It's been a couple of months since I updated the blog, because we've really just been rolling along as a family and haven't had anything interesting to talk about - Peter is progressing well and delighting everyone he meets, and Russell is adorable but still in hospital. I'm not going to lie - it's been hard, because this exhausting life of driving back and forth for 4 hours every couple of days and building up our hopes for discharge only for it to be cancelled at the last minute has already been more than double the planned number of months. Thankfully Russell is healthy and the issues with discharge are mostly logistical, so we will continue to wait, and hope that it won't be too long before he's home.
Our big news is that Peter will soon be our legal son! We first expressed interest in adopting him nearly two years ago. We've been assessed and approved as adopters, the placement order we've been waiting for has now been granted with a plan of adoption by us, we're going to matching panel next month and will put in our application for an adoption order straight away.
He was placed with us age four years and three months, having had a failed foster placement already and carrying a label of "unadoptable" due to his severe autism and extreme behaviours. His social worker has always had a soft spot for him and could not be happier for us all which is lovely. It feels like an exciting new chapter in our lives is starting!
Showing posts with label assessment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label assessment. Show all posts
Tuesday, 23 February 2016
Wednesday, 25 March 2015
Mixing foster carers and adopters
Friends of ours who foster are going through the assessment to adopt and have shared some of their experiences so far with us. It's interesting to hear about things from the other side, as of course Jack-Jack was adopted from our care, and Belle's placement order has been granted so family finding for her is underway.
Our friends have said that one of the strangest parts of their assessment was going on the adoption training course and being the only foster carers amongst a sea of fresh-faced adopters. It struck us as odd to have adopters and foster carers on the same course (foster carers are not invited to adoption training to speak and share their experiences, so the only time foster carers would attend is if they were themselves adopting.) As foster carers we know the system. We've cared for the traumatised children they're talking about, we've met birth parents, we've heard countless histories of abuse and neglect, we've gone through adoption introductions ourselves.
Foster carers, as a group, can be somewhat cynical and matter-of-fact when we get together at training or coffee mornings. We have so many shared experiences, we understand what each other are going through, we're quite difficult to shock, and foster carer coffee mornings usually involve a lot of moaning. It's a frustrating job - we work extremely hard for the children we care for and come up against so many barriers as social workers are overworked or services are oversubscribed. Sometimes it's a case of laughing otherwise we'd cry, and we need a safe place to unload and vent.
The adoption training usually comes before the full assessment starts, so the adopters may have little to no understanding of trauma, loss, abuse and adoption at this point.
Our friends said that one of the group exercises was "write down as many examples of physical/emotional/sexual abuse or neglect that you can think of." An upsetting exercise, but the point of the session was to make the adopters think about what their future child may have gone through before they were taken into care. In their small group, the adopters wrote down a few examples such as not keeping the children clean, not giving them enough food, hitting them etc. and then the foster carers joined in and rattled off twenty or so examples from the various histories of children they'd cared for, ranging from relatively minor to extreme. They suddenly noticed the adopters faces going ashen and toned it down, stepping back from the conversation.
It must be extremely hard as a social worker or experienced adopter delivering adoption training. You don't want to scare off the group of keen and eager adopters in front of you but it would be doing the children a disservice not to tell the truth and pretend that life was going to be rosy. Adoption is not for everyone and it is so different to parenting a child born to you - the child's past is always going to be their past and adopters need to feel comfortable sharing it with the child at an age appropriate level throughout their childhood. Most adopters these days are expected to write letters to their child's birth parents, grandparents or siblings once a year and there may be face to face contact with the child's foster carers if they were with them a long time, or with siblings who have also been placed for adoption. Relatives and friends may not understand and may even unknowingly undermine the child's placement with their forever family at first, and it can feel extremely isolating needing to parent a child in a different way to meet their needs.
I do think it would be a good idea to involve foster carers in the delivery of adoption training to give another view point, but perhaps separate training sessions should be held for foster carers who are adopting - taking out all the information we are already well informed on and focussing on the future - letterbox contact, talking to your child about adoption, the differences between caring for a foster child and an adopted child, and continuing to foster after adoption. Time for a letter to BAAF perhaps!
Our friends have said that one of the strangest parts of their assessment was going on the adoption training course and being the only foster carers amongst a sea of fresh-faced adopters. It struck us as odd to have adopters and foster carers on the same course (foster carers are not invited to adoption training to speak and share their experiences, so the only time foster carers would attend is if they were themselves adopting.) As foster carers we know the system. We've cared for the traumatised children they're talking about, we've met birth parents, we've heard countless histories of abuse and neglect, we've gone through adoption introductions ourselves.
