Fostering Blog
An enjoyable weekend. Nice and relaxed before the big day of James (name changed) returning to school. It’s going to be strange for both of us. For James it’s a new school, new people and new teachers.
I’m sure he will cope as he appears quite resilient and he is also social so should mix and make friends easily. For me, it’s back to days by myself and not having a little helper under my feet. I’ve agreed with James that I will do the school run, there and back, for the first week and then we’ll play it by ear.
We’ve also agreed on timetables. So no computer until his homework is completed and then he gets everything ready for the next day. After that it’s dinner and chill out time with bedtime at 10. In the morning it’s up at 7, bathroom and breakfast and then getting dressed for school.
It helps so much to have a proper routine for school days both for him and me. I’m going to miss having the young fella around in the daytimes and it will certainly be quieter, but it gives me time to catch up on paperwork and those household chores which I enjoy so much.
Got my annual training schedule to catch up on. We have to do 3 sessions per year and, due to the Virus, I haven’t done any. I get a list of courses, the venues and who the trainer is.
I look at what I haven’t done yet and book myself in. I actually enjoy them, it’s good to learn new things and it’s amazing how relevant they are during your career in Fostering. I remember learning about the pleasures of Family Group Conferences (FGC).
I had never attended one or thought I ever would but then had two within a year, both for sibling groups we were caring for. The first wasn’t a huge success. It was basically the children’s Mum spending an hour slating Social Services, the Social Worker and us. It was very difficult not to respond but I acted very professionally and didn’t say a word.
The second was sad and amusing in equal measures. The sibling group had come to us as an emergency placement and ended up staying for a couple of years. There had been a lot of issues around food and this played out in front of us as Mum demanded that the children ate every scrap of the food laid on for the meeting.
Two of the children vomited due to overeating and the other two weren’t far from it. Mum thought this meeting, and any others, were all about her and not the children therefore a strong chairperson was needed to ensure that the meetings were more children focussed. But even then Mum would state how hard done by she was and how much it hurt not having the children with her, even though she had put the children in care and had refused every opportunity for the children to return.
That placement was one of the most stressful I have experienced even though there was two of us caring at the time. I could write about ten blogs on that placement but that’s for another time.
A Blogging Foster Carer’s Diary.
