THE WAY THEY BLOOM

All parenting is fraught with endless fears and trepidations.

It's not until you look back that you can separate the many joys from the many mini-traumas that beset our most important role in life, namely trying to be a good parent.

If you can do it halfway well with your own children you can pull it off for other people's children. 

BTW, you don't need to have had children of your own to foster well. My best friend in fostering is a mother who never had any children of her own and she is more than mustard.

But. If you had your own children, there are experiences you can bring to bear.

I often ask future foster parents about their recollections of childhood. We've all had a childhood.

One thing I sometimes ask about is their first memory of being allowed out of the house on their own.

Go ahead and take a moment to remember your own memory of that great day in your life. 

I remember the first day I got to cross a MAIN road. We lived on a backroad avenue with almost no traffic  except the people who lived there, most of whom didn't have a car. 

But. At the end of the road was a MAIN road which was used not just by cars but DOUBLE DECKER BUSES. I remember, when I prompt myself, the terror I felt when I found myself at the traffic lights at the top of our road awaiting to cross the MAIN ROAD for the first time.

Spool forward 20 years and my own children are getting old enough to go to the shop by themselves. Put into words I dare you, how harrowing the parent finds this moment.

 Remember? We've all done it.

Terrifying.

The parent feels the need to be casual but meticulous. Your kid has witnessed yourself buying plenty of Haribo, all they need to do is to do what you always did; pick the packet up from the shelf and go to the till.

But you find yourself treading the minefield of what if it goes wrong for them?

So it was the day that foster child Abraham got to go to the sweetshop alone.

It was aways back, there were no tracking devices available then. But I gave him my mobile phone and said; "If you have a problem call home".

And off he cycled. On the pavement. Our nearest One Stop /7/11/ Co-op happens to be a short trip with no road to cross - a happy accident he didn't miss;

"It's not like I'm crossing a road!"

So. Off he bicyled. I watched him stand on the pedals, feeling free as a bird on the wind.

Me, tethered to the tree of uncertainty.

Short story long; he returned, of course, intact and alive.

I had to do another gala performance of normalancy:

"Yeah, well done. Er can you put your bike on the garage."

In life we count these triumphs as triumphs. 

I fostering they are more than that.

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FAST FOOD JUST GETS BETTER

 The Covid pandemic was a challenge to all, and presented fostering with some unique issues.

It seemed obvious at the time that Covid would be followed by a pandemic of mental health problems, and sadly that does seem to be happening, with more and more children needing a foster home. 

And I'm not pretending Covid is over, it's going on still in so many ways, as is the spread of anxieties and bad decision-making. But let's steer clear of that one at this moment.

Us humans do try to make the best of everything, and without underplaying the horror of Covid or its aftermath, we've more than soldiered on. We've worked on necessities and actually found a few ways to better ourselves.

For example we're becoming a cashless economy. Yes, it must be a struggle for many people who don't have a cashcard and can't use their phone to pay for things. But it's helped us in more ways than keeping us safer from infection. Our high-street busker takes payment by card or phone. He prefers it. Our foster kids prefer not having money, makes them feel grown-up and they don't have to engage with shop staff and bus drivers as much, which they often find intimidating.

Another big change is fast food. Every foster parent knows the hugely disproportionate importance that fast food occupies in the lives of children in care.

It's their oxygen.

They positively adore the whole process of deciding what they want, surfing their phone or whatever, mulling over the huge range of options. If it's a weekend lunch do they go with a Subway sandwich or something else with a snack-like feel to it so as to make room for a pizza tonight? Or if they can find someone else in the house to share a pizza for lunch they can go the whole hog for dinner and have a Chinese. Or Korean. Or shushi, Indian, fish n'chips.

It's expensive though, we have to help them budget. The last time we ordered fish and chips for all it came out at £45. We use fast-food deliveries as a treat, not a staple, and that's fair. We should also remember that we foster parents get a generous allowance to cover the cost of having a foster child in the house, and believe me the allowance more than covers the cost.

Fast food delivery has to be controlled in fostering, but it's a spectacular device to win co-operation. And I just love the frisson that runs through the whole house when the doorbell rings and someone shouts "Deliveroo!"

When I began fostering everyone was very keen on fostering folk providing home cooked meals eaten together at the table, and that regime still works. We do that weekdays, but hey, my cooking is nothing more than safe and basic. If I had a penny for every fish-finger or skinless sausage I've knocked out with beans and oven fries I could afford to have fish n' chips delivered more often…

Can't get your foster child to eat salad? When the bits of lettuce and tomato is dressed up in a carton with a lid and Thousand Island dressing, or hidden in a Subway baguette it takes on a whole new identity. And down the hatch it goes.

