UNEXPLAINED TRIUMPHS

 Youngest foster child has come through a bad patch.

School wasn't working as well as it might and the child was reluctant to get ready in the morning. I often ended up going out the front door, and sitting in the car to give a sense of inevitability that the school run will happen even though the child is stubbornly sitting on the bottom stair not putting on their shoes.

These stand-offs were tiring, but are by no means confined to fostering. Our eldest birth child was much the same, and he ended up at a decent university so we're philosophiocal about the diehards who think that 6 or 7 hours compulsory daily schooling five days a week is an absolute, or else the child will end up on the scrapheap.

One difference between fostering and ordinary parenting is that when a child is in care the local authority has ultimate responsibility; so school attendance is carefully monitored. They need to make sure the child isn't being dropped off at the school gates then doing a bunk and spending the day hanging around amusement arcades or the shopping mall.

Every so often had no option but to concede and let the child stay home.

"Yikes!" goes an imaginary voice in my head, belonging to someone who's never fostered; "That's illegal!"

It simply isn't. If a child in care goes into a meltdown we have to look after the child - and ourselves. Everyone connected with fostering knows and understands that if a child is physically unwell they are kept at home. Judging matters when the unwellness is emotional, and whether it's sufficient to have the child stay at home for that day, is part and parcel of some fostering placements. But, as ever you're never alone in fostering. At times (as rarely as possbile) the foster parent concedes. Any suchlike abscence is carefully recorded and discussed with social workers.

I would get occasional phone calls from a LA officer whose job is to keep a checklist of school attendance figures for their children in care. The officer is polite and understanding. 

The foster parent does their best every day, but there are limits.

The child's schooling remains a top topic of conversation whenever the child's Local Authority Social Worker, or my Blue Sky Social Worker pay a visit (usually once a month). They need to be reassured that I'm doing my best to get the child to school, but that I'm also protecting the child from real or imagined demons, and also protecting myself.

The child needed to be pursuaded to get in the car, there can never, ever be any physical ushering - I don't even buckle their seat belt for them, that's down to them once the child is old enough, and if I have to wait another 5 minutes for that to happen, so be it.

Schoolday mornings were uphill for a while.

However…

This has happened since they went back from the last school holidays;

The mornings are easier!

The question is, of course, how come?

One of the great pleasures in fostering is joining up the dots. Sometimes me and my SW will while away an hour trying to piece together the reason for an improved behaviour, or attitude, or trait.

So what's brought about the new broom? The child in question is something of a closed book. Children in care often prefer to keep things to themselves. So TBH your guess is as good as mine, here come the possibles:

1) The child has settled their differences with another pupil or pupils who were making life hard in the playground.

2) One or more of the child's teachers doubled down to help the child.

3) The child started enjoying the social side of school - becoming part of a group, making a best friend.

4) The child began to show ability in some of the curriculum and took pleasure from success.

5) I'd ensured that life at home on a schoolday was as boring as possible: ie no daytime TV, no computer games (turn the wi-fi off), requesting help with drying the dishes and doing some hoovering. I'd even sometimes find some maths exercises or English comprehension on my PC and get the child to do a bit of homework.

6) Sensible rewards (late night bedtime on Fridays etc) for achieving the target attendance figure set by the school as part of the personalised plan all children in care have with their school.

I suspect the child started looking at the positives of school; not wanting to miss out on the social scene, the hurley-burley. The ups and downs of playground life. I even got the impression that the child would miss our regular morning routine tug of war to get him going.

Plus, I think, the child felt cared for that people were trying their best for him; respecting the child and their individuality.

Child now gets up and goes off roughly 50% more cheerful.

Still takes child an age to get their shoes on though...

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MOMENTS THAT MAKE YOUR HEART GO ZING

 Fostering can be a delight, it can also be a slog. I doubt I'm telling anyone anything they don't already know.

It's human nature to dwell on the things that could be better rather than the things that are going great, and that's good because there's always something that wants improving. If we fostering folk went around with our heads in the clouds there'd be little or no progress.

