When Joanna and Adam first heard about Banya fostering services from a friend, they knew immediately they wanted to find out more. Having been foster carers through their local authority for the previous five years, they sometimes experienced a lack of support or challenges around communication which made the fostering experience more stressful than they felt it needed to be, and they were keen to continue being foster carers with a different support structure.
“From the moment we first made contact with Banya, it felt like the right foster agency for us to move forward,” says Joanna, “and three years on, we still can’t fault them. They truly understand what it takes for a foster placement to work and they are determined to do everything they can to ensure the success of the placement for everyone involved. They’re brilliant.”
Joanna was particularly struck by the level of thought and understanding Banya directed towards their own two children, and says it wasn’t limited to when they first started to foster through Banya; it’s simply regarded as an ongoing and essential aspect of the fostering process and experience.
“They do just as much to help our children adjust and get involved as they do for the children we foster. It’s so impressive and really shows how well they understand the needs of children, and what it takes for a placement to work. They don’t just focus on the child being fostered; they want everyone’s needs to be addressed. And they don’t stop there: everything from the training they’ve given us, to the support & systems they have in place, even down to just their general approach, is incredibly thorough and of an excellent standard. It’s really reassuring.”
Having been brought up by parents who fostered for many years and knowing that her father had been adopted at six-weeks-old, caring for looked after children seemed normal and familiar to Joanna. For Adam, though, it was a new experience and despite being enthusiastic about fostering, he was sometimes made uneasy by sudden changes or lack of information from the local authority. Fostering with Banya, all that changed. He says the whole fostering experience has been made so much easier and more satisfying, simply because Banya communicate effectively and comprehensively with them as a family and always do what they say they’re going to do. Joanna says it is not unusual for the children to end up calling Adam “Dad” and he loves making up games with them and ensuring they have everything they need.
“It’s absolutely the case that when we first thought about fostering, I already had some experience of it because of my parents,” says Joanna, “but what mattered was that we both had the same level of commitment and determination to make it work. At the end of the day, it’s very much a team effort. We do it together and Adam is just wonderful with the foster children because he’s always had the mindset that he just wants to make things better so that they can be children and have good lives that will stand them in good stead later on.”
When Joanna and Adam fostered a 13-year-old Afghan refugee who arrived in the UK as an unaccompanied child, there were obvious cultural differences between them, with perhaps the biggest being that he didn’t speak any English. But Joanna and Adam made it work by being open to learning about the boy’s background, culture and religion, and helping him feel accepted by providing him with a prayer mat and Qur’an. They also encouraged his English so he would be able to make friends and feel more involved in UK life as soon as possible.
By the time he left them three months later to settle in a permanent family home, his English was good enough for him to communicate well with the people around him and he was better able to live with the trauma and bereavements he’d experienced.
“He still keeps in touch to let us know how he’s getting on,” says Joanna, “and he’s doing really well. We’re ever so proud of him.”
Adam and Joanna have fostered ten children over the last few years and say each one becomes part of the family, however long or short their stay.
“We just want our foster children to do well,” says Joanna. “When you start to see your hard work pay off and they begin to feel more secure and do really well at school and make friends, it’s the most rewarding thing in the world. There really is nothing like it.”
