This week I began my last year of my twenties. This seems to be significant by the nature and size of my friend’s celebrations of their thirtieth birthdays, and I’ve often wondered why the transition into the third decade merits such a celebration.

On my thirtieth birthday, I imagine I will suddenly be given the keys to a safe that opens up new avenues in life - maybe the secrets to understanding life a little more.

Whatever it brings, this year will be the last when people can call me a ‘young person’ without sounding patronising or blind. Despite all my success and having a job that I love, the one thing I know I will do in my thirties is have children. Of course I have to find a partner who can put up with my chaos and mess.

But the second most powerful thing a human can do is give life to another and provide the unconditional love, opportunities and support to allow them to be the best they can be. What would be the most powerful thing a human can give? 
 
Looking back on my childhood I found myself grateful for actually getting to twenty nine and thankful to the people that have helped get me here. Growing up in care can be a bit like playing the lottery - the type of care you receive depends on where and who you land with, very little of which is by choice.

If you land in a children’s home your hopes of getting a good education and leaving care with the best possible start in life is likely to be less than if you grew up in a foster home.

You are more likely to end up in prison, homeless or a drug addict. I lived in some very bad children’s homes as a child - but I was very lucky to have lived in an extremely good one, the Caldecott Foundation.
 
What was special about Caldecott was not just the magnificent Kent countryside that surrounded it. It was the people. Just like teachers at school, you only remember the really great ones or the very bad ones. It was all the staff at Caldecott, my school and the community living all over Kent that showed me I was cared about - and could be whoever I wanted to be. 
 
When you talk to care leavers they tell you that it was usually one significant person that changed their life, that showed them the way to go and the skills they needed to get there. I was lucky to have many people like that during my four years in Kent.

It was because of these people that I didn’t end up in prison or homeless. For other children in care they don’t always get to meet that one person. There are over sixty thousand children in care in England, of which over fourteen hundred are in Kent.

The sad fact is that despite having the same potential as your own children, most of them will leave care without any or few qualifications, and struggling to survive in adult life.
 
Try and imagine this. You are a child who has suffered neglect, abuse or trauma through no fault of your own.

The parents, who you still love, are not able to take care of you and you are placed in a residential home with a group of other children you don’t know - or necessary like. You have staff that take care of you that come and go, and all your classmates know you’re from the local children’s home and call you names.

Over 20 professionals are involved in your life from social workers, to specialists and police, and it is near impossible to make yourself heard - let alone enjoy your life. You move from place to place, sometimes up to eight or 10 times having to meet new people and make new friends.

You leave school without qualifications and with little hope for the future, desperate for someone to provide you with the answers - but more than that, you’re just desperate for someone to love you.
 
Now imagine that child, instead of growing up like this, becomes part of your family. You teach them to laugh again and that they have a brain they can use.

Through your support they learn to trust again. You help them find ways to prove that they can do whatever they put their mind to.

By allowing them to be part of your family you teach them to respect those around them. Most of all you show them that they are cared about - and because of this, they are more likely to be the person they can and want to be.

 To foster a child is the most powerful thing a person can do - the challenge of the experience isn’t the most powerful part of it. It is the difference a foster carer makes to a child’s life - and that can be the difference between life and death for some children.

But for most it will be the difference between simply living - and living that life to its full potential.

• Matthew Huggins is chief executive of Care Matters Partnership

I really liked this posting and I feel the same way. My grandchildren are in a foster home. They wouldn't even consider anyone in our family as good enough to keep them? I don't understand why here in Oregon they want to take so many children away from their mothers. They are far worse off when they get in Foster Home System. My sister's kids were in the system also. This is a sad state of affairs for children to put in? They don't deserve the way they are treated by these facilities. They don't know how damaged they could become, all because they thought that they were doing something good, when they weren't at all. I wished they would think more before they take half of the kid's our of their homes. Plus yes they are definetly in need of more GOOD FOSTER HOMES IN ALL STATE'S AND CITIES AND COUNTRIES EVERY WHERE, PLEASE DO WHAT YOU CAN TO HELP THEM NOW!