Voices of Fostering
Voices of Fostering brought to you by National Fostering Group.
Everyone’s life takes a different path. As children and young people decisions can be made for us that shape our lives forever – whether for good or bad. As adults, we have the opportunity to make our own choices. And what we choose can have a positive impact on us and the world around us. Particularly if one of those choices is fostering. When you listen to the stories of children and young people whose lives have been touched by foster carers, you start to see the impact that fostering can have. When you decide to foster, it’s hard to imagine just how big a difference you could make. Not just to the young people you foster, but rippling out into countless other lives. Your choice to foster could transform the life chances of some of the most vulnerable people in society. In this podcast, you’ll hear young people who were fostered, birth children and foster carers talking openly and candidly about their experiences. You’ll get to understand why fostering can be simultaneously the most rewarding and the most challenging thing you’ll ever do and why embarking on this extraordinary journey changes people forever. If you’ve ever been curious about what it really means to foster, what difference it really makes, you’ll find the answers here.
Voices of Fostering
Casey - The Power of Lived Experience in Foster Care Work
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Meet Casey, a Family Support Worker at the National Fostering Group who's walking the walk—not just talking it. From volunteering in Indian orphanages at 19 to adopting two boys and now supporting foster families daily, Casey brings lived experience to everything she does.
In this episode, Casey shares:
✨ Her unexpected journey from world traveler to adoptive parent
💪 How cold water swimming helps her stay strong for vulnerable youth
🎮 Creative ways to have difficult conversations through games
🏔️ Empowering programs like Jamie's Farm and Duke of Edinburgh
🌊 Why finding your outlet matters when supporting others
"You can't pour from an empty glass" isn't just a saying for Casey—it's a daily practice.
Thinking about fostering? Casey's advice: Don't rule yourself out. The skills can be learned, but the heart? That's what matters.
If you would like to find out more about fostering please visit our website here.
If you have any questions that you would like to be answered on our next episode email podcast@nfa.co.uk
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Hello, I'm Alex. Welcome to Voices of Fostering. And our guest on this episode is Casey. Casey, how are you?
Casey:Hi. I'm good, thank you. Thank you for having me.
Alex:Oh, thank you for being here. So can you start by telling me a little bit about your, your journey, your role within the group and Yeah. A little bit of a bio perhaps to start.
Casey:Yeah, so I'm Casey. I'm a family support worker here at the National Fostering Group. I work for one of our agencies, fostering Solutions. Um, and yeah, I'm re I really enjoy the work I do. I work, I get the pleasure of working by young people each day.
Alex:How long have you been doing this for? How long have you been in this world and what brought you to it in the first place? Where did the, the motivation come from?
Casey:So my journey into the world of fostering is quite different from most I've seen actually. Um, I was very, very blessed to have been surrounded by children from a very young age. So I've always worked with children, been around them, and had some children walking to my life. Um, that opened up the world of adoption and fostering to me. And from there I really started to view their journeys through the care system. And I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to be a part of helping and sharing some of my knowledge that I had learned from my personal experience. I went to on to adopt two of my own children. Um, so. They, they have been along the journey with me and. Now I get the pleasure of supporting other families that are quite similar to mine. Actually, there's, there's a lot of similarities into my journey and those of the foster carers that I support.
Alex:So, coming into this world, I would assume that you've got a natural affinity towards children of all kinds, but what, was there a particular spark that made you wanna. Step out of the, well, yeah, kids are great into, right, let's do something specific with kids. This is gonna be what is gonna make me thrive.
Casey:So I, as I was kind of approaching that 15, 16 age, I had the normal kind of careers chat with the careers advisor at school and I said, oh, I want to be a social worker. She said, oh, don't do that. Go off and get some life experience. Whatever you do, don't sign up to uni at 18 and go off and do that. So I took her advice to her and I won't. Traveling around the world and whilst I was traveling, I spent a lot of time in India and it was really there that I had my first experience of children that really didn't have the best start in life, and it was very visible and I really wanted to help. So I started off there with volunteering with children that were, were in orphanages, um, through schooling projects. So when I came back to the UK I wanted to continue that field of work. I, I, I. Made up my mind thinner there. At 19, I wanted to adopt. Um, at the time we thought we were gonna adopt some Indian children and, and perhaps start our lives over there, but, but that wasn't our journey. We came back to the UK and two young boys walked into our lives and they've never left.
