BFANI ON TOUR! Transitions with Carole

BFANI is on tour! In a series of episodes we shall be meeting families and fellow team members from across the UK fostering and adoption services as we explore, in depth, some of the specific experiences, highs, lows and challenges facing families who foster and adopt. 

This time, we're in Scotland where we meet Carole, a foster carer who specialises in short term, temporary fostering. 

Carole shares her journey from casually supporting a neighbour to becoming a short term foster carer. Carol shares her experiences of navigating the initial excitement of new foster children, transitioning them into structured routines, working with birth families and children from diverse cultural backgrounds -  and sitting with uncertainty in a time of change for the children placed with her. Carole provides a heartfelt and insightful look into the day-to-day life of fostering. She opens up about the impact these transitions have had on her family, especially with the arrival of her grandchildren, offering a relatable and eye-opening perspective for anyone considering fostering.

Learn more about fostering and adoption with Barnardo’s:
https://www.barnardos.org.uk/get-support/fostering-and-adoption

To learn more about fostering and adoption in NI, visit our Linktr.ee:
https://linktr.ee/barnardosfosteringni

To ask a question, give us some feedback or make a topic request, email us at:
BFANI@barnardos.org.uk

Foster belonging with us!

Transcript

Ness: 0:03

Welcome to the Barnardo's Fostering and Adoption Northern Ireland podcast. Each episode we will meet families and team members from right across our fostering and adoption services. We're aiming to get behind the scenes so we can learn more about what it's really like to foster or adopt. Hello, it's Ness from the Barnardo's Fostering and Adoption Northern Ireland podcast and a little bit off kilter this. Uh, this week we are actually going across the water to Scotland to meet one of our foster carers over there, carol. Hello, carol, hi there, good morning, and it's a beautiful day here. What's it like there? It is a bit cloudy, but it's warm. What we're going to be talking about today is transitions, because this is something that comes up for foster carers, foster families, all the time. It's about change and preparing children for moves and changes perhaps return to birth family or perhaps moving on to a different family, for whatever reason. So initially, Carole, would you just give me a little background? How long have you been fostering?

Carole: 1:12

I have been. I first got introduced to fostering in 2002 when a neighbour moved into the street and I was giving her Avon and she had a 14 year old no, 15 year old foster child. But she'd also got a new job and she'd asked if I would consider doing some after-school care.

Ness: 1:34

Oh right, so you came in kind of to support another foster care.

Carole: 1:40

Yeah, I have. So I did that and he's come two, maybe three times a day, maybe half past three to five o'clock. I had five children at home, so it didn't make any difference. Another one coming in and then when he moved on she got two girls and she was originally from Edinburgh, so her support and short break carers were in Edinburgh. So because she was getting married and one of the foster daughters was starting high school, they didn't want to take her away from school. So they asked if I would be assessed. So I was assessed as a short break carer for the council that the girls came came for. I did that for four years and they used to come stay with me one weekend a month. So you did that for four years.

Ness: 2:29

Yes, you kind of came in through the back door a little bit. You started off with a little bit of support after school and then you were invited to be assessed as a short breaks carer uh-huh.

Carole: 2:41

so, um, we started the short break for other carers and we had, I think it was, about 30 different children through the door that came for short break and the first ever children that came they came in the June, their carers. I don't know what happened with their carers, but anyway they came back into the system and they came to stay with us in December. So the first children that I had for kind of short break was the first children that had ever come through my door. So, um, is that right? Yeah, so we had them, for they kind of got split up but we had the little girl for four, uh, three and a half years and the little boy for for four and a half years and a little boy for four and a half years, and how often were they coming to you?

Carole: 3:29

They had just come, I think their carers had gone away to a wedding abroad, so they'd come for two weeks. Initially they came for an overnight, and then they came for two weeks initially. Then they came for a break in August and then that was it. At Christmas time they were needing to be moved somewhere, so they phoned me up and asked me if I would take them.

Ness: 3:50

So did you then take them to live with you full time at that point? Yes, aha, Okay. How was that changing that transition?

Carole: 4:02

It was quite hard work because obviously I'd only just done respite, where they just come for the weekend or a couple of days, but this now involved all the meetings and everything you had to go to and starting them school and getting them settled in.

