Funny how the mind works, and when its "On" I always end up thinking fostering.

So…

The cricket season has started (my other half cares about it).

How, you might ask, can cricket lead you to think about fostering?

My brain went like this…

Some years ago a 14 year-old lad came to us, a truly delightful kid whose dad had fled ages ago and his mum ended up going off the rails.

He'd had no life to speak of. Never had a holiday, Christmas and birthdays went unoticed. His schooling was described in his notes as "sporadic".

He spent most days and nights in his bedroom. His household didn't have a dime.

Then he joined us as a foster child, and took off.

Blue Sky helped enroll him at a decent secondary school where they played cricket. Someone tossed him a ball, and it turned out he could bowl. Fast.

So the very next game they had, the school had him open the bowling.

The match (his state school versus a public school) was played at the grounds of the public school.

At the time he was our only placement, so my eldest son offered to drive him there and pick him up. And I volunteered to go along and watch.

Setting off early we got there an hour early. The sports facilities were astonishing; four cricket grounds, innumerable rugby pitches, hockey pitches.. a golf course! I went up to their reception desk. A mahogany greetings room with leather chesterfields and marble pillars.

The receptionist asked if she could help. "Yes please" said little me, I'm a parent, wondering where the cricket is happening?"

"It's on pitch number four, the Oval, too far to walk. Where are you parked." 

I replied;

"My wheels have gone off, so I'm on foot."

"Oh, no problem. I'll arrange a driver for you."

Then she said "Would you like lunch?"

I said I was okay.

She then said;

"Or coffee or tea?"

I okayed a tea,

2 minutes later a silver tray with a china teapot, a china cup and saucer, china milk jug, china bowl of white and brown sugar lumps and a sugar iced slice of cake with double cream.

Then the receptionist asked me this;

"When is your chauffeur returning to collect you."

Yep.

God's honest truth, I never make stuff up here...When I'd said :"I'm a parent" she assumed I was someone who could afford £50,000 a year fees.

What brought me back to thinking about fostering was the grand canyon of divide between the haves and the have nots.

Yet. I'm in touch with our kid, he's going along as well as any of the "Ollies" and "Julians" he played that day.

Best of all, I don't know much about about cricket, but I know when batsmen are getting their block knocked off. 

Which my boy did.

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WHAT IT MEANS WHEN YOUR SOCIAL WORKER HAS YOUR BACK

 We have a family friend who used to be a police officer.

He left the force after 20 years, said he noticed the job was "starting to get to him".

I guessed what he meant but asked him anyway.

"Well," he replied, "When you spend much of every working day in the company of people who are up to no good, you can end up suspecting everybody is somewhere between dodgy and downright crooked. Which is not good for the soul."

I told him that if he'd had a Blue Sky social worker at his back he'd probably have gone the distance.

What I'm on about is this;

The poor dear children who come into our homes to be fostered have sackfuls of troubles packed up in their old kit bag, and one of our jobs is to help them with the load.

There's no way you can do it without getting involved with their story.

"Centring" it's sometimes called. Where someone puts themselves in the other person's shoes.

I'm getting to understand the wheres' and whyfors' of the young mother who's been with us now a couple of weeks, mothering her 3 month-old baby.

To do the job well I need to learn everything available about her. The best source of that information is the girl herself, but I have to be skilfull to avoid her feeling interrogated.

It will be useful to me to know if she REALLY, REALLY wanted the baby. She's not old enough to leave school yet, but finds herself being a (very) young mum.

I say 'useful', I really mean 'crucial', because in a while, probably a month or two, a court will sit to decide the baby's future; or, to be precise, whether the mum can keep her baby or for the baby to be removed and probably put up for adoption. And my observations, recorded every day and fact-checked by my Blue Sky social worker, will be the basis for the court's decision.

So, no pressure there then.

After a number of chit-chats with the young mum I learned something that knocked the wind out of me.

The girl's mother has had nine children, but is only aged early thirties, and ...

…the first baby she had was when she was as young an age as the girl who is now in our care.

The girl was her mother's first daughter (there had been four boys born earlier).

As you'd imagine, I was struck by this revelation, and the possible insight it offered.

I recorded it, without any opinion or analysis.

I'm confident the many other professionals working on the case had already discovered the same information, but probably not from the mouth of the girl it most drastically affected.

My discovery was important because I saw in her expression as she confided in me, that what she may have decided was to give her mother affirmation for a life-choice the girl's mother might have expressed regret about.

Obviously, I might be wide of the mark. Also; with Parent and Child your records are restricted to the facts. My extrapolations aren't required. I have to stick to hard evidence.

