CONTACT JOY

So we had a strange 'contact' meeting between eldest foster child and a couple of members of his real family.

We had to do it outdoors, so we met up in a park. 

We had to keep our distance so we laid out cushions on blankets 2 metres apart.

We brought some snacks, still in their wrappers, which we sprayed with anti-bacteria and wiped dry as we handed them round.

Sounds like a nightmare? Yes, but it wasn't. It was delightful. 

Much better than normal contact meetings. Normal contact meetings between 'children in care and their significant others' are just as sterile as they sound, described like that…

They happen in contact centres which are either designated buildings or rented spaces with token chairs and used toys and posters blue tacked to the wall informing about the services that social services offer. Or else they get jazzed up by happening at a 'fun' venue such as one of those places with thousands of balls you can dive into.

One way or the other, contacts are artificial. The participants often feel singled out as different from everyone else; because only children in care have 'contact'.

Our meet-up in the park was gloriously the same as everyone else. We didn't stand out at all. No-one would have guessed it was anything other than an extended family having fun and behaving responsibly. I've never heard a better natter between a foster child and his elder sister, they bonded better than I ever thought possible;

"Heard from mum?"

"Nothing. Does anyone know where she is?"

"Nah, you know what she's like."

"I kind of hope she's alright."

"Yeah, I suppose. You alright?"

"Yeah not bad. How's school?"

"Good. I like working at home. How's work?"

"Good thanks, except I have to work every other weekend.."

And so on and so on. Beautiful. 

Then we played a socially distanced game of cricket. Brilliant.

When we got home eldest foster child was happy as could be.

The pandemic is dreadful, spreading death and illness, fear and mistrust. 

All I'm saying is that our last contact was one of the best ever, should be a blueprint for a happier healthier future.

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FOSTERING AND KEEPING SECRETS

"If I tell you something do you promise not to tell anyone?"

Anyone who fosters knows those words well.

The guidelines for us carers are very clear. We must never agree to keep a secret told us by a looked-after child, because the child may reveal something that the carer is bound to report. 

What's more, there is one thing even more dangerous than agreeing to keep the offer of a secret, and that's going hunting for one.

The temptation is always to try to get the child to disclose whatever is on their mind. You think to yourself: "It must be important, if only to the child, and if they trust me above any other adult at this moment, then my bond with them is valuable to their chances of dealing with being in care. They need an adult they can rely on, someone they can trust. They've chosen me!"

The temptation is very strong.

You have to resist, resist, resist. If you make any contract you can't keep, you're on thin ice with looked-after children.

Your natural human curiosity looms large. In every walk of life; marriage, family, work, Eastenders, you name it, there is no more show-stopping question than "Do you want to know a secret?"

I had a teenage boy placed with us for several weeks, he'd been removed from his foster carer. An allegation had come to light that he'd made an inappropriate advance to a visiting underaged girl, a relative of the carer. The carer was distraught, she was a fantastic woman, been fostering for ten years, gold standard. She told me on the phone she'd dropped her guard for what seemed like a moment, and allowed them to play together, alone, in another part of the house from where the adults were; she could not say what had gone on. Could not say one way or another if she even knew whether they'd closed the door behind them. The police had been called in. The boy could end up with a lifelong demerit against his name on some register or list or another which every employer, every organisation which works with children would have to be aware of. Nightmare.

When you get the phone call asking if you would take a child, Blue Sky tell you everything you need to know to make your mind up. They even tell you what are the things they can't tell you because they themselves don't know. In this case, they couldn't tell us whether the boy represented any risk, because the inquiry into the allegations had only just begun, and would take several weeks. They never, ever, withhold anything they know that a carer needs to know. 

Likewise, the carer passes on to Blue Sky everything they discover that may be significant; which is actually a relief for carers because trained professionals end up with the responsibility of deciding what to do with the information. It's a two way street. No secrets.

