Penelope wants your help with this "lifechanging" work

Long Beach's Penelope Tam has been a respite foster carer with Batemans Bay based care provider Care South for four years, and was a foster carer in Melbourne before that.

"Being a foster carer is wonderful," she said.

"You could change someone's life forever."

Ms Tam was working full time as a case worker in Melbourne, watching close up the effect families falling apart had on children.

"I watched so many kids waiting for foster carers to come on board and they'd end up in motels with the department worker," she said.

"I told myself when I resigned I would become a foster carer."

She did - and has been a respite foster carer ever since.

Respite foster care is short-term care helping give full-time carers a break, or meeting an instant need while a long-term home can be found for a child.

Ms Tam works full time, and takes primary aged children - sometimes for a weekend, or as long as three months depending on her schedule and the needs of the child.

She will take children to the beach, camping, or teach them life lessons.

"I can still see smiling faces in my mind - kids in a playground having fun or laughing, or sitting around the camp stove, or at the fair," she said.

One child went to school bubbling with joy after a weekend with Penelope because she had taught them how to make pancakes.

"It's an experience in their life they can look back on and feel good about," she said.

"This is their pathway to opportunities in life."

She says to her friends who are going camping, or to the museum, or doing any activities on the weekend 'why don't you take a foster child with you?' It's her hope more and more people will sign up and help care for children in need of support.

"A lot of people don't know how many children are in foster care," she said.

"There is a great need for more carers."

Care South care recruitment caseworker Rhonda Evertt-Gidley said there was a huge need for respite foster carers, providing breaks for fulltime foster carers.

Care South have nine centres across southern NSW, including in Nowra and Batemans Bay. They care for more than 30 children in the Eurobodalla area, and are just one of many foster care providers in the shire.

"Finding a safe space is crucial to the child to make them feel safe," Ms Evertt-Gidley said.

"They haven't had stability, routine, or any of the stuff that makes a child feel safe - they are removed from their parents and their pets."

Ms Tam said being a foster parent took compassion and care, and a desire to be present and engaged with the child.

However, the benefits flow both ways, and Ms Tam said she had gained so much through caring for many different children over her seven years.

"It brings another dimension to your life," she said.

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"It helps you connect with your young side again - it brings it back to life."

This Foster Care Week 2022 - running from September 11 to 17 - Care South are calling for more community members to consider becoming foster carers.

Batemans Bay's Se7en Café are sponsoring the campaign, with takeaway coffee cups and posters advertising Care South and the need for more foster carers.

Ms Tam hopes it will help raise awareness about the great need in society.

"You really can make a difference," she said.

Kids Help Line: 1800 55 1800

Lifeline: 13 11 14

Care South: 1300 554 260