Brian and Avril give youngsters a home

Brian and Avril give youngsters a home

28 May 2014

EIGHT years ago a shy and unresponsive 11 year-old mumbled into her coat collar as she met her prospective foster parents.

The meeting set up by Barnardos in a McDonalds restaurant is one Brian and Avril Kenwell remember well, especially considering how the quiet young girl who crept into their lives has blossomed.

Now 19 years old, their foster daughter Elaine McAuley says the Kenwells “turned my whole life around”. Currently employed as a care assistant in a residential home, she is getting ready to return to further education and excited about a career in either policing or nursing.

She sees Brian and Avril as her parents, and in attempt to recognise all they have done for her she nominated them in the recent Foster Carer of the Year awards at Stormont.

The Ballynahinch couple came runners-up and their award, run by The Fostering Network, was presented by Michelle McIlveen MLA. With three grown-up children already, most couples at the Kenwells’ stage of life are looking forward to baby-sitting the grandchildren at most. 

But from their early forties Brian and Avril began to think about welcoming another child into their home. And as recently as two years ago they brought a second foster child into their lives, eight year-old Cameron.

“We had friends that fostered and we were looking at ideas of giving something back,” said Avril. “We had to wait for a spare bedroom, though.

“We had seen a few ads in the paper looking for foster carers and went to a few information evenings. We decided against short term fostering and went to Barnardos for a long term placement. I knew my husband and I would not have wanted to give them back.”

Thankfully the couple’s children Beverly, David and Gillian were all for it.

“They all adjusted very well,” said Avril. “We had the team around the table. We had to have everybody on board.”

With the intense recruitment process prospective foster and adoptive parents are subjected to, Brian said it was a long process but not enough to put off the committed.

“They match you with a child which is good,” he said. “It is a long hard slog for the training, you are in for the long term. You can be asked the same question three or four times, you may be getting a bit frustrated but it is just them being 100 per cent sure.

“The training is very good, and there is a lot of after service.”

With Elaine selected as a potential match for the farming Kenwell family, a process culminating in weekend visits followed. Recalling that first meeting in McDonalds, Brian said: “She was quite quiet, shy and reserved and sat with her head down.

“We have come from where we were in McDonalds, where she was buried down in her coat..to being interviewed for Talkback [about the fostering awards] for 11 minutes.

“She has got her own birth parents. I said when she came here we are here to guide you and support you. You can call us Brian and Avril and if it it ever gets to the stage where you want to call us any other names you can.”

They get Brian and Avril mostly but Elaine also refers to them as her parents and the couple enjoy the “nice moments” when they get cards from her on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

“Cameron was almost eight when he came here,” Avril added. “It was easier for him to adapt. Nearly from the outset it was mum and dad.”

“There is a great bond between them and they both know how to work the system,” Brian laughed. “Cameron had problems at school but he has now been diagnosed with ADHD. He is a very bright wee boy with an IQ of 135. You ask a question he comes back with a question.”

For those inspired by Brian and Avril’s story to look into fostering for themselves, they say go ahead. Brian has one word of caution though.

“Do not be thinking you are going to change the world,” he said. “But some things do change. Our friends say look at Elaine now. We never really notice that.

“These children who have been in care do not have horns on them. They just have not been as fortunate in certain aspects of their upbringing.”

Elaine, whose first memories are of being in care, parted from her birth parents’ at the age of two, and through no fault of her own had a long series of short term foster placements. She had settled into a Barnardos Children’s Home before the Kenwells came along.

“It was difficult, I was scared,” she said of her first meeting with the couple. “I had 27 moves before that. I was in Warrenpoint and everything. I didn’t know where I was going.

“It was good, they kept me,” she said of the Kenwells. “I don’t know what would have happened if they hadn’t. I probably would have had more moves.”

Despite the warm welcome Elaine received into her new rural home, she understandably took a while to trust in her new surroundings. School was also a difficult period in her life and the Kenwells helped her through some traumatic times.

It took Elaine some time to fully feel secure, but she says, “I now see them as my parents”.

Carrying on with further education, and with a long term career goal in mind, Elaine has already beaten the statistics which see many foster children on benefits at her age.

“Right from the start I felt part of their family, they made me feel special from the first day I moved in,” she said.

“Every time I misbehaved I was waiting to be moved on but that never happened as Brian and Avril don’t give up on people.

“If it wasn’t for them I don’t know where I would have ended up. Knowing them has turned my whole life around.”