A GAME OF SARDINES

 Going back a few years we had a young lady stay with us, Nicky. I've touched on her story once before In the blog, but something came up yersterday which jogged my memory of her.

She'd had a terrible childhood. Both her parernts had learning difficulties and had profound hearing loss. Her father was serving 10 years in prison for a crime against another member of the family, that's all I'll say about that.

The girl and her sister liked to go shoplifting on Saturdays, and one time came back with two live rats they'd stolen from a pet shop. When they got home they released the rats in the house…chaos.

Nicky had a fantastic social worker who would visit and often get into a disagreement with her about why she was in care, and why she couldn't go home yet.

I noticed that she was often comparatively at peace for the rest of the day after their ding dong..

"Yes," said the social worker when Nicky was out of the room, "You see she needs a bit of chaos. It's all she's ever known. Your home and family are lovely, you're in harmony. She struggles unless she's got a some mayhem going on, and I'm happy to provide."

The thing that came up (and when I say 'came up' I mean exactly that) was this;

At the supermarket they were selling fresh sardines. It's been such a ruddy cold winter, and sardines remind me of holiday lunches at Mediterranean beach cafes, so I bought a dozen.

I cut the heads off and gutted them. I wrapped the gunge tight in tin foil and wrapped some kitchen towel around it, ready to take it outside and put it straight in the rubbish wheelie, because our dog has been known to raid the kitchen bin for scraps and I didn't want her eating fish innards.

But, despite my best efforts, I turned my back for 10 seconds and the dog snuck in and made off with the package. I didn't notice at first, but when I did I raced into the hallway and there she was, looking proud as punch with a sheet of baco foil and a soggy ball of kitchen roll. Licked clean.

She'd eaten the lot.

Now, as a crusty old colonel once remarked when returning to the dinner table from a comfort break:

"Generally speaking when I've eaten something I don't wish to see it again."

How much more true is that sentiment when applied to something nasty a dog has eaten…

She was ill on the landing, just a bit. Then at the top of the stairs; a lot. Then in the living room.

All the while we were frantically trying to anticipate the next event and get her outside for it. We had some success, her final two clearouts were on the patio.

Then we turned our attention to clearing up the mess and soaking it out of the carpets.

It was horrible work, and the odour alone made me retch several times, never mind the sights. 

Here comes the payoff…

The kids LOVED it. Not in any sense in an unpleasant way; they simply found release in everything being fraught and topsy turvey..

I'm not going into further details, picture the madness for yourself.

The experience has evolved into a standing family joke;

"Mum, any chance of sardines for tea tonight?"

"Mum, is it true that it's good for the carpet?"

etc etc etc…

I'm certain I'll never use chaos as a tool to help a looked-after child feel at home, not in a million years. But, as the T shirt in Forrest Gump put it "S**t happens."

And when it does it helps to have some foster children around.

Helps the situation, helps them sometimes too.

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I'M NOT WASHED UP!

 Fostering is all about helping a child from outside your family feel comfortable in your home.

How you do this depends on a) understanding your own home, and b) understanding the foster child.

It's all about working out where the child fits.

I want to flag up the task of WASHING UP.

Age plays a huge part in the whole integration thing, as does personality.

Then there's the matter of how much damage, and what type, the child has met prior to coming into care.

From Day One when a new child arrives, you beaver away trying to place them into your home.

Me; I rarely sit them down and have massive heart-to-hearts.

I know an excellent foster mum who does. She sits her foster children down once a day after school, one-on-one; for a pow-wow about their day, their emotions, their opinions…everything.

Not for me; too formal. It would feel to me like the job interview or a visit to the doctor.

Not the usual, comforting, topsy-turvy exchanges that are true family fare.

Example;

Most children coming into care have no experience of doing household jobs.

Mainly because the jobs rarely got done anyway, but also because the children were seen as a nuisance and were best kept out of things.

So. It's right and healthy to ask everyone in your home to pull their weight. Children benefit from being tasked to trundle the wheelie bin out front, take a black plastic bag up to their room and de-garbage the crisp packets, juice boxes, apple cores and the rest. 

The key for me, in getting this done, is them seeing me enjoying doing chores. 