The boy went back to his carer, no charges were made. In the whole time he was with us he never mentioned his predicament once, not at all. He was charming, kind, helpful round the house, a credit to himself and his wonderful carer. Countless times when he was drinking tea with me or de-fragmenting my laptop on the kitchen table for me, I sensed he wanted to talk. I wanted to help him, if only by listening.

Looking back I don't know how I resisted asking him what had happened. Well, actually, I think I do. If I had asked; "What happened that got you into this mess?" I would have had to preface it by saying "Before you answer, I must make it clear that anything you tell me may have to be written down and passed on to the appropriate bodies". 

That's a conversation killer alright.

Did it cross my mind to say to him; "Look, I know how difficult this must be for you, sometimes the best thing when we're upset or frightened is to talk. Just between us and these four walls." 

Yes, of course. I'm a foster carer, I care. I'm a human being too, with a need to reach other people, especially vulnerable ones. Listening is a great way to heal.

Plus, to be brutally honest with myself, I'm nosey. I crave all the details of other people's lives, especially the interesting bits, the hot gossip, the salacious titbits.

But when it comes to foster children; Resist, resist, resist.

If they blurt out something that you may have to pass on, what I have done in the past is say something like "Thank you for sharing that, as your foster carer it's my job to let my social worker know about what you've said, but don't worry, you haven't done anything wrong, in fact by talking about it you have helped put things right, so please talk to me again if you need to, and remember that all the people who want to help you and everyone you care about will be able to do that better thanks to you."

Although it always comes out sounding a bit like the Terms and Conditions pages of a contract, when really what you want to do is go "You poor little guy, gimme a hug!"

Come to think of it, "Terms and Conditions" is good way of looking at it, after all T+C and TLC are side by side in the fostering dictionary of abbreviations.

Having said all that, secrecy has it's merits sometimes...

Secret Foster Carer

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Fostering and Holidays

IT'S midwinter, which means that any day now we’re going to start getting bombarded with holiday advertisements. They usually leave it until about the middle of the afternoon on Christmas Day, then suddenly TV commercials start popping up alongside all the ones for Sales and keep fit products. Lovely images of golden beaches, or a handsome loving couple sitting in an exotic restaurant on board a cruise liner.

HOLIDAYS are interesting things every time, but when you’re fostering they take on a huge new significance.

BEFORE fostering, the biggest significance of the holiday used to be when you had to decide whether you and your new partner are solid enough to go away together. If you met him after you booked a singles holiday with your pals should you invite him along? Is it practical? 

IF you decide to go on holiday together it’s seen as taking your relationship to a new level, almost like buying a ring. If your relationship has been a bit up and down, but the holiday is booked, your friends will say that the fortnight will be “make or break”.

HOLIDAYS, when you’re fostering, have the same sort of impact on your family and your placements.

FOR a start, it’s risky planning ahead, or at least, it’s complicated. Who hasn’t kept putting off booking their holiday because, quite simply, you don’t know how many of you it will be?

WHEN foster carers accept a new placement, the job is to begin forming an attachment-based relationship with a young person, whilst simultaneously working to prepare them for successfully going home.

AFTER a short while, I find, you get a bead on the child’s situation, and say to yourself, for example “There’s no way s/he is going to be able to go home for months, at least that’s how it seems to me, having got to know the family through turning up at Contact”. You run it past your social worker and they lay out all the processes such as reviews, or court proceedings or whatever. 

WE once had a teenager stay with us for three weeks, the reason being his permanent foster carers liked to go on holiday without him. 

SOUNDS harsh, but that seemed to be it in a nutshell. Actually his carers were very fond of him, and he liked and respected them. But he was a teenager, and a cottage in the south of France is no place for a streetwise young man to while away lazy days reading a book before strolling to the bistro. He was far too polite to say so, but the prospect of being shacked up with a middle-aged couple probably filled him with one of the big teenagers dread fears, namely boredom.

SO he shacked up with another middle-aged couple (ourselves), stayed out late every night, then stayed awake till dawn listening to music and nipping out the back for a rollup (approved by his SW – he was old enough and it was normal baccy) every hour or so. 