Carole: 4:21

If they were coming for a short break, they were coming for a holiday. So this was like a totally, you know, different. And even when the children used to come for holiday, when they used to go home because I used to make it fun when they came on holiday and we used to go home I used to always say to them look now, if you came to stay here all the time, I says we wouldn't, we wouldn't be doing all this stuff every day. You know, this is just holiday stuff. So we just had kind of basic kind of routines and, um that we stuck to all the way through the fostering thing. Even all my grandchildren at the time when I started I had no grandchildren and by the time I started my got my first children. I had one grandson and I now have nine grandchildren you don't look old enough, carol.

Carole: 5:09

I have five children and nine grandchildren. I've just been told there's another one coming congratulations.

Ness: 5:16

That's quite important, isn't it? I mean, there's a transition for you, the expectation with a young person who's coming to stay with you as a short breaks carer as you say, they're being entertained. It's a bit like a holiday, it's sort of an escape, it's. It's like visiting your fun relatives. You're doing fun stuff and then suddenly you're living with the fun relative and the fun relative saying things like you have to go brush your teeth, you have to get up to school, you have to get into a routine. So that must have been, that must mean something to manage those expectations for your young foster children.

Carole: 5:56

Well, they came on the 28th of December so luckily we still had some holidays from school to come again. We still had some holidays from school to get in. And then they were quite excited for starting a new school and a new nursery which was just about five doors down from me. So the school was very local and everything like that. So they were quite excited about starting. Fantastic, because I think whatever they did before, they had to travel by taxi to get to school. So the fact that we just had to walk to the end of the road was really good. And then they got to kind of know everybody in the local community.

Ness: 6:32

Then that must have been very grounding for them to not be, driving somewhere to know where the school is in relation to where they're living and to get to know the community and how long were those children with you, and to get to know the community.

Carole: 6:47

How long were those children with you? The little girl was three and a half years and then it was decided that she needed to be in a placement where there was no other children. So she got moved. But you know, I kind of held on to her until they found the right carers for her and it was really, really successful. They followed all my routines, you know. We kept in contact and she later got adopted and last summer she came back. She left me when she was eight and a half and she came back last summer. She was 19. Last summer she came to visit on her own. But you know we have kept in touch, you know, at Christmases and birthdays and everything, but this was on her own. She phoned me up to come and visit. So that was lovely.

Ness: 7:37

So it's something that must be really challenging. When you've had a child living with you for three years, you're with them every day, you're seeing the ups and downs. That must be really challenging. When you've had a child living with you for three years, you're with them every day, you're seeing the ups and downs and then, whatever's happened, it's decided. This child needs a different kind of placement. They have different kinds of needs and I'm just wondering how you continue yourself in that transition and how you manage that transition for the child you know when do they start to realize that they will be moving on and how, how you can make that as safe as possible for for that child well, it was kind of decided.

Carole: 8:21

You know the social worker you saw us come out and say you know they were looking for a new because I was never. I've always said I would never, ever do a long-term placement. So when they come in, if they started to maybe try and call me mum or anything, I'd say, well, you've got a mum, but with my grandchildren. So I was always known as Gran. So I'd be saying you can call me Gran or Carol, but they all, they all chose to call me Gran, because when the grandchildren came in they would all call me Gran. So it was Gran, gran, gran, um. So they always kind of knew that I was never their long-term placement but I would. I would always be their Gran if they wanted me to be their Gran.

Carole: 8:59

And and that's the way out of the 10 children, uh, there's only one I'm not in contact with, but I know where he is because obviously I'm in contact with his sister and I did get to meet him two years ago at his 18th birthday. But the journey he kind of took when he had left me, it was meant to be that we were still going to be a massive part of his life Because he came to us at one and left at five and a half, but it was just where he went. The carers had other ideas and they wanted to kind of stop all contact because they wanted to build new relationships. But we sent Christmas and birthday cards every year.