Fast-food deliveries are a boon at weekends and special ocassions. When people eat, we don't just nourish the body. The sheer joy kids get from the whole delivery experience brings a huge sense of well-being to the house. We must never forget that children coming into care have often experienced hunger as well as other heartaches. Food is big.

Our middle foster child used to be very shy, and would hide when the doorbell rang with a delivery. The child didn't want to be glimpsed by the person. Gradually we worked on his confidence with adults. Now, he's happy to answer the door, give the code and say "Thanks". And when the delivery person says "Enjoy your evening." he replies "You too".

And now that he has a debit card he's confident enough to catch a bus, by himself, which is huge. Paying money and getting change was scary for him, but thanks to the changes in the economy he's on track.

Covid gave the world 3 years of hell on earth, let's hope we can avoid another pandemic, or at least if one comes along we're better prepared.

But despite everything, we humans seem determined to do more than merely stay alive.

We'll go through a lot to make ourselves happy.

And in fostering nothing makes us happier than the kids being happy.

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CHAOS

 I'm in danger of losing count of the number of social workers we've had guiding and supporting us in our fostering. Not because they come and go, but because I've been fostering longer than I care to remember, and social workers, like everybody else, move on, move up or sideways, pause to start a family.

They've almost all been brilliant, we had one way back who wasn't quite the ticket. She was local authority, told us she'd been a tennis prodigy who got let down by the LTA and was frankly not really cut out for social work. She got by, did no-one any harm, it was just a shame her heart wasn't quite in it. A rarity in my experience, but Blue Sky as ever were fantastic. I do understand that social work can be gruelling, but the vast majority of this noble profession are massively dedicated to the people they care for.

And by mentioning tennis girl I'm certainly not disparaging local authourity social workers compared to agency ones; we've had some mighty great LA ones.

Social workers sometimes say to me "I couldn't do what you do." To which I always reply, with absolute honesty; "Well I couldn't do what you do, so we're quits."

If you're someone wondering about becoming a foster parent let me give you a quick sketch of the superb support you get from your social workers.

Our current permanent Blue Sky social worker is away from her desk for wonderful personal reasons which I'd love to blab about but won't for reasons of privacy. She's the bee's knees, been attached to us for nearly a decade! We had a stand-in social worker for several months on the first occasion our permanent SW had to stay home, and the stand-in was stand-out.

Both of them are a joy to have in the house. They showed up, in our case once a month (it can be more, or even less depending) and lit up our kitchen. They stayed for about 2 hours, sometimes 3.

It's a heck of a good back-up; these are highly professional people whose job is to come to your home and check out that you, the foster parent, are OK and continuing to be up to the job. 

They tweak up your self-confidence, yet find ways to suggest new strategies. The new strategies don't mean you're getting anything wrong, it's just that they have the benefit of an outside eye. A trained outside eye.

So. When we were informed that the previous stand-out stand-in for our regular SW was unavailable for another stint we were intrigued about the new SW we'd be allocated.

Did we worry? Nah.

Should we have worried? Double nah.

Our new Blue Sky SW is mustard.

Warm and witty, wise and armed with all the tools of fostering. Actually 'tools' isn't right, more like….versed in the music of social work.

Social workers have to play jazz piano all day long. They can never predict where each of their days are going, but know that they have to bring the melody back to some kind of script with each foster carer, each foster child, each local authority, each legal team, each police department.. you get my point.

So. This new Blue Sky SW and I were sipping coffee (she's shrewd enough to know I'm proud of our new Nespresso machine and gushes the right amount when I make her a hit of caffiene), when something came up.

I raised something from 10 years ago that had intrigued me back then but I never mentioned it to anybody.

We'd had a teenage girl stay with us who came from a family who were frankly bizarre. I wish I could tell you more, but a key part of my remit is that no-one should recognise themselves from reading these words. 

The girl's local authority social worker was a 50-something year old Eastern European, who, after the girl had been with us for a couple of months said this;

"Your problem in dealing with her is that your house is not chaotic enough."

Eh?

"She is used to coming in the front door and someone shouts 'Who the f is that? Shut the f up I'm trying to watch Neighbours."

And she would reply; "You shut your own effing mouth, I'm ordering Kentucky."

The SW continued;

"Now, of course, she's nothing like this with you. But she's sad. She's missing the cut and thrust of chaos.

And that was spot on. Foster children - especially in the first few weeks and months - are on their best behaviour, and it's up to us to nurture that behavior and install it as the norm.