Once a month (in my case) I get a visit from my Blue Sky Social Worker. It's her job to help me keep at the top of my game. It's also her job to help me see where I'm getting things right.

On the whole, fostering's rewards easily outweigh the uphill stuff. I've been fostering for a lot longer than I care to remember, and honestly love it so much I aim to go on 'til I drop.

I've enjoyed having countless experiences of helping other people's children steady their boat. Then they go - they almost always go - and you're left wondering how much good you were for them.

A couple of days ago a letter arrived addressed to me. A brown envelope, handwritten in a spidery scrawl, and a huge first class stamp. It was among the usual pizza deals and garden clearance flyers, so it instantly seemed special.

I opened it straight away. The letter had been put in the envelope upside down, a clue it was from someone who was not used to sending letters. It was two sides of typed A4. No address from the sender, it started like this;

"I hope this letter finds you. I've spent a long time (literally years) meaning to write to you. Please don't be worried that I'm stalking you or anything like that, I'm simply desperate to thank you."

I'm reading this and hooked obviously. I sit down at our kitchen table, no-one else in the house. I sit and read the letter and couldn't help weeping. The letter is at my side at this moment, I'm filling up now, writing these words.

It was from a girl who came to me briefly for foster care. I remembered her, but at first not with any great clarity. It was a long time ago - give you an idea, her letter said she now has two adult children.

She was, as I remember, my third ever placement. She was one of two sisters who had been removed from their parents because the mother had become unstable through some sort of mushroom drugs, which she acquired through some sort of religious cult that had got their hooks into her. The father wasn't on the scene, but when he had been, he'd been violent, maybe guilty of even worse physical abuse than that.

The girl was 16, her sister 14. 

We had a pretty full household at the time, and it was agreed the sisters could share a bedroom on separate beds, as they had done at home, but that Blue Sky and the sisters' local authority would look for somewhere else to take them on a semi-permanent basis. 

The younger one was a ball of energy, loved our home and our dog, she loved the freedom of not sharing a dwelling with a person likely to go weird at any moment. Mind, like almost all foster children, she loved her mum and cared about her.

They got on pretty good, as did the sisters and myself.

The older sister, who sent me this cherished letter, was quieter. Remote even.

A few days after they arrived, late one evening as I remember, she opened up to me. The house was quiet and we were alone in the kitchen, sat at the table.

She told me that she was pregnant.

Not only that, she told me that she hadn't told a single soul up to that moment. She chose me, she said, because I was the first, and up to that point the only, person she'd ever met that she felt she could trust.

I decided to let her talk, and, slowly at first, she did. Then the floodgates opened and I got most of the story.

Not all of it mind; she kept one or two big details to herself.

Reading her letter a couple of decades later I managed to remember much about that evening. It was a huge responsibilty she'd put my way, but I'd learned more than enough in my short time as a foster parent to know the key things. 

Number One; The child is paramount. I had to do eveything I could to help the child deal with where she was at that moment in time, which I remember trying to do. And help her for every moment of every day she remained with me.

Number Two; I knew I wasn't alone in dealing with this. I knew that first thing the following morning I would call Blue Sky and get advice, help and support. 

Number Three; The child was anxious that no-one else should know, but obviously I had to to begin helping her understand her options, help her begin to trust people who are trained and experienced. She was resistant at first but I made inroads.

We have a loud clock in the kitchen and it ticked away, I seem to remember that she and I talked well into the night. She hinted we both knew who the father of her child was, and that the conception was far from consensual.

That was a major issue, but I was a foster parent and resolving issues like this one would have to go upstairs - if you know what I mean. Thank goodness there are structures and experts.

We chatted about her plans, she said abortion was an option as the preganancy was still early, but out of the question as her family were all deeply 'religious' and although she found them extremely difficult they frightened her. I told her I would act as her sounding board until we could arrange professional counsel. I'd said that for me, she was the most important person in all this; that she mattered.

We talked about adoption as another option. I also told her that to the best of my understanding if she chose to raise the child herself there would be incredible support from the state, the NHS, the local authority, and even if necessary the law.