Ness: 9:43

But from your perspective, you were keeping that door ajar, that continuity of relationship for that child. So when the children have come to you, you've always been clear that you're a short term foster care, whilst social services are organising in the background to find either to reunite a child with their family, if it's safe and appropriate, or to find an appropriate long-term situation for that child, whether that's long-term foster care or whether that's adoption, and there's lots of, lots of factors that go into those decisions. So you're effectively holding that child for a period of time and I can see how, from a child's perspective, being called, calling you gran is sort of your kind of family. You're a family figure but you're not immediate family and therefore my expectations will be slightly different. How do you manage? Because if it was me as a child, I would have been anxious about moving to whoever this new family is. How do you sit with that anxiety?

Carole: 10:53

I think it's that I'm able to kind of tune into them and, you know, kind of get attuned to them. And you know we use a lot of kind of humor. You know a lot of humor, not so I would always be grand because I was too old. I was too old, I was saying, you know, when we went to school I'm saying, look at the ages of all the other mums and dads, you know I'm too old, I'm a grand. So, um, I wouldn't be able to chase after you. I was saying like that, um, but, but they would get.

Carole: 11:23

When social workers came and they were kind of making decisions, it was that I was their safe person. So they would always look so so if, if I went into it full-heartedly and you know, kind of, I would kind of talk to the carers or the, the parents and all that we'd all. I think it's really really important to all work together. That's the biggest thing, and if somebody's not working together, I will chase that up, I will chase that up my last two, one, two, three children that have left me.

Carole: 12:09

I made the plans for their transition. You made the plans for their transition what did that look?

Ness: 12:15

like what did that look like?

Carole: 12:16

yeah well, it was what was best for them because at the end of the day, I I knew them, you know, and I could talk. I could talk about it and, like the kids, always laugh at me because they say I talk to myself, but sometimes I just kind of talk, I walk away leaving a thought in the air, so nothing comes as a surprise to them. But you know, I've worked with parents because two of the families I had one was Nigerian and one was Egyptian but they just worked with everybody involved and we managed to get the children home which, when they first came in, they didn't think they would be going home at all.

Ness: 13:09

That's amazing. That must be very satisfying to see that happen.

Carole: 13:14

It was because when they first came in you would have never thought but because of the work put in with the parents as well to kind of change I don't know, kind of change their way of thinking or even learning kind of UK parenting styles, rather than you know, they had come from countries where the important thing was you had to work hard in church. There was no kind of love and attention and it was all of love and attention and it was all about work and church, work hard, schoolwork and church. That was it. So there was different kind of people, that kind of worked with the parents and just such a turnaround, such a turnaround. And I just got to, I would just kind of speak to the parents every time we went and I'm quite easy going so I could judge when I could speak to them and when I couldn't speak to them.

Carole: 14:13

So and you know, at one time I had two children and they were over in Clyde Bank and their dad refused to let them move school. He didn't like women and kept falling out with all the social workers. And then there was an old social worker got to him and he ended up bringing him out to East Kilbride one day and the dad was like, so shocked that these children had to drive for over an hour every day to get to school and an hour back when the school was just at the end of the road. And I just said to him look, mohammed, I'm not trying to steal your children, I says, you know, I says I just want them to go to school there. But I said, as soon as they come back to you, they can go back to their old school. And that was all it took for him to change his mind after two and a half years that they could because I had them for four and a half years.

Ness: 15:08

Yeah, what I'm hearing from you is there's an element of advocacy, work in what you do. You are facilitating relationships with birth family where it's appropriate, where you can with the trust to try and pace things down and concretize future plans for these children. You are instinctively getting under the skin of the children that are living with you. You're able to talk to them in a way that feels safe, be their safe person and be the safe place that they can express their feelings. So you're.

Ness: 15:44

It's it's a lot of different skills involved in fostering children in this fashion.

Carole: 15:53

Definitely. I speak to lots of people and they say, oh, I don't know how you could do it, but I don't know if it's maybe the way I was brought up or the kind of things, that kind of you know, like my mum and dad had split up when I was, when I was six, so I felt that kind of rejection. So that's something that's always stayed with me. So I think that's something I've strived, that when kids go, I don't want them to feel rejected, because I can remember being six and I can remember that feeling. So I think maybe that's what kind of pushes me.

Carole: 16:28

Yeah, when kids go, my door is always open and you know, I've had them back to stay, and even the ones I had last year, I only had them for four and a half months and we've met up for breakfast. We've met up for breakfast a couple of times and they came back for three days at Easter holidays. Uh, but I'm gran as soon as they, as soon as they get in the car, it's gran, gran, gran, gran. So and they and they came back. They moved last September and they came back there at Easter holidays and you would never have known they'd been away. They just settled right back in as if they'd been here all the time.

