FIRST NIGHT NERVES

One of the things that takes a bit of getting used to when you start your fostering career is the feeling you get with each new arrival after bedtime on the first night. There's somebody else's child sleeping in your home!

I've never forgotten a rookie mistake back in my early days. I told the child that if he woke early and was frightened he could knock on our bedroom door and I would get up and look after him. And so he did.  At 1.50am. He wanted to go to the toilet.  He couldn't go back to sleep, so I stayed up with him downstairs watching videos of Thomas The Tank.

Even if your own children had sleepovers, fostering is light years different.

When you host a sleepover you have the comfort of knowing the children's parents aren't far away. If there's a problem you can call them. On top of that all the children know each other and can support each other. And you know the children who are staying with you; they are friends of your own child.

In fostering the child's parents are not contactable. If there's a problem you have to fix it. The child knows nobody in your home, and you don't know the child yet.

Mind, you're not entirely on your own.

Blue Sky provide a 24 hour service - even Bank Holidays and Christmas. I've used it a few times. They have someone on call round the clock. I'd say to people who are thinking of fostering that it's worth finding out if your local authority or agency provide that level of back-up, because even if you never use it the knowledge it's there is hugely reassuring.

But whatever the back-up, the first night a new child is sleeping in your home is an amazing experience for the Foster Carer.

There are the practical things. It's rare, but I've had kids who hadn't slept in a nice clean bed before. Never had pyjamas, used to sleep in their clothes. Children come into care who don't know how to clean their teeth.  Children who at dinner don't know what knives and forks are for, thought food only came in cardboard boxes. 

There are the emotional things. Children who are almost always so timid and fearful that the top job is to calm them, help them feel safe and secure. Convince them that they have nothing more to fear.

I've also had (slightly older) children arrive who are so capable and confident that I wondered what the problems at home might have been. It usually turned out they'd learned to rise above the noise and lift their lives above what had been going on in their broken home.

But.

Whatever and whoever the new foster child is who arrives at your home, it's one of life's most exciting experiences.

As a Foster Carer you get information up front about the child. Before the child arrives your Social Workers show up to supervise the arrival. Then those professionals leave, and it's down to the key professional. You.

I've mentioned some of my tricks of the trade before such as having a small gift wrapped and ready for the child based on the information I've gleaned about their likes and interests. 
I ask them to take off their shoes as they come in, which is a powerful symbol that they are at home. 
I crouch down to their eye level when I say hello, rather than tower over them. 
I use their first name often as one's own name is usually a comforting sound. 
I find out if they have a cuddly toy and if so make its acquaintance; you can ask the cuddly toy questions which the child answers about herself; "Teddy is hungry and a bit frightened" translates itself. 
I show them where the toilets are and how to use them and make sure they know they can go whenever they need to. 
They get their favourite food for their first meal with us, and I serve the food in bowls in the middle of the table and let them help themselves so there are no fears about being given a food item they don't like the look of. Plus they can arrange the food on their plate to suit - lots of children don't like food to touch other food.
Most of all I try to make them feel at home in their own room, and settle them down for their first night's sleep in my home.

When they have fallen asleep is when I have the time to experience a wonderful sense of fulfilment. It's a rush of blood to the head and heart for a person such as myself who is special in no way but suddenly finds herself overwhelmed by a surge of special emotions. 

I feel a sense of purpose and pride and pleasure in hoping that the child's life is already starting to turn around. And It's my arm around their shoulder doing the turning.

I don't get carried away mind, there's a long way to go, plenty of mistakes will I make along the way, plenty of times I'll be less than 100%, but that's human, and Foster Carers are human first and foremost.

But for a brief moment, that first night a vulnerable new child is receiving care, sleeping in my spare bedroom, fostering feels like a privilege to be cherished.