She is a quick learner...so why does that make me angry?

6 weeks ago Miss 13 and I started learning sign language.  I had a few concerns...mainly that it would be too fast for her and she wouldn't pick it up, and getting her to practice at home would be another battle to add to the list.

But this is the thing...every single thing we learnt, she learnt immediately.  She has had to do no practice.  I have to come home and practice for a little bit every day in order to know all of the words for next week.  Now granted, I have retained a lot more than her and am more 'fluent' in creating sentences.  However, she can understand sign language much better than I, and it's only confidence preventing her from giving everything a go in class.

She is a blimmin' quick learner.  She has learnt so much in simply attending a night school class.  She has benefited fully from having an adult next to her encouraging her to 'just give it a go'.  Or working on her confidence by showing her the word - so that she knows she is right.

This makes me realise how incredibly unjust it is that she is so far behind at school.  Yes...she is making extremely good progress... but there is so much to catch up on that she possibly will not catch up on it all before school is out and University is ready to start.  She has career goals that will require her to go to university - so she needs to catch up!

If she had been nurtured in her learning from a young age, there is no possible way she could be behind now.  If she had been able to focus on school work instead of the fear of being hurt on her return home - imagine where she'd be today.  Instead of needing remedial help - I guarantee she would have been in the class for kids needing extension.

If her learning needs had been met for the first 12 years of her life. If she had been well nourished and free to focus.  Wow...just wow.  There is no way such a quick learner would be struggling with school now.  Just seeing her flourish in something that needs no prior knowledge...shows me just how important filling in the gaps is.










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First night, movie night.

It can be hard to know what to do the first night you have a new foster placement.  Kids aren't necessarily up to talking straight away, and games can be a little hard with no words!  So using a range of googling methods I have created the following list of movies that you could kick movie night off with.

Be sure to google the move yourself first and read a plot summary. Make sure there are no themes that will trigger something you've read in the child's care plan.  Also make sure you look at the ratings for your area.  On some lists I found Psycho as recommended for 12 years up...not in my house it's not!

If you know any of these movies please comment letting me know what themes they contain and I'll update appropriately!  Feel free to suggest others as well!


Under 5
Jake and the Neverland Pirates
Sofia the First
Toy Story
Finding Nemo
Rio
Cars
Harold and the purple crayon.
Hairy McLairy
Tinkerbell
Smurfs
Alvin and the chipmunks

Under 12
Sound of Music
Mary Poppins
Up
The Indian in the cupboard
James and the Giant Peach
Big Hero
Babe
Charlottes Web (remember, Charlotte dies!)
Homeward bound
ET (Sad!)
Frozen
Wall E
Akeelah and the Bee

12-15years
Jumunji
Fly away home (haven't watched this for years...title suggests may not be appropriate)
The great debators
Sisterhood of the travelling pants
School of Rock
Spiderman
MIB
Bend it like Beckham
The fault in our stars (cancer themes, sex scenes, very sad...use discretion)

15-17 years
Remember the titans
Coach Carter
To sir with love
Hunger games
Stand by me (Bullying themes)
LOTR

Can't foster but want to help?

I'm creating a "First Night" survival kit.  Here is what I have on the list of things to go in it so far.  If you'd like to contribute please do!  If I end up with double ups it doesn't matter - I've recently started a group for foster parents in our local area who I am also sure will benefit from these items in their kits!

The emergency placement survival kit

A polar fleece blanket 

Why?  Some kids are too old to snuggle with teddy - but no one is too old to snuggle with a blanket.  They are pretty cheap and they can take it with them as a reminder of their stay.  

A couple of school books and pens.

If they aren’t at primary school, they probably don’t have a desk.  The last thing they want is getting to school and getting in trouble for having no school books!

A colouring book and nice coloured pencils.  

It is therapeutic for any age to colour.  Get them nice coloured pencils though - nothing more than frustrating having to sharpen every ten seconds.  Have a girl one, a boy one, and a sophisticated one. 

A nightlight (minilamp)

no matter what age - the dark is scary if you’ve been abused.  They can always turn it off if they don’t like it!

Underwear

To be economical…go every second size…Most people can fit a size either way! But you really don’t want to have to be ripping their undies off them to get in the wash that first night. You don’t want to push them to do anything…if they normally sleep with undies on - you don’t want to be asking them to take them off to clean them (think sexual abuse history). 

Pyjamas

Pick a couple of sizes! Nothing wrong with pi’s that are a little big. 

Head-lice shampoo.  

I wouldn’t treat the first night…but you don’t want them to think you’ve gone out and especially brought it for them either.  I’ve had to treat myself first as well… then “oh no you caught it off me…lets do you to”

Spare toothbrushes

There is nothing like a new toothbrush - even if they do come with one!

A couple of family friendly movies. 

Any age!  Talking might not be high on the agenda those first 48 hours. Don’t get sad ones or scary ones.  I’ll work on a list at some stage!

Sanitry supplies

If you have teenage/preteen girls on your ‘approved’ placements agenda.  They will not want to ask!

A sealable plastic container to keep it all in.  

This also doubles as a headlice/drug residue contamination kit! Chuck it all in and leave it til the next day when everything can be cleaned and sorted!

