FOSTERING V LIFE OUTSIDE FOSTERING

 Yes, I foster.

But it isn't my everything. I keep it in perspective.

I live in the real world too; all of it.

Our Blue Sky Social Worker visited this week, brilliant.

They see their carers once a month or more if necessary.

They're helping us with anything we need help with. They're checking to make sure we're not feeling the heat of fostering too much.

Or the heat of life itself come to that.

The thing is; you can't foster at the top of your game if you're not on top of things.

She showed up on the stroke of 10.00am, never been so much as a minute late that I remember, and she's been our social worker for years.

Always a huge smile and a fuss of our dogs, hangs up her coat and comes into the kitchen with her work-bag that looks like a small stylish overnight bag. Sits in her usual seat at our kitchen table, bag goes down at her feet never on the table. She fetches out a small notebook and pen and lays them in front of her, just in case we thought this was purely social. Always impecably dressed but informal. At some point she'll get her mobile phone out, to Google some information or put something in her diary.

All part of the service, putting us at our ease.

Sometimes she'll opt for a herb tea, this time she just wanted a glass of water.

And off we go.

Two hours of chat about me and our family. We talk about each family member and their ups and downs. We talk about the foster members of our family and their ups and downs. She knows us all inside out. 

We go over the ins and outs of everything human. If one of the kids is having a bad time we discuss it, and the impact it has on me. We laugh and celebrate the good things too. She always reminds us where and how I'm doing a good job.

She'll cheerfully answer questions about herself and her young family, but then steers it back to us. She's caring for us, sussing out that we're all well.

It's like having a professional friend.

I mentioned that I'd been asked to do a bit of mild part-time work. Literally once a week for a couple of hours. I can do it at home and when it suits. Half an evening when the kids are all sorted and there's nothing on TV.  I can continue any fostering duties around it. She was delighted for me, then began apologising that she needed me to read and sign a standard form that Blue Sky give to fostering folk if they take on new work of any kind alongside their fostering. It's a wee document that reminds fostering folk that fostering is their big thing and it wouldn't do if they suddenly prioritised a job over their fostering.

She stressed that she knew we never would lose the tiniest fraction of commitment to our foster kids, and that in my case the document was almost unecessary, but hey ho we might as well comply.

She made me feel 100% that we remained trusted and valued, but I'd recieved a mild and polite reminder of priorities.

"Not that it's necessary in your case!" she kept saying.

The whole thing, small and beaurocratic though it was, couldn't have been handled with more polish, professionalism and humanity.

I've kept the world in it's place in my life, and my fostering in it's place too.

We booked next month's session as the clock neared 12.00, the signal our session is nearing its end.

Another minor professional touch; she doesn't have a clock in her eyeline, and she doesn't keep checking her watch. She has her phone out and will use it for something towards the end of the session. I think she's checking the time but ensuring I don't think she's impatient to get away. 

So off she went on the stroke of midday, still smiling as though she'd had the best time.

We had. 

And a lot of work was done without anyone noticing.

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SHE WHO MOVES IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY

The older that foster children are, the better their overview of the unfairness of their situation. They can work it out for themselves.

Younger ones are plain emotional but lost about what's happening to them. They sense something is very wrong but it's a mystery. Sometimes they get het up without understanding why.

When I say "unfairness" I mean that foster children go to school and see classmates dropped off by their real mum or dad and who go home after school to the home they've always known. They know that those homes might not be a bed of roses, but it's "home".

They know that they are somehow deprived. No matter how good and loving their foster home is, their life is at fault because of other people. Those other people are their adult family; people they have a strong bond with. People they love and care about.

They are dogged by the fact that their family has been torn apart by an authority which has judged their family to be seriously substandard.

They feel ashamed, sometimes angry.

We fostering folk, armed largely with what we've learned of the world through our own comings and goings,  have to do something about this. And the brain surgeons who get seven years training in medical school think they're the clever clogs…

What happened was this;

Our middle foster child, who I'll call Rachel, can be a trial. She often seems to resent us for not being her real mum and dad. She has a friend who is the daughter of a very religious lady. The lady glows with the joy of those who have a friend in Jesus. She peers at the world through thick spectacles, seeing people but unable to connect, and never without an ear-to-ear grin. These things are a badge of her certainty that she will one day live forever at His side. 

She has a gruelling certainy in the goodness of everything she touches. She believes she can only be a force for good, guided as she is by two things; the blessed bible and the Good Lord himself.

Whereas in all truth she's hopeless.

And her kids are going downhill fast.

Rachel's friend invited Rachel for a two-night camping stay with a gaggle of girls. At a Christian camp. We went through the protocols and the sleepover got the green light. A whole weekend.

Surely in the company of people who fervently pursue righteousmess the child is in good hands? The children of such folk must surely be champion goody-two-shoes.

Not a bit of it.

Rachel came back to us, you could tell she'd been crying.

Practically terrorised she was.

It wasn't so much the eternal prayer sessions or the bible classes - she'd hoped for a petting zoo and pony rides - it was the bullying.

Some religious people happily tell their offspring that they love their Lord even more than they love their own children!

Rachel was picked on from start to finish, for no reason, although she got massive ridicule for being in fostering. None of the adults noticed, or maybe they had more imprtant things on their mind such as worship.

Rachel said to me when she got herself back;

"Made me realise how good you guys are."

I bumped into the woman in the supermarket a few weeks later;

"Rachel had a fantastic time at Christian Camp" she said, glancing over her shoulder to make sure her guardian angel was listening. "She must be bursting to come again?"

