INDEPENDENCE DAY

The road to independence for a child is their M1; heads-down-keep-going, no turning off or slowing down, fast as they can.

Independence. The independence of the 'grown up'.

With your own children you remember each junction like it was yesterday; the first time they went to the shops by themselves, the first time they came home from school by themselves, their first boyfriend/girfriend.

With your own children it's a progression, they inch their way towards being a grown-up bit by bit. You know how far they've come and what should come next every step of the way.

It's a tad trickier with foster children, here's what happened to some friends of ours who foster.

They accepted a placement of a ten year old girl. We met her a few times, she seemed like any other ten year old girl.

Foster children have the knack of doing this; they can come across as an untroubled typical girl next door type when strangers are around. 'Self regulation' it's called.  It's when it's just them and their foster carers in the house that their real selves are revealed; the doubts, the fears, the inevitable quirks of having been through what they've been through.

Social workers often have to remind us that the reason they let it all hang out with us is because they have learned to trust us. That plus the fact they want us to re-assure them that we will carry on caring for them despite their hang-ups and whatnot.

This particular child had been left to her own devices to grow up. She had been given the run of the house and a front door key to come and go as she pleased. No questions were asked where she went or who she met with, or what time she'd come home.

She was given money to spend so that her parents were entirely free of having to look after her. She bought what she needed for herself and was used to catering for herself whether it was a takeaway or a ding meal (microwave).

The foster parents job became a reverse parenting exercise. Instead of mentoring growing independence, they had to slow her down, and give her a childhood back. 

They pulled it off, these fabulous foster parents. The girl is now approaching her teens and is up to speed, or should that be down to speed. She phones home if she's going to be late from school, sits down with the family for every meal, and is happy to answer questions about the boy if it turns out she was late home from school for tea because she was out with a boy.

I know how they pulled it off too. Perseverence. They did it gradually. 

Some people would use the zero tolerance approach from the off, but that can lead to confrontation after confrontation, which is not only unsettling for the whole house; it tends to get mixed results. 

These carers go for the bit-by-bit approach, which calls for concentration plus a good memory of how things were when the child arrived, which helped them chart her progress, which assured them she was on the right track, and they were getting it right.

The girl herself helped, of course. She knew it was wrong to be allowed to come and go at midnight aged ten. She wanted boundaries and what people call 'tough love' - I don't like the phrase myself, but I get what it means.

Now that she is at the right stage of independence for her age, they face some interesting challenges together, such as when she asks if she can go to a late night party and make her own way home when she wants to.

'You're only fourteen" will come the reply "Too young yet I'm afraid."

There'll be that elephant in the room, because she'll be tempted to reply;

'I was doing it when I was ten.'

But I don't think she will.

Too grown up.

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WHAT'S A PERMANENT PLACEMENT?

We were at home in the kitchen, expecting a new foster child to arrive any minute, this was a good few years ago.

When I say “we” it was myself, our Blue Sky Social Worker and a senior person from Blue Sky.

I can’t remember exactly why the senior Blue Sky person was there; it doesn’t usually happen. It was early days for us in fostering, she may have dropped in to catch-up with the greenhorns. Or maybe she knew the child was a slightly special case and wanted to ensure things got off to a smooth start.

The clock ticked round to four oclock, the time the arrival was due.
A black saloon car, a small family one, pulled up onto our drive. A tall woman, maybe 28 got out of the drivers side. We couldn’t see the child, too small in the back despite the booster seat.

I was trying not to look, faces at the window would be a bit intimidating.
But I sneaked a peek. 

The social worker went round to the other side of the car and opened the door. She unbuckled a seat belt and a tiny foot dropped down unsteadily onto the tarmac. Then a  little face peered round the car door and looked up at our house.
I looked into the tiny face, small and round with two little brown eyes, full of trepidation. The social worker closed the car door and there was the whole child. Small, bony, pale. So vulnerable. What they used to call a “waif”.

The pair walked slowly towards our front door, and as they did the senior Blue Sky person whispered something that has become seared onto my brain.

