Katie is good at making friends but she worries about Kayla... they need the security of a forever family
Sisters Katie and Kayla clasped hands as they shuffled nervously through the front door of their new home. They recognised their foster carers Sally and Robert from the photos they were shown a few days earlier but this was the first time they had met.
Sally took them upstairs and showed them their new bedroom. There were pretty pink sheets and teddy bears on the beds – little presents to make the girls feel welcome.
But that night Kayla, four, slipped out of her bed and climbed in beside Katie, five. Only then did she feel secure enough to fall asleep.
Eighteen months on, the girls are thriving. They enjoyed their first holiday, a long weekend in a caravan in Skegness where they rode donkeys on the beach and squealed with delight as the freezing waves broke around their ankles.
They have made new friends and discovered a new passion for football, joining a local team.
But it is all only temporary. Katie and Kayla, who live in the north of England, still need a permanent family and someday they will have to leave the friends they have made in their foster home and start all over again.
Sally says: “That’s what really gets me. I know they are making all these friends but they are going to have to leave them all behind. It’s so sad.
“When Kayla talks about what she wants to do for her next birthday, Katie says, ‘We won’t be here for your birthday next year, we’ll be with our new family’. I hope for their sake they are.
“I hope they have found their ‘growing up family’ and they are happy.
“That’s why they need to find their new family soon, so they can start making friendships that will last all the way through their childhood, not just for the next few months.”
Katie, now seven, and Kayla, six, were taken into care along with their two younger brothers last year. Their brothers have already been adopted but the sisters are still waiting, slowly coming to terms with the fact that they won’t be going home to their parents or staying with Sally and Robert.
Katie and Kayla share a particularly close bond, with just 15 months between them, and the family-finding team is keen to keep them together.
Local councils rate siblings as “harder to place” than individual children. So the Mirror is sharing Katie and Kayla’s story during National Adoption Week to help find a new family for them. Sally says: “Katie is very protective of Kayla.
“She has taken on a little bit of responsibility for her sister. Sometimes she will suddenly say, ‘Where’s Kayla? I can’t see her’. Then I have to reassure her, ‘Kayla is okay, focus on what you are doing’.
“For a long time, Kayla stuck with Katie because that’s where she felt most secure. She would stand behind Katie or hold on to her sister’s hand. Now she’s
They had never been away and didn’t really know what a caravan was SALLY ON SISTERS GOING ON THEIR FIRST HOLIDAY
comfortable here she doesn’t need to do that as much.”
It took the girls nearly nine months to settle in but Sally knew they had found their feet when neighbouring children knocked on the door and asked if they were coming out to play. Now, Katie and Kayla love playing in front of the house with their new friends.
Sarah says: “Katie took the lead, she makes friends very easily. Wherever we go, she makes a friend.”
Katie has been catching up on her classmates at school, making particular progress with her reading. She now loves to sit with her head in her book. She joined a beaver scouts group and fell in love with football after watching Sally’s son David, 11, play for his local team.
Both girls have now joined a girls’ academy, training every week and playing in galas. “Katie is a very strong little footballer,” says Sally. “I hope that’s something she sticks with.”
Kayla is still happiest when joining in with her sister, though she is growing more independent and is often the first out on the green, waiting for her friends to come and play.
The girls also enjoy tugging on their waterproofs and boots to take a muddy walk through the countryside with Sally.
And they thrive on new experiences, like going to the theatre or the seaside. Sally says: “They love trying different things and meeting people. If we are sat inside, they ask, ‘What are we doing today, where are we going?’. They are so excited about everything.
“Their first holiday was particularly special. They had never been away before and they didn’t really know what a caravan was before we arrived.
“They were running on the beach and went in the sea, even though it was freezing. It is very rewarding watching them do new things. They are lovely, pretty little girls. They love cuddles and stories. They have so much affection six give a new family. They are typical and seven-year-old girls, loud and giggly who need a home.”
But that wait for a new home weighs heavily on their minds.
That is why Sally is desperate for them to find a new family soon, even through she admits she does not know how she will feel when she has.
to say goodbye. Sally says: “Katie still talks a lot about her family.
“The girls know they are not going home and they are adjusting to that but they still have an awful lot of questions about why they can’t, which we know is normal.
“They know they aren’t staying with me either but I can’t answer any questions about where they are going next, because we don’t know. It is so hard for them to have so much uncertainty and so many unanswered questions all the time.
“I try to reassure them, because they need that. I tell them I will be with them every step of the way, that they won’t just be sent to someone’s house the way they were sent to mine. I tell them next time there will be lots of visits, so they get to know their new family before they go to live with them. And I’ve told them we can keep in touch and send letters and photographs. It’s not something most children have to deal with and I don’t want them worrying about it.
“Katie and Kayla need a happy, loving home to grow up in. They deserve that. They just need a family who can spend lots of time with them and can offer them lots of experiences.
“A home with a dog would be a bonus. Whenever one of our neighbours comes out with their dog, the girls are straight there, asking if they can hold its lead and play with it. But they know the priority is to find a new home and a new family they can love.”
It is so hard for them to have so much uncertainty all the time SALLY ON GIRLS FINDING A PERMANENT HOME