PARENT AND CHILD
The Secret Foster Carer's Blog
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1d ago
 I went to a dinner thing many years ago, the guest speaker was an Air Traffic Controller. We used to live near a major airport and practically everyone we knew worked at the airport in one capacity or another. The speaker was chosen from an after-dinner speaker agency a) because he would talk about the airport, and b) because he was known to be terribly funny. He was hilarious.* His opening line was pure gold; "I've been an air traffic controller for 30 years. And I'm going to stick at it until I get it right…" The expression of theatrical terror on his face had us holding our sides for ..read more
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FOSTERING'S BIG QUESTION; WHO'S NEXT?
The Secret Foster Carer's Blog
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6d ago
 When a foster child goes back to their real home, it means a number of things for the foster home. One stands out. You now have a spare bedroom, so the excitement begins again. We're in that boat today, now middle child has returned home. First up, Blue Sky check out where we're at with our fostering. They do this with all their foster parents who have a room available. They need to verify that the family in the foster home are ready willing and able to take a new child, and if so what sort of profile would be best for all concerned. Would we prefer an infant or an older child? Are there ..read more
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PUTTING ONE OVER
The Secret Foster Carer's Blog
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1w ago
 Sometimes being in fostering has hidden perks. So there I was in the doctors' waiting room waiting my turn. I was wet and cold with the winter rain outside. I needed the doctor to see about a trapped nerve in my neck. It came on suddenly, I'd lain awake at night in discomfort, wondering where it had come from. Probably picking up toddlers and holding them to my right shoulder (have you noticed almost all mums of babies hold them with their head to mum's left side, but when they get toddlerish you hold them to the right?) Sorry, off message. So. There were about 6 of us sat there staring ..read more
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FOSTERING THROUGH THE NIGHT
The Secret Foster Carer's Blog
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1w ago
 Night time is always worth plenty of thinking about in fostering, because for the foster parent it can seem a lonely time. We get plenty of support, there's always someone at Blue Sky, or whatever one's agency or local authorority is, we can phone or email if there's something.  During the day. But out-of-hours (night time), we inevitably feel a tad more alone. Blue Sky have a  24 hour service and that's great, I did call once, and got good advice, but the officers don't quite feel the same as the social workers who know your case inside out. It's easy, sometimes, to get your f ..read more
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EACH CHILD IS UNIQUE
The Secret Foster Carer's Blog
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2w ago
 Remember when we had a working class, a middle class and an upper class? And 'blue collar' workers and 'white collar' workers? No? I do.  Ah, categorisation was easy not so long ago. Nowadays we have more 'demographies' than you can shake a stick at. Thanks to fostering I've come to treating each person as an individual and finding out their personal story rather than pigeon-holing them. My thing now is to try not to jump to conclusions about a family because they live on a particular housing estate, or drive a Range Rover, which was a trap I used to fall into. We looked after a lad ..read more
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DO WHAT YOU CAN
The Secret Foster Carer's Blog
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2w ago
 As they grow up children develop two personalities, the public one that we all see, and the private one. If the child belongs to us we get to know both of their personalities and how to manage them. We usually know when our own child is upset about something but doesn't want to talk about it. We can often work out what it is; it might be a problem with a friend or a setback at school. Or maybe they've lucked out on their current Gamebox game. We can work out that if the scissors aren't in their usual kitchen drawer someone's probably borrowed them to cut their own hair and haven't put th ..read more
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 Youngest foster child has come through a bad...
The Secret Foster Carer's Blog
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1M ago
 Youngest foster child has come through a bad patch. School wasn't working as well as it might and the child was reluctant to get ready in the morning. I often ended up going out the front door, and sitting in the car to give a sense of inevitability that the school run will happen even though the child is stubbornly sitting on the bottom stair not putting on their shoes. These stand-offs were tiring, but are by no means confined to fostering. Our eldest birth child was much the same, and he ended up at a decent university so we're philosophiocal about the diehards who think that 6 or 7 h ..read more
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MOMENTS THAT MAKE YOUR HEART GO ZING
The Secret Foster Carer's Blog
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1M ago
 Fostering can be a delight, it can also be a slog. I doubt I'm telling anyone anything they don't already know. It's human nature to dwell on the things that could be better rather than the things that are going great, and that's good because there's always something that wants improving. If we fostering folk went around with our heads in the clouds there'd be little or no progress. Once a month (in my case) I get a visit from my Blue Sky Social Worker. It's her job to help me keep at the top of my game. It's also her job to help me see where I'm getting things right. On the whole, foste ..read more
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FOSTERING CHILDREN AND ….DEATH
The Secret Foster Carer's Blog
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1M ago
 A foster carer who often offers wisdom on this blog, "Mooglet" commented on "Home From Home" that sometimes their dog is first to spot when a foster child is sad or troubled. So, so true. Not that foster carers are oblivious to a child's moods, far from it. It's the kernel of what we do. But we also have to cook dinner, keep the house tidy, do the shopping… …get the car through its MOT, find someone competent to fix the gutter, keep an eye on mum who's not getting any younger.  I could go on. We fostering people have to fit our fostering in with everything else life demands. The fam ..read more
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CHECK YOUR POCKETS FOR FISH
The Secret Foster Carer's Blog
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1M ago
We had a really healthy argument in the house yesterday, between me and our middle foster child. When you start in fostering you hope it's going to be roses all the way, and there are bouqets aplenty for sure, but there's no such thing as roses all the way in human affairs. Sometimes it's nettles and brambles, and the art of fostering is making sure it ends as roses.  What the foster mum or dad needs to do is embrace the occassional hiccup and make good use of it. What happened was this; Middle foster child needed to have a piece of course work printed off to hand in. The document was a m ..read more
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