When the call comes, sometimes at 6am, sometimes with almost no information at all, Millie answers it. She’s been doing that for years. This is what emergency fostering really looks like.
how it started
Millie started fostering as a single mum with a three-year-old son. She was working in a residential school with children with additional needs and could see, day to day, what growing up in a larger family could offer a child. Her son was an only child, and she didn’t want that to be the whole picture.
“I decided to apply, respite and emergency only at first, as I was working, but I had weekends and school holidays available.” It was a practical decision as much as a personal one. She had the time, the experience, and the instinct. So she started.
Fast forward to now, and Millie has a husband, three children, and a stepdaughter. The family sat down together and made the decision to do more, they went to panel and were approved for three placements. “I often think: what would happen to my four children if anything happened to us? That question stays with you. It shapes how you see other children too.”
when the call comes
Emergency fostering means being ready when no one else is. The call can come at any time, often with very little information. A child might be sitting in a social worker’s office. They might be in the back of a police car. They might be being removed from their home at that very moment.
“When you get the call, with sometimes only basic information, you just want to help,” Millie says. And then the practical side kicks in, toiletries, clothes, equipment depending on the age of the child. Getting the house ready. Waiting for them to arrive.
It’s the kind of preparation that can’t be fully planned in advance. You learn to hold it all lightly and move quickly.
“As a parent, you go into protective mode. You just start getting things ready.”
those first few hours
When a child arrives in an emergency placement, they are often frightened, confused, and exhausted. Everything they know has just been upended. Millie’s approach in those first hours is to stay calm, listen, and not push.
“The first hours are about remaining calm, listening, and allowing them to build a trusting relationship,” she says. Having other children in the house helps, it normalises things, gives a new arrival someone to be around without any pressure. Finding out their likes and dislikes, opening up gentle ways to communicate, that’s what those early hours look like.
The most challenging part, particularly with very young children or babies, is sometimes not having all of the information before a child or young person is placed with you. “You don’t always know what they’ve been through. For non-verbal children especially, you’re working from very little.” But Millie has learned to focus on what she can give rather than what she doesn’t know. “The main thing we can give them is a safe, secure, calm, and stable environment. Relationships, trust, and understanding will follow.”
a moment that stays with her
There’s one call Millie comes back to. It was 6am. A social worker on the line, asking her to take three very young children. Minimal information, Just three small children sitting in the back of a car, not knowing what was happening, very young and very scared.
“They just needed to be safe,” she says. “I always picture them when a call comes through.”
It’s that image, children in the back of a car in the early hours, that keeps the role in sharp focus. Not the paperwork, not the process. Just the children.
“They just needed to be safe. I always picture them when a call comes through.”
what millie would say to someone considering it
She doesn’t hesitate. “Do it. Make the call. Ask the questions, the answers may surprise you.”
Emergency fostering asks a lot of you. It asks you to be ready at short notice, to open your home to a child you’ve never met, to hold things together when information is scarce and emotions are high. But for Millie, it’s straightforward: “It’s the best role in the world.”
If her story has resonated with you, find out more about the different types of fostering available, explore who can foster, or read more stories from foster carers in Wrexham.
