A busy time as all the looked after young people had dentist appointments and it was much needed for all of them The youngest disclosed that they had never been to the dentist before and were therefore very nervous about their appointment. The dentist told us that it was obvious that they needed follow up treatment and very obvious that they hadn’t had any previous examinations. None of them enjoyed the experience and the eldest sibling said that he didn’t want to go again and that we couldn’t make him. However his need was the greatest and he needed several fillings. In fact the dentist stated that his teeth were the worst he had seen for a 14 year old. So we got home after the appointment and the two girls were quite calm about having to return for another appointment but the boy, the eldest, was really ‘humpy’ about it. We had all of the ‘you’re not my parents’ and ‘you can’t tell me what to do’ routines. So we didn’t mention the dentist again thinking that it would be a while until the new appointment and he would of calmed down by then. The next couple of weeks were pretty quiet but the eldest, the boy, appeared to be a bit sullen and very quiet. Then one day he refused, point blank, to go to school. We tried to convince him to go but he got very angry and stormed out of the house. We notified the Social Worker and our Supervising Social Worker as well as the school. I drove about to try to find him but there was no sign anywhere and he hadn’t turned up to school. We had the number of some of his friends but no one knew where he was and he hadn’t been seen anywhere. The following day there was still no sign of him so the Social Worker asked local police to visit Mum to ascertain if he was there. We waited for the phone to ring and his sisters were worried about his safety.
We phone rand and it was the Social Worker confirming that he was at Mum’s house. The Social Worker asked if she could visit the following day and we, of course, accepted. We told the remaining two girls what had happened and their reaction surprised me. They weren’t relieved that he was ok or happy that he was safe but they were both really angry that he was back with Mum and they weren’t. We had all the ‘it’s not fair’ and ‘why can’t we go home’. So when the Social Worker visited, the following day, we made them aware of the fact that the girls were very unsettled and that they really wanted to go home. The Social Worker told us that Mum had stated that she didn’t want the two youngest returning home, at this time. We had a long discussion about what to say to the girls without causing them more upset. It would be hard because they had now seen their two older siblings return home and they were jealous of that. They completely forgot the fact that the eldest had already been kicked out by Mum and it may be a matter of time before the same happened to their brother. So we sat with the girls while their Social Worker explained to them what had happened and the fact that Mum wasn’t ready for them to return home at the moment but that we hoped that something can be planned rather than what had happened to the eldest two.
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