Ness: 17:06

I can really believe that I can really believe that because I think, you know, I grew up with a very disruptive background and my safe people were outside of my family home and sometimes when I reflect back, even now in my 50s, it might be someone who was in my life for a short period of time. Georgia will find they're like rock climbers. They find that the footholds and the handholds and they don't forget those safe ways that they can climb up that wall. That is survival and drive and life. They don't forget that and I think the fact that you're able to hold the significance that you may have in a child's life, even if it is for a temporary period or a short chapter in in the broader picture is quite important yes so I'm wondering what, what advice you might give to someone who's listening to this, who's trying to get their head around fostering, because fostering obviously takes different shapes.

Ness: 18:15

Like you came in, it can be short breaks, and then it can transition to short-term fostering, which we tend to think of anything up to a couple of years roughly, and then there is obviously long-term fostering, which we tend to think of anything up to a couple of years roughly, and then there is obviously long term fostering, where the care plan is this child will stay in foster care until they're 18. And we look for families who do that too. And when people come in, we've noticed that they don't always have an understanding of why all those different types of fostering exist, have an understanding of why all those different types of fostering exist and, as you've said from people who've questioned you, why you would want to hold space for children in a temporary way. And I'm just wondering what advice you might give to someone who's sort of contemplating fostering. What insight might you want to give them?

Carole: 19:03

Well, always from the start I knew that I was never going to be a long-term foster carer because I had such a big family. So I didn't have. I have got two. You know my friend that moved in the street one of the other neighbours became a foster, foster family as well. So we all live, you know, between six doors between each other. But both of them have got no children of their own. So they're long-term foster carers. So their children have gone, but they're still back every weekend. You know David's 42. Now I'm still Auntie Carol, you know he's still. You know Gem's still his mum. So she's had about seven long-term placements. So she's mum to them all and I'm Aunty Carol to them all.

Carole: 19:48

But so it was just kind of short time because I give a piece to everybody and I couldn't just keep giving a piece to everybody. You know I could hold it for a little while, but now they're away and I just say, well, now they're away, they're not my responsibility, but I know where they are and they know where I am. So then I've got room to kind of keep going on my life. But I suppose it depends I don't know how much time you've got or what time you can give or um, it's also important to get the right placement as well. Um, you know, you have.

Carole: 20:28

I kind of get a gut feeling when I'm kind of reading placement notes, whether I think you know I read them, and then it's like overnight I do a lot of reflection where that that's something I've learned. You know, I never, ever did that right at the very start when I first joined, but like with all the training and everything and writing all the diaries, I think maybe it was writing all the diaries because then you could go back and you could read, then you could see patterns of different things, and so I think it taught you to reflect, a lot of reflection.

Ness: 20:58

That's very interesting. So, for writing diaries, is this something that you have to do as a foster carer, or is this something you get every day.

Carole: 21:07

So I remember when I first started it was like a franchise off of Barnardo's, so it was Shields Barnardo's Before we were all under Barnardo's and it was the manager, brian. So we were his one big family. But yeah, the diaries, that's quite hard to do. But I remember him saying when you're writing the diaries these children can look at them and they're 18. So don't just be writing negatives, you know. Find some positives to write in and um and even little stories. He says.

Carole: 21:37

You know, because he says you and I as families we can sit in 30, 40 years and we could talk about like an event or a day and you know you go. I can't remember that, but someone will jog your memory with another bit of snippet of information about that day. So sometimes if I was writing my diaries I'd be so often I would just let out write a wee story, a wee story of what we'd done and other kind of little bits of information about that day, and then if they kind of read back they'll kind of jog, you know, like I mean, that's actually another aspect.

Ness: 22:11

Isn't it to foster care that there is an element of reporting into a bigger system writing the diary, writing about what's going on with the children, about any behaviours, any disclosures that may suddenly present themselves.