Alex:When you say we, who else is part of the story?
Casey:So my husband, um, joined the, my crazy vision of how we were gonna make our life. Um, so for, for me, it's not just a job. I live this, it, it's my life. Um, and I think that is really important and I think that's really important for the young people and the foster families I support as well. Um, because I'm coming from a place of. I, I've walked in those shoes. I have have been on that journey as well.
Alex:19 is a young age to feel that initial urge to take on that role. Was there a level of maturity that maybe might not appear in other people until a bit later in life perhaps?
Casey:Yeah, I, I think. At 19, I didn't feel like I was 19, I think like most 19 year olds. And when that person at school said, go off and get some life experience, I very much took that to heart. So I started my journey of finding that life experience From there, um, I knew that I wanted to make a difference in the world, and I knew that my nine to five needed to be really meaningful. I knew that from a very, very young age that the time I invest in something. Needs to have purpose.
Alex:Uh, what did you learn in India that you were able to bring back to the uk? Uh, in terms of practical stuff, but also the mental capacity you need to be able to take on the role that you did.
Casey:Yeah, so for me. I never knew it until I was in this situation where I was dealing with someone that was really vulnerable and solely relying on my help, how I would react. It's a bit like a first aid situation. You don't know what your response is gonna be, do you don't know if you're gonna freeze. You don't know what that's gonna look like. And so I needed to find out what that would look like for me before I ever embarked on a position where I was the person that was going to help people. And India really gave me that experience. I could deal with it, I could help people that really were relying on me for help and I was strong enough to be able to support someone with, without that taking from me. I was strong enough to be able to do that and go and find my outlet. So I took that and unburdened myself. Um, which to me looks like swimming, um, even in the seeing January. Um, so. That's what India really taught me. But more than anything, it taught me that children can smile through a lot and actually despite what we perceive as something that is incredibly difficult, they still wanna play cricket. They still wanna play catch with you, and they still wanna make you laugh and have you make them laugh. And so it taught me more about humans. When you work or are exposed to children that have. A really difficult start to life and their own trauma. Sometimes you can take that on yourself. And for me, I needed to know before I put myself in those positions, in those roles where children are relying on me to be strong enough that I was able to deal with that. Um, so for me, my transfer of that, when, when I have something really difficult that I'm facing both at work or personally, I swim. So I I, I do cold water swimming, so. I live by the beach and it's January and I go in the sea and it makes me feel better. That's my offload. I give it to the ocean. Uh, so I don't carry that. I need to be strong enough to, to walk in the next day and support these young people to carry on and support my own children to carry on.
Alex:Do you use that then as a metaphor that you can pass on to people who are fostering right now or are considering fostering?
Casey:Yeah. Um, so they have slightly other ways that I recommend to do it. Um, can, can you tell us a bit about those? Yeah. Starting cold water swimming in January is not, not what I recommend. Um, but I think everybody, including our foster carers, our staff and our children need outlets in life. I think it's really healthy and it is a really. Good way to look after yourself. That that saying you can't pull from an empty glass is really, really true. Our foster carers have a whole network of support around them, so when something happens, they have us as a staff team to support them. They have their supervising social workers. They have me at the end of the phone and sometimes on their sofa, um, to support them with that so they can offload to us and we can. Offload to our oceans.
Alex:I love this. This is such a great mentality about lots of different things, not just fostering. I'm gonna take this on board. Um, so your lived experience is, is a vital part of you being part of the National Fostering group?
