FOSTERING AND STUDS

People sometimes ask Foster Carers;

"Is it true that you have  to get the child's parents' permission before they have a haircut?"

It's one of those titbits of quirky misinformation about fostering that are out there. Maybe 'misinformation' is a bit strong, what I'm talking about is that some members of the public think that fostering is beset by red tape, rules and pitfalls. 

As far as haircuts go, yes, sometimes the real parents should be consulted. New clothes are another example; sometimes the parent might appreciate being in the loop. But it isn't a problem for us - we inform our Social Workers and they sort it, then get back to us with the decision on what to do.

Every child is unique, every fractured family that has children removed and taken into care is unique. We all work together to get it right for the individual child. 

"THE CHILD IS PARAMOUNT". That's the Blue Sky watchword - though I can't imagine any other fostering body is far off that maxim. So if a child wants a one cut over the ears, or a pair of jeans slashed at the knee, there needs to be a sound argument against before it gets vetoed. For example if the child's school bans shaved temples, no problem, that's out. If the child's step-grandmother has a beef about trendy clothes, that's a different thing.

Yes, there are a rules and regs, but our Social Worker helps us with them to keep the placement on track. Most of it is plain common sense. That's how the bulk of fostering works; common sense.

Look, fostering is no doddle, but we Foster Carers have an army of professionals behind us to back-up, give guidance and support. And help us get on with the job.

Social Workers are miracle workers. Ordinary folk like myself who get into fostering find ourselves backed up by one of the most vital, good-hearted, professional bodies of people out there.

The reason this topic is in my mind is that last Saturday one of ours had their ears pierced.

Ouch...in many ways.

One big ouch is that this particular child is always a bit saddened when they are reminded that they are different from children in ordinary families. It's been agreed all round that in our house we try to develop the sense that the child is the same as any other child. We keep the professionals in the background and the professionals are...professional, they get it. So when the child sneaked alongside and asked about having their ears pierced, I knew I'd have to consult, but I played my ace card at such moments and replied "Interesting. I'll have a think and get back to you on that."

It's a response that buys time. I pinged an email to my Blue Sky Social Worker who advised me to email the child's Local Authority Social Worker about it.

Don't know if I've made it clear in past blogs but the fostering system works something like this; Blue Sky Social Workers are primarily focussed on supporting their Foster Carers. Local Authority Social Workers have final responsibility for the child. Of course everyone at Blue Sky cares deeply about the child, and the Local Authority cares about the Carers; but there's a small but important distinction of responsibilities which helps enormously.

So in the case of ear-piercing the final decision had to come from the Local Authority Social Worker, who came back with a yes.

I emailed the news to Blue Sky and we agreed that there was no need to burden the child with the details of all the work that had gone into what ended up a simple yes. I then checked with the Local Authority Social Worker that it would be okay for me to give the child the good news, and if the child understood it to be my decision, all well and good.

One; the child would think I was cool, modern and on-side - and that might buy some extra good spirit.

Two; the child would avoid being reminded they were in care, and feel part of an ordinary family where decisions - unless the law says otherwise - are taken by the parents (or the responsible household adults).

If the child asked me how the decision had been reached I would be honest with them because you try to never tell foster children fibs. But if they don't ask, and want to believe it was foster mum being a good egg, so be it.

And Saturday's piercing went well. I had to attend as an underage-but-old-enough person has to have a guardian on hand. Child came out looking good. I've genned up about salt solutions and the special tape you buy from Boots for when they have to take their studs out for PE.

It was painless all round, and like I said, the studs look good.

FYI I'm not thinking of having my ears done.

When I was young one of my friends had it done by a friend in the park and it was messy. Piercing became one of those things I was put off from for life.

Nothing could ever put me off fostering.

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ENJOY THE MOMENT

Fostering folk get reminded about Mindfulness from time to time, either by the media or sometimes by our Social Worker. Quite right.