“HERE WE GO THEN. MAYBE FOR A NIGHT OR TWO. MAYBE FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES”

Because, you see, it turns out to be the latter of the two. The rest of our lives. That’s the way it’s looking.

The child is now what's called a “Permanent Placement”. Family. One of us. We're no longer working towards the goal of getting the child home and happy, I guess that's the key difference when a foster child becomes a "Permanent Placement"

The process of permanency is complicated but Blue Sky and the child’s local authority social workers sort it out. The question of permanency came up after the child had been with us for quite a long period, to be honest I don’t think there’s a set amount of time for it, permanency comes up when it looks best for the child to have a greater degree of stability in their lives.

We sat down with our real children (there’s a funny phrase) and talked about it to help them have some ownership of what is, after all, a big change in the shape of their family.

The ins and outs were explained to us by Blue Sky; basically we have a greater say in certain things relating to the day-to-day looking after of the child. There’s a very interesting form with various responsibilities listed and the local authourity, who retain PR (Parental Responsibility) goes through it with you and you all agree on things like we would be able to take the child on a day trip to London and stay in a hotel without asking permission. Haircuts. Allowing mobile phones. 

“Compatability” is a big issue, you all need to fit together. There’s a form for that, where you go through the positives and negatives. The foster carers also have to write down why they want the child to be permanant. If the child is old enough they have to write out the same things from their point of view.Then there’s a panel. People at the local authority sit down and go through the case. Then you get the phone call “It’s been approved!”
We still share everything with both Blue Sky and local authority social workers, but we can act a little more like autonomous parents.

We coudn’t be happier, but it gets you thinking.

Before fostering I'd only experienced three basic ways in which someone comes into your life for ever. You fall in love, you bond with a friend, you make a baby. 

Permanent placement makes three-and-a-half, adoption would make it up to a solid four.
The difference is that with the first three ways you have a big element of control over who the person is, you have choices. With your own children you never quite know how they are going to turn out, but you are with them for the whole journey so there are no great mysteries.

Then you foster.

And in my case you hear the whispered words

“HERE WE GO THEN. MAYBE FOR A NIGHT OR TWO. MAYBE FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES”

And a new adventure begins.

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SPORTS DAY AND FOSTERING

A couple of thoughts about something that comes up every summer term, and it often hits fostering quite hard: school sports day.

Blue Sky put on numerous events for their children during the school summer holidays and when they do sportyness, it's nicely done.

For me, schools could learn from Blue Sky. Schools get it wrong generally, big time.

Schools are big on the competitiveness, so the big thing is to get WINNERS. 

(Weak voice); 'Hooray...'

And LOSERS. 

The losers are the children who have to demonstrate in front of their entire school and  a few hundered parents just how rubbish they are. They are the LOSERS. Official. 

And where do the children in care tend to come in these races? In my experience,  last or near last.

Why? Dunno. Maybe their life experiences to date have truncated their development or maybe they've got bigger things on their mind.

They often come home in a fume and we have to sort it out.

I've been told by schools that Sports Day is an opportunity for the children who don't shine at anything else to have their moment. It's a rubbish argument, based on the assumotion that unacademic children are better at sport than bright pupils. Who, it seems, need taking down a peg or two.

What about the foster chidren whose private lives are in turmoil, who can't keep up with lessons and who then have to trail in last in front of everybody, with the Head teacher doing their Des Lynam commentaries so there's no hiding place?

If it's such a good day out to have a school's physically vulnerable children identified as failures in front of a crowd why don't schools do the same with Spelling or Maths or Art? Why not? They could invite all the parents and get every class into a crowd then line up the kids in order of who can and can't read and write and parade them in front of pupils and parents and announce on the loudspeaker "Well done the clever clogs! And a round of applause for the stragglers."

Parents could bring a picnic and invite gran along.  What fun!

No-one would do that with acadaemia. But that's what they do with sports day.

And over the line the losers fall,  burning with embarrasment and anger.

To be harsh, the problem is partly that most people involved in Primary Education are unsporty, maybe even resentful of the whole sports thing. They block it out, hope it's an irrelevance. Maybe they were humiliated themselves.