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Miss 15

Around a year ago we had a young lady in our care.  She moved from us to some more long term caregivers, but I retained regular contact.  About three months ago I got busy and stopped the regular check ins.  I've just caught up with her.

Two months ago she moved back to her family.  She is also now self harming again.  She is falling behind at school, in more ways than one.  This worries me a lot. She hadn't self harmed in a year. She was doing extremely well at school.

I don't really know what to do?  It's not my place to rescue her. It's not my place to undermine her mothers efforts.  Is it my place to contact social services at let them know things aren't going so well?

Or is this a 15 year old crying out for a little bit of attention.  I have to work out whether she is just being dramatic, whether she is just having teenage conflict with her mum.

I think for now I'll touch in with her again tomorrow, and if there are still concerns I'll have to make contact with her social worker.  If she is harming herself (actually...) then someone needs to know...regardless of how hard her mum is trying - right?



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The agency

Today I had a meeting with the child services agency to discuss ways that I could use my education, knowledge and passion to further help the sort of kids that make me tick. 

It was incredibly exciting that one of the two people I met with has a very similar vision to my own. So much so that he thinks a job could be created and funding applied to enable me to use my skills within the next 12 months. Now, there is no certainty in any respect. Those above him may not agree, there may be someone better suited with more skills than me, I might decide that direction isn't quite right. But it was exciting to express passions, to have them heard and to actually hear that it was possible, not entirely far fetched. 

More interestingly however, was the other person in the meeting. A person who is pretty high in the pecking order. Someone who has quite a bit of influence. Who mentioned that there biggest need was caregivers. I confronted her on that. I told her that I find what she is saying. Hard to believe when we haven't been asked to take a child we don't already have a connection in for over a year. 

To say she was gobsmacked is an understatement. Just last week I had a call telling me that they had called every single caregiver in your region and no one was able to take a young girl. They had to put her in a fairly unsatisfactory situation as there wasn't a caregiver available. 

I'm calling bullshit. If there was no one available how come we weren't called. We have contacted our office several times reminding them of our availability and desire to help more kids. 

She assured me that there would be some very interesting developments in the near future. Watch this space people. I think I may have just inadvertently put a spanner in the works of a government agency. 

To die for

We had a lovely letter from Miss 13. Written in the third person, explaining how happy she was to be here! There was one line that got me 'she was placed with a family that would pretty much die for her'

That's all I am gonna say about that.




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Social Workers

I don't often have nice things to say about social workers.  I often don't see the benefit they play in a childs life once there is a sense of permanancy.

They think they know the kids best (really...a 30 minute visit every six weeks for the last 6 months and you think you know them better than me? 24/7 for the last 18 months...sure ya do!)

They make decisions that affect the kids without even hearing the kids point of view.  "You will be a girl guide" Yeah bloody right... you'd have better luck telling this kid to join book club!

They come and visit every 8 weeks just to remind the child that they are in fact "in the system" still. Waiting for some permanency in their lives.

But they do deserve a bit of credit. It would be a bloody hard job looking out for the best interests of so many kids without actually having the time to get to know them all.  They get abused by parents, they get shoved away by children and they get given a heck of a lot of pressure from caregivers.

Miss 13s social worker finishes in her job.  She came for a final visit before she moves on to where-ever she goes next.  Miss 13 was rude (completely ingored her and sat on the floor with her back to her), and it made me feel bad!

To start with - I couldn't work out why I felt bad...but after awhile I had several reasons
1) It makes me look bad that my child could be that rude to someone in the home.
2) this woman is in a thankless job, is leaving, and isn't even going to get a thank you.
3) how much of Miss 13s dislike for SW has come from the vibe of frustration she gets from me.

As SW was leaving I said to Miss 13, "this is the last time  you will see SW, what do you say" she looked at the social worker and said "thank you" and to me...with a questioning look on her face "I think".  She actually didn't know if thank you was what she was supposed to be saying!

I can understand why - who wants to thank the person who told you that you will never return to your family.

The good news here is this - Miss 13 won't be getting a new social worker.  We are so close to having court orders in our favour - that they have decided that if another 8 week visit is needed that our caregiver SW who comes to check on us once a year as caregivers - will come and do the visit; so that Miss 13 doesn't have to go through getting to know yet another SW.  It won't need to be an interactive meeting with Miss 13 - just a 'tick the box so we can say she is alive'.

So now we are back into that waiting game. Waiting on a court date. Waiting on a response from the biological parents.  Waiting, waiting, waiting for the orders to come through that will give us the ultimate responsibility for well...perhaps ... bungy jumping?



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Another step closer

Things are getting closer every day now.  We have the legal paperwork ready to sign to become Miss 13s legal guardians.

As those days get closer, she seems more relaxed. Having more fun.  getting over things a little quicker.  But there is still some doubt in her mind "I have to be good or you might not turn up in court".  We will...I assure her...we will.

Some final editing for the lawyer to do then we'll be called in to sign things off, this week probably.  Then there are 21 days given to Miss 13s biological parents to object, then - all that going well we will have a court date in around a months time.

Here is to all going well...


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Entertaining

Some things are entertaining no matter what age the audience. This was viewed by a bunch of 14 year olds today and I brought it home to exactly the same reaction. 

Think I will store it away as a first night ice breaker. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0gyI6ykDwds