But. Here's the thing…

It got me down.

Not a lot, but enough.

I began to suspect that maybe the forces that are striving to make the world a bit better are losing to the mysterious forces that either don't want that, or don't care about anything. And they're getting the upper hand.

I found myself mentally rehearsing asking the girls mother "Why? Why do you keep having so many children, some of whom follow you off the rails?"

Of course I never would, but it was eating me.

Cue my Blue Sky social worker on the doorstep, all warm smiles and positivity.

She put me right in a heartbeat.

The world isn't full of people who don't (or can't) care. Every day, in lots of little ways, the folk who want to kiss the planet better are winning.

And when she left I was right as rain.

You need back-up in fostering, because you do a job surrounded by lots of other people's bad decisions, so you need a shot in the arm from time to time.

Oh, and by the by, my friend who used to be a police officer? 

He works at his local Youth Club, as a volunteer councillor. 

See, even though he didn't have quite enough back-up from the force, his heart  escaped unscathed.

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OVERWHELMED

 Every newly arriving foster child is full of surprises.

When a mum gives birth to her own baby that baby is in many ways starting from scratch. Yes they may have the mother's eyes and the father's nose, but up to the moment of the start of their birth they're largely untouched by the world.

Not so with a new fostering placement.

As foster parents we're given as much information in advance as possible, sometimes a lot, sometimes not so much. If the child wasn't known to social services prior to being removed the child's background is bound to be sketchy.

The minute the placement begins, the second the child arrives, the process of unearthing and understanding what they've been through begins. Our latest arrival, a young mother and her 3 month-old baby have been here for nearly three weeks.

Already I could write a book.

Infuriatingly I can't share the lions share with you as her privacy is paramount. But I can paint a few broad brushstrokes.

During the first couple of weeks we foster parents help the parent with some of the basic parenting tasks, to help the pair of them settle in. But a large part of the job is preparing the parent to do the parenting solo. Our parent - mum - now changes (almost) all the nappies and prepares all the feeds to supplement her breast-feeding. We drove her across the county to have contact with her mum and stepdad, but that deal is set to change; mum and baby to make her own arrangements to meet her family.

Mum increasingly cooks evening meals for herself, is set to shop herself for groceries, nappies, baby clothes - everything.

So that's the practical stuff under control.

The other bit is just as important, and much harder to manage.

The emotional stuff.

Imagine; you're 15 years old, you meet a boy via social media.

You're pregnant. The boy disappears from tne internet.

Social services get wind and decide your real family aren't up to supporting you as a young mum, and that the baby might be at risk.

Ahead of the birth you're taken to a town 100 miles from your home and placed with a foster carer you don't much care for.

Social services get wind all is not well and do what so many local authorioties do when the chips are down; they call in Blue Sky.

Now the poor girl and her baby are driven 50 miles across the county again.

This time to us.

She's giving it her best shot, this young mum.

But.

A couple of evenings ago I noticed activity on the baby monitor I use for when they are in her room together. The baby was awake, and while not unhappy, making noises he hoped would bring his mum to him.

I knocked on the door and went in.

The young mum was on her bed wrapped tightly in the woolen blanket she'd brought with her from home. Right over her head it was. 

Overwhelmed.

It was the second time it's happened.

I manged to raise her resolve and remind her that her baby needed her.

To her credit she pulled herself together and did a great job.

So, yeah…I can teach her to sing nursery rhymes and make a bottle with one hand. 

How do I help a kid not to let everything get to them when, in her case, everything is so huge?

As the man on the radio used to say;

"Answers on a postcard please…"

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NEW BEST MOMENT IN FOSTERING

 Fostering isn't easy, I've always been up front about that. 

If a person contacts their local authority or a nearby fostering agency (I'm with Blue Sky, they're Five Star), you'll be given an overview of the role, and the ups and downs.

There are Downs.

Children coming into your care will have had a rough time. I always say; "Do not expect the Von Trapp children (those annoyingly perfect kids from the Sound Of Music)".

There are Ups too.

Here are my top ten, indulge me. Because THERE'S  A NEW NUMBER ONE.

10) Foster child who said: "When mummy comes out of prison can she come and live here to see what a proper mummy is like?" 

9) Foster child who heard me say the upstairs toilet was broken. He asked for a toolkit and went and fixed it.

8) Child was distraught; not allowed home for the weekend, only consoled by a late night dash to McDonalds. On the way back she said;"Ain't the moon beautiful going fru' the tops of them trees."

7) Abused child: "I wanna go home. But I love it here so much I wanna stay." This child I see in town sometimes. He's OK.

