Carer of the Year nominee – Katy and Nick Bostock

Carer of the Year nominee – Katy and Nick Bostock

Becoming a foster carer was a childhood dream for Katy Bostock. Now she and husband Nick have fostered more than 30 children including a one-day-old baby.

The Stoke-on-Trent couple have been foster carers since 2012 and have fostered up to five children at any one time, even moving house to be able to foster more.

Their own two children, now teenagers, were aged just two and four when the family’s fostering journey with Stoke-on-Trent City Council began.

“As a child I used to watch Home and Away and I always wanted to be like the character Pippa, who was a foster mum,” said Katy. “So you could say I’m fulfilling a childhood dream.”

But of course life isn’t a soap opera and Katy says fostering can come with harsh realities.

“Children moving on is heartbreaking. And then there’s the number of children who are in care and the fact that you can’t help them all. I find that difficult. We moved to a bigger house to be able to foster more children.

“I’m very aware that I’m part of the children’s journey and not their final destination. It never gets easier when a child moves on because you get attached to every child that comes to you.”

Katy and Nick, who works as a gritter driver, have been nominated as Carers of the Year in the Your Heroes Awards by Marie Plant from the fostering team at Stoke-on-Trent City Council.

She said: “Katy and Nick are a couple that always say yes and, if they could, they would have a house full if it meant keeping children within the city. They have cared for sibling groups alongside children from other households.

“Katy is a great advocate for fostering and helps out at many recruitment events across the city to promote the need for the ever growing number of foster carers.

“Katy is part of the Foster Carers Association that helps run fun days, parties for looked after children and foster carers’ children. She also assists at foster training several times a year and runs a stay and play group to support foster carers who care for preschool children.

“She is also a buddy that supports newly-approved foster carers for the first six months of their fostering journey. Nothing is ever too much.

“It may sound like Katy is doing more than Nick but this is not so. Without Nick’s continued support and help looking after the children in their care Katy would not be able to help out and run these events.

“Nick also works full-time nights so that between them they can manage their fostering family. This is alongside raising their two daughters who were two and four when they started to foster and are now teenagers. This family is just amazing. We need more Nick and Katys in this world.”

Katy said she and Nick wouldn’t have been able to foster without the support of their own ‘amazing’ daughters.

She added: “It’s lovely to be nominated for a Your Heroes Award. I really appreciate it but do think that every foster carer should be nominated.”