When Rev Paul Kerry first met his friends’ daughter, Sydney, he sensed a unique connection. A series of tragic events would eventually see him become her kinship carer. It was a role God had long been preparing him for, he says
As Paul and Gabby Kerry stood before the congregation gathered at young Sydney’s baptism, they declared their commitment to guide and support their new godchild throughout her life.
Among those commitments was a pledge to assume responsibility for the then one-year-old should something happen to her biological parents. But even as he made the promise, Paul did not imagine that becoming a reality “in my wildest dreams”. Yet now, just a few years later, he has become four-year-old Sydney’s kinship carer.
The weekend that changed everything
“Kinship care is about offering a care placement for a child that you are already connected with,” Paul explains. “Rather than remove the child completely from contact with the birth family or place them in a new area…they can live with someone they already know.”
Sydney’s mother, Lucy, befriended Paul and his wife, Gabby, after joining St Bridget’s Morrisby, where Paul serves as vicar. She later asked them to become Sydney’s godparents and, through supporting the family, Paul also became good friends with Sydney’s father, Simon. But those relationships would soon change drastically.
“[Sydney’s] mum’s contact with us had been a bit hit and miss when, suddenly, one Friday, my wife got a phone call from Lucy, in quite a lot of distress.”
Lucy was deemed to need urgent hospital care. She and Simon had separated following a breakdown in their relationship and Simon was dealing with similar challenges. With neither parent able to care for Sydney, she was taken into the hospital’s children’s ward temporarily.
When social services asked whether Paul and Gabby could care for her over the weekend on an emergency basis, the couple immediately agreed.
“It was a very surreal experience. They said: ‘If you can go and pick her up from the hospital, that’ll be great.’ I just drove along, picked her up. By the time I was back home, somebody from my church had already been round with a cot, various bits of bedding and children’s clothes.”
A divine responsibility
What began as a weekend arrangement soon demanded a far greater commitment. Paul and his wife already had four children, but as Lucy’s health declined, they began pursuing a special guardianship order to make the arrangement permanent.
“We just [thought]: Here’s a child who needs care. We’ve got a responsibility as godparents. We’re going to make sure this child doesn’t go into an environment that’s unfamiliar to her. We promised God and her mum that we’d do that at Sydney’s baptism.”
The assessment was rigorous. Extensive background checks required the couple to revisit deeply personal parts of their pasts. For Paul, that meant speaking again about abuse he had experienced in childhood and an acute moment of stress brought on by his work, for which he was required to undergo psychological counselling. The vetting process placed him under considerable strain, and at one point, he wondered whether he could continue.
“Within the same week,” he says, “I was reading Psalm 68, which talks about God setting the lonely in families. And it was like God was reminding me: ‘This is why you’re doing it. This is what I am about as God. This is who I want you to be as people.’”
We promised God and her mum that we’d care for Sydney at her baptism
On 24 April 2024, the special guardianship order was granted, giving Paul and Gabby primary parental responsibility for Sydney. Months later, that permanence took on a painful significance when Lucy died.
“On New Year’s Day, I sent her some pictures of Sydney…[The message] stayed on one tick on WhatsApp. And I thought: That’s really odd. Then about three hours later, we got a phone call from an unknown number. It was a social worker explaining that Lucy had been found deceased.”
The ‘God’ in Godparents
Sydney’s kinship carers are wary of allowing past painful circumstances to define what her presence in their lives means to them. One of Paul’s greatest joys, he says, has been watching his four children embrace her as their own.
“They’ve been phenomenal. Here’s this extra child with us all the time…not only have they not grumbled about that, but they’ve also been proactive in wanting to nurture and care for her.”
His church family has rallied around them too. “We could not have done this without that support around us and her. A lady from church takes her out for the afternoon every Wednesday. There’s another couple who have her for sleepovers if we go away for a couple of nights…That’s just a reflection of the heartbeat of the church.”
Looking back, Paul recognises the ways in which God had been preparing him for a responsibility he never anticipated. He and his wife had previously explored becoming kinship carers for another family, unexpectedly familiarising them with the process, but there had also been something more personal.
“I loved her from a very early age, before any of this happened,” he says. A few weeks before the weekend Sydney was placed under his care, Paul was holding her in church when somebody remarked: “I just sense a real bond between you two.”
“I didn’t think much of it at the time,” Paul says. “But I do think the preparation that God has given us is not just [practical]. We knew something of how kinship care works but there was also a relational, emotional preparation of love that God had been fostering between us.”
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