If you're not careful you spend all day thinking about problems and jobs and don't spend a moment peacefully reflecting on all the good stuff.

Take tonight, it's a Friday evening and the home has filled up. There are three friends of one of our foster kids plus our other foster children, and my own brood. It's like a youth club in here. I could easily fill my head with all the responsibilities and clearing up I'll have to do.

I'm sat at the kitchen table where I have a view through to the TV room. My other half is also hovering invisibly.

There's pizza, potato wedges and diet coke for all and they're laughing away at Homer Simpson being stupid. Laughing and chatting. I'm not eavesdropping but I can hear snatches of them talking amongst themselves, for example; someone at the school several of them go to, someone called Lauren, is keen on someone called Ollie. Mrs Hampson, the maths teacher is not that bad, and then on The Lego Movie 2, the discussion is whether it's a bit nerdy for people aged 14.

Sounds like harmless banter, but it's much more than that. The sheer normality of it is magical.

Non-fostering folk wonder what fostering is all about. If fostering is about any one thing it's about maintaining some kind of a 'normal' household despite the unusual dimension of a young person from outside the family who is in the house all the time.

What is a 'normal' household? How long have we got...?

Surely no-one knows what a 'normal' household is. We tend to think it's a house without a ripple. In that case my house is not and has never been normal much of the time because there's usually something going on. Most of my friends in fostering tell each other most of the time that their place is also marginally off the scale of normalcy. We all have children living with us we've never met before who we are trying to prepare to go home to a family that has previously gone pear-shaped. That's pretty unusual in itself, but on top of that the specifics of each individual foster child make the house even more unique. Don't get me wrong; if you want to know about the joys of fostering dip into just about any previous blog post of mine. I'm not talking about unhappiness or difficulty, I'm talking about uniqueness. Each foster child is unique, and working out their individuality then working with those characteristics is key.

But when I sit down with non-fostering friends, guess what? Their homes are also unique in different ways. Here are some examples of fine friends of mine and their family's uniqueness;

Sister One has a daughter who has been trying for a baby for long enough and is going to give up trying as she's becoming depressed. Her grief over the loss of someone who has never been alive is so painful the family are consumed with sadness and confusion trying to help.  

Sister Two - a working mum - has an adult brother who is bullying her and the other sister into being the ones to care for their elderly parents who are showing signs of needing help. The brother thinks caring is woman's work, and that the man's job is to take command and tell the women what to do. He believes that his contribution; controlling his parents care without actually lifting a finger will entitle him to his third of the estate, which will be all the larger if the parents are cared for in their home - by the daughters - rather than in a Care Home.

Sister Three is struggling with a pair of daughters who've both had kids by men who are no longer on the scene. 'Nuff said.

Sister Four has job worries; she's a laugh but a bit of a tinker and has been caught claiming work expenses for things she shouldn't. She had to go to Edinburgh on an overnight trip and claimed a bag for her pyjamas. A £450 Dolce and Gabbana bag. And the accountants have picked it up...along with some other discrepancies. 

And so on. It seems that very few of us have much peace around us, and in fostering unusual activities go with the territory. You have to make sure you find your peace along the way.

So tonight's houseful of various youngsters easily became a delight. We had a throng of children of all backgrounds - some okay, some damaged - getting on like a  house on fire. Laughing in unison at the TV, listening when a younger one would ask about a joke they hadn't quite understood then the young one listening while one of the older ones would explain. Bonding almost like families down the centuries; young and old, brothers and sisters, talking and listening to each other round the campfire (er...48" TV). Yep, if you get your mind working for you, life is good.

It's been a good week.

On Wednesday I had a text chat with one of our foster children, I signed off with a mum's  "X" and got one back. Progress.

The same evening eldest foster child (who some nights gets to eat tea in the bedroom for reasons I won't go into) brought the tray down - unusual - with the entire corn-on-the-cob eaten, all but one of the skinless sausages eaten, and all but two of the baby potatoes eaten. Huge.

