WHEN DANEILLE AND DANNY HOLMES speak about life as foster carers, it’s from experience. Since 2008, the couple has opened the doors to their family home to somewhere between 20 to 30 children in need. It’s no small feat but the couple, who are also the parents of two teenage boys, see it differently.
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“When people say, ‘It’s so good what you’re doing’, I feel I’m a bit of a fraud,” Daneille says. “We’re not really doing anything.” Danny agrees. “It’s just become part of everyday life,” he says. After almost seven years, the Mudjimba couple has found their fostering rhythm, but it almost didn’t happen. Despite having spoken about fostering, the pair didn’t look into it any further for years. With their own business, two young sons and the normal financial pressures, they felt they didn’t fit the foster carer mould. “I think everybody thinks that,” Daneille says. “We felt that one of the biggest obstacles was that we were renting.” Thankfully, the desire to help didn’t disappear and after seeing an advertisement at the cinema appealing for more carers, Daneille got in touch with Integrated Family and Youth Service (IFYS). Since the early ’90s, IFYS has been providing out-of-home placements for children – from newborns to 18-year-olds – who are in the care of the Queensland State Department of Communities (Child Safety). Currently through IFYS there are 200 children in the care of 137 foster families across the Sunshine Coast region.
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Manager of the Foster Care Program Andy Young says that it doesn’t matter how much money you have, if you’re married, single, young or old. “It takes all kinds of people to be foster carers,” he says. “We’re not looking just for the middle class couple. Single people can be carers. People who own a home, people who rent a home, retirees, young people; they all can be carers.” Daneille and Danny’s initial enquiry led to an information session, and then training to instill them with the skills needed to provide care and support to a child who has suffered trauma. After a final assessment the couple began accepting calls for help, the first of which made them question the new roles they’d signed up to. “It was a particularly difficult placement, but we stuck it out as long as we could,” Daneille says. “The child was causing a lot of upset and disruption in the household and I think the general sort of feeling was that after that particular placement we might give it away.” Instead, after much thought Daneille and Danny decided that their first experience as foster carers was one that saw them wading in the deep end, and that it was easier from there. “Looking back now it was sort of the best 18 months of training that we could have ever had,” Danny says. “We learnt a lot with that first one.” Since the beginning the pair has been open to receiving all kinds of placements. “We’ve done short-term, long-term, emergency, respite, we’ve done everything,” Daneille says. At this moment, the pair is fostering a six-month baby girl they’ve raised since birth. >
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