Foster carers, as a group, can be somewhat cynical and matter-of-fact when we get together at training or coffee mornings. We have so many shared experiences, we understand what each other are going through, we're quite difficult to shock, and foster carer coffee mornings usually involve a lot of moaning. It's a frustrating job - we work extremely hard for the children we care for and come up against so many barriers as social workers are overworked or services are oversubscribed. Sometimes it's a case of laughing otherwise we'd cry, and we need a safe place to unload and vent.
The adoption training usually comes before the full assessment starts, so the adopters may have little to no understanding of trauma, loss, abuse and adoption at this point.
Our friends said that one of the group exercises was "write down as many examples of physical/emotional/sexual abuse or neglect that you can think of." An upsetting exercise, but the point of the session was to make the adopters think about what their future child may have gone through before they were taken into care. In their small group, the adopters wrote down a few examples such as not keeping the children clean, not giving them enough food, hitting them etc. and then the foster carers joined in and rattled off twenty or so examples from the various histories of children they'd cared for, ranging from relatively minor to extreme. They suddenly noticed the adopters faces going ashen and toned it down, stepping back from the conversation.
It must be extremely hard as a social worker or experienced adopter delivering adoption training. You don't want to scare off the group of keen and eager adopters in front of you but it would be doing the children a disservice not to tell the truth and pretend that life was going to be rosy. Adoption is not for everyone and it is so different to parenting a child born to you - the child's past is always going to be their past and adopters need to feel comfortable sharing it with the child at an age appropriate level throughout their childhood. Most adopters these days are expected to write letters to their child's birth parents, grandparents or siblings once a year and there may be face to face contact with the child's foster carers if they were with them a long time, or with siblings who have also been placed for adoption. Relatives and friends may not understand and may even unknowingly undermine the child's placement with their forever family at first, and it can feel extremely isolating needing to parent a child in a different way to meet their needs.
I do think it would be a good idea to involve foster carers in the delivery of adoption training to give another view point, but perhaps separate training sessions should be held for foster carers who are adopting - taking out all the information we are already well informed on and focussing on the future - letterbox contact, talking to your child about adoption, the differences between caring for a foster child and an adopted child, and continuing to foster after adoption. Time for a letter to BAAF perhaps!
Sunday, 15 February 2015
Privacy
Fostering is definitely not a career to get into if you're a private person. The assessment process is long and intrusive, asking every detail about your life - including very personal matters such as past partners, health issues, IVF journey or miscarriages, reactions to traumatic events or bereavements, finances including any debts or bankruptcy, and if you're in a couple they will even cover your sex life. These are not matters anyone is used to discussing with someone they don't know well, and it can be very uncomfortable. Any skeletons in the closet will be uncovered and laid open, and although your social worker will be sensitive, it can be awkward at times.
You'd think this would be the end of the intrusion, but it's just the beginning!
With two children in placement and space for a third we barely have a week go by without a professional at our house. Our social worker Jane visits every 2-3 months, the children's social workers visit every 6 weeks, we have visits from health visitors, portage, dieticians, speech therapists, independent reviewing officers and court appointed guardians. Any of these can also bring a student at any time!
Contact is an intrusion on family life whether it occurs in the family home or not. We organise our lives around our children's contact sessions and are scrutinised by the birth parents and the contact supervisors on the clothes we send the children in, the car seat we've provided, the snacks we send for them, the information we choose to write in the contact book, even down to the brand of nappies and wipes.
We had a lady from portage come to see Belle recently. She arrived on a day when Peter was unwell and off school, and Peter and I were building a marble run together. The portage lady came into the living room, looked genuinely surprised, and said "oh it's lovely that you take an interest in the children." Excuse me? What on earth was she expecting?
Above all, there is the constant scrutiny and feeling of being judged by everyone - social workers, parents, health visitor, therapists, school, and even random people who know that the child is looked after. For some reason, when a child is looked after people feel that they have a right to comment on their upbringing as part of some sort of shared social responsibility. You wouldn't believe the questions and comments that are said to us with the children standing right there.
