We're having a nice breather in the house at the moment.
There's a spare room, which we're all agreed can be filled anytime; one of fostering's great joys is wondering who's coming next.
What happens is you get a phone call asking if you would "Take a child who..."
Then you get a profile of the child. They email it over.
It's a file of information about the child, the key stuff. Mind, as I've always said, not a complete picture, I mean, could anyone sum up anyone in a page and a half, or even a hundred?
It's usually a couple of pages. By that point, your personal social worker starts getting involved.
Certainly, waiting for your next placement in fostering is one of life's most exciting/trepidatious experiences. I love it.
We're a family who tries to say yes. We have only had one no-no, and that went back to when Aids was huge and one of my own children had his/her fears about it overblown by all the media hype, and ended up with a bit of a phobia. I was sad to have to talk to Blue Sky about the problem and say we would have doubts about taking a child who might be HIV positive but they were fantastic. It never came up as an actual issue, but I'll never forget how understanding they were.
So as I was saying, you get an email with a profile of the child who needs care and frankly, when it's your first placement, you're somewhat in the dark about what the information means.
Luckily your personal social worker is right on hand to help interpret the case.
When you foster you get;
a) A foster child, plus the foster child's social worker, whose role is to help and support the child.
And;
b) A separate social worker whose job is to help and support YOU.
Newcomers to fostering aren't really clear what this means.
Having your own foster carer means you have a person, a professional, whose job is to look after you and your family. Once you get your head around this level of support you feel a million dollars.
Life is a scary, sometimes lonely, journey. Most of us try to forge relationships along the way. A partner, a bunch of friends, our families. Those people are there for us in their own sweet way, some of them are rocks. And we are there for them. It's a slightly haphazard network thing, but on the whole it works, most of the time. People do their best; untrained and often busy with their own lives.
We don't get assigned a professional carer, a full-time paid supporter available 24 hours a day 7 days a week whose job is to back us up. But in fostering that's exactly what you get.
And they don't do it just because it's their job and they're paid to be there for us; every single one I've ever had attached to us has been full of love and care, and have ended up friends.
You're not really supposed to keep them as friends, but one of our ex-social workers is just that; a true friend - yet still a professional; she doesn't ask anything except general chit-chat about the fostering we're doing now she's no longer officially attached to us.
Your personal social worker is all the things you want them to be; excited as you are when a new child arrives, as concerned as you are about the things that have to be tackled with the child, and as delighted and exhilarated about the rewards you and the child experience.
From the heart; having someone on your side, a dedicated supporter who gets to know you, gets to know your real family and your fostering family, and is there for you all the time is probably one of fostering's most unsung wonders.
It becomes a type of love, and I love it and am eternally grateful for it.
Now, come on phone...RING!
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