I put music on when I cook. Washing the car? LOVE it. 

Cards on the table time; I don't ask our children to do many tasks. Why? Because usually I have to go in after them and put it right. Especially the washing up. 

Washing up is a job that appears to the average adult to be child-friendly. It involves water, which some think is automatically associated with fun. As for the drying up; what could be simpler than wiping dry some sparkling plates and cutlery with a nice clean tea-towel?

Long story short; I don't ask my foster children to do the washing up. Not no more. No, I've learned.

See, for one thing the washer-upper has it over the dryer upper because they finish first and are off to play. No fair. 

A bigger thing is this; I want my kids to enjoy their food, to appreciate their meals and the chat and banter that can go with eating. When they know they've got a boring rotten old job to do after eating, it spoils the whole experience.

There are other things, such as that they often make a bad job of it and plates get put away with gravy stains on the underneath and greasy smears on the forks. You end up fixing the problem yourself.

One last thing; I myself don't like doing the washing. I hate the job. I was made to do it when I was young, every Sunday.  I knew my parents made us wash up and dry because they didn't like doing it.

And my foster children would know the same thing. And they'd be annoyed knowing I was getting out of a job I disliked by fobbing it onto them. And that's not a good look in fostering.

Now, in my current household... they LOVE  cooking (eldest is getting good). And there's almost a war over who gets to wash the car!

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MEALTIME MATTERS

 Mealtimes can be complicated in fostering. Food in every form is SO important to every foster child I've ever had. I can't overstate how valuable a piece of kit that food can be in the foster parents' toolbox.

Nobody enjoys feeling hungry, and it seems that most- if not all - children who come into care have suffered all sorts of deprivations in the food department.

Back in the day when I started fostering, the business of providing the family with food was a simple. Breakfast; cereal or toast. School lunchbox; a peanut butter sandwich, a piece of fruit, ready salted crisps. There were no juice cartons in those days, if the child got thirsty at school there was a drinking fountain. At weekends they'd get a slightly fancier lunch - mayber an omellete or a bacon sarnie. 7 days a week the main meal was the evening meal; meat and two veg.

However. The more I fostered, the more I had to keep up with trends, the more I got into getting their food spot on for them.

It wasn't a headache. Doing the best you can for your whole family - including your foster child - is one of the best things in life.

First off; whenever a new child is on their way to me, I ask my Blue Sky social worker if it's klnown what the child's favourite food is. And I rush out and buy whatever is needed to serve it up for their first meal at our house. This trick ALWAYS pays big time. If you're a young person sitting having your first meal with a strange family the last thing you want to have to do is force down food you don't like. Getting this one right isn't hard; they don't want coq au vin or lobster thermidor. 80% of the children I've had arrive at our house were fans of pasta or spag boll. Mind, nowadays the Big Mac is creeping up the leaderboard.

However; I write these words at the beginning of 2025; and things are starting to get complicated…

"Meat is murder"

Vegetarianism and veganism, both of them noble practices, are a growing issue in fostering. Knocking up a simple spag boll isn't simple any more: either the whole family eats one made with plant-based mince, or you have to have two saucepans on the go, one with ordinary mince, the other with soya mince.

These days I find that about 50% of teenage children in care go through a vegetarian phase. You have no option but to go with it.

Then there's food fads. 

"I don't eat nuffink green"

I get that kids have foods they simply cannot even look at. I used to feel nauseaus at school every Friday when it was "cheese pie" for school lunch. I had a brother for whom the humble tomato was a monster of Godzilla proportions. He practically up-chucked at their very mention.

We foster carers have to learn about each new child's fads, and most have quite a few.

"Can I have a biscuit?"

For so many children in care the concept of snack food in the house is seriously flawed.  I've had children who were practised in raiding the kitchen bin for scraps. Another kid used to snack on uncooked spaghetti strands when the parents were asleep because the parents wouldn't notice the packet was one or two stands short.

I try to tackle the snack thing by giving them a bowl of fruit in their room that belongs to them; to eat whenever they want, and offer pan au chocolate pastries and ice cream as ocassional rewards for good things.