At Secondary level most of the people involved in school sports have thick skins. I'm told that at teacher training the PE students are nicknamed 'Woodentops'.

Then there's the burden of one of Britain's greatest problem. Precedent. People think that they have to do what has always been done. And Sports Day has been with us since Victorian times. 

And those Victorians, they were famous for their handling of children weren't they? 

Boringly I feel obliged to state the obvious: some children gain something from sports day, some teachers input care and kindness. Every ten years or so a fostered child becomes a fleetingly famous athlete or footballer and so everyone assumes that sport serves foster children well.

Infuriatingly though, the majority of parents tell me the same thing when sports day comes up in the conversation:

"We have to watch these lefties with their non-competitive sports. Children have to learn how to lose".

They say that to me.

"Children have to learn how to lose".

Oh, I just smile and say "Mmmmm"

Foster Carers, remember; you're a pro. Ordinary parents are amatuers.

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TERRY AND JUNE MOMENT

I got myself into a sit com moment in the playground waiting for the last bell.

I found myself in a conversation with another mum, with me talking about one thing and she was talking about another.

It was to do with fostering.

I'm used to school railings looks. That is, when you foster you get used to mums gossiping about the fact that you foster. Not in a bad way actually, if anything the opposite. They are usually very respectful and you sometimes get really nice compliments about it.

"It's a wonderful thing what you do" etc

Nice.

So I'm used to mums introducing themselves and doing a bit of fishing. People have natural curiosity about others - so do I come to think of it. Being interested in people is a boon in fostering.

So. A mum comes up and casually says hello and I say hello. She says it's a bit cold for the time of year and I reply we weren't sure if it was long trousers or shorts this morning.

She says she's guessing I'm Rachel's mum and I say yes. She says that her daughter Tamsin has asked if Rachel can come round for tea one evening, will that be alright.

I say great.

She goes on "Only I may as well mention that Tamsin doesn't make friends easily so I'm very pleased about this"

I say "Yes, Rachel has struggled to make friends"

True. Foster children often find it hard, what with everything going on in their lives.

Then she says "You see, Tamsin has low level Aspergers"

I say I'm sorry to hear that.

The mum goes on "The only other thing is to ask is if Rachel is alright with dogs?"

I say yes, loves dogs. How many?

"Two Westies"

I ask "Have you always had two together?"

She replies "We got them when we were fostering"

Ah. 

"So" I says "You don't foster any more?"

"No we stopped when Tamsin came along"

"Did you have many?"

"Yes" she said "Quite a few. Hard work"

I agreed, it can be hard work, but worth it. She agreed, she said "What would happen to them otherwise?"

I asked if she missed it, she said no, not now she had two of her own. She added that they'd had a difficult one, and it led to a re-think. I asked what had happened.

"He was a biter."

"Oh dear"

"He was dangerous. So after a lot of agonising we had him put down".

Silence.

I asked her who she fostered with. She replied "Fostering For Dogs"

"Ah" I said.

The children were coming out.

"See you tomorrow" we said.

As Homer says; 

Doh.

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TO TAKE YOUR FOSTER CHILD ON HOLIDAY?

Summer holidays are never far away; you hardly get the sand out of your suitcases and you're being bombarded with advertisements and special offers to get you back to Lanzarote.

Decisions, decisions...

Abroad or GB?

Same place as last year, or try somewhere new?

Butlins or Pontins? (That old one was easy when I was a child; we couldn't afford either so it was Warners).

To have a holiday at all? Why not stay home and spend the money on something else?

It's a tricky decision, but fun.

However.

If you foster there's a decision to be made that is much bigger than any of the above; you have to decide if your foster child is going with you.

Or at least, that's what I'm told by other carers and social workers. For us the decision is what they call a no-brainer; the child goes with you, provided they want to. But there's lots of things to think about, nothing insurmountable, except maybe one.

