Fostering: Who cares?

"You've caught us on a quiet afternoon," she laughs. "There are usually kids in and out and running around the garden, chasing the dog and all sorts of madness. When people ask me how many children I've got I say, 'Well this week I've got three, next week it might be four, or two, who knows.'"

Sonya, who works as a manager for Ikea in West Kilbride, and her husband Robert, an engineer at a nearby power station, are both 38. They have an 18-year-old daughter, Nicole, and a recently adopted son, Lewis, who is eight. Over the past seven years they have fostered seven children, juggling the demands of caring for vulnerable youngsters with their own careers and family life.

"We didn't set out to foster or adopt," says Sonya. "I saw an advert in the paper for foster carers with photos of neglected kids next to it and I suppose it just got to me. Robert and I grew up in a much less affluent area than here. Our families didn't have much and we weren't expected to do well at school or to go on and make anything of ourselves. But we went against the grain and we've got a great life now. So we decided to foster kids to try to make a difference to their lives, to show those who'd had a bad start that they could still get what they want in life even if there had been drugs, alcohol, all sorts of struggles in their backgrounds, or if they'd grown up without having parents around to care for them."

The couple discussed the idea for two years before taking the first steps to actually doing it. "It was a tough decision because we both work and have really full lives. We said to ourselves, OK, let's do it for a little while and see how it goes. When we first started fostering, people always reacted by asking us why. They'd say, 'What would you want to do that for?' I think some of our friends were shocked because we were only 31 at the time. People expect foster carers to be middle-aged, mumsy types but we're a really energetic family and are always going to the cinema, the beach, work and seeing friends. I've not had to make any significant changes to the way I live my life."

On any day of the year there are around 4,200 children in Scotland being looked after by foster carers. There are approximately 3,200 foster families in the country, regularly opening their doors and hearts to vulnerable children. But the Fostering Network believes this figure falls far short of the number of temporary families required for children in Scotland and that the country faces a shortage of at least 1,700 foster carers.

"The fostering system is under enormous pressure," says Barbara Hudson, Scotland director of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF). "People don't understand what it's like to grow up without Mum and Dad around, to grow up cold, hungry and frightened. But that's the reality for so many children in Scotland."

Since becoming foster carers seven years ago, the Hughes have witnessed the fall-out of this reality many times. A couple of years ago Sonya received a call from social services late on a Friday afternoon, asking if she could provide emergency care for a seven-month-old baby. "I didn't plan on looking after a baby but they said it was an emergency and would be for just two days until they arranged alternative care. Robert nearly fell over when he came home from work and found a baby in the house."

The baby, she says, was undernourished and, at first, would not cry or respond to stimulation. Her instinct to call out for attention was disabled, as she had never experienced a response to her demands for food or comfort. Sophie stayed with the couple for 15 months.

"Everyone in the family and my extended family became really close to Sophie. When she left we were all devastated and I felt afterwards that I'd put them through something huge. Robert and I had to look deep inside ourselves and share deep emotions to get through that." Sonya shows me a photograph of Sophie in a silver frame. Her face is close to the camera so her blue eyes look huge. She is smiling into the lens.

"I bumped into her last week at the shops," she says, her eyes still on the photo. "She was with her gran, who looks after her now. I was dying to stop and talk and see how she's doing and how she's grown, but it's not appropriate and I knew I couldn't do it. That was tough, but you learn to manage your feelings and I know it's a great result that Sophie's being looked after by someone from her own family. You don't always get to hear about kids' progress once they leave you but I'm sure some of the children we've looked after over the years will come back and visit us when they've grown up."

Children are placed with foster families for a variety of reasons that are not always to do with abuse and neglect. Some may have parents with physical or mental health problems that leave them unable to care for their child no matter how much they love them. Others need temporary, emergency support when, for example, their sole parent is taken into hospital and there is no extended family or network in place to look after the child. Other children may have their own complex mental and physical needs and may receive short-term care as a means of offering their parents occasional respite from the demands of round-the-clock attention.

Con and Ann McCormick have been providing respite foster care in their home in Harthill for the last seven years. Both in their early 50s, the couple have two grown-up sons and never imagined they'd find themselves doing the school run, making packed lunches and toilet training children at this stage in their lives. They are currently looking after three teenage boys with autism spectrum disorders.

Con opens a bulging Filofax and unfolds a year-planner showing blocks of weeks shaded in pink, green and blue; this is the time he and Ann will spend fostering different children over the coming 12 months. There is very little white space.