Back to the letter, which is still sitting at my elbow. 

She wrote I'd told her she had a responsibilty to herself, that she was young and the world was her oyster. She wrote that I'd told her that she deserved to walk along a beach in Thailand at midnight with someone she truly loved. I told her she was important too.

She wrote that those inspirational words meant a lot.

As the kitchen clock ticked she grew more and more at peace knowing she wasn't alone, and probably never would be again. She'd plugged into a wonderful network; namely the amazing world of care.

Her letter ended with the bit that makes me most emotional. She wrote;

"I never told you this but I decided that if I had the baby but couldn't keep it I'd ask you to adopt it".

Pause at that point for me to dab at the eyes, we don't want moisture on a keyboard...

The girl is now a woman. She assured me she's free of the people who made her life miserable as a child. She has two adult children, the eldest of which (the one I might have been asked to adopt, but of course it doesn't work like that) is about to qualify as a sports coach.

She finished by saying that she'd like to know if I recieved her letter - she put an email address at the bottom.

I emailed her immediately saying how much her letter meant to me, and promised to write her a proper letter back if she was happy to send me an address, if not, I'd email.

Children who pass through our foster care are often touched and uplifted by what we try to do for them. It's rare - but not unique - to get such a heartfelt gesture, so when it happens you absolutley have to cherish it, and return to it. Her letter will always have a place in my heart, my next job is to find a safe place in the house to store it away so I can re-read it when the going gets tough.

Wish I had more letters like that and less flyers from the latest Indian restaurant...

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FOSTERING CHILDREN AND ….DEATH

 A foster carer who often offers wisdom on this blog, "Mooglet" commented on "Home From Home" that sometimes their dog is first to spot when a foster child is sad or troubled.

So, so true.

Not that foster carers are oblivious to a child's moods, far from it. It's the kernel of what we do.

But we also have to cook dinner, keep the house tidy, do the shopping…

…get the car through its MOT, find someone competent to fix the gutter, keep an eye on mum who's not getting any younger. 

I could go on.

We fostering people have to fit our fostering in with everything else life demands.

The family dog has only two distractions; a) her next meal, and b) walkies.

The rest of the time our dog's antenna is operating 100%. Meanwhile we fostering folk are trying to stay alert to our children's needs and at the same time wondering if the faint smell of drains from the kitchen sink needs sorting.

So, yes - often our dog can be first to sense there's a child with an unhappiness.

But it works both ways.

Children in care often make their first connection in their new home with…the dog.

Which is why we have a particular challenge in our home right now which is this.

We have two dogs; "Friday" a champion 3 year old Golden Retriever, kind as any saint. And a 14 year-old Bichon Frize. The breed is a toy dog, if you like, but irresistibly cute. They have a habit of cocking their head from side to side when you talk to them as if they're weighing up what you're saying.

Her name's Bella.

She's starting to die.

I'll not disturb you with the upsetting details, but she needs hand-feeding and sleeps above my head on the pillow. She gets lost in the garden. The wonderful vet has said, quite rightly that their job is to keep life going until suffering becomes too much. But the day will dawn.

My other half and I have, yesterday and no doubt tomorrow talked about paliative care, euthenasia, cremation.

We're also talking about how to include our foster children in this process.

It's a thing we've had happen before. We got it wrong last time and want to learn from our mistakes.

The dog - another Golden retriever called "Nugget" was incapacitated and her day had come. 

But, to be brutally up front, we screwed up by saying nothing to our foster child at the time, so they came home from school and we sat the child down and said that Nugget had gone.

He was upset in many ways, most of all, it seemed, he said he wanted to say goodbye.

The same child is still with us, and seems to know the current situation is heading towards another kindness trip to the vet.

He's not a massive talker, but he said this, from nowhere;

"I know you think I hate Bella, but I love her really."

He knows. We'll let him have a chance to say goodbye.

It'll be painful for him but noble.

The thing is this. Death is a towering concept for everyone. 

