MAKING SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING

 Fostering is a road paved with little dramas.

I remember learning in school of a UK Prime Minister who was asked what's the hardest thing to deal with. The expected answer was "the economy" or "foreign affairs". No. He replied "Events dear boy, events".

In other words the things that happen that weren't planned. Then suddenly there they are in your lap and you have to make up your own solutions.

This happened;

Late one Friday night we heard a plaintive moan coming from the kitchen downstairs.

There it was again, this time lower in tone. Then it came again, this time on its way to being a sob.

Steeling myself I put on my dressing gown and walked slowly down the stairs. I walked slowly so as not to exacerbate any emotion or crisis.

She was standing by the kitchen table holding the vanity mirror from her room. Laid out on the table was the zip-up case for our electric hair clippers, which I keep in a kitchen drawer. In a small pile next to it was all the different heads. The shorter each head's comb length, the closer the cut. The clippers were in her other hand. She was trying to see the back of her head with the mirror.

"No!" she said "Don't come any closer!"

"Everything alright?" I asked, as neutrally as I could manage. Inside I was fully charged, but I couldn't see any blood (always a good thing…). Nor did it look as though she'd had an electric shock. I know it's daft, but all these things go through your head don't they?

"No! Everything's NOT alright."

"What is it?"

"I wanted to take a bit off my hair at the back…"

"Oh"

"Only I put on the wrong head…"

"Ah"

"Let me see."

"No! Stay back! I don't want anyone to see me like this!"

It seems she'd run an avenue from the nape of her neck almost to the crown. Right down to the scalp.

Ike.

OK it wasn't life threatening, but to a self-conscious young teenager it was worse than a disaster.

We rallied round. First job was to calm her down. We had the remainder of Friday evening and two working days to decide what to do before school. The options came think and fast, as did the rejections of the options.

Could she get dispensation to wear a beanie hat? No, she'd be a laughing stock.

Could we buy a piece or get extensions? No, not in time, and anyway they'd not match.

Could she be excused school until the new hair camouflaged the skinhead bit? No, that would take at least three or four weeks.

Could she shape the rest of her hair to make the bare bit look part of a brave design. No, not without looking like Britney Spears, which apparently no-one wants nowadays.

Then we started to get somewhere; I'd heard about two products on sale mainly for men, one that shades the skin to look like it's got hair.  Another that comes in a spray can that amounts to artificial hair.

I'm not a huge fan of Amazon, but sometimes it's brilliant.  The stuff was with us in time to spend Sunday afternoon experimenting. The two of us got stuck into the make-over to the point where she felt it worked.

And so it did. On Monday she confided in her best friend who was therefore in on the disaster. The best friend said she couldn't tell the difference; "Your mum's a genius."

Emboldened she let her peer group in on her secret. Word somehow got out, and blow me down she became the school's star turn for a week. Even teachers asked if they could have an admiring look at it. She ended up enjoying playing the "I can be stupid too" card, that can be a credential among peers. She is far from stupid, but getting good exam grades is less of a credential in the playground than having a doofus moment, and being able to laugh at yourself.

In the end it turned out to be a great event in both our lives, brought us closer.

Events don't always work out in fostering, goodness knows. But when they do it doesn't half put a spring in one's step.

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ALL INFORMATION HELPS

 I haven't taken on an emergency placement for a long while, mainly because there's been no room at the inn. If you have a foster placement in your home they're cautious about introducing an emergency case.

I didn't look forward to our first one because my thing was wanting to get down to work with the child for a meaningful period of time. Emergency placements don't last long. 

Unless the fostering parents declare they want to keep the child on. 

That was the other bit I found hard. I wanted them all to stay. If your heart's in the right place in fostering, I thought to myself, how could you want to agree they should leave you and go to another foster home?

Our Blue Sky social worker spotted this in us straight away. And put us straight.

See, an enormous amount of work goes into getting the right match for a child and their foster home.

Every home is unique. Ours is, we were reminded.

And so is yours. Yes you.. reading this…your home is unique; the interactive dynamics of the people who live in your home, their dispositions and history, their comings and goings.

Unique.

Every child is very, very unique. Ten times more unique when they're a child taken into care. Every trauma is utterly unique.

I was reminded of the emergency placement system because of something one of our foster children said the other day. It was something I didn't know about them, and it helped me to an even better picture of the child.

I already knew that the child had been removed from their birth parents under emergency circumstances. The police were involved, a dozen or more policemen and women. Three police cars and a transit-full of uniformed officers. It must have been horrific for the child. A furious arrest was taking place alongside a search of the house, then social workers took over and had to try to remove the children. Social services had hardly any advance warning of the swoop, and while they were engaged in trying to calm the children and persuade them to walk to the social workers' cars, half of the local authority's social workers were telephoning their list of carers who offered emergency care, the other half were phoning around trying to find permanent carers.