The good news is that local authorities have a policy that fostering shouldn't interfere with family life, as a stable family life is exactly what looked after children need. We are allowed to, and have, requested for meetings and contact sessions to be rearranged to fit in with family plans. We have a LAC review for Belle at our house this week and because it's half term, Peter will be present. We've warned everyone that we don't know how he will cope with having his living room full of strangers, and if it looks like it's having a negative effect on him we will end the meeting early and rearrange.
Having a lack of privacy is one thing for us as adults, but we still need to advocate for the children we care for and make sure that being in a fostering family and having our lives open for surveillance is not negatively affecting them.
You'd think this would be the end of the intrusion, but it's just the beginning!
With two children in placement and space for a third we barely have a week go by without a professional at our house. Our social worker Jane visits every 2-3 months, the children's social workers visit every 6 weeks, we have visits from health visitors, portage, dieticians, speech therapists, independent reviewing officers and court appointed guardians. Any of these can also bring a student at any time!
Contact is an intrusion on family life whether it occurs in the family home or not. We organise our lives around our children's contact sessions and are scrutinised by the birth parents and the contact supervisors on the clothes we send the children in, the car seat we've provided, the snacks we send for them, the information we choose to write in the contact book, even down to the brand of nappies and wipes.
We had a lady from portage come to see Belle recently. She arrived on a day when Peter was unwell and off school, and Peter and I were building a marble run together. The portage lady came into the living room, looked genuinely surprised, and said "oh it's lovely that you take an interest in the children." Excuse me? What on earth was she expecting?
Above all, there is the constant scrutiny and feeling of being judged by everyone - social workers, parents, health visitor, therapists, school, and even random people who know that the child is looked after. For some reason, when a child is looked after people feel that they have a right to comment on their upbringing as part of some sort of shared social responsibility. You wouldn't believe the questions and comments that are said to us with the children standing right there.
The good news is that local authorities have a policy that fostering shouldn't interfere with family life, as a stable family life is exactly what looked after children need. We are allowed to, and have, requested for meetings and contact sessions to be rearranged to fit in with family plans. We have a LAC review for Belle at our house this week and because it's half term, Peter will be present. We've warned everyone that we don't know how he will cope with having his living room full of strangers, and if it looks like it's having a negative effect on him we will end the meeting early and rearrange.
Having a lack of privacy is one thing for us as adults, but we still need to advocate for the children we care for and make sure that being in a fostering family and having our lives open for surveillance is not negatively affecting them.
Saturday, 14 February 2015
You can pick your friends...
...but you can't pick your social worker!*
The longer we foster and the more social workers we meet, the more grateful we become of our wonderful supervising social worker Jane. We were really fortunate that Jane was also the social worker who assessed us, so she has known us since we first did our "Skills to Foster" training and has been alongside us right through our fostering journey. She does everything in her power to make sure we feel listened to and supported. She's patiently sat through many a rant and has always managed to stay sympathetic - quite an achievement! Of course she's limited by the policies and budgets of the local authority, but we understand that and are able to separate her support of us from the "no" she unfortunately has to say quite often.
For a short term placement we don't have much say in the matter - duty phones us, we discuss the child's needs and details, and we make a decision. We don't usually speak to or meet the child's social worker until the child is placed. It's a lottery - we definitely drew the short straw with Jack-Jack's social worker but have been extremely blessed with Belle's. She gets back to us quickly, is on the ball with organising things that Belle needs, and it's clear that she genuinely cares about her.
For long term/permanency placements we're able to be much more discerning as there are (should be!) multiple conversations and meetings with the child's social worker before the child is placed. This is a person that we will potentially have to work with for the next 15 years so it's important that we feel that they're going to do basic things like reply to messages quickly, work with us to provide things that the child needs, and that they really care about the child achieving and progressing. As we are planning to specialise as disability carers this is even more important as the child's needs are greater, their social worker is not a specialist in their condition, and children with additional needs typically stay with their carers until they're 24 rather than 18, so the relationship with the social worker can be even longer!
Some social workers are a bit like salesmen. We met with one recently about a potential permanent placement who has a disability. He stayed for nearly two hours, and by the end of this we didn't know any more about the child than the basic details we had found out over the phone from Jane. The conversation was peppered with "she's a lovely child", "she's beautiful inside and out", and "people are drawn to her". Any detailed questions we asked about her condition and how it affects her day to day were deflected - he clearly didn't know and hadn't taken the time to find out from her current carers. We've decided not to pursue the placement for several reasons, but this was definitely taken into consideration which is sad for the child as it's nothing to do with them and could get in the way of a great match with the right carer.
