For me, one of the biggest moments in fostering is when a new child arrives and the Social Workers leave.
Until the professionals say their goodbyes, we foster parents have a bunch of good people in our house working on the placement.
What usually happens is this. Having agreed to take a child arrangements are made to bring the child to our house. Blue Sky send one of theirs; usually the Social Worker who's going to be attached to us and the placement. The local authority's Social Worker, who've sought a home for the child, and whose ultimate responsibility is for the child, arrive in a car with the child and the child's belongings.
As you can imagine it's a big day for all concened, especially the child.
Not to mention the foster parent.
In my experience both of the Social Workers remain in your house for a while, everyone getting to know each other. There's often a bit of paperwork which I leave to the Social Workers, but I'll sign where they ask me to.
Then.
They leave.
And we have a child in our house who belongs to someone else but needs our help. And there's no-one else to help them but us. Our family, our home. And me, mainly.
This is fostering.
I've learned to give the child a quiet tour of the house, especially the bathroom and toilet; demonstrate how the loo flushes and that the towels are communal, but if they would like one or two towels exclusively for themselves, happy to provide.
I show them their room, show how the lights work and the door handle. Then, depending on their age, I let them put their stuff into the clean, empty drawers, telling them to come on downstairs when they're unpacked, and that I've got juice and biscuits. Nothing much elicits co-operation as much as snacks.
From that point on, the foster parent is basically winging it. Learning as much as you can about the individual who's just joined your family unit, while at the same time getting started on helping them feel wanted, cared for and, as the phrase properly goes "looked after".
Next up; your family come home and meet the new arrival; we keep it low-key - it's always a bit awkward what with natural shyness. But as a foster parent you're picking up clues all the time.
We foster parents learn a bundle in the first 24 hours.
Lucy was a case in point. She was six when she arrived. Small for her age (they often are) and with blue veins showing on her arms that suggested possible malnourishment. Not enough was known about her at this early stage to determine whether her poor diet was through neglect (common) or actual abuse (rare but yes, some 'parents' use food deprivation to try to excert control over their children).
Lucy had arrived at 2.30pm, my own kids were due home from school about 4.30pm, my other half home from work around 5.45pm, so dinner was aimed for about 6.00pm. Around 5.00pm I was in the kitchen knocking up spag boll.
Lucy was in the garden bonding with our dog.
We knew that Lucy had been given bad times by the woman she'd been removed from, but was holding herself together on day one with us, as is usually the case.
Nobody knew much about the 'bad times'.
I drifted to the kitchen window to watch her and our dog - who was called "Dog" BTW, because my partner is a John Wayne fan and The Duke had a dog called "Dog" in one of his Westerns.
Lucy was berating Dog because Dog wasn't sitting on her command.
"Listen sister, either you play ball or it's consequences. You want that? Just try me, go on I dare you. You wanna go for it? I'll drop you like a bag of dirt you little piece of …"
I could go on, but the air turned blue.
Right there, right then, I got Lucy. She let me see she'd been handling a tyranny for her first 6 years.
I said nothing, went back and stirred the pot of spag sauce. And had a clearer idea of how to stir the pot of Lucy's life.
Long story short; Lucy's ok. She left us after 3 months, the Local Authority found a permanent home.
Dog was ok too.
Rescue dogs often have a wavelength with rescue children.
Foster parents an even better one.
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