"No." I replied, walking on; "She isn't."

I think I heard her call after me "Halleluja!"

But Rachel, old enough to understand things, gave herself a re-think about her foster parents.

So. If there is a God, maybe they really do move in a mysterious way…

ps; note the "they" for God. I'm getting the hang aren't I?

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THE UNEXPECTED

 In fostering always expect the unexpected.

Even dyed in the wool social workers sometimes say, when we tell them stuff;

"Blimey! Never thought I'd hear that one."

So.

Middle foster child is becoming steady and stable. It's been a long haul, 18 months or so.

The child's parents are career-chaotics. By which I mean they have been in chaos all their adult lives and seem somehow dedicated to the cause. 

Both parents are actively hostile with each other. Both have multiple extra-partner relationships. They aren't subtle about their cheating, quite the opposite. The cheating on their partners is something they want their other half to discover, adding extra layers of heat to the constant hostilities.

How do people live, eat and breathe with such lives? It leaves me almost giddy with imagining what it must be like.

The child's mother, I'll call her Loretta, is from a broken home.

She was born in Plymouth to a single mum who had fallen for a man, a person who we now refer to as a traveller. He is long gone. Loretta's mum came up to see Loretta and participate in a Contact session with my foster child. She is entitled to do this under the rules of Contact, no matter what social workers, me or the child, thinks.

The child's grannie is a sorry sight. Hapless and harsh-voiced she didn't enter the Contact Centre to be with her grandchild until the last minute because she had to finish the last drag on her roll-up.

Hang in with this, the bit I wasn't expecting is coming up.

When the hour of Contact was finished I stood outside the doors as is required and the child came to me. Loretta said her goodbyes and the grandmother lit up another roll-up.

She inhaled and stared in my general direction;

"Useless mother that woman." She boomed. Of her daughter. In earshot of her grandchild.

Stay with me, that's still not the unexpected bit.

Not long afterwards our Bue Sky Social Worker arrived at our house for our monthly catch-up.

"This will surprise you" she said.

"The child's mother has made a request. Her home life is very unsettled, so she's apparently on the brink of moving out which will impact the child's chances of going home."

Oh dear. 

Then this;

"The mother has asked if she can come and live with you."

Ah. 

Not going to happen obviously. A person in their thirties isn't up to be fostered. Not under current rules anyhow.

The day might dawn...

But that request, that's what you call unexpected.

You never get bored when you foster.

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DE-CLUTTERING

 It's February out there, and amazingly my New Year Resolutions are going strong.

In truth they aren't formal New Year Resolutions, they're merely things I've decided to try to do.

There's two of them.

On the surface they've got nothing to do with fostering, but then while I was thinking about them while walking back from the shops a couple of days ago I realised that they are very much things that apply to looking after the children of troubled families.

The first one is this; I'm not going to buy any more clothes. I've got enough. I don't need anything else, except maybe a pair of shoes when the many I already own have worn out.

Not only that I went through my wardrobe and pulled out everything I never wear, and will never wear again, and dropped them off at a charity shop.

So what's this all about and what's it got to do with fostering?

It started when I was offered a YouTube video in which a man explained how not to be poor. He said you should avoid getting in debt, and don't buy clothes you don't need.

The man was called Warren Buffett and he's worth listening to because he's from time to time the richest man in the world. Plus he's very down to earth. He drives an eleven year old car which he bought second hand and still lives in the house he bought when he didn't own a cent.

But the clothes thing won't be easy for me, I like browsing clothes shops and often 'treat' myself. Mind, I often get a bout of buyers remorse.

Throwing out all my unwanted stuff was an effort, painful almost. It spoke to me of bad decisions. I tried to convince myself that kulotts might come back in.

Basically, I couldn't let go.

Letting go. So important!

People who've had a hard time feel a need to turn it over in their mind for a while, then let go. 

Letting it go; something we could all benefit from doing. Foster children especially. They dwell at their peril. If we can help them recover and put a smile on their faces, we're getting something right. An important something.

The other thing I'm doing now is this;

I found that all day long I was noticing little jobs that wanted doing. I couldn't go past the kitchen sink if someone had left a peanut-butter smeared knife in, without stopping and washing it up.

I couldn't see a sock poking out from under the sofa without collecting it up. Then start fretting about where the other one might be.

What I've been doing recently is not bothering so much with trying to make everything exactly right. I'm training myself to not notice things that aren't as good as they should be. 

This easy-going way with the fact that life can never be 100% perfect, and nor can fostering. 

I guess both of my little resolutions amount to the same thing; finding peace of mind in not minding about things that don't matter.

We had a foster child stay with us who had her unique set of troubles which I'd like to share but won't.

During one particularly intense late-night meltdown I tried this;

"Let's have a takeaway. What do you fancy?"

Worked a ruddy treat, she changed down ten gears and inevitably said;

"McDonalds."

It was late but I worked out if we drove straight there we had a squeak. Me in my dressing gown, putting on a proper pair of shoes on the run to the car.

We returned successful, her munching from the bag as I drove.

Then, this little girl with so much pain and fear stacked up her locker said out loud - more to herself than me:

"Ain't the moon beautiful…"

Anyone who fosters knows that the moments when the poetry of a newborn foal, a budding snowdrop, anything by the Beatles… simply floods the heart.

Foster children rarely expereience peaceful joy.

And the thing about my "Resolutions"? I have reminded myself to lead by example.

I can't help them find hapiness if my mind is packed with clutter.

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