FATHER'S DAY, MOTHER'S DAY...aaaarrrgh.

Fostering is hard, no argument. Mother's Day and Father's Day, which were no doubt dreamed up with the best will in the world, back in the good old days, when almost every child had a birth mother and father around, are yet another test of our skills.

I seem to remember them as a bit of a test when it was just our own children. 

One of my current children has been rejected by her mother, her father has run off. She told me her biggest fear is ever meeting him again, thereby hangs a tale, and a court case. She has two children of her own, by different fathers. The father of the youngest has vanished, the other father refuses to have anything to do with the mother, but looks after their child because she wasn't able to. He brought that child to her for Contact, on Father's Day. The two of them don't speak, she says she's tried to be polite but he won't have it. The child is obviously aware of their hostility, and was treated to another show of it today. On Father's Day.

My other foster child has no father. At least, nobody knows who it is.

When I say it's a test of our skills, what we do is judge whether we can brush it under the carpet, and if we can, we do. We tell our own children not to bother, or even mention it.

I'm sure they notice the TV ads though.

If a child wants to do something we help them , no problem.

The last school we had a child at, they made the class make "Mother's Day" cards on the Friday before. I don't know the in and out of what happened with our child, but the upshot was she came home with a Mother's Day card on which she'd drawn a picture of our dog, who she loved, and wrote underneath it "Happy Mother's Day", and said to me as I looked at it, "It's because she loves me. And I don't love my mummy. Obviously."

So for her "Mother's Day" is a reminder that a dog gives her more than the woman she calls her mother.

Hallmark and Moonpig do lots of cards don't they? I've never seen one for "Happy Foster Carer's Day".

Wouldn't want one actually.

Every day is Foster Carer's Day, as long as you have a sense of humour.

And every day should be Foster Child's Day too, until their book balances out, if that's ever possible.

The Secret Foster Carer

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I often forget how enormously important food is to foster children.

And then something happens and it hits you right between the eyes.

Last Bank Holiday we took ours to the seaside, and it was a great day. The weather was on our side, there was a sandy beach, and enough wind to buy kites and fly them. Sandcastles were built, followed by trampolining, then paddling. Then we went round the local interactive dinosaur museum. Snatched a bite of lunch at a beach-side cafe, then on to the playground (flying fox, excellent.) From there they had a go on the go-karts, before going on the Pier and spending a few pennies on the amusements.

On the train home, I wrote out one of those tick-box survey things like you get wherever you go, and asked them, just for fun, to mark the day.

I did one too, as did partner. You had to mark in order of what was best (1) down to what was least best (10)

Kites
Trampolines
Sandcastles
Paddling
Dinosaur Museum
Lunch
Flying Fox
Go-Karts
Pier
Walking up the hill back to the Station

My partner and I both had the Go-Karts at number One, followed by the Kites and the Dinosaur Museum.

They all had "Lunch" at number One or number Two. They all had "Walking up the hill" at number Ten, so there'd been no misunderstandings.

It wasn't a fancy lunch. One child ordered children's sausage and chips, another a grilled cheese sandwich. I didn't order anything because I'd guessed there'd be plenty left over for me to pick at. There was.

I wasn't a fancy place. If you wanted a pee you had to get the key from behind the counter.

For a meal like that to beat Go-Karting Trampolining and Dinosaurs...well, you get some idea don't you.

I can hear Mazlow* going "I told you so" from beyond the grave.

The Secret Foster Carer

*Abraham Harold Maslow, as any foster carer who has been to almost any training session knows, was an American psychologist who was best known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Basically he said you need to make sure people (especially children, I think) have their physiological needs first: air, water, food. Shelter, warmth, sleep. 
Go Karts probably somewhere near the top, "Self-Actualisation" maybe. 

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Tweeting, they've asked me to give it a go. I already have a Twitter account of my own, set up for me ages ago by someone I knew who said it was going to be the next big thing. It's a bit like the pasta making machine which came as a Christmas present one year, I owned it but didn't really know what to do with it. Until a foster child found it and had enormous fun squirting bits of dough through the rollers and out the other end. And left me with an almighty mess. 
End of metaphor.

So I'll give it a go. The idea seems to be you can buzz a quick thought out to everyone who knows you, when it comes into your head.

Here's something about Twitter that's just come into my head.

None of my foster children have ever used it.

Am I alone in that? If you're a carer, has any of your children been an avid Tweeter?

I bet not. Wonder why?

They text alright, boy can they text. Beat this: one girl arrived to stay with us, her mobile was always in  her hand. She never spoke into it. Just tap tap tap. She had a deal where £7.99 per month bought her limitless texts. On the third day I asked her how many texts she'd sent since she'd arrived. Answer: 11,200.

They like the messaging services, once they get to middle teens, but we've had to keep an eye on those, because you don't know who they might bump into roaming around the various boards.

The internet, generally, they like, of course, and anything that has wires coming out and/or a screen, foster children love it. Thinking about it, they generally don't do email either; they seem to think it's had its day.

