It takes courage to be a foster carer
Every so often in life it is worth getting back to basics, isn’t it? We talk about many things on this blog to try and cover as much useful information as we can. But we’ve recently been talking to some new carers, and we know other carers who are about to take a placement, so we thought it might be timely to go back to the beginning for a moment.
Dear New Foster Carers,
Congratulations on your courage. Has anyone said that to you lately? You’ve stepped out to help someone else, in the most personal way possible. You are putting yourself and your family on the front line, giving not just money, or even just time, but yourselves and your relationships and your home.
We hope that your training, and/or your life experience, will have prepared you for what you are experiencing. But don’t be surprised if, as a first time carer, you are stressed, because that’s the most natural reaction in the world.
No matter how well prepared or supported you might be, the first weeks of a placement can be difficult. Foster care can often be described as degrees of difficulty to be honest. But the first weeks, before you start to understand the child, can be positively exhausting.
It takes time. Yes, we know that is the platitude to end all platitudes, but it is true. Don’t judge anything by those first weeks.
Why? Because the child you have just welcomed into your home, with hope and love, may well be dazed, and confused, and untrusting. (We could add many more adjectives here like angry, or scared, or blasé, but it might go on a bit….). He doesn’t know you, and you don’t know him. And depending on his life experience, many of the things that you might take for granted in a child of his age may be missing completely. He may never have learned a lot of the basics. Like how to go shopping with you, how to stay by your side, how to happily come home from the park, how to share with other children. He may never have learned to eat properly. He may not even know how to cuddle. He may not enjoy bedtime or know how to settle himself. He may not have had anyone to teach it to him, you see.
(You can write that paragraph again with age appropriate characteristics, right up until teenage years, by the way. The last sentence will often remain the same.)
So it’s really important for you to remember that now is not the time to be reticent, or noble (‘I can cope. Really I can. Yes, I can.’) You deserve support and answers and advice, so ask for them. Every child in care is unique, and has very different experiences that will have impacted him in different ways. Don’t be afraid of stepping on toes or worry that you will be seen as demanding. The workers are there to support you and this placement.
And we hope that at some stage soon, there will come one experience with this child that will warm your heart, make you feel that it’s all worthwhile. That’s often all it takes to keep you going.
You’ve started a journey. It took courage to start it, and it will take courage to continue it. Keep going. A child will benefit from your courage.
Dear New Foster Carers,
Congratulations on your courage. Has anyone said that to you lately? You’ve stepped out to help someone else, in the most personal way possible. You are putting yourself and your family on the front line, giving not just money, or even just time, but yourselves and your relationships and your home.
We hope that your training, and/or your life experience, will have prepared you for what you are experiencing. But don’t be surprised if, as a first time carer, you are stressed, because that’s the most natural reaction in the world.
No matter how well prepared or supported you might be, the first weeks of a placement can be difficult. Foster care can often be described as degrees of difficulty to be honest. But the first weeks, before you start to understand the child, can be positively exhausting.
It takes time. Yes, we know that is the platitude to end all platitudes, but it is true. Don’t judge anything by those first weeks.
Why? Because the child you have just welcomed into your home, with hope and love, may well be dazed, and confused, and untrusting. (We could add many more adjectives here like angry, or scared, or blasé, but it might go on a bit….). He doesn’t know you, and you don’t know him. And depending on his life experience, many of the things that you might take for granted in a child of his age may be missing completely. He may never have learned a lot of the basics. Like how to go shopping with you, how to stay by your side, how to happily come home from the park, how to share with other children. He may never have learned to eat properly. He may not even know how to cuddle. He may not enjoy bedtime or know how to settle himself. He may not have had anyone to teach it to him, you see.
(You can write that paragraph again with age appropriate characteristics, right up until teenage years, by the way. The last sentence will often remain the same.)
So it’s really important for you to remember that now is not the time to be reticent, or noble (‘I can cope. Really I can. Yes, I can.’) You deserve support and answers and advice, so ask for them. Every child in care is unique, and has very different experiences that will have impacted him in different ways. Don’t be afraid of stepping on toes or worry that you will be seen as demanding. The workers are there to support you and this placement.
And we hope that at some stage soon, there will come one experience with this child that will warm your heart, make you feel that it’s all worthwhile. That’s often all it takes to keep you going.
You’ve started a journey. It took courage to start it, and it will take courage to continue it. Keep going. A child will benefit from your courage.
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