Fostering Blog
Christmas has departed, New Year has departed and we are into that grey area until Easter. It’s when we generally have the coldest weather and more disruptions. But just to make this year even more disrupted we are now in lockdown again.
To be honest, here in Greater London we have been in Tier 4 for some time so there hasn’t been too much of a change. For James (name changed) it means no school or football and no chance to meet up with his girlfriend, Paige.
The school kindly sent some work projects through to keep James working and learning. So we decided that we would keep to a routine albeit slightly later than usual. Wake up at 8am, breakfast, shower, dressed (not in uniform) and then settle down to some work. James had exclusive use of my old laptop and, other than loo breaks and the occasional question, he would sit up to the dining room table and crack on with the work he had been set.
There would be a break at 1230, for an hour’s lunch, and then back to work for another couple of hours. The actual work the school had sent only lasted him a short while so I set him some tasks to do which would, at least, keep his mind occupied. I also set him up on something called Zoom which enabled him to keep in touch with Paige and, also, his mates. This proved to be a great success. Then we hit a problem.
James wanted a haircut! So I got the clippers out and gave James a haircut, which was kind of successful. After ‘school’ James decided to listen to music in his room and I prepared dinner. The evening was our normal menu of clearing up after dinner and then watching football. Because of the later getting up time I decided to let James have an extra 30 minutes before lights off.
I decided to send James’ Social Worker an email to review the placement and to see what plans were in place for the short term future. A review meeting was to be organised, but this had to be online rather than face to face. I had no issue with this but, apparently, Mum had, as she had no Laptop.
The Local Authority offered to loan her one for the meeting but she turned this down. So it was decided that the meeting would go ahead without her. It was also decided that Mum’s rehab would have to be delayed, due, again, to Covid. I actually felt some sympathy for Mum as she had, initially, seemed quite determined to succeed, but her determination seemed to now be waning.
As for James and I?
Well we seemed to be ticking along quite nicely. We’d had no real issues between us and he generally seemed to be happy with his lot and dealing with being in Care quite well. He had settled into my routines and was thriving because he had some structure in his life.
This is a common issue with children coming into Care, they have had no structure in their lives and it is important to get that into place as soon as possible with any placement.
A Simply Fostering Blogging Foster Carer.