Casey:Yes. I think for our foster carers, they spend a lot of time around professionals and. Some professionals have come straight from university. Some professionals have got a whole heap of professional experience, but sometimes it's really difficult for them to really emphasize what's happening in their homes. And when they have someone that has also been through similar things to them, I think it, it, it slightly changes the conversation for them. Some of the practical skills I can give them that have been tried and tested are, are really helpful for them and it builds a level of trust with them. But I think also for the young people. Not all of our young people know that I'm an adoptive mom, but I always think that they can see that I'm used to being around children with complex behavior needs, with emotional needs, and my strategies when I talk to them is slightly different, um, to that of, uh, an older adult would would normally have. And so I think my personal experience really does play a huge part in my role.
Alex:You are a prime example of live it and be it. I love that. What's your day to day look like within the national fostering group? What's your, what's your role? If you had to break it down?
Casey:But my, my role is so varied, which really suits my personality to be honest. Um, and one of the reasons I love my job, so my day can look from anything. Like, it normally starts off quite early with a phone call from a foster carer about something that had happened last night and they wanted to, one, pick that with me on the phone. Um, so it could look like vaping, found a vape in a child's backpack, and how, how's the best way to start that conversation? She's a very normal situation for our parent to be in of a teenager. Um, luckily our foster carers have asked to support them on the end of the phone with that conversation where a lot of parents don't. Um. It, it could look like me talking to a young person that they're struggling to brush their teeth in the morning and I'm putting these strategies, songs and routines or playing with a doll, you know, teaching to brush teeth. Some of our children haven't got strong morning routines. Um, so my day often starts with a little bit of problem solving, a little bit of creativity, um, in supporting our children and our foster families. I, I'm involved in a lot of the meetings around the children I support. So that might be me sitting down and having a meeting with the clinical services about how we are going to support the school to do an autism assessment on a child, and what evidence kind of I can bring in through my time with that child. Have I noted anything? Um, so I'm a part of all of those professional meetings as well. And then normally from about three o'clock, half past two, I'm with our young people, so I'll go out, pick them up from school. McDonald's sometimes plays a big part in our visits. Um, we get a little snack. Um, we'll play football. We really, that session work is led by them. Um, so I support our young people with things like understanding their emotions. Um. Hygiene routines, peer pressure at school is a really big thing. Um, so I'm allocated to young people that need me in that moment, and then I'm available for all of our foster carers outside of that. Um, so sometimes I'm working with children for. A year plus other times sending me for a really short window in their life of kind of eight weeks. And then, and then alongside that, I run all of our projects for our young people. So I. Support our young people to advocate for themselves. I really try and empower them to have a voice in the system that they grow up in. And that's done through our youth council work. So there's lots of policies and there's lots to growing up in the world of fostering that some of our young people need some support in understanding, and some of them, you know, rightly so, want to push back against. And I give them a platform to do that in the appropriate way. For example, a mobile phone policy. Our teenagers have to sign a policy around their mobile phones. I sat down with our young children and said, here's our policy. What do you want it to look like? What should it say? How can we keep you safe from your phone? And they help me rewrite that policy. It's all about empowering them in the world that they're gonna grow up in.
Alex:You've got some physical examples of how you've put that empowerment process into action as well.
Casey:Some of our foster families come with a huge amount of experience with children, young people, life experience through work or personal life, and some come with very little, but they all bring something to our young people. Some. Our families need some support in having some really difficult conversations with our young people. And sometimes our young people need some support in having those really difficult conversations with their foster carers. Um, so we do this through games. We have a charity we work with called Storm Break and they. I've got lots of videos on YouTube. You can go off and have a little look at, and they play games. So one of the games they do is, uh, kind of, it's, it's like Simon says, so I'll do an action. You copy my action, and we, we keep going back and forth and the young person gets to say, and what the next action is. And it's all about starting a conversation about mistakes. So what that may look like is, I, I make a mistake and get the action wrong. And then you say to me, it's okay to make mistakes. In this house, when a mistake is made, this is what happens. We'll sit down, we'll have a chat about that mistake. If you hide that mistake, we can't help you with it. So it's all about opening those really difficult conversations that quite frankly, are really hard, especially for our teenagers to have, but doing it in a really fun way. That's kind of the power of game and play, isn't it? Um, and it reaches right across the ages, storm break, aim at primary school age, but we've adapted a lot of their, their work to meet the needs of our teenagers as well.
