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.