 The skills you need that I think you need to be a foster carer is a sense of humour, not to take things personally. You need to be very understanding, encouraging, just a normal person, just be you. My name is Michelle and I've been fostering for West Sussex for about 26 years. I had a young child of my own and didn't want to go out into work, back to the office. So I decided that I would work from home and look after teenagers. And it worked really well because obviously I could give individual attention to my child during the day. And when my child was a bed, the teenager had me to themselves. A lot of them just need a safe place first, somewhere where they can feel safe, secure. Someone that's in their corner will listen to them, fight for them, encourage them. Simple things we take for granted with our own children that you just do instinctively. Sometimes I've never had that before. So about 95% of my foster children keep in touch with their families. They'll come to see me, some call me Nan, which is lovely. I've actually seen a foster child that I had give birth, so that was pretty special. To me the rules are successful in their own right. Whether it's going catering college or whether it's going to university, it's more a case of what haven't I got. Seeing all these children that come in through your door as one thing, when they leave, they're totally somebody else. I like to give them a sense of being, a sense of self-worth that they can be. Whatever they want in life, it's there if they want it. A lot of people do think that fostering teenagers is going to be really hard work. Trouble, police at your door every day and that's really not the case at all. Once they feel safe and secure, they slot into your routine, they just want somebody that will vouch for them, care for them. What I would say to somebody thinking about fostering that was in my position all those years ago, is go for it. There is help out there. You can work from home, be with your own children. I've had lots of support really over the years from West Sussex. Lots of training on probably every subject under the sun that you need. There's always help or a training course to go on to. You don't have to be a standard nuclear family well off in your own home. There's lots of different families, lots of different children. That's all they need is a chance. They just need somebody to be there to know that they're not going to give up on them. It's just nice to change lives and we do as foster carers.