*Of course as a carer if you don't get on with your social worker you can request a different one, and if a child's social worker isn't doing their job correctly there is a complaints process that the child, parent or carer can follow.
The longer we foster and the more social workers we meet, the more grateful we become of our wonderful supervising social worker Jane. We were really fortunate that Jane was also the social worker who assessed us, so she has known us since we first did our "Skills to Foster" training and has been alongside us right through our fostering journey. She does everything in her power to make sure we feel listened to and supported. She's patiently sat through many a rant and has always managed to stay sympathetic - quite an achievement! Of course she's limited by the policies and budgets of the local authority, but we understand that and are able to separate her support of us from the "no" she unfortunately has to say quite often.
For a short term placement we don't have much say in the matter - duty phones us, we discuss the child's needs and details, and we make a decision. We don't usually speak to or meet the child's social worker until the child is placed. It's a lottery - we definitely drew the short straw with Jack-Jack's social worker but have been extremely blessed with Belle's. She gets back to us quickly, is on the ball with organising things that Belle needs, and it's clear that she genuinely cares about her.
For long term/permanency placements we're able to be much more discerning as there are (should be!) multiple conversations and meetings with the child's social worker before the child is placed. This is a person that we will potentially have to work with for the next 15 years so it's important that we feel that they're going to do basic things like reply to messages quickly, work with us to provide things that the child needs, and that they really care about the child achieving and progressing. As we are planning to specialise as disability carers this is even more important as the child's needs are greater, their social worker is not a specialist in their condition, and children with additional needs typically stay with their carers until they're 24 rather than 18, so the relationship with the social worker can be even longer!
Some social workers are a bit like salesmen. We met with one recently about a potential permanent placement who has a disability. He stayed for nearly two hours, and by the end of this we didn't know any more about the child than the basic details we had found out over the phone from Jane. The conversation was peppered with "she's a lovely child", "she's beautiful inside and out", and "people are drawn to her". Any detailed questions we asked about her condition and how it affects her day to day were deflected - he clearly didn't know and hadn't taken the time to find out from her current carers. We've decided not to pursue the placement for several reasons, but this was definitely taken into consideration which is sad for the child as it's nothing to do with them and could get in the way of a great match with the right carer.
*Of course as a carer if you don't get on with your social worker you can request a different one, and if a child's social worker isn't doing their job correctly there is a complaints process that the child, parent or carer can follow.
Sunday, 15 September 2013
Fostering before having your own children
When we initially looked into fostering, we wondered whether not having previously had our own children would count against us in the assessment, but in reality we found the opposite was true. Our social worker Jane and her manager both seemed quite excited by us - here was a couple who could focus all their attention and energy on fostering as they had no other children to distract them. We were convinced of the benefits too, and looked forward to a new life as foster carers whilst planning to add to our family by other means later on.
Now that we're getting on for our first annual review and have said goodbye to two foster placements our outlook is somewhat different, and at the moment we would caution anyone who was considering short-term fostering without also having had their own birth/adopted children, or without any foster children on permanency.
There's very little I can say that can accurately describe how it has felt since Jack-Jack has moved out. Of course we miss him, but it's much much more than that. The house feels empty and too quiet. There's no one shouting at us to wake up in the morning so we keep oversleeping, we've both been absolutely shattered (the intros really take it out of you) and haven't had the energy to cook so we haven't been eating as healthily as usual, plus there's no one to set a good example for! Without a child we both feel a bit like frauds right now and we've been avoiding the friends with children we've made since starting fostering.
Of course there's the practical aspect too - fostering is my full time job so between placements I have not only nothing to do, but no income, which makes it rather more difficult to do the things we haven't been able to do with a baby in the house, like going out for dinner, to the theatre or the cinema.
We didn't have any of this when Andy left. It wasn't easy and we missed him, but our routine didn't change as we still had Jack-Jack and his routine to focus on. It's made us want to look at bringing forward our plans for starting a family so that as we continue to foster and placements come and go, we'll have our own children to hold that bit tighter and appreciate that bit more.
Now that we're getting on for our first annual review and have said goodbye to two foster placements our outlook is somewhat different, and at the moment we would caution anyone who was considering short-term fostering without also having had their own birth/adopted children, or without any foster children on permanency.
