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First Encounters Of The Caring
Kind
Whoooooooo! – we had been to panel and
were now capable of being Professional Carers
– or at least that’s what we were
being told! We had been to the training week,
shared our life histories with H (she’s
a good listener) and were riding high and feeling
good.
Then came the phone call – could we take
a child for the weekend as his carer needed a
break. Of course we could – wasn’t
this what we had been waiting for? Bring him on!!
Did we want to ask any questions? Did he have
any likes or dislikes with food? What routines
was he used to? Had a conversation with his carer
and N and I decided that we should both be around
to give each other moral support when he arrived.
As the time for arrival got closer so the doubts
came flooding in - what if he hated us? What if
we couldn’t cope? What if he decided to
throw a wobbly? How would we deal with it?
The knock came on the door – in came the
helper and our visitor – he was limping
badly because he had been in an accident and fallen
off his bike. As he limped into our house with
an air of bravado it suddenly hit us - if we had
worries and doubts about the weekend then what
must it be like for him? To come stay in a strangers
house – in a strange town and to have no
idea of what it would be like. Our doubts and
fears disappeared as we worked together to make
him feel welcomed and valued. We let him know
that we were glad that he was coming to stay and
that we would enjoy having him around and it was
true. We had a challenging but good weekend –
at times we were stretched because he needed to
keep his mind active so that he had no time to
dwell on things that haunted him. On the Monday
we both felt that we had done something useful
and fulfilling and couldn’t wait to do it
again. We have since repeated this pattern with
others and it hurts to see the damage that others
have caused to some of these children but we now
know that we can help a little, and will do our
best to make that “little” as big
as it possibly can be.
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