Carole: 22:31

Like health meetings's going on at school. You know, like some days, you know you can get where everything's just like kind of peaceful, like you can go like for weeks and it's just to say up, showered, breakfast, school, home, snack, out to play dinner, supper, hey, watch TV or whatever. You know it's just like the same every day. And then, like some, think, right, we need to go and do something to do so I can write about it in the diary or whatever like that. You know, because sometimes we can have like a peaceful couple of weeks and then something will happen. But then you have to write about that kind of change in dynamics and change in dynamics and change in behaviors. And it's not always easy going. Sometimes it can be really hard.

Ness: 23:19

It can be. It can be really hard. I just wanted to interrupt you there and just ask you about that the rupture and repair in the fostering relationship. How have you managed that in the past when challenges have risen?

Carole: 23:36

Sometimes it's just taking a step back, just like kind of taking a step back, because children kind of forget sometimes you know like and if you're doing something over exciting, know like and and if you're doing something over exciting. Well, one of the things I found that it was only once. I had just a single placement. That was a COVID time and it was a teenager and you know I was saying, like, teenagers aren't my thing, I don't understand teenagers and I don't understand technology, so that that's, that's why I don't want to do teenagers. But anyway, it was COVID time.

Carole: 24:11

So I took this teenager and 50% of the time we did get on and the other 50% he didn't want a parent, he didn't want anyone telling him what to do and I'm saying, look, I'm only trying to prepare you for when you leave home so you would know how to do the washing or how to cook a dinner. That's all I'm doing. But it was, it was like a 50-50 with him. One minute I was his best friend and the next minute he didn't like me and I couldn't tell him what to do or um, but like we had, he had counsellors and I worked really well with the counsellors and everything like that and you know the social workers were love. He was really lucky he had had lovely social workers as well. So it was just keeping everybody informed and that we were all on the same page. So he wasn't saying somebody was saying one thing. But you know it's the luck of the draw, trying to get everybody to kind of be on the same page, but it makes such a difference.

Ness: 25:10

Yeah, I can hear that so loudly and clearly, that actually that advocacy, that getting everyone, as you say, communicating clearly because you have so many different, there's so many different elements, isn't there. There's your social worker, there's a child social worker representing the trust. There may be the school involved as birth family, there could be all other different specialist services, and there you are, at the center of it all, plate spinning but that that wasn't always the way.

Carole: 25:44

You know, right at the very beginning. You know it was just. I felt sometimes my voice was unheard, especially when you used to go to meetings and think these social workers are writing a report and they've only met the children for 10 minutes. So everybody has their own opinion of things and I think that's. I think it was one social worker I had and she kind of fought for me to be involved and then ever since that time then I've just fought to be involved in all the rest of the things. And do you feel heard?

Ness: 26:19

as a as someone who knows that child you do, I do now.

Carole: 26:24

I do now, not not at the very, very beginning when I was naive and and I didn't know everything, but over the kind of years with the training and then kind of meeting different people and just gaining more confidence, I think, yeah, I was speaking the other day. They had me speaking on a Zoom meeting to new foster carers from the schools to foster. That was the first time I'd spoken that and one of the things I said to them was don't be afraid, or don't be afraid to say that if you're struggling or you know, ask for the help, because a lot of times the social workers can see, but you know you don't have to feel like a failure. You just ask for the help because there's so many things that are beyond your control, but you know if social workers are emailing and chasing it up and all that as well. So you know it's all working. It's all working together. I think it's the most important thing.

Ness: 27:22

You're absolutely right and I can imagine sometimes it must feel very exposing if you're struggling or it comes to a placement breakdown, which also happens sometimes and you said earlier about it is about finding the right placement for a child. You know, sometimes the placement therein isn't the right placement for that child for a number of different reasons yeah.

Carole: 27:45

But well, the teenager that I had, he had had about six or seven placements before me and he came to me and it was decided that I think it was the intensity of the one-to-one and that's when I decided I wasn't going to do one, I would have siblings after that, I wouldn't just do the one because that was an intensity. It was only me and him that was in the house because I'm a single carer now. But when he left I held him on after the 30 days. It was the social work that put the 30 days notice in, but we found him a children's kind of home to go into so I kept him. I think I kept him for about seven weeks or something until that placement was ready. But I moved him in and everything.