"I was in the army for 25 years," he says. "When I retired I started up my own minibus company and provided buses to collect kids from a school for children with development needs. I got on well with the kids and when someone pointed that out and suggested I foster them short term, I decided to give it a go."

While he trained and prepared to become a foster carer, his wife continued to work as a nurse on a stroke rehabilitation unit, but after a couple of years she decided to join Con and become a full-time foster carer herself.

"At first I thought, this will be easy," she laughs. "I've brought up two boys of my own. But it's not just a matter of taking a child into your home, there are a whole lot of other responsibilities as well. We have to go to regular meetings and progress reviews for each child we look after and do ongoing training in child development issues and paediatric first aid."

Neither Con nor Ann knew anything about autism before they started fostering but they received specialist training in order to meet the very complex needs of the children they care for. Sixteen-year-old John, for example, is at a similar stage of development to a toddler. He can't be left unattended as he has no concept of danger and needs 24-hour supervision. He has no vocal skills and the couple are currently teaching him sign language, which they have only just learned themselves.

Thirteen-year-old David stays with the couple ten days a month. He has nocturnal epilepsy in addition to autism and can have up to seven seizures a night. Con and Ann monitor him throughout his sleep via CCTV cameras in his bedroom.

"We do get exhausted," Ann admits. "You're always on call but you work together and you discover that you can deal with anything. If we didn't laugh though…" she shakes her head. "You have to laugh because you never know what these boys will get up to next. If we take John into a restaurant he's likely to walk around helping himself to food off other people's plates. Sometimes it's horrendous. David might be walking along a busy street and decide to pull his trousers down.

"We understand how desperately their families need a break. It's not that they are unable to cope but they just need a bit of time off. Having Jack here on a long-term basis has given us an insight into this because we need a break from him at times too. But when he does go to respite care we worry and wonder if the foster carer will remember everything. Will they give him his hot chocolate at night? You feel like nobody else out there could look after them as well as you do and that's how a lot of parents must feel when their kids are being fostered."

As well as providing relief to the parents of children with complex needs, respite care can also offer the child positive new experiences. "Often autistic children don't get invited away anywhere for adventures or sleepovers with friends," says Sara Lurie, director of the Fostering Network in Scotland. "Respite can offer new experiences for them. It also gives their siblings a break and a chance to go out with their parents and spend family time doing things that aren't possible when the other child is around."

Despite the heavy workload, neither Con nor Ann regret their choices. "It's like cup final day round here every day of the week," says Con. "One of us will come running out of the kitchen saying, 'Look what he's done now, he's signed a new word.' It's like watching your own kids use a potty for the first time or seeing a baby's first smile. We get that every single day."

The availability of foster carers, like the provision of care services more generally, varies across the UK and across Scotland, as each local authority is responsible for providing care services in their area. Foster families receive a weekly allowance of an average of about 120 a week per child to meet the costs of that child's care, for example their clothing, food and heating bills. But this allowance does not pay for the foster carer's time, skills or professional experience. While most councils and fostering agencies do pay carers a fee for their service there is no legal requirement to do so and, again, the rate varies widely, from between 100 to 400 a week. The Fostering Network, along with BAAF and other agencies, are campaigning for a statutory minimum allowance and fee to be introduced nationwide.

"Fostering is much more professional now and carers go through a rigorous assessment period and intensive training," says Lurie. "Goodwill and love are not all that's required and shouldn't be all that's expected."

Fostering is increasingly seen as an alternative to residential care for children in need of support. But, says Lurie, even children for whom residential care is the right option can still benefit from experiencing family life.

"Foster placements can offer kids routine and structure," she says. "For many cared-for children the aim is ultimately to return them to their own families, so exposing them to regular family routines such as bed time and bath time are very good for them and can be carried on when their parents' problems have been resolved. The aim is generally not to cut off contact and ties with children's families but to work towards a gradual return."

Fostering helps many children through difficult times in their lives – but how does it affect the children of the foster parents? Linda Mathieson is 48 and lives in a village 20 miles north of Inverness. She and her husband Tom have been fostering for five years and provide short-term and emergency care for children up to the age of six. They have three children of their own between the ages of ten and 14, and while Tom is a full-time foster carer, Linda runs a part-time child-minding business and also works in a nursery.