HE had a fascinating quirk. You know those big spiders that come out in the house during the night? Apparently they are looking for a drink, which is why sometimes they end up in the bath, if you have a dripping tap. This lad would spot a spider scurrying across the carpet, and put a drinking glass over it. Then he’d write a note about the incident, and place the note next to the glass prison, with an arrow pointing to it. He’d use block capitals to write things like:

“QUARTER PAST FOUR THIS MORNING CAME OUT FROM UNDER THE SOFA RUNNING TOWARDS THE DOOR LIKE THERE WAS A FIRE SAME ONE AS LAST NIGHT I THINK SAME SIZE AND DEFINITELY GOT THE SAME WALK BIT ARROGANT YES?”

ONE morning we came downstairs and there were three glasses on the floor each with a prisoner inside sitting awaiting their fate. I’m a bit arachnophobic, so Bill let them out in the garden.

IT told us a lot about how the lad perceived his life in care. The spiders were captive in a glass prison, their fate to be determined by someone else, reports written about them, judgements passed about them, suspicions harboured about possible wrongdoing.

THAT'S one of the many fascinating aspects of fostering, you get to be an amateur psychologist all day long, which is rich, but tiring.

ANOTHER reason why foster carers need their holiday.

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Fostering and 'snooping'

WHEN Blue Sky asked me to become the new Secret Foster Carer, one of the things that worried me was that I’d say things that would come out wrong and that I’d end up making myself sound like a bad carer or parent. 

THE thing I want to talk a bit about here could easily be misconstrued, because it’s in the news a lot, and is universally deemed a bad thing. It’s SNOOPING. 

THE sneaky stuff that journalists  do, or governments, might be right or might be wrong, they are trying to get stories or control. As parents, we just want to know our kids are okay.

AS a parent, you can never be sure exactly what your children are thinking. Well, I’m speaking for myself here, maybe some parents do. Or kid themselves they do. Children say things, behave a certain way, or go round with a look on their face.

SO you ask outright, what’s up?

IT'S hard to pick the right moment to ask what’s up. I have a friend who fosters who says she sets aside 15 minutes every day to sit her children down and have a chat one-to-one. She says that sometimes it’s a straightforward catch-up, occasionally it’s a heart to heart. It’s not something I do, or have tried, because it strikes me as being a bit forced and anyway I don’t think “meetings” have a place in families, except when there’s an actual crisis.

PLUS it could easily turn into a bit of a pressure for the children, having to report to the kitchen after school every day. I prefer to rely on my antenna. Stay on my toes to pick up clues. Watch and listen, without them knowing, so they don’t feel like they’re being scrutinised.

THEN there’s the simple fact that I’m not organised enough to have a schedule which is built around a daily face-to-face.

THERE’S no point asking “Are you okay?” or “Is there something on your mind?”. You might as well ask them what the weather will be like at the weekend or how much baking powder goes into an 8 inch chocolate cake. They don’t know.

I went to a useful training session which touched on emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence is how good you are at understanding the different moods people have. Basically, we learned that a person gets some information, which may have come from outside or inside their brain, the information gives them a feeling, the feeling turns into an emotion which turns into behaviour. 

SO for example, supposing you see a little old lady in the street with one of those whicker shopping baskets on wheels and it reminds you of your dead nan. Sometimes you consciously think to yourself “That reminds me of nan” Sometimes you don’t even know your brain has made the connection. What might happen next is that you get a feeling which might be really warm and lovely (if all or most of your memories of your nan are wonderful) or else the feeling might be uncomfortable or bleak (if nan was one of those people who couldn’t do affection, or maybe you feel a bit angry or negative that she died).

SUDDENLY you feel either happy or sad. Or a bit of both. Then when your child asks for some sweets, you find yourself either buying them more sweets than normal, or snapping that they shouldn’t always be asking for sweets.

THE main thing is that it’s hard to read ourselves, let alone someone else. If adults who have been trained in emotional intelligence can’t work out why they are feeling up or down, how can we expect children to? Hard enough with your own children, never mind about foster children, whose past is largely a mystery.

