Thursday’s Fostering Blog
This morning, I have got two meetings with social workers. The first meeting is with my agency social worker for my monthly supervision meeting. This is a chance to talk about how things are going for both Alice and for us as a family. Although it can feel like a box ticking exercise on some occasions, it is a useful time to reflect on what has gone well and what has not been so great. It is a chance to think out loud and look at the ways we deal with things and the strategies we have in place to deal with some of Alice’s more difficult behaviour.
The second meeting we have today is with the local authority social worker. My agency social worker has arranged this meeting so that together we can talk about Alice’s care. The main thing we want to talk about is about Alice’s bowels and the consultants suggestion for management of her bowels. He has made a suggestion that we start daily bowel washout regime. After careful consideration this is not something we want to do. Mainly because Alice will never be able to do this kind of management herself. I feel that we need to look at something that has more long-term benefit and would help her be independent.
So today’s meeting is an opportunity to talk through the pros and cons and hopefully we can make a decision together. Whilst we are meeting we also want to talk about respite and how we manage this long term. We have decided that rather than just the odd night here and there we need to arrange at least two weeks in the year where she can have respite for a full week at a time. We are unable to arrange this ourselves so we need the funding agreed by Social services to enable this to happen.
When my supervision meeting had ended, the next meeting was due to start. It was very frustrating when instead of the social worker arriving the social work student arrived in her place. The student is unable to make any decisions and has to refer back to the social worker for everything. This was the very reason we had asked the social worker to be present. My social worker suggested we reconvene when the social worker is available. Failing this she suggests a professionals meeting will need to be called. It is very hard when you have waited so long for a meeting for it to turn into a big waste of time. Patience and endurance or two qualities that I need more of as they are certainly needed in foster care.
A Less Ordinary Family Foster Care Blog
