I've held off telling about our latest fostering episode until the dust settled.
Our most recent placement has left us.
He/she was a treasure in our family. A young trans person; an absolute model who all those poor youngsters who are angry or feckless or self-obsessed could learn so much from.
"Alisia" has gone to live with his favourite aunt. I believe it's called something like 'kinship' fostering.
The youngster wanted it, Blue Sky and the local authority made sure it was definitely what the child wanted, and that it would be best for all concerned.
As always, Blue Sky are there for us foster parents first and foremost. Our social worker squeezed us to make sure we weren't going to grieve losing Alicia, which can happen. We were ok. We were pleased for the kid.
Turned out his aunt came forward and offered her home partly as a challenge to her sister (Alicia's real mother) who had been intolerant to the transing. The aunt appears to be a really good egg.
All this happened a few weeks back, and it's gone well.
It means we have a spare bedroom, and Blue Sky said to us:
"Do you fancy another go at Parent and Child?"
We said yes. They walked us through the requirements, we had Zoom meetings with Blue Sky's P+C team, ran the rule over our home's Health and Safety, and now we sit awaiting the phone call "Would you be willing to take a parent and child who…".
The whole thing takes us back to our one and only previous experience of this type of fostering.
It was a long time ago; before we joined Blue Sky.
We were a bit underprepared.
For a start, it was called 'Mother and Baby'. Which was wrong because you can just as easily get a father and toddler!
However, our only P+C placement so far actually was a mother and baby.
The pair of them came and went. But not before we'd tried our hardest to help the mother become a suitable mum.
See, that's not the nitty gritty. The nitty gritty is recording the parent's parenting and providing your reports to social services, Blue Sky, and the parent.
If for example, the parent leaves their baby on the edge of the bed while they go downstairs to make a coffee, you log it, and advise the mother how to do that thing better. What action is taken with an oversight like that is for the professionals. The professionals are reliant on the foster parent's recording to make a judgement on whether the parent will ever be able to look after the child properly.
Talk about a massive responsibility. Mind, Blue Sky have been at pains to stress that one's reports are pure facts.
No opinions or judgement calls.
So. Here we sit, coiled and ready.
PS Just for the record; I'm always hearing that readers like a bit of colour…
The girl who came to us with her second baby, she asked to stay in touch with me, and that was agreed. I don't chat with her on Facebook any more, I let that taper off.
However, with a view to doing P+C again I decided it would be a professional thing to do to check how the mother had got on in life. So I searched her.
She's a full adult now. Still kind of homeless, an inveterate sofa-surfer. Judging from her photoshopped and deeply filtered images she's still active romantically.
I had a gander at her 'family'.
No mention of a partner. Or her mum, who I remember being very hard-hearted. Or her sisters, with whom she had bitter rivalries.
She's all alone.
Except for…her SIX kids.
SIX.
So far, and probably still counting.
No details on the page as to where the kids lived, or with whom.
PPS; the page listed them by name, which of course, I can't pass on. She'd loaded up her children's names in a beautiful italyic font. Somewhere in that gesture was all her love.
Mind, she's probably got seven now.
And probably still counting.
0 comments:
Post a Comment