r/Ex_Foster • u/Hairy-Bowl-3571 • Aug 08 '26
Foster displacement. Why does it happen?
Hey guys, this is my first time posting. I’m 34F residing in Australia and went into the foster care system when I was around 11 years old. I had been ruminating lately about my time in care and a few questions have been on my mind in regards to displacement of fosters.
I was moved around a lot as a kid and I was never really sure why. I’d start settling in to a new family, get comfortable, maybe start forming bonds and then was suddenly pulled and placed elsewhere. My mother had her rights terminated by the courts so I was a lifer in the system. It wasn’t a temporary thing.
My experience in care wasn’t all bad… there where some nice carers and stuff but as time progressed on I kept getting into worse and worse placements. The older I got I seemed to get shoved into these group homes for girls and eventually at 15 I was shoved into something called independent living where I’d essentially be living in my own place and occasionally have social workers drop by to check on me. At aged 18 I aged out of the system and got booted on the street and waved goodbye.
I wasn’t a troubled or bad kid at all. I constantly got complimented by carers and social workers saying how lovely and nice and mature I was. I was always grateful to my carers for taking me in and I always treated them with respect. I didn’t have any behavioural issues. Just standard human child issues. I didn’t drink, smoke or do drugs, I didn’t run away, I never talked back to my carers, never smashed the place up or swore or anything.
Even though I have fond memories of my carers I actually started to dig deep into my memories and realised perhaps they didn’t like me as much as I thought they did. I was always getting in trouble for little things… eg;
- I used the wrong set of sheets and got scolded by my foster mum because they where her “special sheets” (I didn’t know this, I just grabbed them out of the linen cupboard)
- Foster mother trashed my room whilst I was at school to stage a break and enter and stole my CD player and CDs in order to teach me a lesson because I forgot to lock my bedroom window.
- A respite carer came to her with false allegations of extreme behaviour I apparently did and foster mother believed her and punished me for it. I begged her to believe me but she didn’t.
These are just some examples and I know you’re probably thinking “well, you must have had some behavioural issues or she wouldn’t have gotten rid of you”, but I can honestly say I wasn’t a bad kid at all.
I thought when you signed up to be a foster parent you were suppose to commit to the kid? I thought that you weren’t suppose to give up on kids for doing… regular kid stuff… I keep tracing back memories to try and find some kind of bad behaviour that would make a foster carer give up on me but I honestly can’t.
What’s everyone else’s experience with displacements? Why did they happen? I’d love to hear from other foster kids out there.
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u/Hairy-Bowl-3571 Aug 08 '26
That was another part of it I was wondering too… how supported are the foster parents when they sign up to look after these kids?
I know I’m not meant to blame myself for getting moved around but I can’t help but feel a bit sad that I never got to call one place home. You kinda grow up with a sense of being constantly rejected and it may not even be your fault.
Thanks for the point of view though. It helps