Meet Foster Carer Jess

Foster Care | Posted July 28, 2026

Introducing OzChild Foster Carer

Jess

For Jess, becoming a foster carer was something she had been thinking about for years.

Growing up, Jess knew someone in foster care which meant she understood from an early age the difference a caring and supportive home could make in a child’s life. Later, as a Pediatric Occupational Therapist working closely with children and families, her passion for working with children fueled her desire to become a foster carer as well.

So what’s Jess’ message to people considering becoming foster carers? “If you’re thinking about becoming a foster carer, do it. You’re only going to learn from having a go. And there’s always supports in place.”

Household

Single carer with one biological child

Foster Carer For

4.5 Years

Occupation

Paediatric Occupational Therapist 

Types of care

Short-term and Emergency

Jess’ Story

When Jess moved into her own home and had a spare room ready, she decided it was time to stop thinking about foster care and get started.

“I’ve always wanted to do it,” Jess said.

More than four years later, she has welcomed children of all ages into her home, supported sibling groups to stay together, and balanced fostering alongside her career and becoming a mum herself. Along the way, she’s learnt that there is no perfect time to become a foster carer – just a willingness to open your home and your heart to a child who needs it.

Her first placement certainly didn’t ease her in gently.

As a full-time worker, she welcomed a sibling group of three boys, all under primary school age. Looking back, it was a crash course in foster caring. Schedules became busier, routines changed overnight and she quickly learnt how to balance work, children and the unexpected realities of everyday fostering.

More than four years later, Jess still laughs about being thrown in the deep end, but she believes it taught her an important lesson: there is no perfect setup for fostering.

How life changes impacted Jess’ role as a foster carer

After several years of fostering as a single carer, Jess welcomed her own son. Like many carers considering parenthood, she wasn’t sure exactly what fostering would look like afterwards. She took time away when he was born and then slowly returned to caring, this time taking on shorter-term placements and giving herself space between them to focus on her little boy.

Rather than seeing fostering and motherhood as separate parts of her life, Jess found a way for them to sit alongside one another.

One thing she has become particularly passionate about is caring for sibling groups. Having brothers and sisters together often helps children settle more quickly, creating a sense of familiarity at a time when everything else feels uncertain. Over the years, she has seen just how much comfort children draw from having each other close by.

Some of the moments she is most proud of haven’t happened while children were in her care, but afterwards.

Several of the children Jess cared for were eventually reunified with their fathers. Watching those reunifications unfold reinforced why she became a foster carer in the first place. The goal was never for children to stay forever. The goal was to give them a safe, stable place to be while the next chapter was being worked out.

Of course, that doesn’t mean saying goodbye is easy.

Jess spoke openly about becoming attached to the children she cares for: “You get attached. It’s reality when you take care of kids. I don’t think there is a certain type of type of too attached. It’s just, it is what it is, and it’s great. And it is hard to say goodbye.”

The routines, the milestones, the everyday moments and the relationships built over time naturally create strong bonds.

But those goodbyes are balanced by the privilege of knowing she played a small part in a child’s journey. “There’s definitely being tears involved when a child either reunified, reunifies or moves on to another placement. But it’s pretty special to see them move on to another placement because there’s always a reason that that’s happening” says Jess. “It’s an honour to take care of kids and give them that safe and stable environment until something is set up for them.”

Looking back, what stands out most isn’t one particular placement or one big achievement.

It’s knowing that a decision she made years ago, to open up a spare room in her home, has helped provide safety, stability and care to children when they needed it most.

Get to know Jess

Jess answers some common questions about juggling life as a foster carer.

 Jess Answers Questions about Foster Care

You Can Ask That

It can be a juggle. I don’t think there is a perfect setup. In terms of care team meetings and things, my job’s pretty flexible – I’ll fit care team meetings for my foster placements between my clients. Most of the time, Zoom meetings is very helpful because you don’t have to physically go anywhere.

OzChild’s pretty helpful in terms of helping with the logistics side of things. Your OzChild worker is always going to listen and support from a logistics perspective. And they do visit at least once a month as well, just to get your just touch base in your home environment to make sure that everything’s in place that you need to have.

I feel like there’s lots of supports in place to be able to get the things done that you need to.

I think jumping into it and getting an idea is the first step, and getting an idea of what that means in fitting in with your life. I definitely think we learned through doing, so jumping in is definitely the way to go. My first placement, I was a full time worker and had a sibling set of three boys placed with me, all under the age of primary school. So I think that threw me in the deep end in a good way for learning how that fits in my daily life.