I find that if you stay on your toes they’ll give you information about themselves which helps you make a picture of what’s going on for them. I like to watch mine when they are playing, whether it’s on their own, with others in the house, or with friends in the playground or at parties. 

IF they use a phone to speak to a friend or a family member, you hear a side to them that they never show you otherwise, and with foster children, if they are going through a rough time it’s more likely to be friends and family that’s upsetting them, but they don’t want you to interfere.

THEN sometimes, this happens, well to me anyway.

THEY are sitting in the back of the car, and they just open right up to each other. Or they are playing in the front room and you walk past the half open door. Your own child and your foster child start a conversation.  So you are basically snooping, no two ways about it. 

THERE are limits to snooping. As a foster carer you have to speak with your social worker if you have worries about what they are up to in private on their phone or laptop before you steam in and do a secret check on their history or their messaging. If they advise you to do what a responsible parent would do in order to protect a child in the home, then that’s what you do, but it’s not what I’m talking about.

I’M talking about picking up clues to how your child is getting on from moments when they’re not aware you’re switched on. 

BILL has told me down our years together that he can always tell when I’m a bit stressy because I start humming a weird song called “The Raggle Taggle Gypsies”. I learned it at Primary School when we were taught it from a BBC radio programme called Singing Together with William Appleby. 

BILL knows I’m on edge so he acts accordingly; he either keeps out of my way, gives me a cuddle or tells me to put a sock in it depending on how he feels.

WE all do a bit of snooping, or maybe it’s just staying alert, and if our heart’s in the right place it’s a good thing, and it works.

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Working with social workers

I’M writing today’s blog drinking a mug of tea, but it’s not my “Best Mum In The World” mug. That mug has been put away out of sight. It was my Social Worker’s idea to hide it.

LET me have a word about what I think about Social Workers. They are a fact of life in fostering. You get a Social Worker attached to you by Blue Sky. They work for Blue Sky and their job is to look after you, help you foster as best you can. They’re always on the end of the phone or email, and they visit as often as is right, usually at least once a month for “Supervision” although I like to call it “Catch Up”. They want to hear about your problems, and there’s nothing better than having a good old whinge knowing the person listening is actually interested and sympathetic. But  if there are things going really well, you must remember to tell them about those as well.

 

IF a child comes to you for fostering, the child has a Social Worker of their own, which the child’s local Social services provide. That Social Worker’s job is to look after the child’s interests. If the child has a problem at school, or isn’t eating well, the first thing you do is let the child’s Social Worker know. Then you tell your Blue Sky Social Worker. Often the two of them will try to sort the problem out together.

 

NO shortage of backup then.

 

TO be really honest, when I started fostering, my first thought was “Oh Good! Loads of backup. Phew!”  But for some reason, probably human nature, I got a bit angsty with being in the spotlight. I got defensive about things I was advised I could do better, and then got frustrated that the things I was suggested didn’t have instant results. To be really, really honest, that was the time we talked about whether we had what it takes.

 

I’M so glad we stuck at it and worked out all those worries, because fostering is as hard as it’s rewarding.

 

WHAT we’ve identified, “Bill” and I, is that foster children often struggle with being told anything if it feels like authority. And so do we, Bill and I, to a lesser extent. This probably goes back to our time at school, and in my case working at a place where I had an unpleasant supervisor for many years. Being in any kind of situation where somebody is judging me, or telling me what to do makes me uneasy about old experiences.  I went to a very useful training session about this, it’s called “Triggers”. Sometimes you get a feeling  for no apparent reason, it’s been “triggered” by something deep down. A song in the radio might remind you of an old love affair, or someone looking at you over the top of their glasses might remind you of a horrible person. The thing is you often aren’t aware of it.

 

WHEN my Blue Sky Social Worker comes round we’ve agreed to call it “Catch Up” because the word “Supervision” doesn’t go down well with me.

 

IT’S also the reason my “Best Mum In The World” mug is hidden away. My foster child, first or second day after arriving with a lot of anger, said “My mum’s got a mug with that on it.” I mentioned this to my Social Worker, who suggested I try keeping it out of sight. The child’s mum had not given the love a mum should, if I can put it like that.