"I like this but I don't like that"

This one is what used to be called "Picky".  Young people increasingly know what they like and they don't like. And are proud of their preferences, as if it defines their identity. To me and my other half, a pizza is a pizza is a pizza, Not to todays growing army of gourmet fast food afficionados.

Quick story;

A teenage girl I'll call Millie came to us, she loved food, was a bit on the large size. So what?

A bigger problem was getting her to attend school.

One morning she'd had the results of some blood tests and the doctor wanted to see her. She was stressed. I managed to pursuade her into the car to drive her to school, but halfway there she got a block on the idea and said she wouldn't go in.

We were already late, it was after 10.00am. But if I managed to get her into the building it would tick a box (local authorities track school attendance and chase us if the numbers are poor).

I asked Millie if she'd snaffled any breakfast.

"Nah"

So I said;

"Oh dear you must be hungry?"

Millie; "Ye, a bit"

Me; "If we go by MacDonalds will you go into school?"

A deal was done.

Now, forgive me if I have any details a bit wobbly, I'm no expert on the intricacies of the world of fast food…

We pulled onto the car park of a MacDonalds, it was about 10.15am.

I asked her what she wanted and she said; "A Big Mac"

I went in and asked, they said they didn't serve Big Macs until 10.30am.

I went back and told Millie she'd have to have a Macdonalds breakfast instead.

Millie blew up. 

Thwarted. 

She was being press-ganged into a school where she was bullied about her weight, the doctor was worried about her tests but she didn't know what the worry was, and her foster carer had promised a Big Mac and all she was getting was a puny Macdonalds breakfast.

Long story short; Millie and I sat in the car park until 10.31am and she got her Big Mac.

And boy, the look on her face.

Millie had her nosh, and it was nosh she'd won in her battle with a rotten old world.

Beautiful.

PS: I think about Millie often, and hope she's doing ok. Same with all your foster kids...

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SUPPORT MEETINGS

 I'm fresh from a Blue Sky support meeting, where foster carers show up for a chat about how things are going.

Whether the frequest get-togethers are face-to-face or virtual is neither here nor there, it's brilliant to get a peek into other carers worlds. 

Every foster child is unique.

Come to that, every foster parent is unique too.

You get stay-at-home mums whose children have left home, ex-squaddies, an architect, a cleaning person.

Plus you get a range of feelings about fostering; the newish carers who are often simply getting used to fostering, and fostering does take a bit of getting used to.

Then there's the experienced carers who are more footsure. They've been round the block and are armed with the enemy of the unexpected, namely the deadly 'been there, done that'.

At this meeting - that I'm still processing - a carer called Denise told everyone about her current placement.

A girl. Aged 13, which in her eyes meant that she was an adult with adult rights. At first she put out the positives of adulthood; she fetched and carried and minded her Ps and Qs.

Then, as is often the case, once she grasped that Denise wasn't going to kick off at her (a fracas she'd grown used to in her 'real' home) she started trying it out…

She started saying that she'd had enough of being fostered and was going home.

Denise stumped her like this;

Instead of saying "I'm afraid that's not possible because there's a legally binding order in place that you remain with us in this house until your family home is safe."

Denise said:

"How do you plan to get home?"

Apparently the girl was gobsmacked by the response.  She'd never considered how she'd make the journey. She knew nothing about trains or buses, and a cab was out of the question (her home was many miles away).

Most of all; no matter how much she longed to be an adult, deep down she was a child. Denise was holding up a mirror to the girl's shortfall in how the world works. 

Denise told us at the support meeting that she didn't add any more thoughts to the discussion of the child going home. She simply braced herself for the child doing some Googling and being able to come back with the answer as to how she'd make the journey home.

We asked her how she's deal with the next level of this one.

Denise replied:

"Oh, as I always say in fostering, 'I'll miss that bridge when I come to it."

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IN FOSTERING IT'S ALWAYS "ONWARDS AND UPWARDS"

 I've been fostering a transitioning child for several months now, she's becoming female having been identified at birth as male.

Her new name is Alicia.

Alicia has a couple of friends at her school who are on the same journey as her, and they spend time together. She tells me she and her friends are also included in other friendship groups, and that none of the pupils give them any trouble.

