PODCAST · religion
Fostering Kingdoms | Faith at the Heart of Fostering | Support & CPD for UK Foster Carers
by Jessica Smithers-Jones
Fostering Kingdoms is a faith-based podcast walking alongside UK foster carers with encouragement, gentle guidance, and practical CPD support. Each episode nurtures emotional wellbeing, resilience, and sustainable fostering through a Kingdom lens. This space exists to strengthen your heart, your home, and your calling. Putting care back into the carers so you can continue on your journey as a foster carer and with God at the centre of it all.
Episodes
-
Loving Them Without Losing Yourself as a Foster Carer | When You Can’t Make Them Change
Have you ever loved a child so much that youstarted to feel responsible for changing them? In this episode, we talk about how to love deeply as a foster carer, without losing yourself in the process. Loving a child in your care can come with a weight that no one really prepares you for. You give...
-
Let’s Talk About This: Why Do Foster Carers Downplay Themselves?
Why do so many foster carers downplay themselves? Why do carers minimise their wisdom, second guess their instincts, apologise for taking up space and describe themselves as “just a foster carer”? In this episode of Fostering Kingdoms, we’re having an honest conversation about confidence…
more -
Are You Helping or Enabling? Boundaries Every Foster Carer Needs
Are you helping or unintentionally enabling as a foster carer? In this episode, we explore when generosity crosses into patterns that don’t actually serve the child. As foster carers, we often want children to have everything, especially when they’ve experienced loss, instability, or lack. But…
more -
Proverbs 31 | She Considers a Field and Buys It | Wisdom, Stewardship & Intentional Decisions in Fostering
What does it mean to “consider a field and buy it” as a foster carer?In this final episode of our Proverbs 31 series, we explore wisdom, stewardship, intentional decisions and building sustainable homes within fostering.Because many foster carers spend so much time reacting to pressure…
more -
Probers 31 | A Woman Who Fears the Lord | Identity, Peace & Sustainable Fostering
What does it really mean to be “a woman who fears the Lord” as a foster carer?In this episode of Fostering Kingdoms, we continue our Proverbs 31 series by exploring identity, peace, performance and building emotionally sustainable homes rooted in God.Because many foster carers are quietly…
more -
Why Foster Carers Still Feel Broke, Even With Income
If money is coming into your home… why does it still feel like there’s never enough? In this episode, we unpack why foster carers often feel financially stretched even when income is coming in. Money in fostering doesn’t work the way people think it does. In this episode of Let’s Talk About This,...
-
Probers 31 | She Laughs at the Days to Come | Fear, Trust & Peace in Fostering
What does it mean to “laugh at the days to come” as a foster carer?In this episode of Fostering Kingdoms, we continue our Proverbs 31 series by exploring fear, emotional steadiness, trust and peace within fostering.Because many foster carers are quietly carrying fear about the future:• placement...
-
Proverbs 31 | Strength and Dignity Are Her Clothing | Identity, Resilience & Sustainable Fostering
What does it mean for “strength and dignity” to clothe a foster carer?In this episode of Fostering Kingdoms, we continue our Proverbs 31 series by exploring identity, emotional resilience, and sustainable fostering.Because many foster carers are quietly carrying:• emotional exhaustion • pressure…
more -
Proverbs 31 | She Opens Her Mouth With Wisdom | Foster Carers, Communication & Calm Leadership
What does it mean to “open your mouth with wisdom” as a foster carer?In this episode of Fostering Kingdoms, we’re continuing our Proverbs 31 series by exploring communication, emotional regulation, advocacy, and calm leadership within fostering.Because foster carers often carry enormous emotional...
-
What The Proverbs 31 Woman Teaches Foster Carers | She Watches Over Her Household
What does Proverbs 31 actually say about building a home? In this episode of Fostering Kingdoms, we’re exploring the powerful verse: “She watches over the affairs of her household…” Proverbs 31:27 And honestly I think this scripture speaks deeply into fostering. Because foster carers are not…
more -
Faith vs Professionalism in Fostering, Do They Clash?
Do faith and professionalism clash in fostering? Or is that something we’ve just been led to believe? In this episode, we explore how to hold both your faith and your role with confidence without compromising either. Many foster carers feel an unspoken pressure that you have to choose…
more -
More Money Won’t Fix Fostering Burnout | Stewardship for Foster Carers
Do you ever feel like if you had more money, you could do more as a foster carer? In this episode, we explore why more money doesn’t automatically create more impact and why stewardship matters first. As foster carers, it’s easy to believe that more money would solve the pressure. More money to...