 

DID it help the child? Probably, a bit. But it’s one of those things you don’t discuss with the child, because talking about home life is usually a trigger in itself. It was worth doing just in case.

 

SO on the whole, having your own Social Worker is gold. You get someone who is a family priest one minute, then an IT specialist, then a psychiatrist, a lawyer, a doctor, and educationalist. The list goes on.

 

AND a friend too, in fact, one of my ex’s (ex-Social Workers) came round for coffee last time she was passing. She wanted to know how things are going for us because she’s interested, and, without wishing to get gushy, she cares.

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Be Prepared

I found there are many things you have to get used to when you start fostering, such as being at the ready at any time to get a phone call asking if you can take a child who might turn up within a couple of hours. Blue Sky advise you to keep a few things at the ready, such as some T shirts and track suit trousers of varying sizes because sometimes the child has only the clothes they’re standing up in. Cans of baked beans, a spare toothbrush. And the spare bed all ready made up with clean sheets, obviously.

ONE thing that I found took a bit of getting used to at first was training. Foster Carers are offered training sessions which happen at the Blue Sky office closest to where you live, about every few weeks or so.

YOU log on to the “Carers” section on the website and it gives you a timetable of the sessions that are planned, and a description of what they are about. The “Carers” section is private and you are given a password to get into it.

ONE or two of the training sessions are mandatory, things that you have to know or be refreshed about, such as First Aid, which makes sense obviously.

FIRST AID has to be taken every 3 years, it was the first training session I attended after being approved, and it was run by people from St Johns Ambulance. It was interesting and useful, for example I thought mouth-to-mouth was the thing to do if someone has stopped breathing but it turns out that they prefer you to concentrate on pumping the heart, while giving mouth-to-mouth at the same time. You get to practice resuscitation on dummies of children of different ages which is also useful. With an adult you press down on the chest with both hands and your body weight. With an infant you just use the tips of your first two fingers.

BUT the thing I found I had to overcome with training was the feeling of going back to school. I don’t care what anyone says, no-one really liked school. I didn’t, my children don’t, none of the foster children I’ve had would rather go to school than not go to school. So going “back to school” calls for a big breath, but it’s well worth the effort.

WHEN I started going to Foster Training I remembered that the only time I’d been in a class since leaving school was when I signed up to do an eight week Aromatherapy course at our local FE College, and I found myself getting worried about being late, sounding stupid if I answered questions wrongly, or getting into trouble if I shared a joke with the person next to me.

A while ago I was late arriving at A Blue Sky training session being run by a retired police officer. I was nearly twenty minutes late. I listened through the door and could hear a loud, confident male voice in full flow, but I managed to knock (feebly) on the door, and open it enough to look in.

HE said “Hello! Welcome. Thank you for coming, please come in, let me find you a seat. You haven’t missed a great deal. If you like I’ll go over my introduction with you when we break for coffee.”

SO. Not like school at all!

WELL, there is one aspect that’s a bit like school, making friends. When you break for coffee during training sessions, that’s when you find yourself bonding, because everyone is in the same boat, and has plenty to talk about, and you find yourself swapping phone numbers or even arranging to meet up for coffee at one of your houses.

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Multitasking at Teatime

THIS morning I was awake early, and as usual I was thinking about jobs. Sometimes I can't really imagine what people think about if it's not the jobs they have to do. It's actually quite a comfort to have a tick list in your head all day, with the things you've got done crossed off, and the next things to be done lined up. Yesterday it was time to cook tea and the table has to be cleared of opened mail and homework stuff and ripped up packaging from the headphones that came in the post but aren't right so will have to be sent back and someone will have to monitor to make sure that the payment is refunded because the website said you could and we do want a refund because we want a different pair now anyway from a different website so instead of throwing the packaging away I'm examining it to see if the rips are small enough to re-use the packaging and already you're behind in your jobs.

