Helen’s Fostering Blogs
Contact with their Mum and Dad
Like many foster children Beth and Harry have contact with their family. For Beth and Harry this means they spend 2 hours a month with their Mum.
This contact is supervised and for a long time we would meet at a Contact Centre, thankfully this has changed as it was agreed that they are able to meet in the community which is far more fun and a more natural environment for everyone. They also see their Dad but contact with him is not as frequent.
They see their Dad around 4 times a year, he was offered more but unfortunately, he didn’t feel he was able to commit to more. Personally, I respected him for his honesty and glad he didn’t just agree to every other month and then let them down, which would have been far more damaging.
The children have asked for more contact with their Dad, obviously this is a tricky conversation and as yet it has not been explained to Beth and Harry that this is their Dad’s choice but I’ve no doubt at some point in the future this will have to be explained.
For the most part contact with their parents is always positive, they look forward to seeing them and at the end of their time together, they leave happy and surprisingly they don’t cling on to them at the end, they just say their goodbyes and skip off into the car, keen to get home.
On the very few occasions whereby they have been let down and contact has been cancelled by either Mum or Dad and normally on the day, this can be a different story all together, the disappointment is palpable.
You can almost see the realisation across their faces, what could possibly be more important than seeing me?
For me contact is so important, they need to stay connected to their family that they love so very much, and I sincerely hope that in the future when its their choice they will choice to continue a relationship with them.
Beth and Harry like so many of us, put both their Mum and Dad on a pedestal, I worry sometimes how they are going to feel when they have to face some of the harder hitting facts about why they are in care, but I know and understand they will always love them and why shouldn’t they, they are their Mum and Dad after all.
Helen – A Blogging Foster Carer