FOSTER CHILDREN AND SCHOOL II

Every time someone like Miley Cyrus gets it wrong the media go on about the importance of good role models. Who are the real role models for foster children? Foster parents share a lot of that responsibility. But here's the thing. Assuming a foster child goes to school, then during the week their time in care sees them spend about 5 or 6 hours a day awake in their foster home, and the same amount,...

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TEN BEST THINGS ABOUT FOSTERING

It's not a self-satisfied person writing below, honest. I'm not even satisfied. I'll never be as good at fostering as I'd like, but with what I manage to do, I know fostering is the best thing.  I. You have found your thing. Like many people I'd never found my niche in life. I had various jobs, but that's all they were, jobs. Nothing sang. My family was the one thing I felt driven from inside...

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TEN HARDESTST THINGS ABOUT FOSTERING

I do love fostering, but I wouldn't want anyone to think I just paint everything a rosy glow. Here's are my ten hardest things about fostering. 1. They go. Your foster children, they go. Generally, the day a social worker arrives to take them away is the last you see or hear of them. Sometimes the going away is painful. Sometimes it's nice to get the house back for a while, until the next placement....

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FRIENDS

That TV show "Friends" was always going to go down well with young people, being about young friends. Nothing takes up more time in young people's lives than their friends. Texting, Mssging, Facebook and all that. Looking back, my generation had to make do with talking to each other, but friends were still of A1 importance. The first thing I learned at my first Blue Sky training session was about...

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LOST CHILDHOODS

Now that I've had quite a number of foster children at our home, there's one big thing I've noticed about a high proportion of them. They often have a very keen set of eyes and ears, and are very attuned to an adult's tone of voice, demeanour and mood. They have advanced minds, in certain things. They sometimes have a sophisticated insight into adults. We adults like to think we are one step ahead...

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SHOULD WE GET A FILE ON THE REAL PARENTS TOO...?

When you foster a child, the deal is that right from the start you are working towards getting them back together with their real parents, unless that's impossible, which is sometimes the case. The easy part of this arrangement is that it's what the children want. The parents say it's what they want too, most often. Both sets of social workers (the child's and the foster carer's - in my case Blue...

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PETS V CHILDREN

Until a few years ago, people had to get a licence to own a dog. Back then good parents used to reflect that you needed a licence to drive a car, or go fishing, you even needed a licence to own a dog. But any damn fool could have a child. I had a social worker a while back, a brilliant girl, who said she thought that if a person had a second child taken away from her (we'd been talking about a mother...

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FOSTER YOURSELF INTERESTING

Before fostering I had a job which meant I shared an office with 3 women all of whom had grown-up children. Every Monday morning they all tried to make out to each other they'd had the best weekend. The minute you walked in, before you'd hung up your coat you'd get asked "Did you have a nice weekend?". Sounds like a harmless question I know, but actually it meant "Ask me about my weekend" and off...

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