In this blog, I am going to talk about the importance and personal relationship between a foster child and foster carer. This is based on my own lived experience of being in the foster care system, both as a child in care and someone who has transitioned into leaving care. In my own experience and opinion, when being placed into the fostering system, the one most important thing that a foster child needs when being placed is an automatic connection with the foster carer and family, as this is where they are going to be for many years depending on when they have been placed there.
However, this is not always the case. For many foster children, they try and run away from the placement because they don’t feel safe or feel that they don’t belong there for many reasons. However, for me this was not the case. Me being placed into care was down to a major bad experience of overdosing due to my mental health deteriorating.
I can remember the first moment I met my foster carer, as this was on the ward where I was recovering. I felt majorly anxious and very scared as i did not really know why this person was there. I knew that social services decided to piace me into foster care, but until I was told who this person was, I never really knew who she was. Once I got told who she was, I was able to build a connection with her as I knew at this point, there was a chance that she was going to be my foster carer. Once she had a chat with me, she decided that she would be able to take me in and foster me for the duration until I turned 18.
The Relationship that me and my foster carer was able to build up through the years of me being looked after by her, was one of the best that I ever had in my whole life, she was able to understand how I felt, how I was thinking but most importantly how my mental health was affecting me everyday. However, this did not last for long as when I turned 17, I was questioning my sexuality and experiencing feelings for my friend who was a man. She did not like this, as she had the opinion that really upset me as she never really accepted me for who I was.
This made me feel so lost, as it was like the last three years of recovering and sorting my health out and knowing who I was, was like for nothing as I reverted back to the way I was before going into care.
So, if i could give foster carers and care experienced people some advice from my own experience, it would be to always accept everyone no matter the type of person they are, if they are part of the LGBTQIA+ community, if they have a disability or even if they are struggling with everyday living. Everyone deserves to be treated the same and the fact that from my own experience and the stories that I hear everyday about people being treated wrongly about the type of person they are, or who they are, it is wrong and should not happen.
When Treating someone badly, always remember and think of one question… How would you like to be treated if this was you?… because no matter what the issue might be or the belief you have is, we should always put people’s feeling first above our own beliefs as no one should feel like they should hide who they are.
By Anonymous Care Experienced Blogger.
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