Yes. I have said no to placements before. You can say no to placement phone calls if it logistically doesn’t fit into your life at that time.

I received a placement phone call a week after a long term placement had left my care and I said no, I need to take a break for a little bit and I’ll, I can go on hold until I’m ready to take on another placement. And also you can say no if it doesn’t fit in with the other kids in your care as well, whether they’re biological or foster kids or kinship kids. Everyone in the household needs to be comfortable with the placement.

Most of my placements that have come into my care have come in happy and felt quite comforted in their environment.

I’ve always had sibling groups share a room so that they have each other to to be happy with an occupied time with so that they feel comfortable or with their belongings always set up into their rooms so they always have their soft toys and their blankets from previous placements.

For emergency placements that I’ve had come into my care, I’ve been able to get emergency suitcases from OzChild with basic clothes and nappies and wipes and things like that to support, which has been great.

I love sibling groups. I think sibling groups is easier in a crazy way. I feel like because they have each other to vibe off, they have each other to feel comfort in. I’ve had sibling groups of three and two before, and I feel like because they have each other, the placement runs smoothly. I’ve really enjoyed taking sibling groups on.

I come to the OzChild monthly morning teas that are held at the Frankston office, which is nice to meet other foster carers and have a chat about the ins and outs of foster caring and asking any questions, especially as a new carer. I’ve met a lot of people at the monthly morning teas which is great.  

We’ve also had wine and cheese nights, yarning circles… so attending those would be advice for a new carer as well.

I’ve accessed OzChild’s Thriving Families program during my first placement. As a new carer I didn’t know what support you could get, but my case worker suggested I could use some extra help while I found my feet as a career. I had a gardener come once a week and a cleaner come once a fortnight, which definitely helps with the logistics of a full time worker as a new carer with a sibling group of three! Gardening and cleaning can definitely be something that’s pushed to the side and when you have medical appointments and work and behaviours that come up. So having cleaning and gardening support is definitely a big help and less things to think about on the to do List. So yeah, that service was truly valued. I definitely felt more confident in being able to get the things that I needed to during the day.

Yes, I’ve had three longer term placements all reunified with their single dads, which is very interesting because I think stereotypically families assume that their mums will have reunification. But all three of my short term and longer term placements were reunified to their dads, which was an amazing experience.

All three are doing really well, so it’s been amazing to see that they were able to be placed with their dads instead of another support like grandparents or things like that.

Most of the time I’ve had contact afterwards, sometimes not and so sometimes if I’ve liaised with. I had one placement where I took the child to have contact with their auntie and uncle – I still have contact with the auntie, so it’s nice to hear about how that child is going.

Yes. There’s definitely times where you, you don’t know what to do. One instance that I can think of is I needed to call the 24 hour support line because I had a teenager that wanted to go to a friend’s house on a Saturday and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what the policy around that was.

So I called the 24/7 line and we got approval for her to have that play date and go to that house once I’d called the mum and introduced myself.

Anytime you don’t know what to do, you can call the caseworker during the week or the after hours support line for help.

I’ve called them quite a few times for a variety of things. I’ve called them for questions about transport, I’ve called them for advice with some challenging behaviours, regulation support. I’ve called them for medication approval for allergies and things like that.

There’s no question that wouldn’t be right to ask them and so it’s great that you always have that support to call upon.

Something that I’m proud of in fostering is seeing reunifications pan out, taking care of kids and then seeing them successfully reunify with biological parents or grandparents, or having that kinship option as well.

Seeing them move from a place of my household to a safe environment somewhere else is something to be proud of for sure.

My advice would be reach out to your caseworker and never feel like you’re reaching out them to them too much. They’re always a text or call away, even if you don’t feel that they can answer your call straight away. They have text and email too.

I feel like no resource is enough to ask for either. You can ask for if you need clothes, if you need shoes, if you need nappies. They’re necessities that you need. So yeah, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Ask for a chat, ask for resources, whatever that may be.

If you’re watching this and thinking about becoming a foster carer, do it. You’re only going to learn from having a go. And there’s always supports in place. You can ask as many questions, you can take the application process as fast, as slow as you need.

There’s always plenty of people along the way to ask questions and have that reassurance that anything that you may logistically have concerns about, there’s always a way around it and there’s always a solution to a problem, which is very nice to see.

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Foster Carer

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