But definitely they don't do Twitter. Maybe it's something to do with the fact you need to have to be a bit of show-off to do Twitter, because you're kind of performing to a kind of audience. You have to be concise too (147 characters or something like that), and they'd rather ramble on. Actually no, their texts are very spare, so that's not it.

Ah, maybe it's that Twitter is public. It has no intimacy, no sense of one-on-one, not in its mainstream form.

Not clandestine, not secret. Quite the opposite.

And like I say, Twitter is for people who think they are a bit important. Not a thing for kids with low-self esteem, and who maybe have learned the safest thing in life is to be seen and not heard. Well, probably to be not even seen.

Anyway, it's 3.00am, and the sleepover in the next bedroom is still going on. 

"Sleepovers" that's a laugh. "Stayawakeovers" I call them in our house.

Right, that's it, I'm going in there and saying "Time to be quiet now, and no more turning on the light."

I'll Tweet it too, it's less than 147 characters.

The Secret Foster Carer

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Little Fostering Moment

One of our foster children is a permanent placement.

Poor child, she can never go home. Has no home to go to, no family. Nobody.

She's facing up to being alone in this world, yet she's barely tall enough to be allowed on the flume slide at the swimming pool.

Alone and angry.

Probably terrified beyond imagination, but she bottles up the fear.

Doesn't bottle up the anger, lets it out, mainly at me, for some reason.

Been with us nearly two years now. 

Always given me the cold shoulder. Routinely rude. Bit cruel sometimes. Only to me, not the rest of the family, charming to them. Won't hold my hand even to cross the road, gives me the brush off if I rest a hand on her shoulder. I've shed the occasional tear about it.

I've managed to keep the kindness going; it's my job.

The child likes to be watched doing things.

Little things such as sitting on the table and hopping off  "Look at me, watch, watch"

One evening this week she was on the sofa playing a game called Minecraft on the Kindle, and I was required to watch.

Sit next to her and watch, watch, watch.

Try to get the comments right; I mustn't show too much knowledge about Minecraft, she doesn't like that. 

"You're on good form tonight" Is fine.

"It was brilliant the way you climbed up there".

But here's the thing, it's late and I'm tired.

So tired that I'm drifting in and out of sleep, and my comments are starting to get weird and dreamlike.

"You're great at Minecraft... but we're out of milk for the Spanish holiday, bananas and Jeremy Paxman...."

I rambled a few times and she dug me in the ribs to keep me from napping.

Then it happened.

She snapped off the Kindle and leaned towards me. 

"You're tired" she said.

"You should have a nap"

Then she leaned over and gave me a peck. A mini-kiss on my forehead.

On the hairline, where my widows peak is getting noticeable.

I felt like the whole of the great outdoors had been wrapped up and squeezed into a moment, and given to me, to keep.

And I'm filling up, a little bit, tapping at my laptop keys at 5.30am this morning, remembering.

Isn't life grand?

Is there any better way of feeling grand than these little fostering moments?

The Secret Foster Carer

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MY CONTACT CAMPAIGN is starting to work. If you're a foster carer, how are your Contacts going?

A few posts back I talked about a Contact which is really throwing one of my foster children. After carefully logging everything that happens at Contact for over a year, and recording how much disruption the child's family were causing before during and after Contact, I found myself invited to a review. Present were all the usual Social Workers, plus a "high up" from Social Services. In a situation like this, the foster carer is accompanied by their own social worker, in my case a very professional person, and their job is to support the carer and take an overview; help the carer keep perspective and get the balance right between all the different standpoints.

One of the things that happens to us all when we take a view is the danger of the view hardening when someone else puts an alternative. Not only that, I usually find myself arguing more passionately on someone else's behalf than for my own neck.Especially if the person I'm supporting is a child who's had a rough enough time before being taken into care, and is still getting what seems like a raw deal in one or two respects.

I don't know about anyone else, but I can end up frustrated and then a bit cranky. 

Take this bit of the review meeting: one of the child's "significant others" is suspected of colluding with an unknown other person, and committing a crime against myself. Obviously, though it's highly frustrating, I can't give the tiniest details, save to say it's a worry. The police have been working with Social Services to nail the "Perp". (Sorry, I've been watching too much cop TV).

If you're a would-be foster carer, let me tell you straight, something like this is almost  unheard of in fostering, and Blue Sky, social workers, the police, have been fantastic. 

As the discussion about this aspect of the Contact went on, something gradually dawned on me; I was the only person in the room who didn't know the identity of the suspect. Me. I'm the victim and the person working closest with the child at the centre of the case, and I'm being kept out of the loop.

Driving home from the review meeting I found myself having a great time winding myself up. Do you ever do that? Get the whiff of self-righteous indignation in your nostrils and start fuming and plotting all sorts of extravagant activity to right a massive wrong.

Actually, deep down, I knew that, as usual Social Services and the Police were right. A suspect is only a suspect, and as the person is definitely known to Social Services, they need to be involved to help the police get closer to the truth and build a case.

And I did manage to walk away with a reduction in Contact, which was my main hope. By about half actually, which is not bad. Plus it was agreed that the family have to behave during Contact, especially they have to treat the child with affection and respect.

So I suppose, all in all, my campaign is starting to work.

The Secret Foster Carer

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Foster Carers should all re-marry.

We should get married again, those of us that that did (and still are), not that you have to be a pair to foster well.

But if a fostering couple were at some point spliced together in a ceremony, prior to fostering, religious or otherwise, they should re-marry each other all over again with a new set of vows.

I'm serious. My partner and I were talking about actually doing it; re-dedicating our marriage to incorporate  some focus on our new and overarching thing; fostering. But mostly to remind ourselves about our own family.

We married in a church;

"I take thee___________ to be my lawfully wedded wife/husband to have and to hold from this day forward for better for worse, for richer for poorer in sickness and in health to love and cherish til death us do part"

You can download all manner of vows now:

I, (name), take you, (name), to be my partner, loving what I know of you, and trusting what I do not yet know. I eagerly anticipate the chance to grow together, getting to know the (man/woman) you will become, and falling in love a little more every day. I promise to love and cherish you through whatever life may bring us.


I (name), take you (name) to be my (husband/wife), my partner in life and my one true love. I will cherish our union and love you more each day than I did the day before. I will trust you and respect you, laugh with you and cry with you, loving you faithfully through good times and bad, regardless of the obstacles we may face together. I give you my hand, my heart, and my love, from this day forward for as long as we both shall live. 


If we do this thing, my partner and I, and to be truthful I don't know how we'd find time, but if we ever do, the key thing would be to have our own children there. As for foster children; if they are permanent then maybe they're there, that would need some thought. Plenty of wider family and friends around for the hooley afterwards.

It would go something like;

I (name) take you (name) and our children (names) as my lawful, only family. You are each the love of my life and mean everything to me. You are more important and valuable to me than anything or anyone and always will be. Thank you for understanding the life we now live, even though it sometimes hurts or upsets you, more than ordinary family life. I hope you each feel as much warmth as I from who we have become. Many people who are not here, in our past and our future, would also wish to thank you, if only they knew what they owe to you.

The thing is, I think we need to make sure our own children are certain they're up there with us on the fostering, and that they're not simply getting semi-siblings temporarily bolted on to their layer of family.

Then there'd be an Eighties disco, obviously.

The Secret Foster Carer 

ps If you're bothered I'd want "You Are The Wind Beneath My Wings" for the walkdown.

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Fostering and the school

Are schools awake when it comes to our foster children?

It's a worry, because when the bell rings/whistle blows just before nine until they run out to  us waiting at the railings we don't have any first hand knowledge of their day. It's an even bigger gap if they're old enough to travel by themselves, we may not see them for 8 or 9 hours, 5 days a week. What happens to them in that time? Are they getting what they need?

As Foster Carers it's down to us to get them to school no matter how much they don't want to go. And if they are involved in trouble at school, it's up to us to do most of  the damage limitation.

If a school excludes or refuses our foster child, our Social Worker will come alongside and try to set up a solution. But we often wonder how much the school is helping.

These are concerns raised by one of our anonymous contributors to the blog, and I'm grateful to hear how it is for others doing this darned job. The contributor wasn't able to post  much in the way of specifics, to ensure the child's anonymity, and that's the way to go if you're thinking about adding a comment (use the tab at the bottom of each post).

I think there's one key thing to always keep in mind: schools get extra money if they take a foster child. I'm afraid I can't say how much exactly, I suspect it varies and may even be information that foster carers are not considered qualified to know. But it's money that should be spent on our child, not absorbed into the school's general budget and end up as the insurance payment on the mini-bus.

Schools have to pay their way in this day and age, and if a school refuses a child it's worth remembering that they cross off some revenue, and will only do that reluctantly. They will be weighing the loss of funds against the way in which the child is impacting the education of their peers.

I've always found the vast majority of teachers hugely sympathetic towards the looked-after children when talking to us Carers, but a bit confused about whether to single them out for special help or treat them as they would any other child in order to avoid distinction that can generate discrimination.

Most head teachers hope they can help the child, but often end up resigned that the child's presence is too disruptive. They have to be protective of their statistics, which include attendance as well as academic success, so they sometimes set aside an isolated building to house their difficult pupils. A bit like the cooler in The Great Escape.

If there's one thing that always helps,it's the teacher who cares that extra bit. Every school has plenty of them, along with the one or two who don't.

I've mentioned this before but it's worth repeating in a post about schools. I asked to meet a child's Head to discuss her schooling. The Head arrived ten minutes late,didn't apologise and began by listing, in front of the child, her shortcomings. At the top of her list was poor punctuality. Honest. 

We have to keep plugging away at the school, talking to the teacher, the Department Head, the Head Teacher, the pastoral care officer or spiritual guidance liaison coordinator or whoever deals with the tricky children. Even if the worst comes to the worst with the school, the child will know you've been battling for them, and some good will come of that. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but someday soon, and for the rest of their lives.

The Secret Foster Carer

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