When people find out you’re looking into fostering, one of the first questions they’ll ask is: ‘Aren’t you getting a bit old for that?’ And while many assume there’s an upper age limit for those wishing to support, they’re surprised to learn that it doesn’t exist. This kind of myth can stop people from even enquiring, let alone being successful support carers. But you can be assured, it’s wrong.
In the UK, there’s no fixed upper age limit for fostering. The factors taken into consideration when assessing potential support carers relate to health, energy and overall ability to provide appropriate care for the child’s needs. With some fostering agencies, this means that those who are older (even a 65-year-old) will have just as much of a right to be assessed as anyone else.
Experience, after all, is simply practice and patience over the course of several decades rather than a few months. Confidence and wisdom also often follow, as we grow in our experiences, learn how to navigate difficult situations and come out the other side. And then there’s emotional stability: a quality that’s earned rather than learned, enabling us to create a home that’s settled, calm and unhurried. For Foster Care Pontypridd, visit https://saferfostering.org.uk/foster-care-wales/pontypridd/
For children coming into support care, the journey they’ve experienced so far can be chaotic, unpredictable and unstable. It’s not necessarily their carer’s excess of energy that they need, but instead steadiness and reliability. A good support carer does not panic or overreact, especially when a young person is learning how to do just that. You might call it the kind of quiet confidence that comes from life, lived.
Older isn’t worse; quite the opposite. Being older is exactly what fostered children need.