And the previous Sunday Ryder said that she'd like to call me "Mum" instead of by my first name (which is where I always start with new children in care).

Y'know what? Every other day in fostering I say to myself; "Enjoy this moment girl. This is as good as it gets".

Then tomorrow shows up.

And trumps it.

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AT THE TABLE

Life is hard in many ways. Parenting, to name but one aspect of life, is no bed of roses.

Hang on. Wouldn't a bed of roses be a nightmare...?

I'm sidetracked.

Life = hard. In fostering our foster parenting comes with its share of unique challenges, big and small. However unlike ordinary parents I have access to Blue Sky support and Social Worker back-up and solutions.

For example; in fostering Contact can be a big issue. Contact is where Foster Carers bring their foster children to meet the child's family and it can upset them. Our Social Workers work with us to fix.

Foster Carers also face the same challenges of ordinary parents, such as mobile phones and when and how they are used. That question gets more than enough media attention, and occupies the minds of parents and teachers the world over.

In our house we don't allow phones at the meal table, which leads me to one of the smaller challenges in fostering (and parenting in general) which gets no attention.

Don't laugh, please. I'm totally serious here.

The problem is...

                            ...what to talk about at the meal table.

At the heart of the problem is our hope that the conversation will be inclusive and everyone joins in for an equal amount of time and everyone enjoys everyone's contribution whether it's informative, funny, thoughtful, personal or universal.

But blimey, I'd guess that 99 mealtimes out of 100 the conversations in our house stop-start and zig-zag out of control like a supermarket trolly with a wonky wheel.

Obviously our difficulties are exaggerated because at our meal-table there are several distinctly different sets of people. There are at least three different sets of adults in one pair alone; my partner and myself. Our sets are a) the real parents of two siblings b) the foster parents of three unrelated children, and c) two adults who are adult partners of each other.

So I might start off the conversation on a practical topic, one which I need to discuss such as asking my partner if the car is still making that noise. That's an adult/adult conversation that excludes all the children who don't give a monkeys about car maintenance.

Or I might start off with our own children and raise a family matters such as "Your nephew Michael has got engaged to Caroline". Which will interest one of our real children a lot, the other hardly at all, and be of minor interest to the one foster child who has met Michael and Caroline and of zero interest to the other two who don't know them from Adam.

Or I might start off with one of our foster children, perhaps; "Oh, Ryder, guess what? Your Social Worker rang to say it's cool for you to go shopping with your sister on Saturday." This sort of chat I try to get going from time to time so that everyone - family members and foster children - can share things about themselves and have a chance to offer advice and support to the other people at the table.

In a fostering home there are more sets of very differently connected people than the average household. In our house right now our own children have their time-honoured roles and they have learned to interact appropriately with everyone else depending on who they are talking with. As for the foster children; one of the older ones has not been with us anywhere near as long as one of the younger ones, so there's the unusual complication of which is the senior.

No matter how I try, I always feel I've ended up with a table of people who aren't sufficiently included or have opted out or plain don't care.

One thing I've noticed is that if a child doesn't say anything towards the start of the meal they somehow shrink into themselves and become timid of their own voice.

I try to remember that their school days are long and tiring and they may just want to eat in peace. But for some reason I can't resist trying to get a friendly, cheerful discussion going.

To be fair we've had some good ones;

There was the evening meal when earlier that day on the school run I nearly ran over a cat. I had two foster children in the back of the car and how they howled with laughter telling and re-telling the table of my panic and anguish.  For weeks afterwards if anybody had a hard time at school or any reason to feel sorry for themselves someone would chime in with "That wasn't as bad as the day of the cat!" and everyone would roll around re-living it over again.

