A Fostering Journey 98

So that’s summer over! Kids are back to school and we are back to our routine with our two looked after children L, who is 16 months, and T, who is 4 months. Both seem to be thriving and have got over their physical issues. L is still under a child consultant and T gets regular Health Visitor visits due to how premature she was at birth. T is now creeping up towards her required weight and she doesn’t look like a ‘small’ baby now, she is turning into a sweet little girl. As placements go this is a pretty easy one as there is no family contact and, at present, no proceedings or need for regular professionals. This was the first year, for ages, that we haven’t had to buy multiple school uniforms for looked after children returning to school. Last year I think we had to buy uniforms from 4 different schools, which was a complete pain in the rear. Having to communicate with multiple schools is a real test of your organisational skills, different Sencos, different timetables, different ways of contacting you, different uniforms and sports gear. However none of this is relevant in our current situation. It was actually difficult to find ways of filling our days but fortunately the weather was fine and that enabled us to have days out and trips to various venues. I was keen for L to start doing some kind of exercise, such as swimming. My wife and I had a membership with David Lloyds and we decided to take the babies there just to introduce them to the water. They both loved it and there were a few tears when it was time to head for home but the day had been a great success and we decided to make this a regular visit. We spoke to our Supervising Social Worker (SSW) and, obviously, kept them fully up to date on how the babies were doing and what we were doing. Following on from my last blog regarding starting off in Fostering, you have been through your form F and have been through panel and approved for you required number of children and for the required period, short term, long term or respite. The feeling of anticipation awaiting your first placement is one I still remember today, over 25 years since I was approved. Your agency, hopefully Fostering UK, will try very hard to match you to a suitable child or children. There will be occasions where the placement has been organised and the child or children will arrive with clothes etc. and it’s just a case of settling the placement in and going from there. However some placements will be more ‘emergency’ and the child or children will turn up with nothing, possibly in the back of a police car. These are more challenging as you will end up having to rush around for clothes, toiletries etc. These emergency type placements can happen at any time of the day or night and you will suffer with what we called ‘twitchy curtain syndrome’ from the neighbours. We made a point to let neighbours know that we are Foster carers and that there would the occasional Police Cars turning up at our house, just in case the neighbours thought that we were hardened criminals. We always made a point, with older children of sitting down and chatting with them and finding out some things about them. We made a point of having a set routine for new guests at our home and this seemed to work and make the young people feel at home. When you get the call about a prospective placement have a set number of questions to ask.