A Fostering Journey 89

Our placement of T and L has settled into a nice routine. Both of them are good sleepers and usually go down about 19:30 and sleep through until about 6am. They also tend to have a mid afternoon nap for about 90 minutes. This gives us plenty of time to get housework done, do chores or one of us can pop out to get some shopping, or if we have done all the above, to sit and have a coffee and a feet up. We also ensure that we are up to date with our record keeping and financial records and carry our any training we have. There is an expectation that you carry out about 5 courses over a 12 month period and we actually enjoy doing the new online ones. It’s nice to get together with other carers on occasions but its fun doing a course from the comfort of your own home and enjoy some socialising when you get together at support groups. We had a regular meet up pre Covid which was in a local pub. We would meet up with a couple of staff members for a chat and for them to pass on information about the agency. We could then discuss any issues regarding our placements and it always seemed that somebody had previous experience in dealing with a particular issue and you could get some useful advice. Unfortunately Covid put paid to this and meetings went online, however these seem to be becoming face to face again. Having two babies in the house has meant that people want to visit us more, mostly under the pretence of seeing us but also to see the little ones for cuddles. One thing that sticks in my mind with this placement was the relationship between L, who is 16 months and my father in law. Now my father in law is a big man, he is an East Ender with a loud voice, a wonky nose and hands like a bunch of bananas. He had worked on doors throughout London and wasn’t somebody that you got on the wrong side of. However, little L was always straight over to him when he saw him and that would be that. We would find them in the garden walking around or watching something on CBBC together or my father in law would be reading him a story. It was lovely to watch them together. In the past he was always friendly to the children we had at home but it was always the youngest children who enjoyed his company. Not having any contact with family members also helped to make this placement a lot more stress free and relaxed. Now we all understand that we should be committed to family contact for the young people and, in most cases, this is a positive situation for them but, as we all know and as I have mentioned before, in some cases it unsettles the children and can cause issues and problems. So we were quite relieved in this case to not have contact. Mum had started with occasional meetings in a contact centre but had basically given up. T, being four months old, was unaware of what was going on and it was telling that L seemed to want to stay with us rather than to go to his Mum. In fact when we got up to leave them with Mum for contact he would cry. I don’t think this helped Mum who had a face like thunder when this happened.