WE GOT THIS ONE WRONG...

There's no time in fostering for regrets, but here's one I kick myself about…

The thing about school holidays is that your foster child's social life comes to the fore.

Their social life's always big, of course, but it's an issue that tends to stick out at weekends. And holidays.

Older kids, on Saturdays, they go off and chill at "Jasmine's" or "Aiden's", and we have to make judgements about the family home where they're "chillin' " at.

If it's the dreaded sleepover; we always contact the parents of our foster child's friend and touch base. They always get it and are pleased we care.

I say "dreaded" because we're inundated with requests for sleepovers at our house. Bottom line; once one understands they are not "Sleepovers" but "Stayawakers" you're halfway there. 5.00am and there's still two twelve-year-olds blearily talking dreamlike rubbish hoping to raise the trophy of "Last One to Go To Sleep".

Regrets.

We looked after a young child called Emerald, aged eight, who had been deprived of normal social company, her parents had hardly sent her to school, hardly allowed her to mix with kids her age.

She came to us late spring, and we got on with introducing her to school and friendships. Jeez, she found both concepts pretty shocking. Imagine; a roomfull of people same age as her. Crazy. A playground teeming with bullish-seeeming boys and closed groups of girls…HELP!

She stuck at it. It broke my heart to take her to school every day and see her in the playground every morning, standing alone, hoping for a friend.

Then summer loomed. Six weeks of pure fostering, no school. 

Exhausting, but hey, potential.

So, imagine; last week of term Emerald got invited to tea with a friend she knew from school.

The bond between them was rabbits. The friend had three, and Emerald was desperate to meet them. They lived in hutches but had mobile rabbit runs that got moved around the lawn every day.

Obviously, I "facilitated". 

Emerald and the friend, a gentle child called Angelica bonded.

Then this happened.

Social Services and various social workers got together and agreed that Emerald should be re-located to a school nearer us. There were reasons for this I won't bore you with, I can still see the logic. It was mainly to help Emerald build a social network, and also to cut down my drive (I was in the car making 4 journeys of half-an-hour each every day).

So. Emerald, aged eight, was removed from the first friend she'd ever had. For reasons too complex for her to comprehend.

And who had to mop it up?

Johnny foster carer.

Emerald was roughed up inside by the move. It took her a while to get a grip on the new school, and try to infiltrate the friendships groups there.

She spent the six weeks holiday in a bit of a mope.

I mopped up, I think, so I did. I hope.

Got her back to sort of on track.

But looking back, Emerald should have stayed put.

You live and learn...