One key corner of fostering is respite care. It's a good route in for people starting in fostering because you only have the young person for a short period while the real carers have a break. Helps you start to get used to having a looked- after young person in the house.
When we had a downstairs bedroom we were on the Blue Sky list to look after a young person with a disability, if it came up.
It...
Friday, February 28, 2014
Saturday, February 22, 2014
TALKING IN BED
I wonder what we talked about in bed before we fostered?
I'm thinking about the half hour sitting up with a cup of tea on a Saturday or Sunday morning, if you're lucky, before everything gets going.
We used to talk about our children, work, what our plans were for the day. The garden, we talked about the garden quite a bit. And jobs that wanted doing around the house. Then we'd talk about tea, and...
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
FOSTERING'S BUZZ MOMENTS
Fostering is hard graft, gritty drama, some people call it a roller coaster. The roller coaster has it's highs and lows and so does fostering.
Today we had one of the highs. And lows.
The phone rang just before lunchtime, Blue Sky. Can we take a parent and child? An emergency. Mother and toddler need a bed same night.
A parent and child is a specialist fostering job. If someone becomes...
Sunday, February 16, 2014
WHEN FOSTER CARERS BECOME SHERLOCK
I've not been fostering very long, a few years, but already I'm getting an awareness about certain traits in children which might mean they are in care. It tempts me to wonder if I could spot a looked-after child at a distance. I can't do that, wouldn't even try. But the TV show Sherlock encourages one to sharpen our powers of observation. Mind you, unlike him, we carers are guarded with our observations.
Fostering...
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
FOSTERING AND KEEPING SECRETS
"If I tell you something do you promise not to tell anyone?"
Anyone who fosters knows those words well.
The guidelines for us carers are very clear. We must never agree to keep a secret told us by a looked-after child, because the child may reveal something that the carer is bound to report.
What's more, there is one thing even more dangerous than agreeing to keep the offer of a secret,...
Thursday, February 06, 2014
She Didn't Want A Child. Just A Baby.
I'm coming round to thinking that a common problem in society is girls who want a baby, but don't want children.
I had a young boy stay for a while who I had to take to contact, his pregnant mother had made it clear she was going to continue getting pregnant because she "wanted a girl". She already had a clutch of boys, the youngest of whom was a toddler. She gave birth to the baby, a boy, and social...