Would you like to tell us a little bit about yourselves?

Desi – The first thing I would say is that I know I’ve definitely lived a full life. I’m very happy. The first moment we met I knew that Priscilla was the one for me.

Priscilla – I would say the same.

Desi - We have been together for over twenty years. We are both happy women, we love to travel, eat and cook. We love learning and we love experiences. I would say we learn something new every day. We will forever be experiencing until the end.

How did you find the fostering process?

Desi - While we were learning about the process, yes, we had our doubts of, “can we do this?” But even though we got frightened nothing pulled us away.

Priscilla - We have an excellent Supervising Social Worker, Anita. We adore her. She’s right on.

Desi - Priscilla said to me the other day, “after you, Anita is my favourite person in the whole wide world.”

Priscilla - We went through the fostering process during covid and it was intrusive but we understood why and Anita helped me and talked it all through with me, which really helped me.

Desi - ……but I really appreciated that it was intrusive. I felt safer knowing that Futures For Children were doing a good job for their children. During the process, we did a lot of reflecting and wrote our life story. It was kind of cool, instead of intrusive, to remember everything and marvel how much we have done.

Priscilla - Going back eight years ago we were talking about adopting a child, we had a business and we were so busy that we couldn’t have taken a child on. Then with Covid we were lounging around and Desi brought it up, it was great.

How was your first home visit?

Desi - Our first initial visit was over Zoom (Covid restrictions) before we were assigned a Social Worker.

Priscilla - I think her name was Sarah and she was lovely. It was a long interview but she was a lovely, warm individual.

Can you tell us a bit about why you decided to become foster carers?

Desi – I absolutely adore children. I’ve loved and adored children all my life. I’ve always had children around me. The time was just right.

If I knew when I was younger that I was gay I would have made sure that I had a child when I was younger. I have always wanted one, but we have just got on with life. Now we have the time, the timing is perfect, why not now.

Priscilla – We wanted to change at least one child’s life.

Desi - Well, I think the child will change our life to be honest. It’s even stevens. It’s not an easy question, it’s not something that was thought cognitively, it was just felt. Almost like the universe told us it was the right time. It just seemed really right. And when I told Priscilla I had messaged you guys on Facebook it was amazing that she was in the same mindset as me and we were both on the same page, I didn’t need to explain or coax.

How has your fostering journey been so far? You have just had a respite placement haven’t you?

Priscilla – Yes we had a fantastic young boy for 2 or 3 nights.

Desi – He settled in very quickly. As soon as he walked in he was part of the furniture. He came shopping and took his scooter. We brought a bit more than what we thought we would buy but it was so, so wonderful. He grabbed the bags off me and said, “look what I can do” and put the bags on his scooter.

Priscilla - He said to us, “I’m living the life here”. He was a star!

Why did you choose to foster with Futures For Children?

Desi – This was a question we were asked early on. I remember answering, “why not?” Should I be looking at others? It was your advertisement on Facebook that I saw and it just felt like I found you naturally. We started learning that this is an agency and that there are also many other agencies and we thought, “should we look at other agencies?” But there was never need too. We felt really good when we communicated with you guys and we didn’t get any alarm bells when we spoke. We just wanted to do this process and we never need to look elsewhere, it just felt right.

We adore our Supervising Social Worker!

What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about finding out more?

Priscilla - If you are wanting to foster I would definitely recommend Futures For Children. I would recommend speaking to them too. I always felt if there was something niggling it was always cleared up once we sat and talked to Anita. Any question I had was always answered very positively.

Desi – I did think, “what about if they turn around and say no?” We didn’t know the process but we did think that the agency might turn around and say no and we did have that conversation with each other. We knew we would accept that and that as an agency you would know best. All we all want is the best for the child. Wait until you are sure. It isn’t something to be taken lightly.

Priscilla – You need to be serious and make that commitment. I would definitely recommend that you speak to someone in Futures For Children.