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".