Fostering and 'snooping'

WHEN Blue Sky asked me to become the new Secret Foster Carer, one of the things that worried me was that I’d say things that would come out wrong and that I’d end up making myself sound like a bad carer or parent.  THE thing I want to talk a bit about here could easily be misconstrued, because it’s in the news a lot, and is universally deemed a bad thing. It’s SNOOPING.  THE sneaky...

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Fostering - The Night Shift

THERE’S  not many of us getting a decent night’s sleep at the moment in our house, and it’s hard to work out what to do. One of our foster children, a boy, takes ages to get to sleep so he doesn’t want to go to bed when it’s his time, because he’s going to be lying awake for two hours or more. I was talking about this with another mum outside school this morning. I said that getting a child...

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Friends & Fostering

I’VE made two firm friends since I started fostering, both of whom are also foster carers. Before I fostered I had not made any real friends since my schooldays, to be honest. Once you get onto the merry-go-round of dating and having a family there doesn’t seem to be much of a place for making friends. I was close to a number of other young mums when my first baby came along, and I made a few new...

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THE MOST IMPORTANT THING

I think a lot of us go into fostering thinking that the most important thing is helping a child or children who needs help. I know I did. HELPING is the most important thing. But it’s not the main thing. And I realise that what I just said doesn’t make sense.  I remember having to explain to my children the difference between big and tall, that a giraffe was the tallest but an elephant was...

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Working with social workers

I’M writing today’s blog drinking a mug of tea, but it’s not my “Best Mum In The World” mug. That mug has been put away out of sight. It was my Social Worker’s idea to hide it. LET me have a word about what I think about Social Workers. They are a fact of life in fostering. You get a Social Worker attached to you by Blue Sky. They work for Blue Sky and their job is to look after you, help...

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