PARENT AND CHILD

 I went to a dinner thing many years ago, the guest speaker was an Air Traffic Controller.

We used to live near a major airport and practically everyone we knew worked at the airport in one capacity or another.

The speaker was chosen from an after-dinner speaker agency a) because he would talk about the airport, and b) because he was known to be terribly funny.

He was hilarious.*

His opening line was pure gold;

"I've been an air traffic controller for 30 years. And I'm going to stick at it until I get it right…"

The expression of theatrical terror on his face had us holding our sides for a full minute.

I mention him because his joke has become a staple reply of mine when anyone asks how long I've been in fostering;

"I've been in fostering for 30 years and I'm going to stick at it until I get it right…"

See, the underlying theme of the gag is that there are always new things to learn, old things to improve on. The consequences of not being quite right in fostering are not as horrendous as a plane crash, but we are dealing with lives.

And improving what we do is one of the reasons we're considering applying for a Parent and Child  placement….again.

We had put our toe in the water with Parent and Child a long time ago. To give you an idea how long ago, it was then entitled "Mother and Baby". Blue Sky updated the title because they discovered that sometimes it was the father who needed help, and the child was not necessarily a baby.

Parent and Child is challenging in a singular, unique, and in many ways harrowing respect.

It's this; the foster parents can be called on to play a pivotal role in a major life-changing decision, namely; whether the parent is up to the job of parenting the child. Or whether it would best for all if the child were removed from the parent and put up for adoption or permanent care.

I hold my hands up and admit that when we first had a Parent and Child placement we wobbled.

We knew in our heart of hearts that the parent probably wasn't up to it, but held out in the hope we could help fix the parent's shortcomings and everything would be alright.

We probably tried too hard to help them stay together. Only out of compassion, but looking back; the child deserved a clean start. There was a waiting list of families who wanted to adopt, and they deserved consideration; the longer the child was being parented by an inadequate parent the more likely that some damage was occurring.

I have to say that Blue Sky were immaculate in guiding us and supporting us as we edged towards reporting to the Local Authority that the parent and child should be split up. The Local Authority needed to look after their budgets and Parent and Child is a big cost to their system. Also; they had the child's needs at the top of their agenda. Looking back, I believe they made up their mind pretty quickly that the child should be put up for adoption, but needed the foster parents (us) to indicate the parent's unchanging inadequacies.

Blue Sky looked after me and our family as their priority, that's how it works with them. They knew we were a family who found it hard to be hard, but sometimes you have to be hard.

Short story long; the child was adopted.

The parent became pregnant again within months her third child, it was all over Facebook. She was not yet 18. Our understanding is that all three are adopted.

We plan to discuss that we might try Parent and Child again with our Blue Sky social worker, to make sure we're not simply trying to prove to ourselves that we know how to learn. Fostering isn't about the foster parents, it's totally about the child.

Since middle child went home (sigh) we have a spare room with a double bed and a cot in the loft...

I'll keep you posted…

* The Air Traffic Controller had us in stiches with stories. Here's two of his;

One morning the pilot and co-pilot of a London to Manchester shuttle were bored. So as the passengers filed aboard they put on coats over their uniforms and sat in empty passenger seats. They allowed 5 minutes to pass before the pilot stood up and said;  "I'm due at a meeting in 35 minutes I can't wait any longer. My father was a pilot in the war, it's not that hard. Can anyone here navigate?" The co-pilot got up and said "I've got an O level in geography". The pilot said "That'll do. Let's you and me take this crate to Manchester.." And off they went up to the cockpit, with the passengers suitably gobsmacked.

And; one afternoon, on a ten hour flight to Los Angeles, the plane on auto-pilot, the pilot tied two long lengths of string to the joystick, one on each arm. He then began backing down the aisle, holding the string taut. When he got to the end of the plane, next to the toilets he said to a woman passenger;

"Could you keep her on a steady course, I'll only be a couple of minutes."