INSURMOUNTABLE THING

If your holiday has already been booked before the child was placed with you and there's no deal on supplementaries, your decision is made for you. I guess that can happen, but frankly, for me, if you're in fostering and you book a lock-down holiday for a set number of people way ahead of date it's because you've made your mind up you want your family holiday to be just that; family. No strangers. Fair enough, you'll save a few bob. But you've painted yourself into a corner if you fnd yourself with a child that needs to go with you.

For sure; taking a foster child on holiday is fraught with things you have to think about. Things you must try to get right.

SLEEPING

Sleeping arrangements need planning, 100% more than when it's just family.

Family and friends muck in on holiday with things like sharing bedrooms and bathrooms and putting on your cossie with a towel round you on the beach. But when you're fostering you have to sit down with your social worker and talk it out.

We took a foster child away once, for a few days at a seaside hotel. We'd booked a so-called 'suite' to make sure there was a separate room which the child had to herself with an adjoining door so we could keep an eye. It was the closest we could get to our home set-up. We asked for a single bed to be made up in the second room. The alternatives were; either book her a separate hotel room (too young to have a room to herself for goodness sake) or get a spare single bed made up in our room (awkward; you don't want to have dressing gowns on holiday and same-room-sleeping means sensible planning of showering and loo runs and the like).

We asked if we could get two rooms side-by-side with a connecting door; the hotel only had one of those and it was booked.

Long story short; child got spooked in the early hours and ended up sleeping on the sofa under the blankets from the wardrobe in our bedroom, with me in the double and my husband in the single in the adjoining room.

Complicated, but we got there.

SAFETY

Safety is another concern, about 20% more than when it's just family. The worries are the same, but you're less familiar with the child's personal sense of safety, plus you have to always remember, it's someone else's child.

When you go on holiday with your own children you stay alert to all sorts of potential dangers. Water mainly. What's the least dangerous? (you ask yourself), the open sea with hidden currents and rocks? Or the swimming pool with concrete edges and hidden pumps? Snorkelling, pedalos, the diving boards.

One year we'd inadvertently watched Jaws a few months before our holiday, stupid.

I'm afraid if one wants to foster for all you're worth, the days of lying around the pool dozing under your headphones with half an eye out for the pool waiter so you can snag a spritzer before lunch, those days my Pedigree chum, are not with you right now, they lie happily ahead. Years ahead!

Then there's the general worry of keeping an eye on them. You want to know where they are all the time, for obvious reasons. And they want to go off and 'explore'. You stay on your toes for your own kids, even more so with foster children, who might have it in them to be a bit bolder, a bit more adventurous.

For us it meant we came home from holiday for a rest, and we were happy to do it. The foster children had a whale of a time. Mostly they had never had a holiday before; and holiday-time is up there with Christmas.

LITTLE THINGS

There are little things to bear in mind too. Well, not quite so big.

Diet for one. Most foster children have food fads; can you meet them in Spain? Will the child be ok running around in a bathing suit in front of people or do they have body-image issues?

Health: What if they are unwell while abroad? Is a foster chid covered by family health insurance (answer; in my experience the holiday firms take this question in their stride, and the answer is yes, but worth checking).

The other things to get right are usually handled by your social worker. They sort out if the child's real parents have any say in holidays, if there's any paperwork or procedural complications.

RESPITE CAN BE THE BEST THING

Respite has never been for us. 'Respite' is where the foster child stays with another fostering family while you either take a break at home or in Benidorm.

Fostering can be very challenging. Many carers who slog it out around the year need and deserve a break from the demands.

Listen; you will find that Blue Sky will encourage you to take respite rather than soldier on, if things are hectic. There is no shame or sense of failing about respite. Look, if you work hard in any other job you deserve and take a holiday, why should fostering be any different?

Respite has never been the way for our family because we've always wanted to do the very best for our foster children, and in every case the right thing was and is for them to come on holiday with us. We reckon it might set the child's progress back if they were sent somewhere else, and we have never been comfortable with the message 'we need a break from you'.

IN THE END...

If there is any discussion, the child can come in on the decision making, if they are old enough. We have often looked after foster children who came to us for respite care while their foster family had a holiday. More often than not they missed their foster family, and on balance that can be a positive.