My child was found an emergency home for the night. The following day a permanent home was found for the child. 

Imagine. 

You sleep in your own bed (well on the floor actually), then overnight in an strange house with strange people, then on to another house and more strangers. 3 homes in 36 hours, dear god.

The child's permanent placement turned out not to be permanent. The poor foster carer, a single woman who was signed up with the local authority struggled to cope with the child's emotional state. And in a mad moment, slapped the child. We don't know how much of a slap, but it crossed the line.

That was that. You NEVER EVER EVER lay a hand on a foster child. Personally I'm for the people campaigning for it to be illegal to lay a hand on their own child…anyway.

So now our child was on the move again. To another emergency foster home.

We knew the child had been to three foster homes in a matter of weeks before the child came to us, but assumed the second emergency placement was, like the first one, for one night only.

Then, ten years later, the child says this, casually:

"Yeah, that second emergency woman was kind. Barbara. I got to know her 'cos I was there for two nights."

The child is hardly a child anymore, has been with us through to adulthood. 

Chatting casually with the child, his perceptions of those experiences shaped his view of himself. Because, it turned out, he understood why, when the child was small, horrible people hated him, but then had to learn that kind people hated him too. Because, obviously, it seemed to him that Barbara rejected him.

Of course she didn't, but it seemed like that to the child.

The info helps us help him. We work day and night on his self-esteem, and we're getting there.

Aren't these poor kids effing amazing?! 

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SHOULD THEY PIERCE?

A question has just been posted in connection with a piece I wrote in March 2019 entitled "Fostering and Studs", the sender is anonymous, which is often the best thing, to respect the child's privacy.

"I have a kinship foster child for 2 years now and is begging me to let her have her navel pierced!

She is 15 and has had a very troubled past but now has turned a corner and is really thriving.
Apart from the fact that she still has to have involvement from social services and hates to be reminded that officially she is still a child in care often telling them they are not needed and that we are now her proper parents and can make all the decisions in her life.
Her birth mum had her ears pierced for her at age 3 months!
Now to stay on trend with all her friends she wants to get a second ear piercing and her navel saying it will boost her confidence and make her feel much better about herself.
My quandary is do I legally have to inform everyone as I have both parents approval?"

In a nutshell my understanding is that it depends in part on who the child's legal guardian is.

You mention that the child still has involvement with social services, so I'm guessing a court order is in place that was taken out to remove the child from her birth parents. In which case the child's legal guardian at this moment is her local authority.

Thing is, I have no experience of kinship fostering and the rules and guidances. I bet every case is unique and decision-making depends on things such as the age and character of the child, the relationship between the child and her birth parents and the bond between the child and her kinship foster parents. But if the local authourity is the legal guardian; they have final say.

I imagine that in kinship fostering the biggest issue at times could be one that ordinary foster parents don't have to deal with on the same scale, namely the relationship between the birth parents and foster parents. We ordinary foster parents have scant contact with the foster child's birth parents, and rarely have any relationship with them, yet what little interaction there is can be tricky. But I'm guessing nowehere near as tricky as it might be when it's an all-family thing.

However in this case you have the agreement of the birth parents.

Here's what I'd do; check with the school that they don't have any rules which could be a problem. Talk to the parents of your daughter's friends to see if and how they're dealing with similar requests. Find a trustworthy and reliable piercing practitioner. Read up on the internet about piercing, I'm guessing it's a fascinating subject.

I have a feeling you're across those things.

Then I'd email the child's social worker and put them in the picture.

There's no law preventing 15 year-olds from getting ears or navals pierced. The NHS doesn't have any objections as I understand it to minors piercing, at least not to ears and navals. 

One thing; I'd want to be as sure as possible that the child's reason for wanting a piercing is down to fashion and not in any way connected to any body image crisis or curiosity about self-harming. Sounds to me in your case an ear stud would be good for her.

Social services would to want to satisfy those questions too. My guess is they'd be fine about the ear but might ask to speak to the child if she wants to up to the naval, as it's a bit more fraught.

If that turns out to be the case I'd go back to the child and give the ear a thumbs up but ask them to hold off on the naval until the ear is well and happy. That way social services might not need to talk to the child direct. 

As I see it this one boils down to this; you want this young person, who wants to be your daughter, to continue to thrive and grow, and develop her love for you and being part of your family. It's good for her wellbeing and enriching for your family. But you're also aware that sometimes parents have to say "No".

However in your case my gut tells me you'll be tempted to get your ears done at the same time, if you haven't already. Go sister!

