By BLAKE METCALF-HOLT
THEY can change your life equally as much as you change theirs.
Foster care can often times be taken for granted, yet they are necessary in regards to supporting the thousands of young people not privileged with the traditional home life.
It could be for a thousand different reasons completely out of the kids’ hands.
Carlton AFLW coach Mathew Buck and his wife Rachael are one of a few impressive stories having cared for over 100 young people in a decade-long span through MacKillop Family Services.
Once school teachers (Rachael as a current school principle), together they realised a chance to help the struggling youth in their Geelong community.
“We saw a need in our community that vulnerable children needed some support and (a) safe place to go and stay, and look, we had a spare bedroom at our house and thought ‘why not’… I guess it all started there,” Mathew said.
With what they were doing, Mathew used this as a way to instil powerful lessons onto his own three children.
“Over the 10 years we’ve being doing it our boys have grown up with it and through that (it’s) enabled us to have conversations with our boys around gratitude, understanding that we’re very grateful for what we have and note everyone in our community is as lucky as we are,” he said.
“You discuss empathy and the reason we do these kinds of things is that we should help people when you’re fortunate enough that you should. It’s been a big journey, but we still enjoy doing it now.”
It’s created a space that their kids have embraced, as Mathew said, they only get more excited when someone new around their age enters the fold to play around the house, while also giving the foster child a chance to experience a care-free run of life offering them distraction and comfort.
Mathew spoke of the unknown of starting this venture but how out of this decision rose
unbelievable two-way reward.
“There’s a bit of a nervous start, you’re not quite sure what you’re getting yourself into, but over time what we’ve learnt is that the kids really appreciate the help that you can give them and when they come in and they come in to a warm meal and a friendly house and a safe environment,” he said.
“You can see the look on their faces is one of gratitude and something we really enjoy seeing,” he said.
Over the period, Mathew and Rachael have done emergency and respite care, and while
encouraging more to take it up, Mathew simultaneously explained a common misconception that it’s a full-time commitment but it doesn’t have to be.
“Foster care agencies are great at wrapping around support so that you can be a foster carer one day a month or you can open your house as much as it kind of suits you,” he said.
“We both obviously live pretty busy lifestyles and that kind of thing, so working with your agency to ensure that you can do it to a time that suits you is one of the great things about foster care.”
Given Mathew’s duties as a professional football coach, it does offer some even greater perks with the kids on occasion being brought down to the Carlton facilities and to meet the AFLW players.
The Buck family enjoy bringing these kids along for the ride whether it’s going to the local swimming pool on a beautiful, hot day or going to the footy, they just like being outside with them and experiencing life.
Sometimes, given the amount of foster kids they’ve had flow through their household over the years, they can come from anywhere – which Mathew said is the result of limited carer options that doesn’t meet the demands these young people deserve.
“Over the years, you find you get children from everywhere. What that tells us is that there is the need for foster care, and so we have some kids travel from (the likes of) Gippsland to our house in Geelong because there was no carer in between who could take them in on that particular time,” he said.
“There’s just such a great need.”
Bringing it back locally, Kelly van den Meiracker is one of the hard-working and deeply caring workers at Anglicare, Gippsland who was recently nominated as a finalist in the Foster Care category at the 2024 Victorian Protecting Children Awards.
Kelly has worked in the space for 17 years and just from speaking to her, you can feel her passion and love for the job but, most importantly, the kids.
“(The nomination) was lovely, very unexpected. I just like to sit in the background but it was very nice to be noticed and recognised,” she said.
To go along with her work in foster care, Kelly heads quite the clan at home with five children – four of which came to her through special needs adoption.
“I worked in a residential care home and the kids there touched my heart, and I thought well I’ll go through (and) do something that I wanted to do with special needs adoption, which I was interested in,” she said.
Over a period of three years, Kelly answered the phone to the adoption agency and leapt at the opportunity to give these babies a home and a family.
“They just light up the room, they’re just amazing, amazing kids,” she said.
“And then recently, I got a phone call about a six-year-old with special needs through complex needs and we brought her home in December and she’s just come so far and to see how far they come it’s just so, so worth it.”
Kelly echoed Mathew’s feelings around the need for more foster carers regionally and the invaluable reward you’d get from it.
“There are so many kids out there who need a family – they bring more into your life then you could ever bring into theirs,” she said.
“I’m just on my own, I’ve got five kids, and if I can do it anyone cane. It is such a rewarding process.”
The Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare Chief Executive, Deb Tsorbaris noted that Gippsland is one of the many regions in Victoria where “there has been a noticeable decrease in active foster households, creating a pressing need for local families to step forward.”
For more information about fostering a child or to contact your local foster care agency, visit: fosteringconnections.com.au or call 1800 013 088.
