Queen's Birthday Honours: Susan Heath

Susan Heath has fostered about 70 children over almost two decades. Photo / John Borren

Susan Heath has received a Queen's Service Medal for her services for foster care.

She has been fostering for almost two decades, caring for about 70 children - from newborns to 13-year-olds, staying for periods ranging from single emergency nights to four years per child.

Mrs Heath said she did early childhood training in the United Kingdom but once she arrived in New Zealand when she emigrated it was void.

She did volunteer work in schools and decided to start her own family when she saw an ad in the paper for foster care training. After the first night of training she knew it was a career she wanted to pursue, she said.

"The fact you can actually make a difference with these children, you can show them there is another way. It all doesn't have to be stress and trauma," she told the Bay of Plenty Times.

The children she cares for were removed because of poverty and lack of parenting skills, she said.

"For us it is the opportunity to break that cycle and to be able to teach the children there is another way. Hopefully when they have children, the past has been broken and they will parent successfully."

She still fosters today, having a little girl she has looked after for about a year.

Mrs Heath said she tried not to get too connected to the children and had always seen it as her profession.

"I've had my family and this is my job.

"Even though I love them all to bits, it is my job and I truly believe there is a family for each child out there. But it's not me. I am the person to transition those children to their new forever home."

Mrs Heath has maintained a commitment to improving her skills to provide the best possible care for vulnerable children, attending National Caregiver Training workshops to keep up to date with research and trends in foster care.

She was a member of the National Foster Care Conference organising committee in Tauranga in 2008, and has attended annual National Foster Care Conferences between 2008 and 2014, mostly at her own expense, to gain knowledge and pass this on to other caregivers to improve foster care in the Bay of Plenty region.

She assisted the Fostering Kids Regional Co-ordinator to successfully start fostercare associations in Waikato, Taupo, Tokoroa, Whakatane and Rotorua, and is a proactive committee member of the Bay of Plenty Foster Care Association and has been chairwoman of the Tauranga Foster Care Association since 2012.