When you're fostering and asked to introduce children belonging to other people to the concept of death, it's yet another facet of why this job is so important, and sometimes so beautiful.

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CHECK YOUR POCKETS FOR FISH

We had a really healthy argument in the house yesterday, between me and our middle foster child.

When you start in fostering you hope it's going to be roses all the way, and there are bouqets aplenty for sure, but there's no such thing as roses all the way in human affairs. Sometimes it's nettles and brambles, and the art of fostering is making sure it ends as roses. 

What the foster mum or dad needs to do is embrace the occassional hiccup and make good use of it.

What happened was this;

Middle foster child needed to have a piece of course work printed off to hand in. The document was a mock-up CV. The child is way too young to need a CV, but school is gearing them up for life in the outside world and I'm all for them learing how to write up their CV.

Child emailed it to my other half as my laptop has various security walls on it, so other half pinged it on to me. My laptop is the only device in the house that's linked to a working printer. The other two printers are either out of ink or don't work.

So my other half forwards it to me saying "Could you just quickly print this off?"

A piece of cake.

No. 

The email consisted of a link, not an attached document. 

I clicked on the link and it opened, but when I clicked "Print" a blank sheet of A4 came chuntering out of the printer.

The CV wasn't a Word doc, or a Pages doc, it was a PDF. I Googled how to  how to print a PDF, but none of the suggestions were sucessful.

So now I'm getting frustrated and annoyed partly that my afternoon was being hi-jacked, but mostly that I hate coming across as a dinosaur that doesn't understand modern technology. 

So I call downstairs to the other half who replies that I have to download the PDF. 

Like I said, my laptop has big-time security features, so now, stress levels going up, I want to know why middle foster child wrote the CV as a  PDF in the first place.

So I shouted upstairs to the child to come down and help me, forgetting that raised voices used to be a trigger for the child who had been happily practising guitar in the bedroom.

The child miffed off it was all my fault for having an Apple Mac when everyone else in the house had Windows.

By this point I'm in phase two meltdown. Who wouldn't be?

I'm fed up being used as a dog's body, the child could definitely show a bit of gratitude. My other half is keeping his head down as if it's nothing to do with him.  I'm sitting at my laptop tapping random keys in the hope of getting lucky.

And in the end I did get lucky! The CV printed off!

At least it tried to. But the CV document had a massive black border which was not only a pointless decoration, but used up all the remaining ink in the cartridge which is running down towards empty. So I shout to other half "How many copies do we need?" and he shouted; "Oh five should do it." 

So now I'm hunting high and low for a replacement cartridge knowing that if it's needed I'll have to do the whole alignment rigmarole, so now I'm properly the martyr.

So I shout up to middle foster child "You could at least come and help!"

To which he replied "Nothing to do with me."

Long story short; the whole saga was indeed, absolutly nothing to do with the child. My other half had heard from another parent that they had been asked to write their own CV, and anticipated that the child would find such a task difficult.

Think about it: imagine you're a child asked to write up their life thus far, and you're in care.

So. My other half took it on himself to write our middle foster child's CV for him, and when I read what he'd written I was touched. It was aglow with esteem for the child's many wonderful qualities.

Then, suddenly I was aghast that I'd been short with the child; my mistake totally.

So; a beautiful opportunity arose.

It was my chance to demonstrate what people should do when they mess up, namely they apologise.

And so I did. I didn't make a big deal of it, just called out I'd got it wrong in blaming the child for sending me a document to print that gave me a headache.

Child replied "Yeah, no problem", and meant it.

And was empowered to recieve what was perhaps his first ever heartfelt apology.

Later that afternoon he put his head round the living room door and announced he was going to the One Stop. And did I want anything "Like a creme egg or a Magnum or something?"

Our connection was better than ever before, I could hardly credit how such a ruck could end so well. 

Sometimes children in care obtain a mysterious peace from the resolution of suchlike m inor domestic conflicts.

I felt blessed. Lucky almost.

As my late uncle Paddy used to say to me;

"You're natural born lucky, so you are. If ever you fall in the water, check your pockets for fish."

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