The one child whose experience sticks in my mind, and whose take on family holidays I keep in mind every year when we are booking our (bloomin' expensive!) foster family holiday, had this to say;

"Us foster children never like being known as foster children. There's that 'stigma' thing. I don't like it when people are looking at me and talking about whether I'm a foster child or adopted. I can tell when they are and I hate it. An' when I went on holiday with my foster family it happened all the time. So what I do is treat my respite like it's my holiday."

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THE BIG SLEEP

I get the feeling that sleep is becoming a big problem for all of us.

We're bombarded from every direction with information about how to get a good night's sleep.

If you foster you don't need anyone to tell you that sleep (especially bedtime) is one of the biggest common issues among foster children, and when foster children have sleep problems, foster parents have sleep problems.

Here's what's been going on in our house over half-term.

We have a 12 year old who is basically anti-sleep. He has to wait until he is so completely ready to nod off that there isn't one single second of lying with his head on the pillow waiting for the sandman. 

Our own children went to bed at the required time, although our youngest had insecurities and I ended up sleeping in the spare bedroom with him from age 7 until he was 12. He grew out of it well enough and  looking back it was the right thing to do.

Can't do that with a foster child though.

So. You put your thinking cap on every evening, looking for solutions to what seems to be a massive problem.  And to put it succinctly, there is no solution. It's easier to get a child to eat sprouts or go to the dentist than to get them to go to bed and wait patiently to go to sleep. You can't make someone go to sleep.

You try everything; the peaceful bedroom, the winding-down-of-the-day with no PC screens on anywhere, the milky drink, the 'plenty of exercise so they are ready for bed' thing. The bedtime story, the 'waking them up nice and early so they are ready for bed' thing. The reward thing 'if you have a nice early night every night during the week you can have a reward' (the requested reward is always the same thing; a late night).

You try staying upstairs once they are finally in bed so they don't feel isolated or left out. You try sleep tapes, the sounds of surf on a beach. You try peaceful night lights, you even think about those plug-in 'sleep inducing' frangrance gizmos. You try sitting at the foot of the bed yawning theatrically. 

You change their bed so there's two thick blankets under the bottom sheet for extra comfort. You buy them a 'sleep pillow'. You let them build up their bed with extra pillows and cushions until it looks like a small fort. 

You discuss different bedrooms 'maybe it woud be easier to go to sleep in a back bedroom?'. You discuss different beds 'maybe a wider bed, maybe bunk beds?'.

All the while the sleep problem appears unbeatable. You try paying no attention to the sleep probem, thinking that maybe by making an issue out of it you're encouraging more anxiety.

And then you figure you've literally tried everything. All you have left is where we spent this last half-term.

I don't know how you'd describe what we did, something like 'go with the flow'?

Or maybe 'whatever happens happens'.

The lad himself is a great kid. We have 'claimed' him according to our CAMHS councillor. (CAMHS = Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services). He is as family as family can get with a foster child.

But. He is practically allergic to the concept of lying down and waiting to go to sleep. 

We'd let him stay up until way past midnight last New Years Eve, and that simple thing alone made him as happy as we've ever seen him. He's had the occassional sleepover and one time was still whispering from under the duvet with his friends after midnight.

So, last weekend we let him stay up. It was the Sunday night, no school the next day. The little fellow has got big things going on in his head at the moment, things I'll maybe go into on another blog post sometime. Kind of private really, I'm sure you understand, much as I know you'd like to know, much as I'd like to share.

He'd become difficult, then angry then something worse than angry; he'd become despairing. You see this in some foster children don't you? A surrendering of all their energy and curiosity about the world. They kind of give up on life. He went silent on us. Didn't want to know. Started to withdraw from us.

Suffice to say that getting a so-called 'Good Night's Sleep' was the last of his worries, and the last of ours too. We decided we'd do whatever it took to make him feel a bit more safe and secure. 

So on Sunday night he stayed up. Downstairs in his pyjamas and dressing gown. Me dressed.

