IT'S A 24/7 THING

The latest figures about fostering are saddening.

In the last 3 years 3,000 carers have left fostering.

Big business is moving in; residential care homes for older children in care are springing up; one new one every day.

I don't know enough about these homes to deserve to have a view, but the newspapers seem allied together in their take on them; namely that they're not good for the young people, but good for investors.

Then there's been discussion alongside these allegations that some normal family foster homes are no less chaotic than the homes the children have been removed from.

One article I've just finished reading claimed that some local authorities "pay" foster carers £50 a week, which the article asserted, is less than the minimum wage.

All I can say from first hand experience is that Blue Sky give much better financial support than that. Much better.

Fostering is a full time job, but we foster parents aren't "paid". We are given an allowance. It enjoys healthy tax status, ie it's not taxed as a wage partly because the country needs foster parents, and partly because, when you're looking after someone else's child 24/7, you're literally on call 24/7.

24/7 hours times the minimum wage would have our reparation up to £135,000 per year. Per child.

Another article I found quoted that some vulnerable children get placed in special units, others in what were described as exorbitant residencies, mainly because the Local Authority is required by law to find a room for a child they take into care.

At the end of the day, all we can do as foster parents, is carry on parenting.

Nice moment this day before yesterday, I woke up about 1.00am; movement downstairs.

I heard the big dog (we've got 2 at the moment) on the hall floor. Then the kitchen door got shut….gently.

Then I got a whiff of cooking.

Someone…had let the dog out for a wee, was knocking up a midnight feast, and wanted to keep it secret.

Hmmmm.

So: I need to know who's using the cooker. But also need to keep it non-interventionalist (is that a word?)

Plan; I went downstairs in search of a glass of water to wash down paracetamol to beat a headache. 

I went into the kitchen and acted as unbothered as I could.

It was middle foster child!

I said "Don't mind me, I'm wanting a glass of water. Headache."

Child; "Ye, I'm just making a snack."

Child has been getting into cookery, which we encourage enormously. Child is old enough to be trusted with the microwave, and you want them to achieve and feel the beginings of independence. But you stay vigilant. And I've drummed kitchen safety into the young person.

I went back upstairs, and stayed awake until I heard child head up to the bedroom with a plate of something.

I was up first next morning and can tell you the child's cooking is better than the child's clearing and tidying of the kitchen.

Don't care.

Love fostering, so much.

C'mon everybody, let's go!