I was fostered from the age of 4 years old to 18 years old. I believe this disadvantage as a child became my advantage later on in life and I was desperate to get prove myself. I am now working in a great job, have a family with two wonderful daughters of my own and have always thought how lucky I was to get such good care from social services and my foster parents.

It costs a lot to keep a child in foster care. Many people will come up with many different calculations but I have used the one below that I feel comfortable must be about right.

The cost to U.K. government of fostering was £1.7bn the year 2016/17 when there were 78,000 placements in the U.K.

As an average through division, each placement must then cost £21,795 over 2016/17. Let’s use this as the basis for my calculation.

14 years of this supporting for me is therefore £305,130. This is what I owe and I am going to keep personally donating to this page each month from my earnings with all the money going to the amazing fostering charity TACT to help more children get the care I did.

Whoever you are out there, if you want to help me reach this lifetime target then I am so grateful. What will I do once this target is reached? I will visit the TACT foster charity headquarters and let them know that I am going to start the payback for another child now that I have paid back my own debt :-)

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.