A Long Way From Home by Cathy Glass

Author:Cathy Glass [Glass, Cathy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, General, Family & Relationships, Social Science, Self-Help, Personal Memoirs
ISBN: 9780008275938
Google: 5wAyDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B074ZXPHC8
Publisher: Harper Element
Published: 2018-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

PART II

Chapter Sixteen

Foster Care

‘Cathy, she has had two foster carers since coming into care a week ago,’ Jill said.

‘You’re joking!’

‘I wish I was. She can’t be moved again.’

‘No, indeed.’

Jill was my supervising social worker, also known as a support or link worker, from the agency I fostered for. It was early afternoon and Jill had telephoned me with some details of a five-year-old girl the social services wanted me to foster. It was shocking that the poor child had had to move twice since coming into care. It’s unsettling enough for a child to have to leave home to live with carers, without having to move carers – three times if she came to me.

‘What went wrong?’ I asked, aware that something must have happened to necessitate the moves.

‘The first carers were very experienced and were already fostering a baby. Anna kept trying to tip the baby out of its pram and cot. They had to watch her continuously and felt the placement had become unmanageable, so they asked for her to be moved. Although the second carers didn’t have young children, they were newly approved to foster and were horrified when Anna was cruel to their cat and kept throwing it downstairs. They tried sanctioning her but this morning, after another incident, they asked for her to be moved today.’

‘Jill, we have a cat,’ I said sombrely.

‘I know.’

‘At her age she should know it’s wrong to treat a baby or cat like that,’ I said, concerned. While a toddler might tip a baby out of a pram or throw a cat and not appreciate the significance or the harm they could do, a five-year-old certainly should know.

‘Anna has been diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder,’ Jill said. ‘As you know from your foster carer training, it is thought to be responsible for a lot of behavioural problems.’

‘So she is seeing a child psychologist then?’

‘She has been, but not at present, although the school want a referral again. They have raised concerns about Anna’s behaviour since she started school, and she only attends part-time.’

‘Why part-time?’

‘She wasn’t coping. There were a number of incidents, so rather than exclude her, they have reduced her hours.’

‘Which school does she go to?’ Jill told me and I knew where the school was – on the other side of town.

‘We will need to move her later today,’ Jill said. ‘The only other carer we have free is newly approved. We can’t send her there.’

‘No, that’s for sure.’ Clearly Anna had very challenging behaviour so she needed to be placed with an experienced carer who would hopefully have the resources and strategies to manage and improve it. I was experienced but I was hesitating, because we’d just said goodbye the day before to a boy with very challenging behaviour. Was it fair on my children, Adrian, aged eight, and Paula, four, to look after another child straight away with similar or worse behaviour? Foster carers are expected to take the child referred to them unless there is a very good reason why they can’t.

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