There's very little I can say that can accurately describe how it has felt since Jack-Jack has moved out. Of course we miss him, but it's much much more than that. The house feels empty and too quiet. There's no one shouting at us to wake up in the morning so we keep oversleeping, we've both been absolutely shattered (the intros really take it out of you) and haven't had the energy to cook so we haven't been eating as healthily as usual, plus there's no one to set a good example for! Without a child we both feel a bit like frauds right now and we've been avoiding the friends with children we've made since starting fostering.
Of course there's the practical aspect too - fostering is my full time job so between placements I have not only nothing to do, but no income, which makes it rather more difficult to do the things we haven't been able to do with a baby in the house, like going out for dinner, to the theatre or the cinema.
We didn't have any of this when Andy left. It wasn't easy and we missed him, but our routine didn't change as we still had Jack-Jack and his routine to focus on. It's made us want to look at bringing forward our plans for starting a family so that as we continue to foster and placements come and go, we'll have our own children to hold that bit tighter and appreciate that bit more.
Monday, 15 July 2013
Only human
During our assessment and training, much emphasis was placed on the fact that children just need "good enough" parents/carers - i.e. that no one is perfect, and "good enough" parenting/caring is fine. We've been approved for getting on for 8 months now, and I still have trouble getting my head around this.
It might be because we're looking after other people's children, but it feels like we hold ourselves to very high standards, and once you've set those standards for yourself (even unconsciously), it can be hard to live up to them. Unlike the vast majority of foster carers we haven't had our own children yet, so we are expected to be "professional parents" before we have even parented, which is a bit daunting when we think about it, although of course we're learning more and more each day. I'm sure that our foster children's parents aren't told that they are our first placements and we've never parented before!
I've been feeling poorly for the last week or so which has meant that my patience and energy levels have been rock bottom, and I've felt very guilty at times that my care of the children hasn't been as good as usual. It's taken several friends and family members telling us that we're doing a good job to remind me that it's ok to feel poorly, it's ok to have a day where the TV is on rather more than we would like, and it's ok to lose your cool occasionally. We're only human!
It might be because we're looking after other people's children, but it feels like we hold ourselves to very high standards, and once you've set those standards for yourself (even unconsciously), it can be hard to live up to them. Unlike the vast majority of foster carers we haven't had our own children yet, so we are expected to be "professional parents" before we have even parented, which is a bit daunting when we think about it, although of course we're learning more and more each day. I'm sure that our foster children's parents aren't told that they are our first placements and we've never parented before!
I've been feeling poorly for the last week or so which has meant that my patience and energy levels have been rock bottom, and I've felt very guilty at times that my care of the children hasn't been as good as usual. It's taken several friends and family members telling us that we're doing a good job to remind me that it's ok to feel poorly, it's ok to have a day where the TV is on rather more than we would like, and it's ok to lose your cool occasionally. We're only human!
Saturday, 22 December 2012
Paperwork
Our social care worker came to visit us on Friday, to go through some paperwork with us and drop off an enormous folder of various policies and procedures for us to read through over Christmas.
Fostering involves a LOT of paperwork.
We have to have a meeting with Jane to sign various agreements and charters.
Once a foster placement arrives, the paperwork steps up another notch. For every child or baby who lives with us, for however long that might be, we will need to complete (this is not an exhaustive list):
Coming from working in a fairly "paperless" office where the vast majority of data is held electronically, the amount of paperwork we've come across in the last 6 months of this process has been quite shocking!
Esmeralda thinks the Council should have a policy like Velvet toilet tissue, where they plant three trees for every one that's cut down and turned into forms... Now, where's that comment card..?
Fostering involves a LOT of paperwork.
- To start with, we had to complete an initial application form to apply to become foster carers.
- We then had to return a form, once invited to attend the Skills to Foster training, to confirm that we still wanted to go.
- We completed activities and case studies every week for six weeks, plus filled in our 217-page workbook.
- At the end of the training, we filled in a form about our experiences and what we'd learned.
- We filled in a form about Lady - what training she's had, where she sleeps, when she's exercised etc.
- We drew an eco map detailing our support network.
- We wrote out our family trees.
- We wrote a detailed description of our local area.
- We then spent three months with Jane visiting our home every couple of weeks, talking through and completing what was to become our "Form F" - this ended up being 91 pages without the references (as we weren't allowed to see them - there were two employer references, one past partner reference, two personal references and two family references, and each of those involved the person filling in a form, speaking to Jane on the phone, and then signing off a summary of the discussion.)
