‘I love fostering, it’s a fabulous journey’
DEDICATED: Foster carer Lisa Dunphy. Pictures by Neil Holmes Photography
By Simon Bristow
An experienced Hull foster carer has urged other people to consider taking up the role, saying it is one of the most rewarding things she has done.
Lisa Dunphy, who has looked after ten children in her 13-year fostering career, says her only regret is not doing it sooner.
Lisa, who recently adopted a child in her care, currently looks after two other children, and also has a teenage birth child and two step-children.
Asked what was most rewarding about the role, she said: “Mine is I love every single day. Even if we’ve had a bad day, or the children have had a bad day, I never say we’ve had a bad day, we’ve always had a good day because I always find the positives.
“One of the best bits for me is when you walk them to school and you give them a kiss goodbye and then they wave to you, and they wave until they’ve got right down the lane.
“The birth children say ‘Bye Mum’ and off they go. Looked-after children wave and wave and wave. And if you go to pick them up they can’t wait to tell everybody you’re there for them.
“It’s sad in one way but it’s also very rewarding because you feel amazing that these kiddies are so excited to see you.”
Lisa said the sad part was: “Saying goodbye when they do leave. There’s lots of different reasons children leave. I’ve had lots of different experiences.
“The first two children that I ever looked after, he was one, she was ten weeks, and they only came because their foster carer had gone on holiday for ten weeks.
“They didn’t take me on as a respite carer, they took me on as the children’s carer, and then when she came back they went. They were our first ones and my birth child was only three-and-a-half at the time and we just cried.
“We were heartbroken that these two babies that we’d had actually for about 12 weeks – because the first two weeks was coming and staying overnight, spending the day with us, it was a build-up – so we’d had them 12 weeks and that was really upsetting.”
‘I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A FOSTER CARER’: Lisa Dunphy
Speaking at her home in Elloughton, Lisa said it had been her lifelong ambition to be a foster carer after discovering her best friend at school was adopted, and whose mother was a foster carer.
“I used to go to her house every morning and every afternoon and her Mum always used to have a different baby in the Moses basket,” Lisa said.
“I couldn’t understand why, she wasn’t a child minder as far as I was concerned. And then her Mum told me she was a foster carer. And that was it, I wanted to be a foster carer for the rest of my life, and I wanted to adopt. She’s still a foster carer now, she’s been doing it for 48 years.”
She added: “I used to go into the house and she was always cooking, and it always smelt of baking, and that was the Mum that I wanted to be.”
Asked to describe the role of a foster carer, Lisa said: “You literally do everything that a birth parent would do for that child.
“The things that all birth parents should be doing – getting them up for school, making sure they go, seeing a doctor if they’re ill, making sure they’re fed well, making sure they’re clean and tidy, finding activities for them to do. And just keep them safe in every way humanly possible.”
Fostering can also have its challenging moments, Lisa said.
She said: “You usually get a wonderful, six-week honeymoon period with every child, and then sometimes they probably realise that they’re not going straight back home, or maybe they get a little bit too comfortable being where they are. And then they start showing different colours.
“I had one child, and he was absolutely adorable, everything you would want in a birth child or a looked-after child, and this particular night, everything was perfect.
“I’d said ‘Goodnight sweetheart’, and I’d gone in the bathroom and heard this almighty bang and he’d got his drink cup that was full of water and thrown it at the bathroom because I’d left him.
“And that was it, the first sign that things were not as perfect as I thought they were. The way that it’s explained in fostering is children are like an iceberg because what you see on top is not what’s happening underneath, it’s a lot bigger, there’s a rippling effect.”
But Lisa said the ongoing support and training she receives help her navigate those difficult moments.
She said: “They have a course called TCIF [Therapeutic Crisis Intervention for Families] and I can honestly say that has been my Godsend.
“It’s an eight-day course but you do a refresher every year. I’m not willing to do the refresher, I want to do the full eight days every year because I get so much from that.
“And that’s about the way you speak to the children. So if somebody’s throwing his toys out of the bedroom window, sometimes you can’t go in and say ‘Stop’ because that might be their trigger word and they’re just going to throw everything out, so it’s about gauging how you speak to that child, what you say, what you do.
“The way fostering explain it is, if that doesn’t work, the first thing that you’re doing, put your hand back in your toolbox and bring something else out.
“For instance, my little boy that’s left, he would scream and try and trash his bedroom. He’d hurt himself, do all sorts.
“The best thing to do with him was sit outside the bedroom door on the floor and say ‘Hey’. ‘What?’ ‘I’m outside the door, I’ll be here when you’re ready.’
HAPPY HOME: Lisa with Gracie the tortoise
“Sometimes I could be there for four hours. Luckily I had a mobile phone. I’d sit texting or playing a game to pass the time. And then he’d come out and he’d cry and it was always ‘I’m sorry, Lisa, I’m sorry’.
Asked what qualities are needed to be a good foster carer, Lisa, 50, said: “Just to be a good parent. If you can look after your own children then you can look after other people’s.
“But you’ve got to have a bit of patience, you’ve definitely got to have a sense of humour, and I don’t think there are any special skills because Hull Fostering will teach you most things.”
Asked what advice she would give anyone considering becoming a foster carer, Lisa said: “Don’t think about it anymore. Apply. Do it for a year, if you don’t like it you can leave.
“Don’t sit there for another ten years like I did, thinking I’m going to do it. My advice would be just ring Hull City Council, get your name down. Get on a pre-approval course and start.
“Because it is brilliant, I love it. It’s a fabulous journey.”
There are currently 756 children in the care of Hull City Council in need of a stable, safe and loving foster home.
There are 229 foster carers in Hull, not enough to meet the number of children in care.
Foster carers are needed to help with short-term and long-term foster care, as well as respite and emergency care.
To join the Hull Fostering community you must be at least 21 and live within a 30-mile radius of Hull.
To contact Hull Fostering call 01482 612800, email fostering@hullcc.gov.uk, send a private message on social media to @hullfostering, or visit www.HullFostering.co.uk