Alex:Can you tell me a bit about the residential that you, uh, part of as well?
Casey:Yeah, so our, in the summer we were very lucky to be invited on a residential trip. Um, to Jamie's farm. Jamie's Farm run a program for our young people. Uh, and it's, it's an empowerment program. Um, so we selected five young people to come out with me to the farm and. These five young people, some of them had really difficult attachments with their identity about being in foster care and they were placed in a situation where they were with five other young people that were also in care. So it was really had had a really profound effect on them. They were put in situations where they were doing ax chopping. Um. And cooking and sheep herding, which were really kind of, for me as a support worker, really high risk activities there. There's no way I take my young people out and hand them an ax and say, chop this piece of wood up, but actually watching them achieve this, some of these young people really struggle with standard achievements, that kind of GCSE, that you know, all of those things that. A typical kind of society would expect for children, but actually being able to break through that wood was so empowering for them and they had a whole team around them saying, you can do this, you can do anything. Um, I. We had young people out there that had never, ever slept anywhere but their foster homes or their, or their family homes. So actually to come away and trust us as adults to look after them in that environment was huge for them. Um, it was the most. I've worked with children for a long time and it was the most meaningful trip I've ever been moles to be a part of the works that they do on Jamie's farm is incredible, and if you ever get a chance to check them out, I'd really advise it. Obviously, as a member of staff, it was a very tiring trip. Trying to keep up with five young people, but I'd do it again in an heartbeat.
Alex:Uh, now that's a good example of how National Fostering Group does find avenues and opportunities to, uh, empower young people in a new way that maybe they've never considered or experienced before. And also leading onto the Duke of Edinburgh is a possibility for some of these young people too.
Casey:Yeah, the, the National Fostering Group is, we've got a really fantastic team that look at kind of outdoor pursuits. They look at other avenues for our young people that maybe are outside of the traditional norm that some of our young people don't get the opportunities to go off. They've never been camping before. They've never been a part of those things. So Duke of Berg's a really great one because. It's a trickle feed. It's a slow feeding to them having these really small achievements that I stand by their side and we'll go litter picking for their volunteering. Um, and they get a lot of support through that. But then at the end, they have this huge award and they're invited into London to get to get their certificate. So when they receive that. And it gets hugely celebrated. It's really empowering for them. We also have the British explorers, um, and we had some young people that had never been overseas before and they went off to Iceland. I mean, how many young people get the chance to go to Iceland and learn about nature? And, and one of our young people has gone on to, he's an adult now, and he, he travels a lot. And it was that trip that actually opened his. Eyes to the world and traveling. It's all about creating opportunities for our young people.
Alex:So for anybody listening to the podcast or watching the podcast, you are clearly a very inspiring person. You're incredibly passionate about the National Fostering group. If there are, uh, people consuming this, thinking about their next steps into the world, what advice could you give them?
Casey:Go or find out as much information as you can speak to people, because I think nowadays it's so easy to look up everything online, but if you have those conversations with people that have fostered before or phone into the agencies and speak to the people on the ground, you, you find out how that experience might look for you. And it's much more personable, I think. Don't be daunted by your perception of your skillset. If there's one thing the National Fostering Group is really good at, it's upskilling people. We have a huge training package. We have workers like me that will come out and fill in the gaps for you, so, so don't rule yourself out based on your own perception of what you are capable to do. Our young people are often perceived as really vulnerable young people. And actually as someone that has the pleasure to work with them day in and day out, they are the strongest people I have ever met. They're the bravest people and they're hilariously funny. They make me laugh every day.
Alex:Casey, thank you so much. You've been an absolute inspiration. Appreciate your time.
Casey:Thank you.
Helen:Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Voices of Fostering. If you'd like to find out more, head online and search National Fostering Group and make this the year you foster.