AND you start a pan boiling for the potatoes and at the same time get a tea towel off the hook to clear the draining board of upturned cups and spoons and cereal bowls, only you pick up one of the cups and notice tea stains near the top and it needs a proper scrub so it goes back in the dry sink and you notice there are two other cups in the sink and you need to have a word again about people not washing up after themselves.

YOU get five potatoes out of the bag, then an extra one to be on the safe side, hunt the potato peeler out of the drawer, and start scraping them, something you find you do furiously fast for some reason. You fetch the packet of sausages from the fridge.

THEN your foster child comes down and plonks on a chair at the kitchen table, funny how children are drawn to a kitchen once cooking starts. She says she needs a new phone, and you have to show some interest while getting the sausages out of the wrapper without touching them or you have to wash your hands and she's explaining that her phone is crap and that the screen is cracked, and you wonder if she did it accidentally on purpose to get a new one but don't ask while getting out the scissors to separate the sausages and simultaneously rub the tea stains off the cups in the sink and put them on the draining board.

YOU hear your foster child murmur; “Guess what?” and you have to reply “What?” and she says “I got detention Monday”. And you go to the freezer to get a bag of sweetcorn and there's not enough in the bag so it's going to be peas. Or maybe beans. You say “Oh no! What for?” and she replies “Nothing.”  You find your frying pan among the other pans and go to the larder for the sunflower oil because you need a drop in there to stop them sticking, and as you put the plastic bottle of oil in the larder you make a mental note you'll need to buy some more before the end of the week, you wonder how to follow up the detention thing without stressing her out.

SO you run the scissors under a tap while and stick them back in the drawer thinking they've probably still got sausage on them but people can take their chances. Then as you're getting four plates out and four lots of knives and forks you say “What are you supposed to have done then?” in your best casual voice.

YOU check the potatoes which are boiling hard but you don't want mash because someone doesn’t eat mash, you’re lucky they eat boiled, so you have to stay with the potatoes. You get a medium saucepan out of the cupboard and flick on the kettle to get some hot water for the peas. You mentally rehearse how to apologise it’s peas not sweetcorn. 

“I was wondering what you're supposed to have done then?”, as I pour probably a few too many peas into the pan and notice the kettle has gone “Phhhhhht” because it hardly had any water in it when I switched it on. So you cross to the sink to fill it up halfway and hear “I don't know do I?”

SO the kettle is boiling, the potatoes and the sausages are away, you have a moment so you go over and sit down and say “Is there anything I can do?” and you hear, “You can get Stephanie Whatsername and her lot off my back. And Mrs Munroe.”  So you sigh and say your “oh dears” and put a hand on a shoulder and now she's crying, or at least there are some tears. Anger? Fear? Or because you're being kind?

YOU have to get up to check the potatoes, turn them down, and flip the sausages, which suggests you aren't 100% focussed, so you say something to show you're in the moment; “ Were they being not very nice then?”

BUT it's like you've been rude by getting up and she says “Who cares?!” and you leave the food and sit down again to show she is more important than cooking and she knows she's kind of pushing you to ruin the meal and you want to say let's talk later but that isn't right so you say “I'll just turn everything down” so you do and come back. And it turns out there was a fight and she's on a warning for exclusion.

EXCLUSION. This happens to lots of kids not just foster children. What do you do when it's your own kids? You call the school and ask for the facts. You decide to do that in the morning, but don't say so. You have to think of a distraction.

YOU say “Have you chosen a phone you want?”

“Yes”

“What's it like?”

“It's a G4 Spukii Android phablet, do you know the one I mean? Like I saw on Hollyoaks dunno how they do that ‘cos they only came out two weeks ago and my mum says soaps are recorded six weeks ahead or something.”

“Is Jasmine still going out with that Brandon?”

“You what?”

“In Hollyoaks.”

“That's not Hollyoaks.”

“Waterloo St?”

“It's Waterloo Road”

PANIC over. I learned all this changing-the-subject technique at training.  What's more, I caught the potatoes before they fell apart, and the sausages were okay too, though I've never had a sausage sent back yet. 

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