Fostering Blog.
I was going through some old photographs the other day, just reminiscing about previous children I’ve had the pleasure of looking after in the past and wondering how they are getting on in life.
It’s difficult to know whether to keep in contact with previous placements. For some it’s part of their life that, maybe, they don’t want to remember for various reasons. Maybe Mum or Dad were going through a bad time or they themselves were. For others, maybe they were too young to remember the trauma or have boxed it away in their head.
Those that I have spoken to seem to be, in the main, pretty resolute about their past and you hope that, maybe, they’ve had the chance to talk the past through with a professional of some description.
James (name changed) has been asked back by the football team he went to, with a friend, the week before last. So he has to register and pay a fee and a weekly sub which I was happy to agree to. They have a game next weekend and he would be in the squad.
I took him to the Wednesday night training session and met the Coach. I explained James’ situation and filled in the forms and paid his money.
The Club seems very well organised and very inclusive and has the benefit that there are 3 boys from James’ school there. I stood and watched for a while and was impressed with how well James was fitting in with the other boys.
On the way home afterwards he told me that nobody had ever watched him train or play before and would I come to the game to cheer him on. I said that the Coach had told me that they were unsure if parents would be allowed to watch, due to the Covid situation, but if we were I’d be delighted to watch him.
We got home and James showered and hit the hay as he was tired after his exertions. I updated my diary and sorted some financial stuff out before watching a bit of TV. James had left his phone on the chair and it was ‘dinging’ away like mad. I left it on the side but didn’t look as it seemed a bit rude to do that.
So the next morning, at breakfast, I mentioned that his phone had been ‘dinging’ and was everything ok. James said that it had been his Mum asking him if he had any money she could ‘borrow’. Also she said that could he get some money from me, under some kind of pretence, and get it to her.
I asked James how he felt about it and he replied that he knew the money would be for buying drugs and not for anything else.
James then told me of some of the situations in the past where Mum had taken money from him to buy drugs.
One such incident was where a relation had given him some money for his birthday and his Mum had taken it and he never saw it again.
Again, I logged all of this, in my diary, after James had left for school.
A Simply Fostering Blogging Foster Carer.
