Journey of Hearts: How Origins Foster Care Helped Patrick Grow as a Foster Parent

Fostering is full of rewarding moments – but it also comes with questions, doubts, and difficult days. That’s why support makes all the difference. In this edition of our 'Journey of Hearts' series, we meet Patrick Squires, a foster carer who shares how the support from Origins Foster Care helped children in his care thrive and his family keep going with fostering for over a decade.

Every fostering journey has moments that test you. Moments where you question if you’re doing the right thing, if you’re making a difference. For Patrick Squires, a foster carer with Origins Foster Care, those moments became turning points – not because he faced them alone, but because he had the right support around him.

Patrick and his partner have been fostering for over 15 years and helped many children through the foster care system. “I would reckon we’ve had over 20 kids” during that time, he shares. But their experience with children didn’t start there – he and his partner both worked with young people for 30 years, making their foray into foster care a natural extension of their work lives.

Our Trauma Focus

What helped Patrick deepen his understanding of the children in his care was training on trauma – something Origins prioritises as part of our trauma-informed approach.

“One of the things we learned was that ADHD or ADD. is very, very similar to trauma,” he explains. After one child was initially thought to have ADD, further evaluation and conversation with their social worker revealed it was trauma, not a diagnosis, at the root of the behaviour. “It made us realise that a lot of these kids may not [have] ADD it may be just trauma.”

That shift in understanding changed how Patrick approached care – and it’s exactly the kind of insight Origins aims to provide all our carers through specialist support and ongoing development.

Ongoing Support

But it’s not just about training. It’s about feeling backed up when things get hard.

In Patrick's own words, Origins "helped us overall. They strengthened us. You know, they’d done what a link worker should be doing – and they were brilliant.”

That kind of steadfast support isn’t an add-on at Origins – it’s the core of what we do. We match each foster carer with a dedicated Link Worker, like Leah Flood or Ciara Farrell, and ensure they’re never left to navigate challenges alone. With 24/7 on-call support, smaller caseloads, and a real commitment to working in partnership with carers, we’re proud to do fostering differently.

“Since we moved to Origins, they’ve actually helped us to grow as foster parents,” Patrick says. And that growth – the kind that ripples out to the children and families we work with – is exactly what we’re here for.

If you’re thinking about fostering, know this: you don’t have to do it alone. At Origins Foster Care, we walk alongside you.