Tales of woe can go down well, but you have to be careful for obvious reasons. I was more than once tempted to play the game they play at the dinner table in the film "Notting Hill"; the game where the person who can recount that their life is the most miserable gets the last Brownie. The moment has never seemed right, and in any case we'd be pretty sure who the winners would be...

I have found some things that work quite well sometimes.

If I kick the conversation off by mentioning a current band and do my children the service of getting something wrong, such as "Oooh, that Brandon whats-his-name from Panic in the Disco is a bit obvious." Everyone can join in by ridiculing my ignorance, then everyone's entitled to their say on the band.  The same goes with films and TV. It goes especially with computer games. But if I overdo it the youngsters can spot it, and they feel patronised - which is a conversation killer and a half.

What I'm aiming for is conversations about themselves. I want to talk about their school day, hear their thoughts about family life, their views on the world.

One neato I've done is to adapt a trick my other half picked up at work at an out-of-town meeting he attended.

At the start of the meeting of about 20 people they were asked to introduce themselves and tell everyone two things about themselves. One of the things had to be true and the other false and everyone had to guess which was which.

So what I do (sometimes, not every day) is say;

"Okay, let's play "Two Things"! How about we do two things that happened to this week..."

And from the kids you get stuff like "Number one; someone saw my science teacher in Homebase with a stud in his nose and Number two; our Art teacher's first name is Meredith."

So to start a a ball rolling I'll leave you with two things about me, one of which is true the other is false.

1) I once was so tired I slept for 33 hours.

2) My favourite artist is Dusty Springfield.

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WHAT IS A 'PERMANENT PLACEMENT'?

One of the senior management team  at Blue Sky once said something to me that has stayed with me ever since. I always wondered if one day it would come true.

The manager in question had shown up at our house along with our regular Blue Sky Social Worker because a local authority had asked me and my family to foster a child with a very difficult history. 

We were all waiting nervously and excitedly in my kitchen when the car carrying the local authority Social Worker and the child pulled up and I made for the front door to welcome them.

As I went to greet them  the Blue Sky manager whispered to me; 

"Here we go then, maybe for just one night, maybe for the rest of your life."

The child in question is now older and wiser (aren't we all...). The child is a joy to behold and it's hard to remember the traumatised and fractious infant who showed up that day. 

The child is never going to be returned to the natural parents.

So. We have agreed that the child is to become what's called a permanent placement with us.

For us this means we want this child to be with us for the rest of our lives, if that's what the child wants. 

It's quite a thing, and talking about it to you here on this blog helps me come to terms with the wonderful enormity of it.

The child is totally cool about it, so much so that the meetings and paperwork are viewed as an inconvenience which get in the way of playing computer games. It seems as though the child's message to everyone is; "Obviously I'm family, what's the big deal?" 

Social Workers are required  to have conversations with the child to ensure they understand and are happy with the change, and they get the same message; "Do we really need to talk about this? Isn't it obvious that this is the best thing? Why all the questions?"

Everyone's conclusion is that the child is doing cartwheels inside, but not risking acting over the moon in case it evokes the wrath of the gods. Some things that are too good to be true must be celebrated with caution, I get that.

We're taking the child's lead and not making a song and dance about it. But one small thing that's happened as a result breaks me up in a good way, it's this;

The child asked if their surname could be changed to ours. Not anything complicated like Deed Poll and stuff, just at school. The school were brilliant and agreed straight away. "Actually," the Headteacher told me "It happens more than you might realise, mainly with divorces and parents re-marrying."

What knocked me for six was the child's class teacher. He went into the school on a Saturday, on his own time, and moved all the name pegs under the coat-hooks in the classroom so that our child's new name-peg was in correct alphabetical order.  He had to unscrew 20 platelets, stencil a new name and re-screw them all back on, one place away from where they had all previously been. When I thanked him he said he was proud to do it, he said he could feel from the child how proud the child was to have our family name.

That's a 'permanent placement' then, right there.

That's it for now, sorry, can't see the screen properly, it's blurry...

