Amplifying foster carers' voices to truly hear the children in their care
I have helped one mother keep a baby, one she thought she would lose to the system. She has two babies removed from her care, but through contact I helped teach her to parent and she successfully kept my foster son’s sister. We consider her family.
I have the experience of supporting contact that needed a high level of support because of complex and potentially harmful relationships between children. They had a chance to know one another. It was not fully successful. They were safe, but the trauma was too difficult and as they aged out of the system, they chose not to see one another again.
I have the experience of a breakdown in a child’s place in our home. This was due to the parent being unwilling to work with us, being unwilling to accept the child’s place in our home. This ended with the child in a residential and the parent actually being happier because in a residential the child did not have another “mum”.
One more child has contact with siblings but has 16! They are unable to handle it, and we have fought to have contact done for them on a level that supports their need. They now have contact one at a time and love their time with their siblings. An interesting and sad part though is that another foster carer is fighting this. They want to have as little contact as possible and don't want it to impede on any of their time on their weekends or for their personal activities (not those of the children). They see family time as a chore, and are not bothered that my seven-year-old cannot handle such a big family dynamic. They really only care that contact may cause them to miss a weekend at their lodge.
My final contact story is my newest (very recently I have an emergency child that will be staying). We are already building a respectful and open communication with the grandparents. They see them once per month and have asked if we could please communicate with them. We have, and we are setting up, a system to communicate for the child and for them to get to know one another in a safe way. It is just beginning but I have high hopes that this will be very open just like the mum that kept her baby. They are not angry at me for having their grandchild, they are thankful their grandchild is safe.
I suppose I just wanted to show you that family time is very, very much about the child’s needs. Each is different. Each child we have had has come with different struggles, trauma’s and different types of family members. Some we could promote parent contact, some we could not. Some had great sibling contact, others did not. Some had Grandparents contact that has been safe and amazing, others have not.
Each needed to be looked at through the eyes and the needs of the child…and then through the actual ability of the parent or other family member. After this you then need to take into account the actual system in place and sometimes look at changing what a judge has decided. It can mean a fight, debate and proving need. It can go wonderfully, and it can be a nightmare. No two situations are ever alike.
I think that often foster carers and social workers treat family time as a tick box. They don’t see the importance of it, but it is such an important part of them knowing who they are. Their identity is all about their birth family. Their DNA tells them to seek out where they came from. We are born wanting to connect to the woman we were born to. It is genetics. So often children go back home and live that life that their parents did. It repeats.
We can only break this cycle by teaching them how to have healthy relationships and how to make healthy choices, within the actual family they have. Yes, only if safe, and only where you are able. But if there is any room for teaching and learning, family time is the place where they learn how to be safe in a family system…. not just the family system in your home. It is also their reality.
Foster carer, CoramBAAF Advisory Committee