You could say caring runs in Jo Mara’s family. The biological mother-of-two is really a mum to many, with several foster children passing through her home over the years. And her two adult children have gone on to become foster carers themselves.
To mark Foster Care Week, celebrated from 10 to 16 September and currently in its 27th year, we visited Jo to talk about what makes a good foster carer. Driving from the heart of Sydney to her house in the outer western suburbs, you imagine all the children who have made the same journey, watching four-lane motorways melt bit-by-bit into rural quiet.
As we approach her one-storey, brick house, the road briefly detours onto a fire trail, and our car kicks up dust. It’s a secluded place where you can spot kangaroos at sunset and breathe in unpolluted air. It seems like a good place to get away to, and that’s exactly what it is for many children who’ve been through things no child should experience.
Opening doors to countless children
Jo and her husband have offered shelter and care to kids who’ve stayed overnight, and to three siblings who stayed for 17 years (and counting) and are now like her own children. There have been countless stays in-between from young people needing emergency accommodation between placements, kids visiting briefly to give another carer respite, and children who have eventually been able to return to their birth families. Jo’s door is open, no matter how great the need or how long the stay.
Foster care had been on Jo’s mind long before she took the plunge. “I always thought about it,” she says.
She and her husband have always had an open-door policy. “We always had nieces or nephews or somebody staying here and you would often see kids that you thought, you know, gee whiz – I could really help them out or give them a hand-up for a while.”
A new chapter begins
It was when Jo retired from work and her own children were out of school that she made the call to the NSW Department of Family and Community Services, at that time known as the Department of Community Services or DOCS.
“Initially I had said I would be interested in taking two children, but they rang me up and asked me if I could take three. There was a seven-year-old boy, a little girl of 20 months, and a boy of almost three. And I thought, three, wow! I hadn’t planned on three.
“But when I met them, they were just gorgeous.”
Things clicked into place, and soon those three siblings called the Mara house home. Jo loved her new role, but it came with its challenges.
“When they first came they were timid. They were like little puppies that had been beaten or something,” Jo says.
“The oldest boy who was seven, he wouldn’t go out and play, he wouldn’t do anything because he had been raised to believe his job was to look after his brothers and sisters.”
The children had three more siblings who had been placed with a different family. The Department tries not to separate siblings, but it’s hard to find a home that will take six.
Jo says that her foster son, the eldest of the children, had protected his brothers and sisters from domestic violence. “He had just forgotten how to smile. He’d forgotten how to be a kid because he had shouldered such responsibility for too long. Too long.”
Helping a child heal
So how do you comfort a child like that? How do you help them to trust again, to let go?
“We make a point of never lying to them,” Jo explains. “We’re very age-appropriate but we’ve always been honest with them. It hasn’t been easy along the way.”
Sometimes children are set off by unexpected things that trigger their trauma. “Like when they hear two people arguing, they don’t know that it’s going to stop. They don’t know that it’s just a verbal exchange.”
It took time, but that world-weary seven-year-old became comfortable in his new home, as did his brother and sister. They’re still in touch with their other three siblings and the family remains close. “They’ve grown into these really confident young adults,” Jo says.
And that’s the biggest reward for being a foster carer.
The power of change
“It’s watching them grow up, or even just if they come to you for a little while – six months, a year – watching the change in them. Watching them know or begin to believe they’re going to be OK. Because when they come, they very often don’t think they’re going to be OK.”
Jo’s oldest foster son is now in his mid-twenties and travelling the country, while the younger two are happy, working, and remain living with the Maras. They’re like an extra set of carers for the younger kids who now show up at the door, exhausted and unsure of what they’ll find inside.
There’s no question that Jo has the classic attributes of a great carer – she’s easy-going, empathetic, patient and resilient. But there’s another quality that helps her offer something special to many of her kids: she’s Aboriginal, like them.
A cultural connection
“I think a lot of the kids who come to me may look at me and think, oh, she’s kind of the same colour as me,” she says. “It’s not just about the colour of your skin or the shape of your nose; you know who you are. You know where you come from.
“It’s important that you remember where you come from and that somebody says to you, ‘you need to know this’, and says ‘I can help you, I’m going to teach you’. Whether it be songs for the little kids or taking older kids to meet great Aboriginal role models.”
Jo encourages other Aboriginal people to become foster carers. In NSW people from all walks of life can put their hand up to be a carer – whether you’re young or old, married or single, and no matter your religion, culture or sexual orientation.
“I think for too long Aboriginal people didn’t get involved with foster care because it was that whole DOCS thing. They don’t want DOCS in their house, they don’t want anything to do with DOCS, but things are different to what it was years ago,” Jo says.
“I think sometimes too, a lot of people coming into it have this picture that foster care means that DOCS are going to be knocking on your door every day, judging your house or judging you. That’s just absolutely not the case.”
As well as being wary of government agencies, which Aboriginal people have a long and chequered history with, some people are hesitant to care for children because of the financial expense. Jo says this needn’t be a worry.
Support for foster carers
“People don’t ever discuss payments… it’s something sometimes people are embarrassed to ask or talk about,” she says.
“Carers are paid a generous subsidy for the children. It makes it possible for you to be able to do it, to be able to foster.
“There are lots of mums who would like to be a stay-at-home mum; if they realised sometimes that there’s a benefit of payment that goes with taking a child in, they might suddenly think, well here’s a way for me to fill a need for a foster carer and be able to stay at home with my children.”
Jo’s home life may be a little out of the ordinary, but she insists that carers are just ordinary people. “You do not have to be a saint. You don’t have to be perfect. We’re not saints, we’re not perfect. But you have to genuinely care about kids.”
The unique role of Aboriginal Carers
During Foster Care Week, AbSec is asking Aboriginal people to consider taking on the rewarding role of a carer. While there are more than 6,000 Aboriginal children and young people in out-of-home care across NSW, only 20% of them are placed with Aboriginal carers and families.
While all carers do important work, Aboriginal carers are able to provide a unique connection to culture and community that is essential for an Aboriginal child. These factors help to build a strong sense of identity and belonging, which can prove to be life-saving for people going through trauma.
If you’re an Aboriginal person wanting to find out more about foster care or welcome a child into your home, please call AbSec’s foster care support line on 1800 888 698.