Damn these fostering happy tears.

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WORLD IS OUR OYSTER

Just been to the most AMAZING training session.

It was so consuming I got carried away at lunchtime. I'll tell you about that later.

It was run by my local authority, and most of the twenty people attending were Social Workers and professional counsellors, three of us were foster carers.

My Blue Sky Social Worker was there too. It was their idea to take me along because there's a growing need for Foster Carers who can help a particular set of children, and although the Social Workers present were geared to take the information out to any Foster Carers they work with, it was great to have some of us there alongside the other front-liners.

The training was superbly delivered on a topic that is moving, complex and increasingly relevant for Foster Carers.

The training day was about Transitioning. 

People who are transitioning can be people of any age, but at the moment it seems to be young people especially who realise that the body they are born in does not conform to who they really are, so they wish to make public adjustments in how they present themselves to the world so that the world perceives and accepts them as who they know they really are.

Phew, I hope I got that last paragraph right. We got so much fantastic information I literally came home feeling head-heavy.

Nothing like the headaches affecting people who at birth are labelled "Male" or "Female" after nothing more than a quick glance at their anatomy. There's much more about gender than genitals. Transitioning is a recent thing for many people to take on board including most humble Foster Carers like myself, but I'm eager to learn and help.

Not that the thing is recent in itself. There's no evidence that a higher percentage of people feel uncomfortable in their assigned gender than in past times. It's more likely that we humans are growing up about wanting to respect every person's right for their understanding of who they are to be how everyone else greets them.

Imagine how brave a young foster child has to be to endure the break-up of their family while wrestling with the huge issue of their gender. 

This is where us Foster Carers come in.

I'm not going to try to pass on more than a sample of the information that was discussed at the session, because I came away with so much I'm still trying to find the right brain compartments for some of the material. It's a delicate thing.

I'll give you a pocket-sized example.

If, as a Foster Carer, we are asked to look after a young person who is transitioning, we must find out (preferably from them) if they wish to present as male or female. Or in another way.

That bit I find easy to understand but I will have to concentrate to get the practice right if and when I have to.

I heard in the media that there are currently more than seventy different and accepted variations in between male or female. As foster parents we aren't expected to be familiar with them. But we can be expected to try to help by being supportive. If, for example, we are asked to look after a young person who may have previously been deemed female but who now wishes to be accepted as male we refer to them as; "He" and His" where before it was "She" and "Her". And obviously vice versa.

But. If the person hasn't made a declaration, or is managing their journey at their own pace, we should try to say; "They" rather than "He" or "She".

I discovered immediately how hard this can be. At one point early in the day I was asked to get up and stand with the lecturer who had a beard, a deep voice and wore a lumberjack shirt (I'll tell you why the shirt is a consideration in a moment).

I was asked to put a cross or a tick against a list of words that people who are transitioning would find acceptable or unacceptable. Words such as "Trannie" (I gave it a cross which was correct, it's unacceptable) and terms such as "Lesbian" and "Gay" (I gave a tick; correct they're acceptable). I was going along okay until I came to "Queer".

Hmmmmm.

"Queer" was an insult back when I was younger, but then again I'd heard that nowadays some people are proud to describe themselves that way.

I hesitated while the other students discussed and gave me advice, but I was in a quandary, so I glanced at the lecturer and said to the other students;

"I think I'll wait and see what our man here says."

See?

See how easy it is to get it wrong?

Okay, not 'wrong' in any intentional sense, but only ten minutes prior to me calling our (excellent) lecturer a 'Man' we'd been hearing that if there is any doubt it's best to say "Person" rather than "Man" or "Woman" or "Boy" or "Girl").

Our lecturer was a person. A person who, we were to learn as the session developed, had been assigned the gender 'female' at birth, but realised pretty early in life (age 3 or 4) that they weren't female.