-
Can You Share Your Christian Faith as a Foster Carer?
Can you share your Christian faith as a foster carer or isit something you’re supposed to keep quiet? In this episode, we explore how to live out your faith in fostering wisely, respectfully, and without fear. For many foster carers, faith isn’t just something you believe. It’s how you live. How...
-
When Foster Carers Don’t Feel Safe to Say They’re Struggling
Do foster carers feel safe to say when they’re struggling? In this episode, we talk about the quiet fear many carers carry and why silence can lead to burnout. “Would you admit you were struggling?” It sounds like a simple question, but for many foster carers, it isn’t. Because the reality being...
-
Faith Before Everything in Foster Care | Living It Out With Peace
What if success in foster care isn’t what theworld says it is? In this final episode, we explore how to live this journey with peace instead of pressure. Foster care can easily become outcome driven progress, stability, feedback, opinions. But true success isn’t measured byexternal results. It’s...
-
What Foster Carers Are Really Building | Trusting the Bigger Picture
What if what you’re doing matters more than you cansee right now? In this episode, we explore the deeper impact of fostering beyond daily outcomes. Foster care can feel focused on immediate results behaviour, routines, progress. But the most important work often isn’t visible straight away. You…
more -
You can't be available all the time as a Foster Carer
Do you feel like you have to be available all the time as a foster carer? In this episode, we talk about setting boundaries, protecting your time, and building a fostering journey that is actually sustainable. Somewhere along the way, many foster carers begin to live as if they need to be...
-
Enjoy Your Life as a Foster Carer | You’re Allowed More Than Survival
When did you last feel like you were trulyenjoying your life? In this episode, we explore how to build a life you love alongside fostering. Foster care can slowly become everything yourtime, your energy, your focus. And somewhere along the way, it’s easy to stop thinking about your own life. But...
-
How to Stay Consistent as a Foster Carer | When Motivation Drops
What do you do on the days you don’t feelmotivated? In this episode, we explore how to stay consistent even when your energy is low. Foster care doesn’t wait for you to feel ready.Some days feel heavy, slow, or draining and motivation isn’t always there. That’s where consistency matters. In this...
-
Women Supporting Women in Fostering
Why does fostering sometimes feel like women are working against each other instead of supporting one another? In this episode, we explore how small shifts in how we show up can begin to change the culture of fostering. The fostering system is built on relationships, and when you look closely the...
-
Protecting Your Energy as a Foster Carer | Avoid Burnout Without Guilt
Do you feel constantly tired or emotionallystretched in fostering? In this episode, we explore how to protect your energy without guilt. Foster carers give so much emotionally,physically, and mentally. But without protecting your energy, burnout becomes inevitable. Rest isn’t something you earn...
-
Letting Go of Needing Approval in Foster Care | Confidence Without Validation
Do you feel the need to be understood orvalidated in your decisions? In this episode, we explore how to stay confident even when others don’t agree. Foster carers often carry a deep desire to beunderstood, especially when decisions affect their home, family, and children. But when your peace...
-
Working With Social Workers Without Losing Yourself | Foster Carer Boundaries
Do you ever leave conversations withprofessionals feeling unsure or unheard? In this episode, we explore how to stay grounded and communicate clearly without losing yourself. Navigating relationships with social workers andprofessionals is a key part of fostering but it can also feel challenging,...
-
When Foster Care Feels Too Much Again | Staying Grounded in Hard Moments
Does fostering still feel overwhelming sometimes even with experience? In this episode, we talk about what to do when it feels like too much… again. Foster care doesn’t always get easier but you canbecome steadier within it. Even experienced carers have moments whereeverything feels heavy. This...
-
Leading Your Home as a Foster Carer | Stop Just Managing Everything
Do you feel like you’re constantly managing everything in your home? In this episode, we explore how to move from reacting to leading with calm and intention. Foster carers often find themselves managing behaviours, appointments, emotions, and expectations but over time, this can lead to…
more -
When Fostering Becomes Long-Term | Why You Can’t Carry It All Anymore
Do you feel the moment where fostering stops being temporary… and starts becomingyour life? In this episode, we explore what changes when fostering becomes long-term and why you can’t carry everything the same way anymore. Foster care often begins as something you step into. A decision. A season.…
more -
Faith Over Success | What Really Matters in Foster Care
What if success in foster care isn’t what the world says it is? In this final episode of Season 3, we explore what faithfulness really looks like and why peace matters more than performance, outcomes, or external approval. Foster care can easily become outcome-focused. Placement stability....