Until nearly 2.00am.

Yep. 

He was using the family iPad to play a game (approved + parental controls on + quite an excellent game actually). I watched late night TV (rubbish actually, how do security guards stay sane?). He resisted quite a bit when I said it was time to go up, but he went, and was asleep in about 10-15 minutes. And next day, not at all tired, and quite content, maybe not exactly Mr Sunshine, but a germ of improvement.

Next night. Same thing.

Only now he wants to 'break his record'. This I get. He's starting to get hold of life again, exerting himself and testing out his anticipated adulthood and what have you.

Anyway; this time it's 3.30am, nearly. To be honest I'd had a five minute shuteye with my feet up on the sofa around 3.00am and when I startled awake there was no argument it was bedtime. Next morning he had a bit of a lie-in and then he's awake and alert and full of beans, wanted to go to the park to meet some school friends, they'd arranged it themselves using Skype. He played a mighty game of some sort of running around crossed with "It" crossed with a football free-for-all then running up and down the grassy bank then the Flying Fox. He ate a hearty tea and...

...fell asleep in the armchair just after 1.00am. I put a duvet over him and left him for a bit, to let the sleep take hold, then I gently shepherded him upstairs and he snuggled down and went to sleep again. Perfect.

Next night I hoped he'd forgotten about breaking records, but I knew in reality he'd want to go for it.

Cut a long story short;

It's now nearly 5.00am. I've just cooked him three sausages and I'm sat at the kitchen table with my 5th or 6th cup of tea and typing on my laptop. He's happy, happier than I've ever seen him. He keeps calling out and updating me on his game. He's just asked me if he can try a cup of tea, his first ever. I've made him a milky one with 2 sugars. He tried it and he's not keen, but everything means something with foster children. 

Listen; he's just said "Can your son have some more sausages?" He's never said anything like that before.

I fired up the pan again and said, out of his line of vision;

"Tell you something funny. I got a nice feeling when you said 'Your son'."

He murmered "Mmmmmm" as if to say "It's my way of rewarding you for being kind" or maybe "Now that we know who's in charge round here I'm prepared to throw you a bone" or maybe "I love you". Dunno which. One for the CAMHS brigade.

Tell you the God's honest: it's times like this I simply LOVE fostering. There is nothing, NOTHING on earth quite like it.

He's just come to see me in the kitchen. Asked me if we could have a 'Holding Your Breathe' contest. We did it 5 times, he won 4-1 (I beat him the first time, then let him win the next 4). Then he explained to me that the reason he's good at holding his breathe is because he knows how to meditate. He sat cross-legged on the kitchen table and demonstrated meditating. Then he got up and showed me how he can jump and touch the top of the kitchen door.

He's on his way to better times. Would he have made his way back without the (very) late nights? Who knows.

Now he's found the Cellotape and is taping his mouth. We know why he does this from time to time. He's just mumbled through taped up lips; 

"The good old days". 

I know what he means by that. Like I said, he's got big things going on in his head at the moment.

He's removed the tape and is making me some toast.

Onwards and upwards.

I looking forward to:

1. Getting him back on UK time ready for school in a couple of days. That'll happen alright.
2. Discussing this bunch of news with my Blue Sky social worker, she's coming over for a visit on his first day back.
3. Going back to going to bed myself at around 10.30pm.

Mind, I have slept better this last week than I have for quite a while. 

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KEEP SIBLINGS TOGETHER? OR SEPARATE?

The big debate when children are taken into care is whether brothers and sisters should be kept together.

Or, at least, it should be the big debate.

Unfortunately, in my experience, it tends not to get debated much, maybe not even at all.

Local Authority social workers always seem to try to keep them together.

I've never heard of more than three sibings going into the same foster home, but I'll bet that's not the record high number. Someone once told me that five is the maximum number of foster children you can have under your roof; any more than that and you qualify as a Childrens Home and have to comply with Ofsted and even get an Ofsted visit.

To be fair the obvious reasons for keeping brothers and sisters together are...well...obvious. It doesn't take an expert to come up with them;

1. The children will be frightened and shy going into Care. Having their brothers and sisters around will reduce the strageness.