The things that tripped me up were that the person delivering the lecture had a beard and a deep voice (testosterone injections they told us later) which enabled them to have desired characteristics that they wish to present consistently every day. Plus they had presumably chosen to present themself at the session as a person who chose to wear a shirt that many would associate with being male. Maybe they did that every day, I don't  know, but it all added up to my mistake. Not a huge mistake; the lecturer laughed as loud as I laughed. In the same spirit. 

It's a lesson I appreciated learning in such a vivid and indelible way.

Looking around the room I saw that there were 16 women, all dressed in conventional female clothing and 4 men who dressed as conventional males.

Now then, here's another interesting bit; how did I know the people in the class who were dressed in female clothing WERE female? Because at the very start of the session, instead of the standard opener where everyone has to introduce themselves and say what we're hoping to gain from the day, we had to say whether we wished to be perceived (for the purposes of the session) as male or female or other.

Wow. I've never been asked to express which gender I wished to be perceived as, have you? 

Yes, I've had to tick the box "M" or "F" on faceless forms and surveys plenty of times, but that's a world away from being asked to say out loud how you wished your gender to be perceived by actual people.

Was I tempted to say "Male" or "Other", just for the experience? No. The business of the day was far too important to play around.

Lunchtime wasn't business though, lunchtime was a hoot.

Sometimes I may give the impression that fostering is all pizza and perseverance, no time for partying.

Well when lunch was called, me and my Social Worker spilled out onto the street looking for a sandwich bar, but it was raining. We sheltered in a doorway wondering what to do. Then we noticed that the door belonged to an Oyster bar. I looked at SW, SW looked at me, and I blurted out my current maxim; "You're only middle-aged once!"

Half-a-dozen Suffolk rock oysters and a glass of cranberry juice each later, we were back for more amazing, fascinating and valuable stuff - which I dearly hope one day to put to good use.

Then home in time for pizza, perseverance..and a bat's squeak of pride and pleasure.

Yep. If you concentrate, life is good, in fact it's great, especially in fostering.

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PROGRESS

Some days in fostering you really feel your age. But you're never too old to learn.

Progress is the watchword in fostering, at least it is in my book.

I know there are children coming into care who need only feeding and clothing. Some of the older children are often well rounded individuals with fine social skills, good manners and bright futures. All they need is their meals, a warm home and clean pants and socks, and let's face it those basics things are crucial for survival so they matter most of all.  Getting them right isn't always easy either, especially the feeding. Children brought up on fast food, or no food, or having to feed themselves aren't going to take to three square meals a day straight off.

Then was once a foster child whose story I was told. She had been locked in the kitchen all day as a toddler and had learned to eat the pet food put down for the dogs and cats. Someone did a good job fostering that child  because the reason I heard her story is a story in itself; 

A young child came to stay with me who needed a new school so I found a Primary and signed her up. On day one I went to talk to the child's class teacher and tell her what I could about the child. The teacher looked at me with kindly eyes and told me that she hoped to make an insightful teacher for my foster child...because she herself had been fostered. 

The teacher went on to confide in me how she had been locked in the kitchen all day and had lived on dog food...

You don't hear enough about the successful foster children. She was a brilliant teacher but she must have been difficult to feed to start with.

So yes, the basics are extremely important for children coming into care, but myself  I've never had a child who cried out for the fundamentals alone.

If I step back from my fostering I can see that I treat every foster child as a work in progress. It's my hope that when they leave they are that bit better prepared for the things that life will throw their way.

It's not a one-woman-show either. I'd be lost without my regular updates with my Blue Sky Social Worker, not to mention the regular reports I'm asked to write up on each child's state; things like how they are at school, how they are at home, how well they get on with friends and their foster family. Your Social Worker reads each report and arrives at your home armed with praise (if it's due), encouragement, advice, insights and ideas.

