There's a bit of paperwork involved in fostering, as I'm sure anyone thinking about signing up to foster would imagine. Fortunately nowadays it's almost entirely online, or at least made more do-able thanks to the joys of the word processer and spellcheck.
The most important thing one has to write up is the regular report on your child's progress.
I find that doing my reports help me no end to stay focussed on what the job is all about; looking after someone else's child. Helping them cope with their difficult life. Doing everything I can for them.
Blue Sky supply their fosterers with a blank report that divides fostering into its parts. Even that simple technique helps me separate the different things I have to consider in fostering.
For example; there's a box to fill in to describe the child's health. It remind me to record any trips to the doctor's, but also to bear in mind any aches and pains the child reports. One of the most interesting box to fill in is all about the child's relstionship with money.
It's always a bit of an eye-opener when a new child reveals what they know (and don't know) about money.
One child came to us from a fairly well-off background compared to many. He was a very withdrawn person, given to bouts of anger and misery at first, aged 6. He was old enough in our book to look after some pocket money so we sat down with his Social Worker to fix an amount. We figured (we tend to do it this way) that it should be enough for him to be able to save towards something, but also enough for him to buy some treats of his own. We figured; two packs of crisps a week and a packet of Tanfastics plus same again to put aside as savings. When we told him he'd be getting X per week he literally filled up. He was happy for himself, but angry about how he'd been treated before where, although his significant adults could easily afford pocket money, they were more keen to flash their cash on fancy furniture and exotic holidays. They banked all the allowances they were paid towards the upkeep of all their kids, but pocket money? He got 10p per week. That meant he'd have to save 6 weeks to buy a bag of crisps. It made him feel unloved and worthless. He went on while he was with us to become very competent with money, handling savings and expenditure with class.
We've only had money stolen once, I left a twenty pound note on the phone table to pay for the pizza when it arrived. When it arrived the note had gone. We had no fewer than four staying with us at the time. A Careful investigation left us in no doubt who it was and we confronted her. She acted deeply offended and offered to pay us the money out of her own account, which she said was a gesture of goodwill and no there'd be no need to call the police (not that we'd threatened or intended to).
The interetsing thing here is that the girl who swiped the note wasn't a foster child. She was the daughter of a wealthy Russian who we took in as a student, the thing we did before fostering. She was 16 and a bit of a minx. I mention this as a lot of people think that in fostering you're likely to get turned over by mythical junior pickpockets. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's rare. Rarer than what people call the "real world".
Oh and the student who filched from us? You'll be tickled to know she grew up to become an accountant...
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