6) Foster mother of a newborn who had never had a childhood herself. We took her and her baby to the beach. She made sandcastles like the five-year-old she'd never been. I'll never forget her joy.

5) Eleven year old wanted/needed to cook a meal for us. And did. And it was…ok. And we ate it with delight and gusto. At the end she said "I know it was c**p, but thanks for pretending it was ok." BTW she is now a regarded chef.

4) A child whose father was a difficult dad. He wanted to prove he was better than any foster carer (you get this a bit). His child said to me "He's not really any good at anything, you have to sneak him little things to make him feel proud of himself" This canny child was six.

3."Please don't die. I'll be all alone and have to live in a doorway." A child to whom I'd said (thoughlessly) "Don't walk near the kerb, you'll give me a heart attack." She meant what she said…

2) A foster child who, holding my hand as we walked across the park simply said to me "Why are you so nice?"

AND MY NEW NUMBER ONE

1) We've started fostering "Parent and Child". It's early days, week two. The Parent is a very young mum. I took her shopping in Tesco and sent her off on her own to buy what she needed. When we got home she unpacked she gave me a bunch of flowers and said "I bought a card as well but didn't have a chance to write it." 

Then she said; "I bought the gifts for being so kind."

Only in fostering...

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THEY'RE HERE

 They've arrived.

Been here 48 hours.

Mum and baby. 

Would have filled you in earlier, but Parent and Child (P+C) is wall to wall.

They're asleep, it's 1.00am as I write.

She's called Parisa, late teens, baby is named Brax, three months.

My role is to observe and advise, in that order. And, obviously, ensure Brax's safety.

It means being close to them in our home at almost all times. Day and night there's a camera focussed on Brax's cot and I carry the tiny monitor that's paired with it day and night.

I have to keep a meticulous record of everything I see.

I've been specially coached by Blue Sky how to record everything on a special P+C form.

The key is to be objective rather than subjective.

My Blue Sky social worker got back to me after I filed my report for Day One and advised;

"You know that bit where you say Parisa heard Blax waking up and was happy to go to him and lift him out of his cot.."

Me; "I remember."

SW: "The judge could ask you 'How did you know she was happy?"

Me; "Ah. I see."

SW; "So, what led you to believe she was happy?"

Me; "Well, Parisa smiled. And said 'hello darling' in a soft voice, lifted him up with care and cuddled him."

SW; "That's what you report. The facts."

A penny dropped. Well, two pennies actually.

Penny One: The court doesn't want my opinion, it wants the facts."

Penny Two: What I'm doing in P+C is observing the parenting and recording it so a court can decide whether the Parent can retain the Child. If Yes the Local Authority investigates a permanent placement for the pair. If No the Child goes into care, possibly adoption. The Parent goes their separate way.

Big responsibility, but made easier by knowing my opinion doesn't count. All I'm doing in passing on an accurate record of things that actually happened.

And so, you ask, what sort of things are happening?

Well, mostly meetings! Our house is a meeting house. Parisa has her own social worker, Blax has another. They both visited on Day One. My Blue Sky social worker was all over everything. Blue Sky's P+C officer is in the loop. We've had not one but two virtual pow-wows with half-a-dozen professionals, some of whose roles I only partially grasped, but they have a part to play.

Even Parisa's mother showed up on a quarter screen during one such gathering.

I'm OK to give my opinion here;

I'm afraid I'd describe her as rather stony, hair pulled back flat on her head, grey skin like you often see in smokers. Unable to look at us, hardly spoke.

Didn't say Hello to her daughter, who was in attendance and on-screen.

Or Goodbye to her when we wound up.

I'll finish with this titbit; Parisa's Local Authority had to send a van to collect her stuff and bring it to our house.

I expected a wee driver and a runaround van. Then this thing I can only describe as a truck pulled up and two big fellas started unloading.

When they'd done we had bags in the hall, in the kitchen and in the living room.

I counted them; thirty six full-size bags of stuff.

Of the bags, thirty were black bin liners.

Not like dear old Blue Sky; they have a huge stash of proper suitcases, believing as they do that no child should ever see their life in a bin liner. Perisa's Local Authority hadn't caught up with that caring protocol yet.

Mind, thirty six!

Not sure if the Blue Sky luggage storage might have been stretched.

Might have been a case of "Dividends all round!" for Samsonite shareholders...

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COUNTDOWN BEGINS

 They're on their way!

Shortly after hearing we'd been selected by a Local Authority to foster a mother and her baby our Blue Sky social worker called to say they'd be arriving in 24 hours.

Short notice no problem; I'd been gearing up for a Parent and Child (P+C) arriving since Blue Sky first asked me to have a think about taking it on.

