In this blog, i am going to be talking about what it is like to stay in contact with family while being in the fostering system. This is my own personal experience, as this might not be the same for everyone, but I hope for those who might be reading this blog, that it gives them the confidence to get back in contact with loved one’s if they are wanting too but are worried about what might happen if they do.
As someone who has been in the fostering system both as a foster child and someone who is exiting into independent living, staying in contact with my family during the time of me being in care was extremely hard, especially as when I got taken into care, this was not done under the best of circumstances and there was a lot of bad energy going on between both myself and my mother.
However, over time it was decided that It would be in my best interest to try and get a better and stronger connection with my mum, so that I was able to have some sort of relationship with her and to fix mistakes that were done in the past. At first, I was extremely terrified of doing this, because I did not know how to feel or respond to seeing my mum again, as I felt that she would still be either annoyed or even upset down to the fact of how I felt and what I did at the time of being taken into foster care.
After a while, I knew that seeing her again was the best thing to do, because during my time in care, I felt that there was a part of me missing, that I never really belonged in the foster placement and more importantly I didn’t belong with the people who were looking after me. The first few times that I met with my mum, tensions were high as what could be expected due to the bad atmosphere that happened during the time of me being taken into care, but after I was able to talk to her about how I was feeling at the time and that she listened to me, I was able to build a better and stronger connection with her then I would have done otherwise.
However, this might not be the case for a lot of care experienced people, to be honest a lot of the time, a lot of care experienced people do not go back and see their families, but in my experience being able to see them again and talk about how you feel now looking back is the best experience you can have, because it allows you to have the last say on the situation and get them to listen to you in an environment that you can control.
So, a message for care experienced people… If you get the chance to see your family again I would say go for it because it can be a great experience to see how they are doing but also to rekindle your relationship with them, but at the same time you might want to see them to tell them how you are feeling and how you felt at the time of being placed into care… having this opportunity is the best chance ever as you have the control to stay or walk away without anything bad happening but most of all you are able to have the chance to think about weather seeing your family again would be good for you because when being taken into care this is taken away from you, but now you get to have the experience to say whether it is for you or not.
By Anonymous Care Experienced Blogger
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