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The Story So Far…..
Tales from a couple of newly qualified Foster
Carers
Part 2. The First
Placement
The Skills to Foster Course was completed and
we were approved as carers, the bedroom was ready
and the phone calls kept coming about children
that might be suitable. All the while we were
organising a flat in Fareham for one daughter
and getting the other one ready to go off to University
– plus putting in an en-suite to ease the
bathroom traffic. Suddenly all the boxes and cases
had gone, but before a day had gone by we had
a call about an emergency placement with sketchy
details and were agreeing to take a 13 year old
girl due to arrive that evening. We’d always
said that we had no preference for age or sex
of child but hormonal teenage girls would probably
have been bottom of the list! When H arrived she
looked far older than 13. She was wearing lots
of make up and to be honest looked quite scary!
It was incredibly late, Mark had given up waiting
with us at midnight and had gone home and we were
about to give up and go to bed when she finally
arrived, so after quick introduction H went straight
to bed. Luckily I’d already bought spare
toothbrushes and flannels and I fished out one
of my daughter’s nighties and some underwear,
as H turned up with only the clothes she stood
up in. (Just as well she wasn’t a boy as
my son’s pyjamas were long gone!)
H slept all morning after her ordeal and was
naturally wary about us when she came down at
lunchtime – looking at her we wondered what
on earth we’d done! The first week was a
tremendous learning curve. We felt unable to leave
the house without her or leave Barry alone with
her – we were paranoid about the Safe Care
issues and went around in pairs – H must
have thought we were quite mad! I began to feel
very claustrophobic and thought this was not for
me. Then a week after H arrived I was left on
my own with her for a whole day and I just suddenly
relaxed. Behind the makeup and bravado was a frightened
young lady eager to please and knowing that yet
again she’d made some bad choices. We played
games and did silly stuff and chatted. H asked
for a star chart which we decorated and made up
rules. We avoided past problems and tried to keep
everything positive.
We’d learned lots over the weeks of being
assessed but one of the best bits of advice that
we use constantly is “Don’t sweat
the small stuff”. It really does work and
stops so much stress. All the reports that have
come back about us have said how H is benefiting
from the calm atmosphere (our children think this
is hilarious – perhaps we should have had
training before bringing them up!).
We’re so glad we decided to start fostering
and are well aware that we’ll have some
rocky moments in the future but having the back-up
team to phone and use as a sounding board is great.
We went into this wanting to help a child or
children – what a bonus that it’s
such fun too!
A H
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