Supported Lodgings and Fostering Christmas Afternoon Tea, Basingstoke
3 December 2026
Host and Carer Stories
Carol has been a Supported Lodgings host with Step by Step since November 2019. She started with one young person in a two-bedroom flat, then did something few people would: she moved house specifically so she could offer more rooms. She moved in a week before lockdown, with three bedrooms ready for young people who needed somewhere safe to stay.
“I live alone and I actually quite liked the chaos,” she says. “There was a need and I wanted to get to it. For want of a better word, it was my calling.”
Carol has always had what she calls an open house policy. Over the years, friends of friends and young people from her church community have stayed with her for weeks or months, and some have become family. She had originally planned to foster, but with the process slowed by COVID, she decided to look at Supported Lodgings in the meantime. “I walked in one day and I thought, this is what I’m meant to do. It just felt like it’s what I was supposed to be doing. And I felt like I was good at it.”
As a Christian, Carol believes that when she’s on the wrong path, a door closes. When her fostering application didn’t go ahead, she took it as a sign. Becoming a host was straightforward. “It was actually very easy. It was just really a couple of conversations.” Step by Step put her in touch with an experienced host, who told her what hosting is really like, “warts and all”, and a couple of months later she was approved at panel.
Carol’s home has a mix of emergency beds, for young people who need somewhere safe at short notice, and a longer-term room. With an emergency bed, the placement team calls with a brief summary and asks if she can take the young person. Hosts can always say no. Carol has learned not to judge anyone by the paperwork. “When I get the person at my door, very often I think, well, it doesn’t sound like the same person.”
Day to day, she says, it’s much like having your own children at home. For emergency placements, she plans meals, does the shopping and keeps the house running. Young people in longer-term placements often cook for themselves, so life carries on much as normal. Some need more of her time than others. “It varies on the young person. You have to gauge it.”
Her trick for connecting with teenagers who would rather be upstairs on a games console? Timing her meals with theirs. “If you’re eating at the same time, then it’s easier to start a conversation than when they just walk in the door and they’re on their way up the stairs.”
““It is your home, but it’s also their home.”
The highlights, for Carol, are hearing where young people go next. One young man she hosted recently popped up as a suggested connection on LinkedIn, clearly doing well. “When you do get to hear about their future, where they’ve gone on and how they’ve turned their life around, it’s nice.”
She’s honest that it isn’t always easy. Many young people arrive carrying trauma, and big emotions sometimes come out as difficult behaviour. But there’s a lot of laughter too. “They come across all big and grown up, and then you go upstairs and find them having a pillow fight. And you realise how young they are.”
Through the harder moments, Step by Step’s support has been constant. “They were always there,” she says. “If you’ve got a particularly tough young person, all you’ve got to do is pick up the phone.” She rates the support workers highly for how well they understand what’s needed. “The support is excellent.”
Hosting hasn’t held her life back; if anything, it’s enhanced it. Time away needs planning, as other accommodation has to be arranged, but that’s about it. “There’s a lot of humour involved. There’s a lot of laughter. The young people are very funny. They don’t always mean to be.” She also enjoys swapping stories with other hosts at coffee mornings.
Carol wishes more people understood young people. Many assume teenagers shut away gaming are just being lazy. “Actually, that’s where their social life is.” She believes young people were among the hardest hit by COVID, losing college, friends and freedom almost overnight.
Her advice for anyone thinking about hosting is clear. “You have to like young people.” Above all, you need to be able to separate the person from the behaviour. “The behaviour is not who they are really.” A sense of humour helps, as does a big heart and not being too precious about your home. “It’s just stuff,” she says. “If you’re worried about your paintwork getting damaged, then maybe it isn’t for you.” And while she’s happy to say the payment is good, she’s clear it can’t be the reason. “You have to definitely be a people person. You can’t do it for the money.”
For Carol, the reason Step by Step matters is simple. Between 16 and 18, young people can’t get a tenancy of their own. Without a safety net, she says, “their life wouldn’t even get started.” Some take their chance and run with it straight away; for others it takes a little longer to click. “Step by Step at least gives them a chance, and a safe place to decompress.”
If you have a spare room and want to help a young person find their feet, find out more:
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