"But.." he went on; "The child is dealing with withdrawal from chaos."

Ah.

So back to my schtick about our new current Blue Sky SW. 

I said to her; "What if, when the case calls for it, we re-create a chaotic household for the first few weeks of a child's stay, then gradually replace the chaos with peace and harmony?"

Perhaps the most ridiculous idea I've ever had, yet I found myself putting it to her.

She was kind enough to pretend to think about it, then mutter something vaguely positive. Allowed me to talk it out and then shrewdly accepted a second cup of caffiene; and on we went elsewhere.

Mustard.

Mind, I've not allowed my brainwave to vacate my head. I keep wondering if there's something in it...

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THE ONLY THING THAT NEVER CHANGES IS THAT EVERYTHING CHANGES

 Dear me, you're always learning in fostering.

My go-to opening line when I get asked to speak to would-be foster carers is; "I've been fostering for 30 years. And I'm going to stick at it until I get it right."

New stuff is taxing.

But if it's new and good… y'gotta do the work.

Sounds like I'm on about something humungous? Well it is... and it isn't.

Every single thing we fostering folk do for the kids who we are entrusted with is big. Some things are bigger than others; diet, education, socialisation, warmth and safety.

There's something I'll call "Personal safety". You could call it "Personal self-regard", or even "Pride in oneself".

Kids coming into care often need to learn about being clean, wearing clean clothes, washing their hair, having fresh sheets. They need to learn about eating the right stuff, some even need to learn about cleaning themselves after a trip to the loo. 

Clipping one's toenails, fresh socks every day, clean ears; all that.

A quick aside; these shortcomings aren't confined to kids who end up in care. Several years ago I was asked to give a talk to the parents of children at a local school. The topics were things like "Your child should know how to use a knife and fork" and "Your child should know how to use a toilet". Does it bug you to learn that the school was a high-end private school stocked with the children of "successful" professionals? One dad, who owned a chain of hair salons (note the subtle use of "salon" where most people call it the "hairdressers"), he told me he blamed the school that his son didn't know what toilet paper was for.

It sure bugs me.

So; yes; foster kids need to know about personal safety...but it's a personal area and we fostering folk tread warily and professionally. This is where conversations with our Blue Sky social worker pays dividends. They know what's what, and know how to advise us on what's what. And how to get what's what across.

If I was you reading this I'd be wondering where we're going here? Personal safety …are we heading into... periods and menstruation? Transitioning and top surgery, testosterone? Drug understanding? Diet and exercise regimes?

Nah.

I'm talking about…

Cleaning one's teeth.

Cleaning one's teeth is important. Not a life-threatening issue but one that plenty of  well-meaning people think of as a ticket to Heaven if you get it right throughout your life.

So here's the thing:

When I was small we were taught that you brush up and down. The reason given was that by brushing up and down you remove any food stuck between your teeth. We were told that the food stuck between our teeth turned to sugar and caused tooth decay.

Several years on we were told that you had to brush your teeth and gums. I can't remember if we were given any science on this, but for donkey's yonks I've brushed my teeth up and down and given my gums a quick zizz too. 

And now, it's changed. Here's how I found out: I had a filling pop out and went to the dentist to have it fixed and she recommended I let their dental hygienist have a look at me and advise me. The hygienist told me I was getting everything wrong, including wrong direction with the brush and wrong use of an electric toothbrush. Wrong type of brush-head (wrong bristles). Wrong brand of toothpaste, wrong pressure on the teeth, and wrong gum care. Wrong use of dental floss too. She said the new thinking had been around for "ages" and maybe I'm out of the loop.

Whatever. I'm stuck with wondering how to advise my kids on how to brush their teeth.

I asked my dear Blue Sky social worker and she replied "As long as they're cleaning their teeth one way of another the technique isn't really something to lie awake fretting about." Then she asked to be reminded how often the children cleaned their teeth and I got a house point (much needed) for my answer "Twice a day, morning and bedtime, sometimes 3 times at the weekend if they have a sweet treat with their lunch."

She replied "Wow, that's great! How do you get them to do it?" Adding "Most kids in care hate brushing their teeth."

So I told her my tactic;

When it's toothbrush time I say "Let's see whose teeth are whitest. I bet mine are." Then after brushing we stand in front of the hall mirror and compare teeth. They always win, I always lose.

Job done.

She complimented me on another of my tricks of the trade. She said she might pass it on to other fostering folk, as Blue Sky are big on many things, including teeth and eyes.

