Fostering focus with Jacqui

04 March 2025

Jacqui Andrews, fostering support worker for Foster4.

Time, space, energy, love and commitment, these are the attributes that make a good foster carer. That’s according to Jacqui Andrews, one of Foster4’s Fostering Support workers.

Wirral Council is part of Foster4, a partnership between eight Cheshire and Merseyside councils which aims recruit more foster carers to keep local children with local carers. Part of Jacqui’s role with Foster4 is to visit community spaces and answer questions from members of the public who may be interested in fostering.

Jacqui says there are some common questions.

“They ask if there’s a great need for foster carers, or if they need to have a spare room. Lots of people say they’d love to do it but think they’re too old, that sort of thing.

“I try to let them know that what they think is a barrier might not necessarily be.

“There’s no upper age limit to being a foster carer. If you’ve not got a spare room, you might be able to foster babies. If you’ve never had children of your own or you’re single, that doesn’t matter either.

“If you’ve got the time, space, energy and love and commitment to give to a child that’s all you need.”

The key to a successful foster care placement, is often in matching the right foster carer to the child. For example, a foster carer may feel their skills or home are better suited to children of a certain age, or siblings rather than a single child.

Jacqui said:

If we’ve got a pool of people who want to become foster carers, and they’ve been approved, we can match them up with the right child.
We want the matches to work, the families and children to be happy. And the better the matching process, the more likely it’s going to be successful.

The more foster carers who are available, the easier it is to help things go smoothly.

Jacqui said:

We’re just looking for as many as we can of all different ages and experiences so we have that pool of people there. We’ve got more and more children coming into care and not enough carers.
The rate that people become, or finish, being a foster carer is quite steady year on year, but the number of children who are coming into care is growing. We need more foster carers.

Are you a fun and loving person? Do you think you could open your home to a child who needs one?

You can meet the Foster4 team at one of their pop ups at the following locations: