A READER ASKS;

A reader asks;

"Can you do a post on what to do to prepare for foster kids? We have an emergency clothing supply, some nappies of various sizes, toys and toiletries. Do we wait until the child arrives before buying things, that way they have some choice and input? What about soft toys and cuddly rugs or comfort blankets? Thank you ❤️ We are doing short term and long term foster care - ages 3-10 yrs."

***

How exciting for you. We all remember those tremendous days and nights when every phone call might be the one with our first placement!

Ages 3-10 are important, can be rewarding and demanding in equal measure, on behalf of everyone, thank you for all you are set to do. You are wonderful!

Sounds like you're well prepared already. It's great to have back-up gear in reserve; but it's worth stressing that in my experience you usually get several hours notice that a child might be heading your way, after all it's your final decision yes or no, and unless it's a middle-of-the-night emergency (very rare), you'll get some background on the child before they arrive and in time for a quick dash to the supermarket if there's anything in particular they like/need.

Tesco superstores are fantastic for foster carers, they're open crazy hours and you can get everything and anything, just about. 

The information you get usually lists the child's food preferences and other key needs. If not you can ask their social worker, they will have some idea. I always find the local authority social workers care beyond words for the child they are bringing into fostering.

The first meal under your roof is a very important occasion. If you can, serve something they are known to like, and if possible put the food in the middle of the table and encourage them to help themselves so they can control the portion size and skip anything they hate.

They usually arrive with some stuff, often in bin liners, which is awful for them. Blue Sky try to make sure this doesn't happen, but chaotic families are often low on luggage...
A few clothes and some toys, hopefully a favourite cuddly toy. Find out, make sure the child has their favourite thingy for bed.

You might not need to merely provide them a toothbrush, you might need to show them how to use it...

Here's one tip of my own I recommend;

We found out a child was coming to us whose story was as bad as we'd ever come across. She liked pasta so I was alright there. We ALWAYS have a spare bag of pasta and a couple of jars of sauce at the back of the larder. She loved dogs, though had never had one. The social worker had spotted her love of a TV cartoon about a dog. Here I got simply lucky; it was a dog that one of my own kids had liked enough to get a cuddly version for Christmas, but it hadn't clicked and joined the horde of other semi-loved soft toys on top of the wardrobe.

I decided I'd square it with my own child later and went and snaffled the toy dog. I parcelled it up in wrapping paper I managed to find and had it sat on the kitchen table on arrival.

I can't express in words how utterly fantastic is the moment a foster child arrives in your home. The anticipation. The phone call goes;
"We'll be with you about four o'clock..." 

And you simply watch the clock as the moments tick by. Your Blue Sky social worker turns up ahead (they like to be there). The car pulls up. The social worker opens the car door and a frazzled youngster gets out, eyes darting at your house. Who lives here? What are they like? Is my life going from bad to worse?

I always drop to the ground to say my first hello to a new foster child eye-to-eye. I wear stockinged feet, because I'm at home, and ask the child to take off their footwear, because it makes a statement; this is now their home too.
And it's a HOME not a house.

I handed the child her present, which I said was to welcome her. She opened it. Her social worker told me later she didn't think the child had ever had a present before. The child looked up at me and asked 'How did you know I like Schznozzle?' 

Oooo! Good question. Don't want to make her feel climbed all over, but want her to know she's among people who will make every effort to be good to her. I went with;
"A little bird told me."

Long story short; I now always wrap something up to give every new child on arrival. Might be nothing more than a box of Heroes. The point is it's THEIRS. To play with/eat/use as THEY want to. A possession. 

They are in a strange house where everyone else seems to own everything, they have no traction, even the stuff they come with is probably hand-me-downs or charity shop seconds. 

That box of Heroes is THEIRS and no-one else's. Not only that, the woman who goes slippered in the house and who bent down to say hello...she WRAPPED IT UP for me.

And you're off on the right foot. 

Don't get thinking there ain't plenty of wrong feet a'coming though. This is fostering after all.

It wouldn't be the joy it is without the hassle. 

So well done yourselves for giving it your best.

A box of Heroes, that's what you are!

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QUESTION FROM A READER

A reader asks if all foster carers are expected to provide respite care especially if they themselves might want respite from a placement.

The short and simple answer is no, never. Not at Blue Sky anyway, not in my experience. Nothing like that at all goes on.

"Respite" care - if you're new to fostering - is where a child will stay with a different foster carer for a short period of time, usually to give the regular carer a break. We had a child stay for an extended weekend because his foster parents were going to a family wedding 200 miles away, staying in a hotel, and wanted to give their relatives their best attention which wouldn't have been possible if the child had gone along. Just as importantly; the child would have felt completely out of it and could have got upset. 

There are loads of reasons why fostering needs carers who are happy to do respite care; maybe the child's foster family booked a family holiday before the child arrived and it's too late to get another seat on the same plane, or maybe the child has a disability and needs a high level of care in which case the carer needs a weekend off from time to time to tend to everything else. 

Some carers love giving respite care and become specialists at it. It's probably not for everyone, which is fine. We've had some great times with it.

We had a child stay with us because his foster family were going off on a winter break and he told his social worker the idea of "knocking around some naff hotel playing ping-pong and bingo" would drive him nuts. Fair enough.

Plus; and I'll not dress this up; some foster children are a handful, especially once they become comfortable in their foster home and trust their carers. People who haven't fostered find it hard to understand that a child waits until they know that their foster parents are decent, fair, kind and loving before they let out the anguish, fear and confusion they have bottled up inside.

That's when your average foster carer (if there is such a thing - in my book every foster carer is spectacular!) investigates whether a break would do everyone some good. It's not a surrender. Sitting down with your Blue Sky social worker and discussing the pros and cons of your foster child spending some time elsewhere is the professional thing to do.

There a big upside to respiting that is worth pointing out. Foster children and their carers usually enjoy what's often called a 'honeymoon' period at the start of the placement. The child is unsure of their new environment and hence are shy, obedient, polite and well behaved. The honeymoon can last a few days or a few weeks, depends on the child. So the benefits are; i) often the foster carers providing respite play host to a child who is a joy to have around ii) the child has to 'self-regulate' during respite in the new home ( a second honeymoon!) and might learn a more even disposition iii) the regular carers might find that the child has grown and matured during respite as a result of having to self-regulate for a period iv) the child might have ended up longing to be back in their regular foster home (not because they don't like the respite family but because they miss the familiarity of their own space, the household routines etc) and are delighted to go 'home'.

As for the question posed by the reader; 'Are carers required to do respite care?' The answer is, as far as Blue Sky goes; absolutely not. I can't speak for other agencies or local authorities, but I know that Blue Sky would never, ever, not for one moment, hold any carer to any kind of ransom deal where foster children are involved for a whole bunch of reasons chief of which is this:

The child is paramount. I know for a rock solid fact that Blue Sky places the welfare of the child above every other consideration and it would never enter the mind of any of their people to even consider compromising the care offered by any carer by making stipulations regarding which child they should take and under what circumstances. 

Children who come into care are usually acutely aware of everything and if a family were asked to take a child against the family's will the child would spot it a mile off and there'd be all sorts of issues.

I would hope with all my heart there are no organisations or authorities out there, anywhere in the world, who would engage in that sort of negotiation.

Having said that, I can understand the concerns of people thinking of becoming a foster carer, and am grateful to the reader for the question, and an opportunity to allay that worry.

BTW; I attended a brilliant training session last week on Life Story work. 'Life Story' is about helping a child make some kind of sense of what has  happened to them. 

During coffee we all agreed it helped us all make sense of our own lives! 

Fantastic!!!

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THE IRRESPONSIBILITY OF THE SECRET FOSTER CARER

I'm sat at the kitchen table, it's early Sunday morning, I'm the only one up. I wake earlier than I used to.

There are lots of ways of feeling old, some good, some not so good.

I'm feeling old in the good way that being in fostering gives you.  Actually, 'old' is the wrong word, a better phrase is 'grown up'. Being grown up is all about accepting responsibility, and when you foster you have the ultimate responsibility; you're looking after someone else's children. 

There's surely no bigger responsibility in everyday life.

We had one lad, 'Mack', stay with us for a 3 week respite for whom responsibility was everything. He was an older teenager who had friends a train ride away and liked to skip college and go hang with them in a park. His social worker hinted that they might be smoking something and we'd noticed a smoky smell on his Parker hanging in the hall.

He was charming, helpful and a delight around the house. So we had a challenge on our hands; whether to raise his absence from college (which was definite) or his smoking (which was less than definite).

What would you do?

Well, after lots of talking to each other we came to the decision that we would respect his quest to be regarded as a grown up and respect his right to make minor mistakes and learn from them (as long as no-one else suffered - which no-one did). After all, he'd only be with us a short time, not, long enough to do any major work.

We related all this to his social worker and our Blue Sky social worker and it was agreed that we confine our worry about missing classes to comments such as; 

"Your tutors'll forget what you look like..."

As for our worry about what he was smoking;

"Mack, do you happen to know if it's legal to use tobacco when you're 17? Just asking..."

One evening he got the very last train home, too late for the last bus so I had to pick him up from the station. We drove back along the High Street and there'd been trouble outside one of the pubs. Two police vans, lights flashing, an ambulance, groups of young men being spoken to by officers on either side of the road. We crawled past. I couldn't help notice how sober, articulate and responsible Mack was as he watched it all.

And dismissive of irresponsibility.

He muttered something like;

"No way you want to end up like that on a Saturday night..."

I don't know where Mack is now, but I'm confident he's alright. He was desperate to leave childhood behind him, as all children are, but for foster children it seems even more important; their childhoods aren't as good as they deserve.

Mack saw beyond drinkin' and smokin' as a badge of maturity.

Mind, on the subject of maturity I'm sitting here at the kitchen table with two feelings; the happy burden of adult responsibility and the heady delight of youthful irresponsibility...

...see, what I haven't mentioned yet is that I'm sat here at first light on Sunday morning finishing last night's curry. I came down for tea with skimmed milk and wholemeal toast and there was a load of it sitting cold in the oven. I remember we'd over-ordered. And d'you you know what makes it taste even better than being matured overnight?

I'll tell you; the zing I'm getting from indulging one's natural urge to be irresponsibly immature from time to time.

There are lots of ways of feeling young, and this is a good 'un!


PS I'm not having any of the rice. That would be irresponsible. 

PPS However. Poppadoms are a satisfyingly naughty breakfast. FACT.

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GOOD THINGS COME IN LITTLE BUNDLES

A neighbour came round last night, a parcel addressed to me had been left with her as I was out when it came.

The parcel was intriguing, I couldn't work out what it was. I'd recently bought a few things on Amazon; a draining rack, some jeans and a pop poster for one of the children. The parcel was a box about the size of an old-fashioned suitcase. It contained masses of screwed up brown paper and...a poster, furled into a thin cylinder.

Packaging has gone mad.

I offered her a cup of tea and we chatted, then after about ten minutes she plucked up courage;

"Actually there is something I wanted to talk to you about..."

Fostering. She was thinking about become a foster parent!

Yippee! She'll be great, provided she is prepared to take the plunge.

Turned out it was her youngest son's idea, or at least he was the first to speak up and suggest it. She thinks her boy is a kind lad who doesn't have anyone to look after being the youngest.

I'm very practiced in people asking about fostering, I can usually tell if they are giving it some thought. I try to be absolutely neutral and objective.

Basically I tell them it's fantastically rewarding, but at the same time it's no picnic. I don't tell them they should foster, that's for them. Equally I don't tell anyone not to, even if there might be practical or personal reasons why they might not take to it. Those considerations are the business of the professionals who do the assessments.

But I always tell them how much the country needs foster carers and how wonderful that they are thinking about it. Then I ALWAYS tell them to find out more by contacting an agency or local authority.

Always, always. I always tell them to visit a website, send an email or best of all make a phone call.

The reason is a lot of people waste part of their lives thinking about doing things. Thinking about dieting, giving up smoking, doing an Open University degree, you name it...

They talk a good game, telling friends and family they have a plan, they're intending to do X Y and Z. Waste mental energy ruminating, never getting round to it.

What I tell them is that they should get the ball rolling. It's a careful process becoming accredited (takes 4-6 months at Blue Sky). It's also a fun process; rewarding and revealing. My point is you can pull out any time, no cost to you and no-one will judge. Plus it's up to them to decide if you've got what it takes, so there's no pressure on you.

The process helps get you in shape for the job too. It packages you properly, if you like.

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2018 IN FOSTERING

Now that the dust has settled on the Christmas/New Year thing...

People make Resolutions, apparently 60% of them are abandoned come January 15th.

I do find, I really do, that in fostering every year, I look at the year to come and make up my mind to;

1. Get better organised for Christmas next year.
2. Arrange with Blue Sky to have a respite break (eg Lanzarote) sometime around Spring to re-charge the batteries.
3. Sort out a decent holiday in the sun for all the family somewhere warm and nice (ie Lanzarote) but not too expensive or far away.
4. Not allow Contact to bother me.*
5. Stay abreast of all the changes in social media and new technology.
6. Drop 10lbs so I my lectures about snacking and fast food are more authoritative.
7. Yoga.
8. Work closer with the schools.

* Contact; foster children are required to meet with significant family (maybe mum, maybe dad, maybe step-parents, brothers, sisters etc) usually once a week. It's a concept that means well but tests the child's emotions and many of us foster parents find that much of the time we have to apply the sticking plaster.

The best Contact I've ever experienced was a bit weird. The child, a teenage boy, had to meet once a week his... foster mum. Yep, his foster mum. She wasn't a Blue Sky carer; local authority.

What had happened was that the child, a teenager, was at home when the carer's sister and daughter visited. In the car on their way home the daughter told her mum that the lad had done something inappropriate when no-one else was around. The sister told the foster mum who decided to inform the authorities so that the allegation could be properly investigated. She was right to do that too. 

It meant the child was removed from her care and brought to me.

He was a truly great young man. I was certain from the off he'd be going back in no time.

But the lad had no family of his own; nobody related to him could be found, but he was entitled to Contact. So his foster mum turned up. The authorities said that under the circumstances it was okay for it to happen at our house.  Just another extraordinary episode in the extraordinary world of fostering.

Their Contact was a delight. The boy was so fond of his carer, she so devout towards him. Gladdened the heart. The whole thing was sorted out in a matter of weeks, the girl admitted she invented her story and I believe the boy is still with the woman, he'd be nearly eighteen now.

But back to my clear and undivided vision for 2018, I'd got to number 9.

9. Always remember that fostering is 10% proactive, 90% reactive. Meaning; our job is to react to things we couldn't predict or anticipate, and do our best to right things once we learn what needs to be righted. Day in, day out; that's the job.

Best job in the world too. In fact, that's my number 10;

10. Remember how much I love fostering.

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WHY CAN'T KIDS CLEAR UP THEIR THINGS?

Is it me or are today's youngsters incapable of clearing their own eating debris away?

When I was a child neither I nor any friends would have got up from an armchair in the living room and walked away from;

• A crisp packet, crisp bits in the chair.
• Empty mug, the bottom of which is going brown from the dregs.
• A pile of orange peel, the largest piece forming the base and the smaller pieces balanced in ascending order.
• Empty can of Diet Pepsi.
• A dinner plate with cheese crumbs, uneaten crusts on a dollop of drying Branston.

You ferry the refuse into the kitchen and there on the table is phase two; a bread knife with crumbs in the teeth, breadcrumbs all over the table. A Flora-covered knife and a Branston-covered knife. A jar of Branston, lid off, a tub of Flora lid off (lid face down on the table) and a plastic pack of cheese ripped open with cheese bits around it, and a cheese covered knife.

And, just as your frustration reaches the point where you feel like shouting at the DJ on the radio to shaddup with his chirpy cheer, there, lurking in the dry sink is every washer-upper's most hated; 

The cheese grater, solid with cheese.

I managed an evening out with a bunch of good fostering female friends recently and  the subject came up. Turned out everyone had tales of brown apple cores under sofas, pies and pasties with one bite hardening under the bed, sweet wrappers between the sofa cushions.

The winning story was...are you ready for this?

An entire ham sandwich slid into the slot of the VHS.

It's not just food. Trainers get worn into the house from the front door to the sofa where they'll be removed, dropped and abandoned. Socks will also be left. Coats, pullovers, hats...same treatment. 

We foster parents have a big job with children who have these things wrong.

The poor mites usually haven't been parented in practicalities.

But it's mostly a food thing.

Why? Why with the leaving plates and cups and stuff?

It's new, and as far as I can tell the experts are oblivious. I Googled it. The results;

Nothing. So we're on our own. I'll have a go, I've only got one idea; maybe others can add thoughts.

My recollection is my generation didn't have a snack culture. The larder didn't have crisps or biscuits, fruit was rare, we didn't get offered tea of coffee until we got the key of the door, and I don't think I was allowed to make myself a sandwich until I moved into my own place. 

We didn't snack! There was a chocolate bar called Milky Way that was advertised as "The snack you can eat between meals without spoiling your appetite". That's how rare it was for people to eat anything other than main meals.

Now snacks are the order of the day. 

My generation were not only excused casual food, we got little or no training in how to prepare it and how to clear up afterwards. Yes we were expected to wash-up and dry, but that's different.

Maybe we as adults lack our own childhood experience of having to clear up behind us. Therefore have no reference of how to tell our new children to go about it.

And...Maybe the whole subject is another pointer towards the fact that our children eat too much. 

With that in mind I've just resolved never to mind clearing up someone else's fruit peel, but to get bolshie about the crisp packets.

You never get bored with trying to get it right in fostering...

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FOSTERING; YOU MAKE YOUR OWN LUCK

We're hoping for a new placement in the New Year, with a bit of luck. Who knows if a child who needs a home will get us and it turns out to be lucky for them? One can but hope.

We have one spare bedroom. It's small to be honest, but some foster children like compact rooms, they feel safe, snug, cosy. 

Our house is hectic but I've often found that foster children like the company of other foster children. They don't feel quite so stand-out. They can melt into the house a bit more easily, sneak away from what they otherwise might think of as claustrophobic attention.

One time we had two girls staying with us, they'd never met before, and there was a big age difference; one was 7 the other 16.  The eldest was big, the youngest tiny. You wouldn't think they had anything in common, and were incompatible. About the only exchange  that happened in the first few weeks was that the older one slammed her bedroom door one night, and the next evening the little one could be heard practising her door slam. Luckily for all she gave up on the idea.

To get these two to school I had to combine two school runs into one, not unusual in many families, but with foster children you sometimes get one school ten miles east of your home, the other ten miles west. As with Blue Sky guidelines, I sat them both in the rear seats, and every morning off we set. First port of call was the little one's school (their gates opened at 8.15am and the playground was supervised). Then I'd drive across to older one's college, she had to be there by 9.00am.

They'd usually sit in silence, but one morning the level crossing gates were stuck down, so we had to do a huge diversion and the traffic was gridlocked. I pulled in and phoned both their schools to say they'd be legitimately late and both offices said that loads of other pupils were in the same boat, so I passed this onto the girls and they relaxed. They relaxed so much they started talking to each other, as if I wasn't there;

"So how come you're in fostering?" asked the 16 year old.

"My mum used to lock me in my bedroom and go to the pub." the 7 year old replied.

The older girl didn't do sympathy. None of your "Oh how awful for you" stuff that we adults habitually chirp up with. Instead she just went; "That all?"

Little one replied; "My social worker said we wasn't getting fed properly."

Silence. Then the big one said;

"Y'know what? My mum don't even know how to use an oven. All we had was takeaways and ding meals."

Another silence; they were plotting their way into each other's confidence. Little one said;

"Have you ever had McDonalds?"

Big one scoffed;

"Wot? Yeah! Love it! You ain't ever had one?"

"We weren't allowed." replied little one.

"So what was you given?' asked big one.

"Cereal. Toast. Crisps and that."

Big one summed it up; "Eeeeuurgh."

The little one asked;

"How long you been fostered?"

"About...a year." said the 16 year-old.  Then she realised this news would be a bit daunting for the little one, who'd only been with us eight weeks and was still in denial that she'd be going home any day, so she added; "Goin' home soon though".

"When?" asked the little one.

"That's what I keep askin' 'em." 

They were bonding, two waifs gaining strength from sharing with another child in care. The older one passing on her experience and wisdom of fostering; the conversation ranging from the general quality of fostering (I came out not too shabby, phew, compared to the two homes she'd been in previously. Mind, their perceptions can be skewed...). They talked about what social workers are like. I remember the comment that they are easily persuaded if you; 

"Go on and on and on, that's how come I gets to go home every other weekend".

To how the system works; 

"They've said I ain't goin' home for good until my dad's appeal, 'cos if he gets off he'll come round our house and they don't want me and him in the same room and nor do I."

The younger girl held her own, then asked me;

"Can we have McDonalds for tea tonight?"

And we did. It became a weekly treat, the big girl indebted to the little girl for having had the courage and the canny to ask for it. Little one knew I was all ears. Actually they both did, but bared their souls anyway.

So.

Like I say, the more the merrier.

We're a bit harder to match in our house than most homes because it's a busy house.

'Matching' is the process of finding the foster home that's best suited to the child and the family.

The house/flat/caravan/whatever is a big part and parcel, especially the location. It's best if the child can attend the same school they did before they came into care (assuming they went to school at all), so the greater the distance to their school the more difficult.

I work on the basis that if the Blue Sky Placement team think we are a good enough match, that's good enough for me. 

We've a 100% record so far, maybe that's down to them, maybe us, maybe just good luck.

Although I find in fostering you make your own luck, not that I'm superstitious.

Touch wood.

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