By Alesha Capone
As a foster child from the age of seven, Jarline Mays lived with 13 different families and attended 11 different schools.
Ms Mays said her life changed at the age of 13, when she moved in with foster carer Sandra Kay and her family.
“I call my home with Sandra my ‘Lucky 13’,” Ms Mays said,
“She and her family gave me love, care and understanding.
“It made an enormous impact on my approach to school and my outlook on life.”
Ms Mays is now aged 33 and lives in Wyndham Vale.
She is a mother to five children, including her partner’s one and three year-old sons.
Her former foster mother, Ms Kay, has also fostered other adolescents long-term, and children needing emergency and short-term care.
“I just think it’s really rewarding, you’re making a difference in a child’s life,” Ms Kay said.
“They say it only takes one person to make that difference, I truly believe that.”
Ms Kay has also been working as part of Anglicare Victoria’s foster care recruitment team for just over a year, which she described as her “dream job”.
Ms Kay, who has three children of her own, said she thought of foster care as “looking after a child for another parent until they can go back to own family”.
She said that Anglicare Victoria needed more foster carers in Melbourne’s north and west, especially for adolescents and sibling groups.
Ms Kay said that it was “heartbreaking” when she and her colleagues had to split up siblings going into foster care, but sometimes there was no alternative.
A report released last month revealed more than 14,000 young people are living in out-of-home care in Victoria.
Anglicare Victoria chief executive Paul McDonald said the organisation was looking to recruit 120 new foster-carers across Melbourne.
“At present, we can’t find homes for all the children who are referred to us,” he said.
“Carers can be single, de facto or married, with or without their own children.
“Anyone over 21 years of age who can offer a child in need a secure, loving home, is eligible.”
For information on how to become a foster carer with Anglicare Victoria, see anglicarevic.org.au/foster-care
