A long-term foster couple from Cambridgeshire share their heartwarming experience and highlight the urgent need for more foster carers in the East of England.
A couple who have been foster caring for 18 years said they would 'never look back' on what they described as the 'perfect life'. Diane Bines, 58, and Brian Bines, 68, from Sawtry, Cambridgeshire, first fostered a child when their six-year-old daughter Emma asked for a sibling. Mrs Bines said it was 'not for a minute' that they predicted they would go on to look after successive children for nearly two decades.
Peterborough City Council said it urgently needed more foster carers to sign up so that children could live in a family home. The authority has 81 families working with its fostering service but said there were 148 children in its care unable to live with their birth parents. Cambridgeshire County Council also said it was seeing a shortage of foster carers, with many children in the county waiting for a home. Across the East of England, approximately 7,000 children are in care, with the equivalent of a classroom of children coming into care every week.Mr and Mrs Bines first considered fostering in 2006 when they brought their daughter to see a pantomime.They had a chat as a family and decided to begin the application process.'Although she was a bit disappointed when the first one came and she wasn't called Snow White,' joked Mrs Bines.The application process involved asking questions about the family and their working life, as well as courses and tests to make sure they were ready for what was involved.He described his main job as the 'taxi driver', adding: 'Things like that, you know, taking the children here, there and everywhere.'There have been volatile children, they said, a non-verbal child with a difficult background who could become angry, or simply times when children were sad after visiting their birth parents.'But McDonald's usually helps, things like that, just to cheer them up.' They described the support from the council as 'incredible', saying they never felt like they needed to deal with issues alon
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