When all is said and done it's her body and her life, and one day soon she'll be free to use it almost as she wants. She'll make her own mistakes and have her own triumphs. But it sounds like however and wherever she grows up, and however you handle your quandary she knows she'll always have a strong and loving significant other, a valuable friend. A sensible but cool go-to.

And more than that, a great mum.

You. 

Good luck! Take care of yourself too.

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PETS IN FOSTERING

 Pets and fostering. I see it as a happy marriage.

If a fostering family has no pets I'm certainsure Burtonsure a non-pet fostering home is just as able to do the business as one with a daft dog or a curious cat.

But I have found down the years that a pet can be a plus. It brings a dimension to the home that can help the child's experience enormously.

For starters if there's a family pet the new foster child is not bottom of the pile. When I say bottom of the pile I'm looking at it from the foster child's point of view; wrestled from their home, removed from their family - which has 'failed' - and brought into a home that they presume people think is better than their real home. Put into the care of foster parents who they presume are believed to be better than their real parents.

Besides feeling fear and confusion they also feel shame. They don't say it up front, but they feel small. Bottom of the pecking order.

But, hey. If the home has a dog, the dog will show exactly the same respect to the newly-arrived foster child as it shows the other people in the house. Dog has never met them before but from day one will put her nozzle on their lap same as everyone else's lap. Same with a family cat; she will show them exactly the same derision and contempt she shows everyone. Then in a magic moment the cat will rub up against the foster child's shin, to the child's delight. The cat is telling the child she's ok, and the cat's expression of that is real, not fake and the child gets that.

Equality for all in the house. That's the watchword with cats and dogs.  

Mind, the equality in a pet household isn't a two-way street. Come tea-time the pets eat off bowls on the floor and the people - including the foster children - eat up at the table (or on weekend nights on trays on their laps watching telly). The foster child is NOT bottom of the pecking order in the house. The pet is.

In life, pecking order is a huge thing. Praise the Lord we don't divide our schoolchildren into "A' streams and "D" streams any more, but they get clues along the way as to where they sit in life's pecking order from the get-go. They judge and get judged on who's most popular, who's best turned out, who's mum or dad drives the swankiest car. Who's got the funniest shape, the best hair. 

If there's one impossibilty in fostering, it's helping the foster child in your home to feel on level-pegging with everyone else. 

A family cat or dog sees the foster child as equal. To them the foster child is merely another mammal that walks on its hind legs and will stroke them if they ask. 

The contributions a family pet can make to fostering are many. On one ocassion our dog provided us information about a foster child that I believe would have been out of reach of the most insightful psychologist.

The child in question is Valeria, an eight year-old girl who came to us from a home that had seemed less chaotic than most broken homes. The father was a serviceman and the mother a part-time teaching assistant. The children were well dressed and well fed, but Valeria's teacher had become concerned about Valeria's anxieties, in particular her bouts of rocking back and forth in her seat, which were heightened at the end of the school day, when she was due to go home.

The teacher talked to Valieria and began to suspect that her episodes had to do with her father when he was home on leave. The teacher had met the father at a Parents evening and found him abrupt and overbearing. Whenever the teacher asked Valeria anything about her home life, Valeria stone-walled, her eyes darting around the room as if terrified that anyone woud overhear her stonewalling.

Long story short; it came out that social services believed that Valeria and her siblings were being subjected to unacceptable cruelty by bullying from the father. As was Valeria's mother. They didn't have a lot to go on, but enough, and made their decision to intervene having met the family several times.

Our dog Rosie put the meat on the bone. Valeria took a quick liking to Rosie, they bonded. What unfolded was this;

I often do the voice of Rosie. For example; if Rosie pads into the kitchen and the foster child is eating a bowl of cereal I say "Rosie says what're you scoffing Valeria?". And the child will reply to Rosie; "Mind your own business Rosie".

In Valeria's case the Rosie/Valeria conversations started to become meaningful.

I first noticed it one evening when it was Valeria's bedtime. I said;

"Rosie says 'It's time for bed' Valeria."

Valeria replied (to Rosie); "Yes Sir! Sir, yes sir!"

Yike.

A couple of days later I asked (as Rosie) "Rosie says 'Valeria would you give me one of my treats to hold me until tea-time?"

Valeria pulled herself up to her full three feet and replied in huge voice (to Rosie);

"You will not ask for food outside mealtime, bitch. Not on my watch."

Oh dear oh dear.

Another time I overheard Valeria yelling at Rosie; "You will do as your told missie or there will be consequences. Do you want consequences? Well do you?"

Valeria's suchlike conversations with Rosie all went into my reports. The information about how the father appeared to rule the home played a part in the approach social services took to the case, and an even bigger part in our understanding of Valeria's anxieties. 

Which helped us help her.

To be fair, it was Rosie who helped her most. 

In so many ways.

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