FOSTERING AND THE BIG PICTURE

 Sometimes in fostering you get so pre-occupied with the day-to-day stuff that the big picture disappears off your radar.

Luckily, in my case, our Blue Sky social worker shows up - once a month at the moment - and helps me re-focus.

So. What's the big picture?

Well, for example, a small picture is that your foster child chucks detrius under the bed. Y'know; empty crisp packets, apple cores, lone socks…

Another small picture is that your child is hopeless at being ready to leave for school at the agreed time, or resists the lovely steamed brocolli you've dusted with parmesan to make it taste less like brocolli and more like pizza...

Look, when I call these things "small", I know that they are biggish. They fill the moment and occupy our whole brain.

But this is the really BIG picture...

            ...a child has been taken away from their home and brought to a family of strangers.

Us. Us fostering folk.

This isn't merely big, it's MASSIVE.

When your social worker turns up they want to let us fostering folk have a moan about the small things; they know they're important. They listen, sympathise, maybe sometimes offer advice.

Then gently bring us back to the big picture.

Namely your foster child's situation. Their thing, their existence, their life.

If we want to do the job well it helps to share the child's big picture.

Many years ago, I remember this moment so well, I was fostering a lad called Raphael.

Naturally I tried to meet all his basic needs; food, warmth, and the other important things. 

I also did my best (as I still do) to provide some of the more complex needs, such as a sense of security, a sense of being cared for. A sense of belonging.

One day, not long after he arrived, Raphael was being challenging. Nothing major, he'd simply got out of bed on the wrong side. 

My efforts at distraction fell on deaf ears.

Me: "Raphael mate; spag boll or sausage and chips tonight"

Raphael; "I don't care."

Me: "Wanna watch the new Toy Story at the weekend?"

Raphael; "Toy Story sucks!"

I eventually got him into the car for the school run. Halfway there he started crying. 

It was that poignant sort of sobbing. Deep. From the heart.

Driving through the morning traffic I could only think about what I might add to the good things that Raphael was now getting; proper food, clean clothes, fresh bedding, respectful and attentive adults. I might have even felt a tiny bit peeved that for all my efforts he was inexplicably sad and angry.

Turned out he was neither sad nor angry.

He was frightened. Not for himself, but for someone else.

Through his tears he suddenly blurted these words, which I'll never forget:

"If you were a kid miles away from home, you'd worry that something had happened to your mother."

That was his big picture. 

His mother was in an abusive partnership, and Raphael was worried that without him being there she had nobody to protect her.

I kicked myself all the way home for not being on the ball.

Made up my mind never to forget their big picture.

A bigger picture than any Toy Story.