Carole: 28:29

So I'm still in contact. I'm still in contact with him. I met him down in the town centre he's back in East Kilbride and he told me he was at school two days, college two days and he was working at the McDonald's and I said, oh, I hope you're learning. He says, oh, yeah, read it, write it, see it, read it, write it, see it, read it, write it, see it. So he had remembered something.

Ness: 28:52

I love that you keep the door ajar that you're able to see that young person as they are and where they're at, and you're also aware of all the attachment issues that they may also have. I mean, if you are a teenager and you've been moved around half a dozen times, why are you going to be motivated to connect with someone? They're going to have to really really work quite hard, aren't they, to make that connection meaningful.

Carole: 29:19

He was so lucky because his social worker, his children's worker and his counsellor had been in his life for about 10 years. His counsellor had been in the family. You know his parents' life and all that as well before. So that's one of the most important things is, even if they were getting moved around or whatever, if they've got one constant person in their life or whatever like that. So he was really lucky that way. But it was so funny when they told him he was moving and he was saying, no, I didn't sign up for that. I mean, see, she's the best case foster care. She's just got to change her rules and we'll be fine. And they were saying it's not about.

Carole: 30:00

Even even when you go to the children's home, you know they will have rules or whatever like that. It's rules to keep you safe, but it's rules to to teach you. You know, when you go in the big bad world or whatever, you know like. You know you have to save money to pay your bills and you have to. You can't just spend all on the Xbox or spend 24 hours a day on the Xbox, but you know we found ways and means and all that. You know, like my son. My son says to me Mum, do you know, if you download this app for Virgin, you can pause certain things. So when you used to so that was my karma, if you used to annoy me I would just go on and pause the xbox and you'd say you need to phone up that, you need to phone up that Virgin and tell them you have to get a new, a new broadband service. It's rubbish.

Ness: 30:45

But even now you used to sometimes say, well, I think you've turned it off somewhere, and I say no, no, no so, even though teenagers would not have been your priority and you say technology is not your thing, you've taught me something today about how you can control.

Carole: 31:05

That's amazing, amazing yes, I've worked, I've worked out. It is like my best age is like seven to ten year olds. Yeah, because they still want to have fun and they still want to play. And you can still, especially when I've got. If I've got two of them and one of them falls out with me, you know, I could be see the other one, let's play a game of snakes and ladders and and the first one then comes down, oh, I'm so what can I play here? And I'll say come in and play, or whatever like that.

Ness: 31:34

So you've, you've got someone to kind of bounce off each other or whatever but it's an age of development that you've recognized in yourself, that you remember quite clearly you know you said earlier, you were six yeah, you just think you, you understand that age group. That's something that you've held on to and it's really helpful to reflect on that isn't it?

Carole: 31:55

I never even thought about. I never even thought about, like I just found that age group kind of quite used by.

Carole: 32:01

I suppose I hadn't thought yeah, it's because that was probably a time that we kind of missed week, we kind of missed all the kind of fun times and everything like that, because our lives were totally disrupted. You know, we had to move. We had to move to a different town. We had to go and live with my gran because the house that we were in was part of my dad's job. So when, like when he left, that was that we we no home. So we had to move 200 miles north to go and stay with my gran, my mum, my brother and me.

Ness: 32:37

And yet you're bringing that understanding. Yeah, you're living with that emotional understanding of how frightening it can be to have so much change when you're a child. You know we like routine, you do like parameters, we like boundaries, even if we pretend that we don't. Yeah, you know, and you're. You're bringing that natural understanding of that containing what I can, how I can give safety to a child in a situation that feels like it's in flux and uncertain yeah, I think so and and that's one of the important things.

Carole: 33:15

Someone said oh, you know, not everybody has routines, but it's because some of these children might not have had dinner. So it's the one of the important. You know it's breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, supper. That that's every day and and there's roughly times that changes kind of in the summer. But they know they're getting fed all the all the times, you know, and we make big bottles of juice for them and we have kind of routines, because quite a few of the children I've had had autism. So routines is really, really important for them because if you kind of change it up, they get, they get upset.

