"Foster Mum... What happens when you die?" When you foster, and a new child arrives, you have to pick up a bunch of key life issues and work them along. Your new child has had some sex education, somehow, but what? And how do you advance it? If you’ve had children of your own, it’s been a continuous thing, so you’ve always known roughly where they’re at. Maybe your foster child knows something...

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REPORT ON TROUBLED FAMILIES - JULY 2012 You may have caught the reports at the weekend about the woman who is saying that problem families are having too many children. Her solution: “The mothers need to think carefully next time”. I dare say I’m not the only Carer who thinks capping these families...

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                                       PARTY HANGOVER Our neighbours organised a Jubilee Street Party and there were two hangovers. One; what to do with the leftover beer? Two, the neighbour opposite us is thinking of becoming a Foster Carer. Our school secretary nabbed me just before the end of...

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TALKING TO CHILDRENI was at a party, professional people, it was about 10pm, adults mingling. The couple whose party it was had allowed their ten year-old daughter to stay up. She was in a frock standing in the hall sipping a coke through a straw. A steady stream of adults were drifting past in both directions. If they noticed her, people stopped and had a few words."Hello! Don't you look pretty!" "Oooh...

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One thing I hope we can do on the Secret Foster Carer Blog is to swap experiences, especially things that have surprised us about fostering. My partner and I encountered something odd very early in our life as carers, and, as one tends to do, we put it down to being something particular to us. Only after many meetings with other carers did a pattern emerge. I wish a solution would emerge too… In...

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Thanks to those who have pitched up with comments. I’m pleased we are getting the feel that we are all together in fostering, it can be a bit lonely at times. TOP TIPS As Foster Carers we get plenty of excellent training on why children arrive in our homes with dysfunctional personalities.  We happy breed of amateur psychologists are ready and willing to learn about attachment disorders,...

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