They are also big on keeping their fostering folk positive and proud of the work we do.

Mind, if that hygienist was right, I'm lucky to have any teeth left to enter the competition with…

PS: I now advise my foster children to brush up and down, followed by round and round. Clever cop-out that, maybe I should have been in politics. And tell them that my grandad cleaned his teeth with soot to which they invariably reply "Cool! Can you get some soot in?" and "Does Soot taste like like paprika?"

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ALERT TO THE POSITIVES

 So, this happened, one night a couple of days ago.

In fostering one's sleeping is determined not a little by what sort of a household one has at any given time.

We had a teenager for a whole summer once, a lovely lad, who simply couldn't sleep at night. He was perfectly at ease with staying awake down in our living room. He was ultra considerate, never woke us, tidied the room up as dawn began to break, and slept through the daytime when he could. At weekends he'd take the train to his home patch and see friends after sleeping through the day. On weekdays he'd catch some shuteye around his college commitments, which he honoured pretty much 100%.

We never identified his fear of nightime, it may have been something dark.

But even though he was good as gold, and quiet as a church mouse, I don't think I managed to drift off into the deepest sleep possible, the type of sleep we think does us the most good.

I was always ever-so-slightly alert. 

Then there was the 8 year old who I told on his first night with us that if he awoke in the night and was frightened to knock on our bedroom door and I'd come out and help him. I left his bedroom door slightly open and the landing light on, and on reflection I maybe shouldn't have prompted him. Sure enough at 2.00am came the knock our door. I pulled on my dressing gown and escorted him downstairs where we watched cartoons (what did we do before 24-hour kids TV?) until dawn.

Another one; the child whose night terrors were a proper challenge. For the first couple of weeks I kipped on cushions and pillows outside their bedroom, gently talking as the child slowly tired and finally dropped off. 

So, as I started to say; this happened one night.

I'd had a long day and a succession of long nights. It was getting late, my partner had gone "up the stairs to Bedfordshire" as he annoyingly calls it. Youngest child was long asleep, eldest had retreated to their room to surf (responsibly) their iPad/phone. BTW we're looking into this new WiFi thing whereby you can log off your home's WiFi at say 8.00pm; brilliant.

Middle foster child was downstairs in the little back room off the kitchen which tends to be the childrens' domain. It has a TV, a sofa, and a dog bed because inexplicably the dog loves hanging loose wiv da kids.

I must have nodded off. When I awoke, suddenly, and for some reason guilt-ridden, my first clue that I'd been dozing for a good hour was that the TV was still on and a late-night current affairs discussion was going on. Late night current affairs is Horlicks  to me (Horlicks: a milky bedtime drink which kind of claims to be a soporific, for the info of readers abroad). 

So I went to get up to take stock of the household and, assuming all was well, hit the hay.

Slight panic; I couldn't move my legs.

You know that strange state you are in when you've only been awake for ten seconds?

I went into that state.

Briefly. Because it dawned on me that the reason my legs wouldn't work was that they were  swathed in a blanket. One of the blankets we throw over our careworn living room sofas, both of which have seen better days, but who cares about sofas when there's fostering to be done.

So. I laid back and wondered how come I'd been tucked up after nodding off.

Slowly but surely a model answer emerged and stuck.

Middle foster child had finished chilling in the back room, and turned everything off. The child settled the dog in the kitchen, then on their way up noticed the TV was on in the living room.

Then saw their foster mum akip.

And went and got the blanket off the other sofa and swaddled me, careful not to wake me up.

So; anyone who hears this little episode and doesn't foster won't know why I was doing cartwheels. One of the big things we do in fostering is try to repair the humanity in the poor dear children who come our way, because they've all had suffering of one type or another and need to be ushered back into empathy for others.

And there it was, right there..

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NEVER A DULL MOMENT

 Chris came to us in the middle of the night.

We'd agreed to be emergency carers at the time. We're not on the list of emergency carers right now partly as we used up our last spare bedroom with a 'normal' placement, 'normal' meaning a child who was set to stay with us for a good while.

People don't realise the degree of flexibility a fostering family can have. Each fostering family is unique, and carers are given every opportunity to ensure their fostering is tailored to the family's specifics. Children coming into care are matched to the strengths of the potential carer and the carer's family. When we started we thought we'd be best with teenagers, but pretty quickly we found ourselves in agreement with Blue Sky that we'd consider any child they thought we could help.

Normally, when you're offered a placement you first get a phone call from Blue Sky's placement officers who give you a quick sketch of the child. If you agree they usually email over all available paperwork giving whatever details are known about the child's background. If you agree to accept the child they put your name and profile forward to the Local Authority who make the final pick from the foster carers they're offered.