Carole: 33:49

Um, and when all my grandchildren come to visit, they laugh and they go, gran, and their funny routines you've got. You've got to sit at the table to have your dinner, but then that's when we sit and we talk to each other and you know, but that that's what I did when I grew up. We all sat at my gran's dinner table or whatever. So and you know, half of my family don't have dining room tables. So I'm saying, well, that's why you don't do it at home. But you know, but they do, they moan about it, but they all like it. But. But even when I don't have foster children and their routines are still the same, you know it's not one for one and one for you know that they're all the same. They all kind of know.

Ness: 34:24

You know someone's going to set a table and someone's going to help wash the dishes and um as a relief in that there is a I don't have to think, I know what's coming, I know what to expect, and it's an element of care that is physical, it's, it's tangible. I I am being fed, I'm my, my needs are being met in the most literal way. My needs are being met and I know they're going to be met. Morning, evening, they're going to be met.

Carole: 34:57

I mean you see that that that's just like the kind of basic you know. We can come and go, depending on you know how they are, or we can just change it up a wee bit, but it's the same. But then we still have choices. We can sit and we'll go shopping, and when we go shopping everybody gets to pick dinner for one day that week and maybe they get a choice of. We'll say, well, we're having chicken today and we're having fish that day, and we'll find out who likes what. But they all get to pick a choice. We write the menu up for the week. They get to pick, somebody gets to pick, but then you know, then they've got a choice of what I put in. It's not right, you have to eat. That. We kind of figure out what everybody likes and aye, so you, everybody likes and and I. So if you've got to give them, some choices as well.

Carole: 35:52

There's no controller, anything like that, but it's just that basic thing that they know and I think it's kind of a safe thing for them.

Ness: 35:59

It really is can I ask have you ever been in a situation where I mean where you've had a child come to you who may have had so much disruption that they kind of latch on to you and latch on to the safety, the routine, the stability that you offer? Have you had any difficulty managing a child who doesn't want to move on? Who's who's struggling with that?

Carole: 36:29

no, no, because because I've really really worked well with the parents and with the carers and I have written. I have written down the routine that I have done. When the children have moved like the two boys that I had were from Nigeria, and just towards the end of the placement, before they were moving, I've invited mum and dad to come and see where they stayed and they had a big room upstairs and a couch and everything like that. So I just let them go and sit upstairs with the boys upstairs. And then when they were going away, and I'm saying, oh, what did mum and dad think of the room? And and they were saying, oh, dad was taking photos. And I says what for? And he says I had a big Ikea 12 block storage thing with all the boxes. And oh, just to see how to set the room out, because the social worker said that our room at home isn't good and they have to change it. Um, so and I'd taken the boys the following week and I was saying, oh, what are we saying? He says, oh, they told us we had to get bunk beds. And mum was saying you know, everything costs a lot of money. So I just says, well, the next time you come.

Carole: 37:40

I was kind of meeting them halfway and I'm saying you know, mum and baby don't come, just dad come with extra car. And I totally stripped the room and I give them all the storage and I give them the bookcase and I give them all the toys and I give them the telly. And when it came to moving, I actually went in and I set up their bedroom to the way it was set up at home. So everything was the same for them. You know, obviously they were at home with their parents up at home, so everything was the same for them. You know, obviously they were at home with their parents, but everything in their room was the same. You know that the pants and socks were always in that drawer, that the games were there, the and and I don't know, they they just, uh, mum and dad allowed me to do that because I was able to work for mum and dad and everything like that.

Ness: 38:25

That's fantastic because you've really been keeping those connections and it must make a huge difference to those children. Yeah, I think, but it probably is.

Carole: 38:35

You know, obviously due to my upbringing and that feeling of rejection or something, and I just anyone, and that was my biggest thing right at the very start about kids going, you know, and I didn't want them to feel like that. So I think that's why I kind of really kind of pushed to get on with the carers, to get on with the parents, to so that I could keep keep that door open. And you know, if there was anything, I would write down every single routine, every little thing for them to see. And you know, and sometimes kids go and you care, and they go, oh, no, carol, let us do that. But all they would have to say is oh well, we phone Carol, no, no, no, no.

Carole: 39:18

I wasn't as strict, I was really really easygoing. I used a lot of humour but if I said, you know, if that kept happening, you know you wouldn't do that, for obviously they got grounded, or you know it's just for a short time, or they didn't get their tablet just for one night. It wasn't like you weren't getting it for a week, because you know time means nothing to them, but just like for the one night. But I kept to that, you know, even if they were annoying me. They didn't get. You know they like to push the buttons because they think I'll get fed up and I'll just give them it back. So they knew, you know I didn't have a lot of rules or boundaries, but you know I did keep to them you were consistent with the boundaries that you had, and that gives us safety, doesn't it we?

