PREPARATIONS for Foster Care Fortnight – June 1 to June 14 – have reminded me of 17 years ago when I went to a conference in a Roman Catholic retreat centre.

Our daughter had been in our care for just two months.

We were officially her foster carers until such time as the adoption order went through.

I went to the Chapel of St Joseph to pray and was amazed, as I looked up at the Chancel arch, to see embossed in gold the dedication of the Chapel.

It said: ‘St Joseph – Foster father to Our Lord Jesus Christ’.

Until that day, whilst I had known that adoption was deeply rooted in Christian theological thinking, I had not realised that Joseph, that quiet hero of the New Testament, could be thought of as a foster father to Jesus.

It does make absolute sense as Joseph was not the biological father, and he knew he wasn’t, and yet he took the fatherly responsibility to care for, nurture, protect, teach and love Jesus, knowing that one day he would have to let go and let Jesus be what his Father in heaven called him to be. Jesus’s life with Mary would have been very grim had not Joseph had that visitation from the Holy Spirit and taken up his calling to foster.

Some children in the UK have a difficult start to life, experiencing horrendous abuse of one sort or another. Their first stage to stability in life will be through entering foster care whilst a plan is formed which may lead to adoption.

Foster carers are crucial for their healing and long-term development and I believe it to be a Christian vocation.

PACT, whose work and fundraising has featured elsewhere, provides a fostering service with particular focus on hard-to-place-children. To do this well they need more than prayer, they need funding which is increasingly hard to get.

PACT parishes and individual supporters enable the continuation of this important work.

It originated in 1911 as the Diocesan Council for Prevention and Rescue Work, established by Bishop Francis Paget, then Bishop of Oxford.

To find out more visit pactcharity.org/churches