-
Emotional Resilience in Foster Care | How to Stay Steady Without Burning Out
Foster care will stretch you.In this episode, we talk about how to build emotional resilience not by hardening your heart, but by growing deeper roots.Resilience in foster care isn’t about becoming tougher.It’s about becoming steadier.Over time, the emotional demands of fostering can leave you...
-
Trusting God in the Waiting Season | Foster Care, Faith & Uncertainty
What do you do when nothing seems to be changing? In this episode, we talk about trusting God in long waiting seasons, especially in foster care, where answers, outcomes, and breakthroughs don’t always come quickly. Foster care is often lived in the “in-between.” Waiting for court dates. Waiting...
-
Keep It Simple | Systems That Support You as a Foster Carer
Does your day feel full… but still overwhelming?In this episode, we explore how simple systems can support you in foster care, bringing more calm, clarity, and consistency into your everyday life.Foster care comes with a lot to hold.*Appointments.*School runs.*Emotions.*Routines.*Unexpected...
-
Are You Just Surviving Foster Care? | How to Enjoy Your Life Again
Are you allowing yourself to actually enjoy your life… or just get through it? In this episode, we explore why foster carers often slip into survival mode and how to gently return to joy, presence, and living well. Foster care can become heavy. Not always because of one big thing but because of…
more -
Compassion Fatigue in Foster Carers | How to Protect Your Heart
Are you feeling emotionally exhausted from caring so deeply?In this episode, we talk about compassion fatigue in foster care and how to love wholeheartedly without losing yourself in the process.Foster carers are called to love generously. To show up. To stay steady. To hold space for trauma,...
-
How to Lead a Peaceful Home as a Foster Carer
Is it really possible to lead a peaceful home in the middle of foster care?In this episode, we explore what spiritual leadership looks like, not through control or perfection, but through calm presence and steady faith.Foster care can feel unpredictable. Behaviours shift. Meetings are intense....
-
Faith That Doesn’t Perform: Letting Go of Spiritual Pressure as a Foster Carer
Feeling spiritually drained as a foster carer? If faith has started to feel heavy, pressured, or performative, this episode willhelp you return to rest instead of striving. In this episode of Fostering Kingdoms, we explore whyfoster carers often feel pressure to “handle it well” and how to stop...
-
Regulating Before Reacting: Slowing Down as a Foster Carer
Do you ever react in the moment and wish you could take it back? In this episode, we explore how emotional regulation is a spiritual practice and why slowing down matters in foster care. If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, reactive, or stretched thin, this conversation will help you respond with...
-
The Wilderness Season | What to Expect in the Early Years of Fostering
Welcome to season 3 - This season walks along side you as you start your fostering journey. Foster care can harden you if you’re not careful. In this episode, we talk about how to stay soft, tender, and faith-filled even in challenging environments. If you’ve felt yourself becoming guarded,...
-
Living a Beautiful Blessed Life
Living the Vision — Building a Beautiful, Blessed Life in Alignment How to live what God has shown you peacefully, faithfully, and without striving, this is your time to live for yourself, not for the outside world. It's time to say yes to you, an no to the things that drain you. In this episode…
more -
Build Your Life Vision with God
More Is Possible. Building Your Life Vision With God, Not Pressure In this episode we talk about how foster carers can build a future with faith, clarity, and hope without striving & struggling. God wants us to get clear on our futures, to build Kingdom homes and live for his glory. If this…
more -
Creating Stability in an Uncertain System
When the outside world feels unpredictable,your home can become a place of steadiness, peace, and rhythm not perfection, but safety. This episode is about creating stability from the inside out. We are the heart of the home, we create the stability even in the rocky places. Our faith holds us, if...