They too are looking for progress in the child. The better a child becomes at making and keeping good friends the better. The day the child reads a book by torchlight under the duvet for pleasure is a red letter day. The child's relationship with their Foster Carer is crucial, but it can often present the poor child with a mountain of mixed emotions. But improving that relationship is one of the big things that indicate that the child is growing stronger and healthier.

And you know who else is a work in progress?

Me.

I KNOW that I'm a bigger, better, wiser soul than I was the day I picked up the phone and asked to be considered for fostering.

I also know there's even more work to be done. On me.

For example I hope one day to be more philosophical if things don't go according to plan, because in fostering you're often just a twig on the back of a stream.

And there are plenty of other tweaks I have on my To Do list.

Such as keeping bits of wisdom in the forefront of my mind. For example I like these;

"It's never too late to be the person you want to be."

"The greatest act of courage is not being afraid of who you really are."

Oh and one other snippet that I love to bits is one I heard on a TV documentary about an Englishman who went to Spain and became a bullfighter. He was aged 68 when they interviewed him and asked him how he felt about being 68.

Say what you like about bullfighting (I hate it with a passion), but you have to take your hat off to his reply which was;

"I'm loving it...you see..."

Then he twinkled and said;

                                 "...I've never been 68 before."

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AN AMAZING CONTRIBUTOR WRITES

This comment was posted this week on one of my Secret Foster Carer blogposts that date back a while.

The post in question was "Nine For Breakfast", and in it I mentioned that I had been fleetingly unsure whether to extend my full attachment/empathy to a child who was due to be with me only for a few hours.

I thought I'd publish the comment as a separate post to ensure it gets the prominence it deserves.

This young person shows such maturity, warmth and insight that I'm confident they will be a credit to the fostering profession if they decide to join us.

I have a sense of pride that we are attracting readers such as this person (oh, and such as you too dear reader)...

I'd like to thank the contributor, and say to them that their thoughts and feelings will always be welcome here;


        "I'm a teenager in... two unstable homes, and I found this post fascinating. 
First, I'm really young, 16, and my situation has never been close to as bad as what foster children are coming from. My parents divorced when I was nine, I'm the oldest of four, and it was (is) a bitter divorce. It's been one thing after another since then; parents remarrying, almost redivorcing twice, people dying, etc. However I feel safe and loved by my siblings and parents and I'm doing well right now. 
Second, I'm reading this blog because I want to foster someday. :)
Anyways, I've been through trauma and I can definitely say that if I had been taken from my home at any point by strangers, I'd DEFINITELY want a temporary foster parent to try to bond with me. Not in a pushy way, because I'd retreat. In a gentle, warm way. 
Likely I'd be unable to function. If I feel I can trust an adult, even a strange adult (sometimes especially an adult I don't know as well), I tend to let my guard down. I tend to allow my hurt and brokenness and fear to come to the surface. I'm desperate to know somebody cares, that life isn't just full of suffering and despair. The other day actually I started sobbing after my mom said something that normally would make me slightly disappointed, if that... I cried for hours. I needed her to be there for me. I needed to know she wasn't going to give up on me the moment I showed signs of weakness. 
I'd need that even from a temporary foster parent. I might find it really healing to have a temporary foster parent who, in the midst of something traumatic, listened to me and gave me a hug. Let me cry and be broken with only love in response. Even if I never saw them again, it might make the difference for me between feeling traumatized later on and feeling like, "bad things will happen but I'm not alone even in the most awful pain; I remember when Foster Parent A was there, even though I barely spent any time with them..."
Or maybe I'd really appreciate the simple things like a smile, a kind word, etc. Especially with sibling sets, taking care of a younger sibling for the older sibling will mean more to the older sibling sometimes than if you fixed all older sibling's problems. Siblings going through tough times tend to have either incredibly strong bonds or entirely shattered bonds, I think. 
Anyways that's all I wanted to say! :) 
Thank you for being there for kids who are hurting and broken and loving them through all that. You will never know how much that love impacts them."

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