SLIPPING THROUGH MY FINGERS

 Harrowing.

It's always uplifting and upsetting when Blue Sky's Placement Team telephone you and ask if you'd "Consider taking a child who…"

Then they give you a thumbnail of the child's backstory, over the phone. They use the most immediate way of getting to you and getting a bead on whether you might be up for it, and that remains the spoken word. I guess some organisations might do it differently, but it's the way that suits me best. I have the team's number on my phone. I remember getting a call from them one time when I was driving. I didn't know it was them because I've always been careful not to even glance at my phone when driving, but I had a hunch. I pulled over, parked up and called them back. 5 minutes later I had said "Yes" and was heading home to get the details emailed to me.

I can't explain easily the eagerness I feel when I open the documents detailing the child's story. It a mixture of some kind of excitement at the prospect of helping another child, a mixture of a heavy heart that a child should have to go through such anguish. A mixture of curiosity if I'm honest. But mostly it's a feeling that I have to prepare straight away in case the child is handed to me.

The preparation at stage one is mostly emotional. I kind of put myself in the child's shoes. Every scrap of information is vital, starting with the child's age. There's a world of difference between a toddler and a teenager. I try to work out their emotional age too, which is difficult but by getting a bead on how the child is doing at school, whether the child has a friendship group, plus the all-important experiences the child has endured, you can begin to get a picture.

Then you sit and wait. Often the call comes to say that the child has been placed elsewhere, but "Thank you for making yourself available.."

When the child goes elsewhere you get more mixed feelings, ranging from disappointment that you can't do your best for a youngster that you've tried to get to know and care about, to a fleeting feeling of being a bit miffed. The miffed-ness doesn't last long, but it's a natural human reaction. Whenever our Blue Sky Social Worker visits they'll talk us through the event and make sure we're on track.

Example;

The call from the placement team came in the morning, around 11.00am. Would I consider taking a child called Rachel who had been living rough for nearly a year.

Aged 8.

Rachel had been thrown out of the family home for wetting the bed. The family didn't do laundry so the place started to smell. They didn't do pyjames either so Rachel had to walk the house in wet clothes until they dried out. The parent tried some 'strategies' to stop Rachel's bed wetting, but they were all crude and bullying; making her sleep in wet sheets, putting her out in the rain to rinse her stained clothes.

In the end they made a space in the shed, bought a junk camp bed and moved her in.

Rachel lived in the shed for several months. The bed got soaked as did the army surplus blankets they chucked in for her. How she didn't die of cold I'll never fathom. That she cried herself to sleep every night is surely a given.

As with every potential new foster child I was desperate to get her to our house, to have her feel cared for and wanted.

I began plans to help with the bed-wetting. We already had the protective sheets to keep the matress dry, no problem there. The big challenge would be tackling the anxiety that is often behind bed-wetting. That takes time, because being taken into care frequently adds to a neglected child's anxiety.

I got the dread call the same day saying that Rachel and I were to be ships that passed in the night. Her Local Authority Social Workers found a better match than me. I was told that geography was the key; Rachel's parent lived just a half-hour's drive from our house and had a short fuse, especially since the parent learned that a prosecution was being considered.

I couldn't stop thinking about her for days. Always the way for me when a child slips through your fingers.

But then phone rings again.

"Would you consider taking a child who…"