'My family call me Nanny McPhee!' - Meet the Longford woman who's fostered 24 kids

There are currently over 6,000 children in care in Ireland and this figure is growing every day.

Unfortunately, a lot of children in Ireland cannot live with their own family, either on a short-term or long-term basis for various reasons and are therefore brought into State care.

This could be because of illness in the family, the death of a parent, neglect, abuse or violence in the home, or sometimes it can be because the parent or family is not coping and they need respite or long-term help. Foster families are often the safety net for children in those situation; people like Longford Town's Edel McGoey.

Edel has been called the Nanny McPhee of her family having fostered 24 children in total on respite over the last seven years. It might sound like a lot of work but, she couldn't recommend it to people highly enough.

Edel is currently the proud and loving full-time foster mother to a 13-year-old girl and has been for the past two years.

The reason Edel wanted to foster a child in the first place was because she only had one child of her own but always wanted more children.

"I just decided to go into fostering to see if I could change somebody else's life. At the beginning, I only started doing respite, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but in the last 18 months, I'm now doing it full-time," Edel told the Longford Leader/Longford Live.

Edel reached out to Fostering First Ireland to start her fostering journey and said they are "absolutely amazing."

"There's somebody there 24-7. There's always somebody at the end of the phone which thankfully I don't need too often but when you do, it's great.

"Once you're over 25, you have a spare bedroom, you're able to drive, and you don't have any children under the age of three, you can foster, which is absolutely a great opportunity if you can do it."

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"Once you've spoken to somebody in Fostering First Ireland, they will guide you through the whole lot and take you from there until the child is in your arms or in your house, whatever the case may be."

Edel said that the process takes about five to six months to do the assessment.

"It used to take a lot longer but now it's a lot quicker because they're crying out for foster carers."

The Longford woman says she has noticed in her seven years of fostering that there is "more and more babies from hospitals coming into care in Ireland."

"When I started seven years ago, there were very few little babies but now there are more and more babies coming into care."

The local mother described the moment her foster child turned up to her home as "nerve-wracking," adding that she "didn't know what to expect and neither did the child." 

Edel said that her foster child was already on respite with another foster family before she arrived to her home so it wasn't completely new for the young girl and that they had both met before on respite.

"With respite, it's great to see them coming and it's also great to see them going, but with full-time, it's different because you're met with different challenges.

"You're meeting other peers, you have social workers a lot of the time, not all the time, and you'll have the education officer, you have to bring them to school, set all that up, but in fairness to FFI, they're amazing.

"They will guide you through everything and if you're finding any difficulty, they will help you along the way, especially with education, medical appointments, dental appointments."

Edel highly recommends fostering a child to anyone who is able to do so.

She said that "even if you weren't available to do a full-time placement, it's amazing to do respite, because you get to meet all these different children, different walks of life and different backgrounds.

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"Now, as I said, they all come with challenges; they're not in foster care for no reason but it's great to be able to give something back. It's very rewarding and it's an amazing journey.

"Once you get on it, one piece of advice that would be fostered is just try it; don't think too much about making a call. Once you start, I don't think you'll ever look back.

"There's times I'd say, why did I do it? Or I'd be pulling my hair out, but I'm glad I'm still doing it. It's a lot of responsibility but it's been very worthwhile seeing children from all parts of life and to know you're helping them."

She emphasised that "it's a wonderful experience, if you have the empathy, the room, and are willing to have a challenge, definitely, I'd go for it".

"I think a lot of people are afraid of it, the fact that they have to give up so much. I didn't have to give up anything, so thankfully the children blend into the lifestyle that you have.

"But thankfully I've never had any issues and my life hasn't changed in the sense that, yes, it has made a difference to a lot of other children, but I'm still carrying on with my day-to-day living, so it's not as if you have to change your lifestyle."

Edel said that her nieces and nephews call her Nanny McPhee because she always has a child with her.

If you are interested in fostering a child, you can send an enquiry to www.fosteringfirstireland.ie or call Fostering Advisor Jess directly on 087 9394697.

You can also attend one of their fortnightly information sessions which are held online with fostering advisors and experienced foster carers.

Fostering First Ireland's criteria to be able to foster a child is as follows: 

- You need to be over the age of twenty-five, there is no upper age with fostering you just need to be in good health and have a reliable support network around you.
- You should have a spare bedroom available, foster children can not share with your own children.
- If you have children, your youngest should be at least 3 years old. You do not need children to foster.
- You should have your full driving licence, there are a lot of appointments that come up for children in care so it is important that you can travel to and from them.

"Fostering is the most amazing rewarding journey you will ever experience, one piece of advice that our foster carers would always give is to just get going and try not to think too much about making that call. You are always supported by professionals and never alone once you get started you will not look back," Fostering First Ireland said.