Oriel and Mark: ‘fostering the best thing we’ve done’

To mark National Fostering Awareness Month, Mullingar woman Oriel Worrell reflects on how fostering has not only changed the life of the child she and her husband love as their own, but has transformed their lives too.

For Oriel Worrell and her husband Mark Sloan, fostering was never simply about opening their home – it was about opening their hearts.

Originally from Dublin, Oriel worked for years as a professional nanny before meeting Mark while on holidays in Lanzarote in 2005. A year later, she swapped city life for Mullingar, where the couple built a life together after marrying in 2008. But while their future looked bright, the path to parenthood was not straightforward.

“From long before I was ever married, I always said I’d love to adopt a child,” Oriel explains. “Then when we got married, fertility became an issue.”

After exploring IVF without success, the couple considered fostering, a decision that would ultimately change everything. In 2016, they began the application and training process to become foster carers with Tusla Fostering, Ireland’s fostering agency.

Then came the day that altered the course of their lives forever. On 3 December, 2017, Oriel and Mark were officially approved as foster parents. On the same day, they learned they would soon welcome a baby girl who was yet to be born.

Just weeks later, on 2 January, they collected tiny baby Anna, weighing only five pounds.

“It was chaotic for a few months,” Oriel laughs, remembering those early days. “But it was the best thing we ever did.”

Now, in the process of adopting Anna, Oriel says she cannot imagine life any other way.

“She’s just ours and that’s it. She’s everything to us,” she says warmly. “I loved her the second she was put into my arms.”

Having spent years caring for children as a nanny, Oriel says she understood long ago that love is not defined by biology.

“As a nanny, I loved many children that weren’t mine,” she says. “But Anna is my child.”

The couple initially shared a close relationship with Anna’s birth mother, though sadly she and Anna’s birth father have since passed away. Oriel says that they have always been open with Anna about her story. Anna talks of having a “tummy mummy and daddy” and calls Oriel and Mark her “forever mummy and daddy”.

Their journey, Oriel says, has been filled with love, support and deep friendships.

Mark, a postman who is well known around the community, and Oriel have become part of a strong fostering support network in the midlands. Through fostering, they have formed lasting friendships with other carers, holiday together regularly and have watched their children grow up side by side.

“We feel like we knew Anna before she was even born,” Oriel says. “It’s been a wonderful journey for us.”

She is passionate about encouraging others to consider fostering and believes many people are held back by fear – particularly the fear of becoming too emotionally attached.

“There’s a myth there,” she says, “people say, ‘but I could get too attached’. Well yes will – and you are meant to. Why do people think like that?

“If it’s meant to be that children return to their birth families, then it’s up to us as adults to pick up the pieces, not the child. That’s the whole point.”

Oriel also praises the support they received by Tusla Fostering, saying they felt cared for “every step of the way”.

“We’ve had the same link worker and the same social worker the whole time and it’s been an amazing experience. We were so well looked after.”

June was National Fostering Awareness Month and Tusla Fostering is seeking foster carers from all walks of life across Ireland to help ensure young people can stay connected to their communities. Living with a local family will ensure a young person can maintain important connections with their friends, sports, school, and community, and reach their full potential.

There are many misconceptions around who is, or isn’t, eligible to foster. Tusla Fostering currently works with foster carers from all walks of life. For example those who are in a same-sex relationship, are Travellers, are of African or Eastern European origin, are Muslim, have a disability, who don’t have a job currently, who rent, who are single, who are over 40, and with parents who both work.

Tusla’s National Lead for Fostering, Jacqui Smyth, says Tusla Fostering welcomes applicants and enquiries from all backgrounds to provide foster care, which comes in a variety of forms, from short-term respite care to relative care and long-term.

“It is important that the pool of available foster carers is diverse because the needs of every child differ. Right now, in every part of Ireland there is a need for foster carers. Children come into care from every socio-economic group, across religions and cultures, across rural and urban communities throughout our country. Every child deserves the chance to live in a home within their own community.

“At Tulsa Fostering, our focus is to support foster carers and encourage people to consider becoming a carer for a child who is unable to remain at home. We do this through a spectrum of support for fostering families. We collaborate closely with stakeholders and colleagues to innovate and advocate for children and families in the foster care system.”

Looking back now, nearly a decade on, Oriel says she would encourage anybody considering it to take the leap. “I’d say, 100% do it. You can’t explain how wonderful the journey is until you live it.”

To learn more about being a foster carer with Tusla Fostering, visit fostering.ie, call Freefone 1800 226 771 or email tusla.fostering@tusla.ie.