Kids today seem wonderfully cool about the whole thing.

No, it's some of the adults they have to deal with who often upset them.

There's one lady who works behind the counter in the convenience store used by many pupils to pick up a can of something or a bag of crisps.

I dare some some of them will try to buy a vape or even a tin of cider; kids will be kids.

Anyhoo, I'm getting the impression from Alicia that this particular woman behind the counter sees part of her job as policing the world against the threats posed by the young. You know the sort of adult; she's bossy about them queueing in a single line even those who aren't buying anything but merely accompanying a friend. There's no law against that, but she invokes one, apparently shouting that a 'scrum is what shoplifters want'.  Alicia is afraid she'll make a rude remark.

Another example, there's one bus driver who examines their ID with intense scrutiny making them wait and feel uncomfortable, clearly hoping to discover it's fake, or expired. He's rumoured to have 'found' a fake card once and ostentatiously cut it up with a pair of scissors on his milti-tool that was probably carried around for just that reason.

Alicia has a bus ID card, but the image on it of her is different from how she looks now. So she never uses it. She's so self conscious about her status that she won't risk it for fear of anyone questioning her.

Which is no business of anyone else, but some adults seem to think they owe it to their forebears to go to war for what they see as good old-fashioned values. Which appear to include giving young people a hard time.

Alicia walks to and from school.

And it's not only the foot soldiers of the world who have lost the battle to be caring.

Unbelievably there are not one but three teachers at her school who are said to quietly make sure that Alicia knows that she is really a boy.

I've actually met one of them. When I say 'met' I mean it was a Parents evening via Zoom, and the teacher began by say "I wouldn't say he's doing well, he tends to be rather lazy and…"

He tapered off. Then he continued with a theatrical "I'm sorry…I keep forgetting…it's 'she' isn't it?". 

The whole petty little moment was deliberately aimed at letting me know what he thought. I found myself staring at a man who wanted, more than anything else, for me to feel impressed by his noble dismissal of something he was too lazy to learn about…

Ironic really, him going on about Alicia being lazy.

And an uphill battle for the likes of Alicia.

She doesn't pose any threat to anybody, merely hopes to live her life being the person she is certain she is.

When I first came into fostering I never thought I'd be working with a child on such a courageous project, but I am, and loving it.

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"DO YOU GET A SAY IN THE CHILDREN YOU GET?"

 A neighbour and I got chatting in the street a couple of days ago.

She lives several  doors down from me,  I've said "Good morning" to her for years, without getting to know her, so it came as a surprise to her as we chatted for her to discover that I fostered.

It reminded me how seldom I raise the subject in conversation.

I noticed her mind working. Sometimes people change the subject instantly, hoping to steer the conversation away from fostering rather than risk feeling that they ought to think about doing it themselves.

This lady asked;

"In fostering, do you get any say in what sort of children you look after?"

GREAT question. For two reasons; one; it gave me a chance to explain the issue to her and  touch on it here, with you, on the blog. And two; it might mean that she's interested in fostering.

I replied like this; "I work with a fostering agency called Blue Sky. When a local authority ("LA") takes a child into care the LA informs Blue Sky they're looking for a foster family, and Blue Sky sit down and go through their book of carers looking for what they call "a match".

A good match means that the foster carers would be right for the child, and the child would be right for the foster carers.

If, at the beginning of one's career in fostering, a new carer tells Blue Sky they'd be more confident with teenagers or toddlers, then that's duly noted. Ditto any and every other relevant detail about the areas of preference and skills the carers want to play to.

The reason Blue Sky go to great lengths to get a good match is simple; they want every placement to work. 

In my case, when we resumed our fostering after a break to focus on our newborns, we believed we were big enough and wise enough to take on any child who needed a foster home. We've never said no to any child, and have no regrets. There have been times when we were stretched, but what do you expect? The rewards are both massive and intangible, by which I mean you get a rush of wellbeing every so often, and a sense that you're not wasting your time down here.

I reassured the neighbour that if a placement became too much Blue Sky would dive in to help, and if necessary look at alternatives for the child. Similarly, foster carers can take a break between placements to recharge their batteries.