- We filled in an enhanced CRB form, which involved looking up every address we've lived at since birth - for me that was 25 different addresses!
- We completed a "Safer Caring" policy for our home.
- We chased our medical reports from our GP.
- We wrote to our landlords to request a letter confirming they weren't intending to sell the house from under us.
- We filled in a form to confirm our bank details for fostering allowance payments.
- We created various spreadsheets to track purchases we've made, detailing our set-up costs.
- We read through and made notes on two full drafts of the Form F before it was submitted to Panel.
We have to have a meeting with Jane to sign various agreements and charters.
Once a foster placement arrives, the paperwork steps up another notch. For every child or baby who lives with us, for however long that might be, we will need to complete (this is not an exhaustive list):
- A placement plan - this is several pages long and contains all the child's details, times of agreed contact with birth family, likes/dislikes, medications, education etc.
- Care plan
- Child-specific Safer Caring policy
- Daily recording sheets detailing anything significant the child has done, achieved or said that day, or any behaviours they've had.
- Fortnightly expenditure forms.
- Birthday/festival/holiday allowance forms.
- Accident reports.
We will have various meetings, supervision sessions and reviews that we need to prepare for.
During the first year that we foster, we have to complete the Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC) induction standards for foster care. This is a 25-page workbook that we fill in with our Social Care Worker - it's essentially to provide evidence of our skills, knowledge and achievement relating to caring for looked after children and is based on a national minimum benchmark.
We also have to file an annual tax return as we're classed as self-employed.
It looks crazy seeing it all written down!
Coming from working in a fairly "paperless" office where the vast majority of data is held electronically, the amount of paperwork we've come across in the last 6 months of this process has been quite shocking!
Esmeralda thinks the Council should have a policy like Velvet toilet tissue, where they plant three trees for every one that's cut down and turned into forms... Now, where's that comment card..?
Sunday, 16 December 2012
Approved!
We received an email from our Social Worker (who we'll call Jane) this evening letting us know that the independent decision maker had agreed with the recommendation, so we're officially approved as foster carers! Jane has been off sick all week and has only just checked her emails, so we're not sure yet when the decision was actually made. We celebrated with a glass of champagne and commemorated the occasion with a toast and a photo (on a timer as we haven't managed to train Lady to work the camera yet) - to the start of our new lives!
Jane is going to tell the duty team tomorrow, but apparently we're on their radar already so the call could come at any time. Watch this space!
Jane is going to tell the duty team tomorrow, but apparently we're on their radar already so the call could come at any time. Watch this space!
Friday, 14 December 2012
Waiting
We've been waiting over a week since panel for an independent decision maker to ratify the decision. We were told it would take 1-2 weeks so hopefully we'll hear on Monday or Tuesday, and then our first placement should follow as soon as possible after that, provided they agree with the recommendation.
The waiting at each stage of the process has been hard, especially the unknown element. We've been trying to explain it to people who ask how we're doing by saying that it feels like we're pregnant without a due date, but of course we don't know what age our first placement will be either, so it's not like we can really fully prepare. There's now a cot in our room and bunk beds in the spare room (our preference is 0-8 years), we've bought bits and pieces of equipment, toys and emergency clothes for various ages, and we have a high chair and a buggy downstairs. I'll mention at this point that although we will get a payment back from social services toward the larger items we need to purchase (like furniture, a steriliser, a baby monitor, car seat etc.) they don't go anywhere near covering the cost of one that you would actually buy, so you always need to supplement the cost as well as making the initial outlay. Fostering is definitely not something you go into if you're in it for the money!
Thursday, 13 December 2012
Beginning
My wife and I are a same sex couple who have recently gone through the assessment process to become foster carers, and we thought we would start a blog to document the ups and downs of our journey. This will be an anonymous blog to protect our and our foster children's privacy, so we will be using Disney names (I will be Jessie, and my wife will be Esmeralda.) I know there will be friends and family reading this, so please remember not to use our real names if you do know them.
We first called our local council to enquire about fostering (after much discussion over several years) on May 14th 2012, and we went to panel on December 4th, where we were recommended for approval. It has been a very emotional and at times tough 7 months, but we learned a lot, and we know that our journey as a foster family is just beginning!
We first called our local council to enquire about fostering (after much discussion over several years) on May 14th 2012, and we went to panel on December 4th, where we were recommended for approval. It has been a very emotional and at times tough 7 months, but we learned a lot, and we know that our journey as a foster family is just beginning!
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