The mother and baby's bedroom is all prepared; Spring cleaned and hoovered, a new duvet and pillow set, an empty wardrobe with nice hangers , plenty of clean empty drawers. New towels.

I could enter Four In A Bed (UK TV series where Bed and Breakfast owners try to find dust and hair in each others' rooms), Mind, here's where I'm different; my vacant bedroom has piles of nappies, of course. And a scented bin for dirty ones. Toothpaste for the mum. A phone charge lead with a range of plugs so it doesn't matter if she's iPhone or something else.

All set.

I ought to feel in control oughtn't I?

Captain of my ship, master of my fate. That sort of thing.

Do I feel like that?

Do I heck.

I'm as nervous as a kitten up a tree.

Why? Here's how it is for me.

I've discovered that once a new placement has arrived and they've got their feet under the table, and the paperwork is done, and the social workers have drained their umpteenth cup of tea and said their goodbyes, believe it or not…

I can relax.

It's just me and my new foster placement.

Oh, my lovely family are alongside me for sure, but I've always been kinda the prime carer, the fostering boss, and that works in our house. And crucially, my fantastic Blue Sky social worker is only a phone call away.

But once I'm steering the ship myself I'm at my happiest.

So…here I sit with my umpteenth cup of tea, drumming my fingers, clockwatching.

They're supposed to be arriving at 4.30pm. An hour and a bit.

I could give the kitchen sink another wipe.  I could WhatsApp my best friend, the one I lean on when I need to, the one who loves sharing my fostering experience (she's a senior midwife, I know I can trust her discretion). We have plenty of wonderful chinwags. 

Or I could make doubly sure there's no hair in the shower plughole…

Nah, I'm having none of that.

Just sit here sister, enjoy the peace.

THAT'S IT! 

ENJOY THE PEACE!

Because starting anytime soon it'll be baby crying, nappies changing, dummies missing, meaningful conversations and maybe even adult tears…

And I'll enjoy the fixing of all that and more besides.

But for now, for an hour, before the P+C arrives, I'm going to enjoy my own company.

And the deafeniing peace...

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NEXT PLACEMENT ON THEIR WAY

Phone call from Blue Sky; "Would you consider taking a Parent and Child who…"

Cue string music...

Look, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool hard-nosed foster mum now, it's what I do.

Fostering defines me, alongside being a loving partner, a conscientious mother, a family brick, a loyal friend and a reliable colleague. (er…that's the idea anyway…).

I recognise adrenaline when I get some.

My point here is that whatever stuff I've given this far to foster kids coming into my care, I've got stuff back in spades.

And every time I get the call I get goosebumps on my goosebumps.

Here's the news. If you happen to have read the previous couple of posts you'll know that a few possible Parents and Child placements haven't come my way. They've been placed elsewhere.

Well, a Parent and Child are coming. To us.

Blue Sky go the extra mile to provide us foster parents every scrap of information they can to help us decide if the placement is right for us, and, if it is, and the Local Authority agrees, then Blue Sky go round again to trawl EVERY scrap of background about the Parent and Child that could be helpful.

All that has happened. Got the green light an afternoon ago. The Local Authority have chosen me. Well, chosen us. That is: me, our family, our home, and Blue Sky.

May I tell you what I can about the Parent and Child? For a start, they're a mother and baby. She's mid-teens, the baby is 6 weeks old. The pair were removed from her family home after the birth because the mother's mother and the stepfather were judged to be unable to help her care for her baby. They lived in cramped, crowded and chaotic social housing: two adults and six children. It would have been seven children counting the baby.

The baby's father is unknown to the mother. The two of them connected through social media. Nobody knows anything of him, not even his name.

The mother, according to our information, is physically 16 years old, but emotionally 14, however her Local Authority social workers believe she wants to keep the baby and be a good mum.

Now, I've always believed that sometimes the more you learn the less you know.

I feel this way about the 'emotional age' bit of the profile of the young person.

I know I'll do everything I've learned to do through practicing and working on my fostering, and hopefully do it well enough. So I'll wait and see for myself what the young person is like, although every morsel passed on in advance helps.

When you've been round the fostering block a few times you get to be able to spot what needs to be spotted pretty quickly.

We once had a child come to us who was six years old but we were told had endured things that led to arrested emotional development. She was emotionally "less than six years old".

Wrong.

The child turned out to be six going on twenty-eight. Children who've endured neglect and/or abuse are sometimes very street-wise.

With people who need to be taken into care it's sometimes only the people who do the caring who get to see the full picture.

The girl and her baby arrive next week.

Wish them luck.

And me. Sorry, I meant; 

"And us".

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