LITTLE THINGS MATTER

 There are, in my experience, tons of folks who wonder "Could I foster?"

I remember a story I read as a child about a wise man who wandered from village to village and villagers would tap him for his wisdom. One time a villager asked him if believing in any of the Gods was the answer. The wise man pointed to a tree and walked away.

This response caused endless argument in the village, A year later the wise man wandered back to the same village and they asked him what the heck he meant, pointing at the tree. He replied "It's an apple tree. Your question is the same as wondering if you like apples. You don't know if you like them until you try one. Same with Gods."

Same with fostering. 

And it's not a ball and chain; if fostering turns out not to be for you, you can walk, no-one will stand in your way.

I recommend contacting an agency. Blue Sky are as good an example as there is. 

One of the things I find I do is to notice the little things about people and organisations. Before I fostered I once got a visit at home from a new colleague who roared up and parked her BMW half on the pavement, half off. And at a diagional. I figured from that alone I might not like her. And I was right.

So; one of the things I learned the first time a Blue Sky Social Worker came acalling to check me out she told me this;

"When a court order is issued that says that a child must be taken into care, and Blue Sky take on responsibility they turn up at the child's home to collect them."

Their policy, I was told, is to always have a nice suitcase or holdall in their boot.

I asked "Why?"

"Because one time, way back, a Blue Sky Social Worker showed up to supervise the removal of a child and found that the child's belongings had been bunged into a black bin liner."

A black bin liner.

The child's world; all her clothes and her other things, chucked into a 5p plastic bag which would normally be used for rubbish.

It was too much for the Social Worker who went back to the Blue Sky office and unloaded on her colleagues.

The upshot was that Blue Sky made it policy that no child would again go through the process of having their world chucked into a bin liner.

On top of that the Social Worker had looked into the bin liner to see if they'd packed the child's favourite soft toy; a teddy or an Eeyore or whatever. There was none. The child had never been given one.

I gather that Blue Sky now not only has a stash of smart, clean, second-hand luggage to take along begin the process of making the child feel better. They have a cupboard of cuddly toys in case they don't have any.

So; learning little things like that made up my mind about Blue Sky. Wait, what am I saying? These things aren't "little", they're HUGE!

And it taught me a big lesson about fostering; it's the little things that matter.

Little things are HUGE.