly on 087 9394697.

Fostering First Ireland's criteria to be able to foster a child is as follows: 

- You need to be over the age of twenty-five, there is no upper age with fostering you just need to be in good health and have a reliable support network around you.
- You should have a spare bedroom available, foster children can not share with your own children.
- If you have children, your youngest should be at least 3 years old. You do not need children to foster.
- You should have your full driving licence, there are a lot of appointments that come up for children in care so it is important that you can travel to and from them.

"Fostering is the most amazing rewarding journey you will ever experience, one piece of advice that our foster carers would always give is to just get going and try not to think too much about making that call. You are always supported by professionals and never alone once you get started you will not look back," Fostering First Ireland said.