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...