One of the big challenges in fostering is saying goodbye to a child who's been with you for some time.
It ought to be an unmitigated joy because it means you've played your part in helping rebuild the life of a distressed child and worked alongside all the other services to get the family back together.
In fact, I was advised when I first started fostering that the name of the game is to get them home again.
But Rome rarely gets built in a day, and sometimes the building blocks of getting a chaotic family back on their feet take an a while to get set up and tested.
However it's a triumph that's coloured by an impending sense that one is losing someone.
You know you'll miss them and their quirky ways.
The thing that makes it even harder is that one has to largely put them behind you. Oh, for sure there are ways of keeping track of a child's progress once they're back at their real home, but it's something that has to be done advisedly by working with your social workers to ensure that your motives are the child's welfare; I don't believe that natural curiosity is quite enough to merit monitoring them from a distance.
Sometimes social media helps; they might have agreed to sign you up to their FB account.
My approach is to talk to my Blue Sky social worker about my feelings; they are trained to be alert to these human reactions in foster carers and know how to help.
For example, I'm reminded of the importance of preparing the now-empty bedroom for the next occupant. One never quite knows the age or gender of your next child so I keep the bedrooms we use for fostering neutral. I give the room a deep clean and check safety things such as guards on the blind cords and electric plug guards. I stock up on the food that is almost guaranteed to be welcomed by a new child - who might arrive in the middle of the night frightened and hungry. A bag of pasta last an age as does a jar of pasta sauce. Biscuits and crisps ditto. I make sure I've got spare toothbrushes plus my fallback wardrobe of three sizes of clean dressing gowns and assorted (freshly laundered) children's clothes.
And, as I go about gearing up for my next arrival, I find the pleasant pain of missing the departed child is replaced by optimism about our next child.
Pretty soon my phone will ring with Blue Sky's Placement team asking "Would you be willing to consider taking a child who…"
And we're off again!
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