-
Building a Beautiful Life, Even in a Broken System
Because yes fostering can be heavy. But it can also be beautiful. Even inside messy systems, even with uncertainty, evenwhen things don’t always make sense you are still allowed to create a life that feels full, joyful, and meaningful. This episode is an invitation to lift our eyes andremember…
more -
When Your Integrity is Questioned
This episode is for the carers who have ever feltmisunderstood, unfairly judged, or left doubting themselves because someoneelse questioned their character before ever getting to know their heart. If you would like to connect with us deeper, visit us at Fostering Kingdoms
-
Same Care, Different Systems
Something many carers quietly navigate everyday, often without language for it, and it’s rarely discussed, no training offered, no true understanding, just expected to know. The reality that every child is different and with those differences come different systems, different thresholds, and...
-
Carrying Responsibilities with Authority
In todays episode we are talking to be talking about what it feels like to carry enormous responsibility for a child while holding very little authority to actually shape decisions. We have very little input, but we carry the load, emotionally, physically and spiritually. If you find yourself in...
-
Professional Disagreement
Professional disagreement should never cost a child their advocate.But when it does, the emotional toll on carers is real.If this is something you’ve lived or are navigating now, I hope this episode reminds you that your voice has value even when it’s misunderstood or you feel unheard, more than...
-
Advocacy That Costs You
Standing firm without losing your faith, can often feel challenging, but advocating for the children we are for is one of the hardest things we can find ourselves doing. Season two is isn't about attacking, but it's about creating space for us to be heard, understood and know that we are doing...
-
Awareness; Growing without pressure
As we come to the end of this season, I want to slow things down. Not to wrap everything up neatly but to create space to notice what’s been unfolding across these episodes. Because this season was never about giving you more to do. It was about helping you see yourself, your season, and your...
-
Emotional Safet; the foundation for healaing
Because without emotional safety, childrencan’t learn, trust, or heal and neither can we. Today’s episodeis about creating emotional safety in our homes, in ourselves, and in our relationships. For more information visit us at FosteringKingdoms.com
-
Rest, it's not optional
In this episode we are reminded that rest is not optional, rest is not a luxury, but as essential parts of caring, and being able to care well. Rest doesn’t always been rest-bite either, it’s about creating pockets of rest in our daily routines. Rest can come in different shapes and forms, not…
more -
Creating Space: Boundaries, Decluttering, and Stewardship at Home
Decluttering isn't about creating Instagram worthy picture perfect homes, it's about letting go of what no longer serves us. Join us on this episode and I share about the lived reality of living in clutter, how to it impacts us without being aware and some simple doable steps you can take today…
more -
Boundaries that Protect your calling
Boundaries aren't to keep us cold and defensive, instead understand the power of true boundaries, because when you care deeply, give generously, and say yes often… the thing that usually breaks down first is you. We often get told to think about our boundaries for the children, but rarely we are...
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
Fostering Kingdoms is a faith-based podcast walking alongside UK foster carers with encouragement, gentle guidance, and practical CPD support. Each episode nurtures emotional wellbeing, resilience, and sustainable fostering through a Kingdom lens. This space exists to strengthen your heart, your home, and your calling. Putting care back into the carers so you can continue on your journey as a foster carer and with God at the centre of it all.
HOSTED BY
Jessica Smithers-Jones
CATEGORIES
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Fostering Kingdoms | Faith at the Heart of Fostering | Support & CPD for UK Foster Carers have?
Fostering Kingdoms | Faith at the Heart of Fostering | Support & CPD for UK Foster Carers currently has 70 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Fostering Kingdoms | Faith at the Heart of Fostering | Support & CPD for UK Foster Carers about?
Fostering Kingdoms is a faith-based podcast walking alongside UK foster carers with encouragement, gentle guidance, and practical CPD support. Each episode nurtures emotional wellbeing, resilience, and sustainable fostering through a Kingdom lens. This space exists to strengthen your heart, your...
How often does Fostering Kingdoms | Faith at the Heart of Fostering | Support & CPD for UK Foster Carers release new episodes?
Fostering Kingdoms | Faith at the Heart of Fostering | Support & CPD for UK Foster Carers has 70 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Fostering Kingdoms | Faith at the Heart of Fostering | Support & CPD for UK Foster Carers?
You can listen to Fostering Kingdoms | Faith at the Heart of Fostering | Support & CPD for UK Foster Carers on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Fostering Kingdoms | Faith at the Heart of Fostering | Support & CPD for UK Foster Carers?
Fostering Kingdoms | Faith at the Heart of Fostering | Support & CPD for UK Foster Carers is created and hosted by Jessica Smithers-Jones.
URL copied to clipboard!