Emergency placements are different.

The story of us and Chris went like this.

My phone pinged just after midnight.

Blue Sky.

They said the Local Authority had been contacted by the police who had an 8 year-old boy in the back of a police car and that they had judged it was unsafe for him to be allowed back to his actual home.

I was told there had been significant violent abuse at the home and that two adults had been arrested. Two other adults had fled the scene and were on the loose and believed to be a potential danger to each other and the three children in the home. Two of the children had been found an emergency foster home by the LA, but their placememnt used up their emergency facilities so they widened their search, asking Blue Sky if they could help.

I could only picture the state of an 8 year old boy, all alone in the middle of the night in the back of a police car.  How must he feel? What was he thinking?

Then came the bombshell. Chris' "home" wasn't a house or a flat, not bricks and mortar at all.

No, it was a tent. A tent on a patch of council land. The fact that the family were living in a tent was all part of some wider domestic dispute.

Chris didn't go to any school as such, didn't have a regular GP or any of the usual medical documentaion. His state of health had to be taken as sight unseen.

Chris arrived under half-an-hour later. If he was scared or shy he didn't show it, but woofed down a plate of beans on toast. We offered him orange juice but he replied "Got any beer?" and to this day we don't know if he was joking or not.

We showed him to our spare bedroom. He declined a shower or pyjamas, and didn't use the toothbrush we set out for him. The following morning while he was eating breakfast I went up to check the room. It looked to me as though he'd slept in his clothes, on top of the bed. Or maybe even on the floor.

Our Blue Sky social worker was due at 10.00am to support us, but my phone rang ahead of that time.

A member of Chris' wider family was on her way to collect him; his "Aunt". 

I put "aunt" in inverted commas because when I told Chris the news he grinned and asked "An Aunt eh? And which aunt would that be?".

I could only tell him that the decision had been verified and agreed upon by people above my status who knew what they were doing. Normally one would use age-appropriate words and phrases with a vulnerable 8 year-old, but Chris acted and spoke like the man of the world I was rapidly coming to see that he was. More than that I was starting to be quite a fan of this resilient wee fellow.

An LA social worker showed up, the same one who'd accompanied him to our house not 12 hours before. She told us Chris was being taken first to the police station to be interviewed about the previous night, before being handed over to the aunt. My Blue Sky social worker arrived too. Then the police, two officers, a woman and a man.

While we were waiting for the "aunt", whose name I was told was "Aunt Gillie", I prepared a tupperware box with some fruit and snacks for Chris, who asked me on the quiet for ten pounds so he could buy Aunt Gillie a present. I said I didn't have a ten pound note, but I put five pounds in change in an envelope and put the envelope in the tupperware box underneath the banana.

Aunt Gillie arrived in a shiny four-wheeler. She was a robust soul with a big voice and a heck of a lot of confidence which, when we were alone after they left, the social workers and I agreed was partly a defence against any shame she felt of the fact that someone outside her family had been needed to care for Chris in his night of need.

Example: the police officer had said to Gillie "Chris can come in our car to the station. After the interview we'll be free to hand him into your care." She replied "He'll do no such thing, he's coming in my car". 

And so he did.

There was an interesting 'goodbye' with Chris (there'd never really been any 'hello'). He offered me a strong handshake then he said "Come 'ere" and gave me a peck on both cheeks. Then he stood back, held my eye and gave me what will probably turn out to be the last decent wink I'll ever get now winking is out of fashion. It was a wink, I believe, that said "Thanks for being alright, I'm on my way now, don't you worry, look at me, I'll be fine".

He was warmed and relaxed by Gillie's arrival, and she oozed a protectiveness of him and the family unit they seemed part of that I can only describe as powerful. And loving, though not in the way I do loving. But we're all different.

Whenever a child leaves you find yourself worrying they'll be ok. But not Chris, Chris will be fine; he's on top of this world, emotionally strong as an ox, and I suspect surrounded by a group the size of a small village that will be there for him all his life. And he'll be there for them.

And no, I didn't check if any silverware was missing (we don't have any silverware, but you know what I mean). There wasn't, but I knew I didn't need to.

A fortnight later Blue Sky paid our regular allowance into the bank and I noted we'd been renumerated the usual amount for having Chris.

I hadn't asked if I could claim the £5, I took that on the chin. 

And can only hope it went on fags and nothing stronger…

As me, my other half, and our whole family often say with a happy grin; "Never a dull moment".

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