I also told her that sometimes the quest to get the right match works against carers.

Sometimes the LA decides that a better match for the child and their carers would be elsewhere, not yourself.

Blue Sky always make sure their carers realise that the reasons the LA places a child elsewhere is no reflection on the carers. It's usually down to things such as geography. For example; if a child needs to stay at the same school, it wouldn't work if the school run was too long and complicated.

We got a phone call from Blue Sky one time asking if we'd consider taking two boys who'd been sent to the UK by their family to escape the war where they lived. The boys spoke no English, needed a special diet, and also a room to allow then to pray daily.

We said yes.

I Googled their language and started learning key phrases to help them feel accepted. I Googled and found a shop about 15 miles away that sold the food they needed, and another outlet that could provide the right mat and other items they needed for prayer.

We were getting excited.

Then; a phone call from Blue Sky:

"We're sorry to have to tell you that they won't be coming to you. The LA have found a foster family living in the UK who are from the same country as the boys, and have decided they'd be better off with them.

We were disappointed, but it was obviously for the better.

Whenever I've said "Yes" to a child who ends up elsewhere I always feel a bit sad. Blue Sky provide as much background information as they can if a child, might be heading your way and I've ended up half-knowing the child. So there's a slight sense of loss.

Not only that, I think about them from time to time and hope things turned out OK.

Next time I see my neighbouir I'm going to find a way to bring up fostering.

Our children need all the help they can get.

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MUM, D'YOU WANT A PARACETAMOL?

 Children coming into care have often had to teach themselves self-preservation.

I'll tell you about a dear, sad child we looked after, in a moment.

They often have had to learn to get by without enough love, support and care. Sometimes without even adequate food and drink.

We once took in a child who, aged five, had been left alone in the house all day with only a dog for company. The child had been told to put down a bowl of dog food around midday. The child was so hungy she routinely ate some of the dog food. True.

Now, when I say "self-preservation" I'm mainly thinking about the skills a neglected child develops when it's a case of "needs must".

I've learned of a golden trait in many kids whose parents have let them down, it's this;

They bear no resentment, point no finger of guilt, in fact, they don't merely forgive, they continue to love the adults in question. And it goes further than that; they believe that their treatment was somehow justified and that their family home spiralled downwards because of them; the children.

So get this; they want to make up to their parents for the trouble they think they've caused them. 

Painfully, they want to demonstrate to their parents that they are worthy and that they can be loved.

Talk about turning the other cheek, these poor kids are in many ways not only truly holier than thou, but as holy as anyone who's ever declared themselves holy.

Molly arrived in our home aged 7. It's an age where the looked-after child has a growing emotional strength yet still nurtures a massive vulnerablity.

She was shy at first, very respectful. As is almost always the case, once she learned to trust us she began to come out of her shell.

By "Out of her shell" I mean she began to push her luck. Gently at first, then came the inevitable bedtime moment when she tried her luck at saying "No".

We worked it out, the dialogue was reasoned and intially unsuccessful, but we stuck to our guns; the telly was turned off, and I think I remember agreeing to a half-hour extra screen time provided she went up pronto.

We have all the parental controls, and if we have to, I turn the router off. 

I win!

So does she.

Molly went for it, as the deal included crisps and a can of Fanta.

The following morning was a Sunday, Molly came down empowered by how she percieved the previous evening's negotiations.

I asked how she was, she shrugged and said "Alright."

Then she asked me how I was!

I told her the truth;

"I've got a bit of a headache, I'm hoping it doesn't turn into a migraine."

Molly was momentarily nonplussed to be having a one-on-one with her foster mum.

I said something like;

"It can happen for no reason with women about my age."

Molly was gobsmacked. I watched her process the intimacy, the engagement  that was mushrooming.

She drerw on her experience, and her need to support her parent figures. She said something like;

"Do you want a paracetamol?"

I can't remember Molly's exact words, but I am certain I remember that she suggested some medication but most of all being kind and supportive, to her substitute mum.

Good moment. 

ps even if I'd said yes she couldn't have fetch me a paracetamol, medicines are all locked away. It was the thought.

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