Fosterman – Fostering Blog.
Since James (name changed) has lived with me he has been interested in a number of careers from catering to the Army and a few in between. When he got home today he informed me that he wanted to learn a trade such as Electrician, Plumber or Bricklayer.
I asked him what had brought this on and he said that one of his friend’s Dad was a builder and earned good money and really enjoyed his work. Apparently this boy’s Dad had done a lot of work on their house and it was really stylish. So we sat down and talked about it.
I told him about the friends I had that were in the building trade and that it was hard work but that the rewards were good. However I also told him about the cold days in the winter working outside. So out came the laptop and we looked at the courses and what the entry requirements were. It all seemed reasonably straight forward so we saved all the information and carried on with our evening.
We had to endure two long boring nights without any football on the TV so we looked at watching a series on Netflix. In the end we found something called Vikings. It was a fun mix of history, violence and some slightly more ‘adult’ scenes.
I still get embarrassed watching those kinds of scenes on TV but James just laughed at them. In the end we watched 2 episodes before bedtime and said we’d watch some more then next day. James went off to bed while I sorted stuff out and locked up.
When James went off, the next day, I sat and drunk my coffee in the garden and contemplated my Fostering career. I had thought of maybe James being my last placement but I had enjoyed working with James and it had made me rethink my plans. So I decided that I would wait and see how the rest of James placement panned out and make a decision then.
For every placement like James there would be a not so positive one. I had some quite stressful placements, in the past, where you never felt that the young person was settled and happy. I could probably write a book about some of the experiences I had as a single carer and, also, when I was married. The great thing about Fostering is that you never know what the next placement will be like.
I’ve been very rarely ‘empty’ as a carer even given the restriction of only caring for boys. I’ve never been worried about age either, although it’s rare to care for babies and toddlers as a single man. I guess that the average placement for me has been somebody like James, teenage boys of thirteen upwards.
The plus side of teenagers is that they can communicate; the downside is that they can be stroppy little horrors, probably like me when I was their age.
Anyway, it was getting cold out and the house wouldn’t clean itself so it was pinny and marigolds on and out with the mop and hoover. A man’s work is never finished.
Fosterman – A Simply Fostering Blogging Foster Carer.
