Quiet weeks are unusual, as a Foster Carer, but we were a few now. We were in a routine and all was good with the girls. Mum was making a fuss as she suddenly decided she wanted contact again but Social Services were digging their heels in as they didn’t want the children to be let down again. Mum had become totally unpredictable in her behaviour and her treatment of her eldest children, who had run away from Foster Care, mean that the Local Authority were very careful in how they worked with Mum. Other family members were also getting involved with varying degrees of success. Paternal family were asking for the two youngest girls to remain with us as they believed that it was in the girl’s best interest. Maternal family were, of course, asking for the girls to go home as they believed going home was in the girl’s best interest. I did feel sorry for the Social Worker who was being hounded by numerous phone calls. But the girls were blissfully unaware of what was going on and were focussing on their day to day lives. I attended a teachers evening at the eldest’s school to be told that her improvement was outstanding and that she was really focussing on her work, was very well behaved and was a pleasure to have around. That was music to our ears as we were very much consistent on our ideas around education for young people who are placed with us. When I got home we asked the girls to come in for a chat and we told them how proud we were of them as both had got positive feedback from their respective schools.
The eldest actually started crying and told us that no one had ever been proud of her before. We passed on all the good news to their Social Worker for their file and we treated the girls to some nice new tops and jeans. The following weekend the girls had a day out with their paternal aunt who lived quite locally to us. They had a lovely day out and we told their Aunt about the excellent results the girls had received from school and she was equally delighted as we were. She also treated the girls for their hard work which made the girls even happier. We knew all about Mums attitude towards education and that the girls could ‘learn as much by watching the Discovery Channel’ rather than going to school. We have always made it a top priority to ensure that our ‘Looked After’ children got into a good local school and that we had a great relationship with the school ourselves. We kept a whole range of information on our Laptop including schools, and points of contact, doctors, dentists, sports clubs as well as organisations such as Scouts, Guides etc. Our local council provided a monthly ‘What’s On’ magazine which we always kept to see if there were any child friendly events going on that we could take the kids to. We always try to take the kids to one event at the weekend and let them decide for themselves what they wanted to do for the rest of time. Sometimes they didn’t want to do anything and we were happy to let watch TV and ‘slob out’. After a long week at school and early mornings they deserved the chance to just do nothing and so did we.
Recent Comments