Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Ready-made family
3 adorable siblings seek ‘forever home’
BRYAN, Rachel and Shaun have spent months building up their confidence in a happy, stable home.
But that home is with foster carers and they face a struggle to find an adoptive family to take all three of the siblings.
So we were allowed to highlight their story in National Adoption Week.
Foster mum Michelle, 47, says: “They are a lovely, ready-made family for somebody. It would be heartbreaking if they don’t stay together. They are very close.
“Sometimes you can just hear all three of them laughing their heads off together, which is so wonderful.”
The children are very different to when they arrived eight months ago.
Bryan, six, and Rachel, four, were very subdued and so attached they did not leave each other’s sight.
Michelle says: “Bryan was very much the carer, which he had been at home, so he struggled to let go of that responsibility. But they are out of their shells now.” Bryan wants a forever family who will play football with him in the garden.
Michelle says: “He might seem confident but he is quite a quiet little boy. He is doing brilliantly at school.”
Rachel is just starting to learn to read and craves affection. Michelle says: “Rachel is super-loving. She is always slipping her hand into yours, she will always snuggle up to you on the couch.”
Shaun, 14 months, is predictably into everything – and keeps them on their toes. Michelle says: “He is really inquisitive and a lovely little boy.”
Michelle, a fosterer for 17 years, has grown attached but knows the best thing for them is to find their own family.
She says: “The children have been told we are looking for their ‘forever family’.
“I know it is difficult to place a sibling group. But they are amazing kids – so much of the hard work has been done.”