"I know my own children's eyes have been opened since we started fostering," says Tom. "I'm hoping it makes them more rounded as people and more caring and less selfish. Kids just accept things and are good with change. At one point we looked after 14 different children over a four-month period. It's definitely easier to take longer-term placements and it means our children don't have to keep getting to know new kids every couple of days. These days we usually just take one or two at a time."

The couple are currently fostering a five-month-old baby who arrived with them at two days old.

But foster placements do not always succeed, especially when children are put with families who are ill-matched or under-equipped to meet their needs. This, say BAAF and the Fostering Network, can often be traced to the shortage of foster families and pressures the system faces.

"The shortage of foster carers means there is less variety of placement choice available, so children don't always get placed with the family best able to meet their needs," says Lurie. "Siblings may get separated and placed with different families or children may be placed with carers who live far from their homes and schools, causing even more disruption to their lives. These are two key reasons why placements break down and why children are moved repeatedly from one foster family to another. Lack of choice is the biggest problem and leads to a host of other issues associated with placement breakdowns."

But perhaps the shortage of foster carers is less remarkable than the number of people who do readily open their lives to other people's children. "One thing I've learned since fostering is that you can't underestimate the power of people," says Sonya Hughes. "Sophie arrived at our house with nothing but the sleepsuit she was wearing and within hours friends and neighbours turned up at my door with toys, clothes, blankets, a pram. We moan that there's no such thing as community anymore and that people don't look out for each other these days, but fostering has shown me that's not true. Community does still exist and there is so much good out there. I just keep coming across human nature's good side."

Foster Care Fortnight runs from May 11-24, www.fostering.net, www.baaf.org.uk

Famous and fostered

Samantha Morton

The award-winning British actress overcame a difficult childhood to become a household name. After her parents split up, she was placed in care and moved around numerous children's homes and foster parents before heading to London at the age of 16 to pursue an acting career.

Marilyn Monroe

Born Norma Jean Baker, Monroe endured a fatherless childhood of abuse and poverty. Placed in a string of orphanages and foster homes as her mother suffered from mental illness, she married at 15 in an attempt to escape the foster care system.

Nelson Mandela

The former president of South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize winner was fostered after the death of his father when he was nine. Taken to the provincial capital, he became a ward of the chief-regent for the next ten years, while continuing to see his mother regularly on visits.

Eddie Murphy

Born in 1961 in New York, the comic actor's parents divorced when he was three and when he was eight, his father died. Struggling to cope, his mother was hospitalised and during this time the film star and his older brother spent a year in foster care.

James Dean

The silver screen rebel and icon James Byron Dean was brought up in California until his mother's death in 1940 when he was ten. With his father unable to look after him, the future Rebel Without a Cause star was fostered by relatives in Indiana.

John Lennon

The Beatle was raised by his mother after his father disappeared, but his aunt contacted social services to complain about his treatment. The aunt then fostered him herself, but he did continue to see his natural mother on a fairly regular basis.

A foster child's story

Cheryl Legget, a 24-year-old history graduate from Glasgow, went into foster care at the age of 15.

"My relationship with my mum and dad broke down completely and things just got so bad at home that it was impossible to carry on living there.

On the one hand it was a relief to get away from them but I had really mixed feelings because I had no idea what was going to happen to me. Once I was away from home, though, it wasn't that bad because you just get used to whatever's around you.

I was placed with a couple whose own kids had grown up and left home. I didn't trust them at first; that definitely took time. They were really open people and a bit mad, in a good way; the best people you could ever meet. I stayed with them for two and a half years. Being fostered by them helped me to build up confidence and believe in myself and that I could do the things I wanted to do in life. If I hadn't been fostered by them I can't imagine what my life would be like now. I'd probably be working in a biscuit factory. I definitely wouldn't be where I am now.

I know my experience of fostering was down to luck and that not everyone gets the support I did. I stayed briefly with another foster family but they lived about an hour's bus journey away from my school and that made everything even more stressful. It didn't work out with them.

Fostering is still a bit of a taboo and there was definitely some stigma about it when I was in care, but people need to realise that often there's nothing particularly wrong with foster kids. It's just to do with the circumstances they are in. I got back in contact with my mum and dad about six years ago. I think I just had to grow up and clear my head, and being with my foster carers helped me do that.

Sometimes now I sit and look back at the person I was when I first went into foster care. I used to jump every time someone came in the room. I feel like a million miles from that person now."