'Fostering wasn't my choice but I learned to love it'

LITTLE girls sexually abused and mature beyond their years, boys who won't eat proper food because they've never been given it before, teenagers who would get into scraps, shout, swear and break things, and late-night raps on the door from the police and social workers.

• Nathan Duncan, with parents Stewart and Sharon, says fostering has helped him grow up

When Stewart and Sharon Duncan decided to open their home to other people's often traumatised and broken children, they were braced for all of that.

After all, Stewart had already worked with troubled youngsters at the city council's Howdenhall residential home, while Sharon was a nanny to a severely disabled youngster. With an overwhelming desire to nurture children - some ripped from tattered and torn homes where they'd been neglected and horribly abused, many with young lives in ruins - becoming foster parents seemed second nature.

For their son Nathan, though, his parents' well-intentioned decision to foster some of the city's most fragile and damaged youngsters would have a dramatic and profound impact on his young life.

"I call it 'Nathan's famous statement'," says dad Stewart, 60, as he recalls a poignant moment in his family's role as foster carers.

"He turned around one day when things weren't going so well and said 'I never asked to be a foster carer'. I thought 'Oh, right, wow'. It really put things in perspective."

As it turned out, Nathan's close exposure to other children with broken lives, drug-addled parents, prostitute mothers beaten up by their pimps and, in one horrific case, a little girl who arrived at the family house with the vivid Christmas Day memory of waking up beside the dead body of her mother's junkie boyfriend has instilled in him a sensitivity and desire to help which he might never have realised existed.

Today, the Boroughmuir High sixth year pupil is a passionate member of the Scottish Youth Parliament, where he pushes for children of all backgrounds to be given opportunities in life, and he's also a delegate to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, where he raises issues that might affect children in care. He has plans to qualify as a football referee so he can work in sports development for children.

And, one day when he's older, he says he'll consider joining the next generation of foster carers.

That's good news for the Fostering Network, a charity which has just marked a quarter of a century advising and helping foster carers and their children, and is now spearheading a new drive for people like Sharon, 40, and Stewart to come forward.

The need is crucial, it warns, as many of today's foster parents head towards retirement age. A national shortage of carers added to a growing number of children in need of care means many young people face growing up with no understanding of "normal" family life.

The urgent need for a new generation of carers was further highlighted last month when Edinburgh City Council launched its own recruitment drive for foster families, adopting the unusual tactic of highlighting its financial rewards over stressing the emotional implications: families, it said, could earn up to 30,000 by opening their homes to vulnerable youngsters.

Yet while many may have the desire to help improve the lives of vulnerable children, the reality is that most will wonder just how it will impact on their own children's lives.

For Nathan, 16, finding his home "invaded" by strange children with their forceful demands on his parents' time, who ripped at his childhood toys and picked fights, who stole from the house and sometimes behaved shockingly by exposing themselves and even offering sexual favours - although, of course, many others fitted in well and became his friends - has become simply a way of life.

In a refreshing perspective on the reality of fostering, however, he admits there have been times - such as when he pointed out to his parents that foster caring wasn't his job - when other children's problems tipped him over the edge.

"I wanted my parents to feel a bit of guilt," he says, recalling that "heat-of-the-moment" remark which stopped his parents in their tracks.

"I honestly never felt it was a burden to have foster children in the house but, yes, there were times when I got fed up. I probably matured a lot quicker than other people. I had to learn to be a bigger person," he adds.

"Kids might come in and take things or break things, they might cause a ruckus, and I had to let it happen and leave my parents to deal with it. Sometimes it was a bit frightening and it was hard."

As a young child, he quickly learned to hide toys or possessions that he really didn't want to lose, like his favourite teddy that he'd had since a baby which, as he grew up, he kept safe in his bed. "If anyone went near him I would get really annoyed," he remembers.

But he also learned that he had a crucial role to play in helping improve other children's lives, for often he was the only person those deeply troubled souls felt confident enough to turn to.

"Sometimes one might say something to me that they wouldn't say to an adult because I was closer to their age. I'd be the one they'd talk to," he recalls.

"But having other children around was just the way it always was. To be honest, a lot of the time it was exciting, it was fun and there was a new experience every time."

According to Sara Lurie, director of the Fostering Network Scotland, children of carers have a crucial role to play.

"Sons and daughters of foster carers can make a huge difference to whether a fostering relationship works. They play a vital role in helping a fostered child to settle in and often become great friends," she says.

"Many say the experience is a challenge, particularly sharing their home and parents, but they really enjoy being able to help other children."

Nathan's dad Stewart agrees that the positives of fostering have outweighed what some might see as potential pitfalls.

"No-one is saying it's easy," he adds. "It's not only children affected by a decision to foster, whole families are. My mum was a typical west of Scotland matriarch with very fixed views. She couldn't get her head around us taking in children of drug addicts. Yet it was her who managed to get a little boy who refused to put milk on his cereal - simply because his parents had never had any - to try it.

"Sharon's sisters treat the children who come to us like family, they buy them birthday cards and presents, so when children leave they are deeply affected, too.

"We had one girl in particular whose whole lifestyle was difficult. Her mother had learning difficulties which this girl had possibly inherited and a background of incest in the family. She was one of five children born as a result," he adds.

"She had a brain condition and there was sexualised behaviour and violence, but it was only because these awful things had happened to her.

"We all cared deeply about her, but it became too difficult and her placement had to end. When she left, that was harder than anything else we'd had to deal with because we felt we'd failed."

A major positive, however, is the teenage lad, several years Nathan's junior - he can't be identified for legal reasons - who has stayed with the family as a permanent placement for several years.

For only child Nathan, who has shared his Leamington Terrace home in Bruntsfield and his childhood with at least 50 other children but not a single sibling, the youngster has brought an extra dimension to his family.

The traumas and the disturbances, startling behaviour and the difficulties that some foster children brought home have been more than balanced by the strong relationship that now exists with this once troubled youngster.

"This kid has been with us for a while. There's nothing 'fostering' about it really, he feels like family now," explains Nathan.

"We squabble, we argue 20 times a day, and then we make up.

"He's definitely family," he adds. "He's my brother now."

We need more people who care

FOSTERING Network Scotland has marked its 25th anniversary with a fresh appeal for more families to consider becoming foster carers.

It has warned that many existing foster carers are likely to retire in the next few years, adding to an increasing shortage of suitable carers for children across the country.

There is a national shortage of 1700 foster carers, while at the same time, there are more children than ever in the care system - around 1000.

Sara Lurie, director of the Fostering Network Scotland, says: "Foster carers are now considered childcare experts and are starting to get the respect and recognition that they deserve for taking on this skilled, challenging but rewarding role.

"However, we urgently need more foster carers for vulnerable children in Scotland and would encourage anyone with the right skills and qualities to consider a career in fostering."

To find out more about fostering visit www.couldyoufoster.org.uk or visit www.fostering.net/scotland.