2. It's easier to find one home than to find two or three separate ones.

3. Splitting up siblings makes things such as social worker visits and transport to contact harder than they need to be.

4. Foster Carers will welcome the extra income.

5. The siblings will self-regulate each other, and play together rather than require full-time foster carer input.

6. Re-assembling the family after the period of Care will be easier.

So many good reasons. And yet.

I know a woman who fosters three brothers since they came into Care. She takes them to the same school I use.

They are aged 7, 9 and 10. 

You can tell they are brothers in Care, not just because their facial features are similar. They are all equally lightweight - yet look as if they could handle themselves in a scrap. They all look younger than their peers. They all have that startled, haunted expression you often see in young foster children.

They tend to stand alone in the playground. They look like they've given up on the world already.

The foster mum tries her socks off. She's a devout Christian so it takes some doing for her resolution to be taxed, but taxed it is.

When we first met she would often sidle up to me in the playground and swing the conversation round to whether it is ever justified if foster carers give up on a placement, and pull the plug. I always reminded her that if things get too much you have a responsibility to look at that option, because, as Blue Sky always remind us; 

'YOU, that is, the Foster Carer, and YOUR FAMILY are more important than anything'.

It's a fact. You can't foster properly if those two things are out of sorts.

While I'm on the subject I have to say that comparing fostering experiences with people who aren't with Blue Sky is very interesting. I have to say, hand on heart, that it usually comes across that the level of support they get isn't anywhere near as good. Carers are often that bit less well-informed, and seem to be lacking someone who is looking at their fostering from the carers point of view as well as the child's, which is what Blue Sky do. 

Hence this foster mum was always picking my brains for advice. Advice and support; she wanted the youngest brother to be placed elsewhere, away from the two older brothers. The youngest had temper tantrums. She wanted re-assurance that her wishes didn't mean she was a bad foster mum. 

As the weeks turned into months she began to look more and more haggard.

She would describe how the youngest would fly off the handle, how sometimes only her husband could keep him on the straight and narrow and would take the lad for huge long walks out of the house and away from his brothers.

Keeping the three of them together was bringing the seven of them down (they had two teenage daughters of their own). 

But the local authority wouldn't agree, probably couldn't see what was going on.

What was going on was probably something like this: the three boys were engaging in the same behaviours they had entrenched in their real home. Being together they each triggered the others' nightmares of whatever happened in their old home, which no-one but they knew about (foster children can be closed books). If there had been cruelty directed towards them by their parents the older brothers may have used their parents as a blueprint for how to behave towards their youngest brother. Bullying and tormenting weaker and vulnerable family members is all they might know and under the pressure of being put in a new home they behaved the way they were treated.

Whatever the cause, it wasn't working. It sounded from what I heard that the youngest was developing mental health issues.

Then one day, the foster mum comes up to me in the playground with a tiny smile.

She's been granted 3 weeks respite. It's going to work like this; a super-carer is going to move into her home and look after the three boys. Her daughters are going to stay with friends. She and her hubby are going away. To India. Brilliant.

I saw the super-carer in the playground a few times, and she was very professional. She would carry a soft football to give the boys something to do while whoever came out of school first waited for the others. This is a small trick but it spoke volumes about someone who gets children. I watched her kick the ball a few times and she really joined in, enjoying the kids company, not bothering with the nattering parents, she was doing her job.

A few weeks after the mum returned from India she told me the youngest was being placed elsewhere.

A month later she starts turning up looking full of the joys of fostering. The two older boys are doing really well; they've finally integrated into the family and they now see themselves as a family unit of six, instead of two struggling family units of four and three. The youngest brother, she gets updates, is making good progress in his new placement. Better than if he was still with his brothers.

I have an experience of my own which supports the same conclusion, namely that keeping siblings together is something that should be either the last resort or a decision based on careful consideration of all the options.

The foster mum, by the way, had an indifferent time in India, I could tell because she said her husband told her he coudn't wait to get home and have a 'proper' curry.

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