Ness: 40:04

we don't want, we don't actually want the person who's holding us safely to allow us to be in the driving seat. Yeah, do you want to know where the parameters are really?

Carole: 40:17

I mean, it becomes that was something safe right at the beginning I went to. It was, I think it was managing teenagers or something, and I went on a 12-week course and I always remember it was like the picture, it was like a wall, it was the boundary. You know you can let them go so far, but you have to kind of there's got to be a bit that they can't go further. Yes, and it's kind of a wee bit or whatever. And that always kind of stuck sometimes when I go to training, though, rather than them just talking, but then they'll kind of show something visual or a little cartoon, a picture. I'll remember that better.

Carole: 40:53

I'll remember that better. So, but no, I'm a lot different now to when I first started.

Ness: 41:04

What would you say are the sort of the main ways that you are different now and when you first started?

Carole: 41:11

I'm so much more confident. I have got so much confidence because it's I know it's something that I'm good I you know it's all. It's all been good. You know we've had kind of struggles over the years and everything like that, but it's all kind of worked and I know and I go to all the training and uh, and if Barnardo's are asking me to speak at different things, then that that just kind of proves that I must be kind of okay. Sometimes stuff comes out all back to front and I get mixed up or my memory's really bad as well. So I think you're quite good at this.

Carole: 41:48

I get the impression but yeah, I don't know you. Just you have to have understanding. These children have had a different start in life. So it's not like you've got children and you've raised your children and you think, because you've done that good, that you'll be able to do. You have to be able to adapt and learn. I think Try to tune to the child and find ways, because what works for one child won't work for another child.

Ness: 42:25

Yeah, I like that. I like that flexibility and that recognition that every new relationship, every new child that comes in, you can bring your experience to this child. But you're meeting a new child each time. Yeah, you're gonna have different needs and perhaps different ways of being able to express it or not be able to express what's going on for them?

Carole: 42:50

I had a little boy there last month. I never met him, it was just for a short break. He was coming up for four years old and he was non-verbal and I think he's getting tested for autism or something else. So I went and met him and he came and met me and I had him for a week and I had to adapt from the carer's routine a little bit because she didn't sleep every night. You know, have a bath, don't take him down, go to bed. And I did that the first night and it was just, he just was not going to sleep, he was swinging from the bed. So the second night I had a bath and we came downstairs and because it was only me and him in the house and I just let him bounce about, bounce about the floor for two hours and then he came up beside me, fell asleep and I lifted him up and I put him to his bed and that was something. He slept all night.

Carole: 43:45

My biggest struggle with him was he associated the kitchen with food. So every time he went in the kitchen it was food. So if he saw me take the food out of the fridge or the freezer, he automatically picked his plate up and then he would have a tantrum for 12 minutes because he thought the ninja was eating his dinner. And then I was trying to cool it. So then after a couple of days he kind of realized, right, you know, he was watching the buttons and the lights flashing to switch off, so I would put his and then I was kind of add mine in and then I would give it a stir and he's watching the numbers, and then then I would take his out and I was throwing him behind the ninja to go down.

Carole: 44:25

So so by day six we I think I had behind and then she had to go down. So by day six I think I had him for eight days. We kind of managed it by day six. But yeah, if he wanted anything he would just come and take your hand and do stuff. But that was kind of strange because that was a first for me. But we adapted. So he seemed to enjoy himself and I love being outside well, look, I think we're going to leave it there.

Ness: 44:55

Have you got any last thoughts that you want to share? Any tips?

Carole: 45:03

just for new foster carers when they get a referral, to ask lots of questions and to make sure they have the support and everything you know, because sometimes with fostering and to make sure they've got an outside life as well.

Carole: 45:17

That's something I've just kind of realized because sometimes fostering can be really isolating, especially I do it myself, so if the kids are in bed at seven o'clock at night, you know you're in every day. Sometimes you don't see adults for days on end, it's just children. So I think it's to have a good support system and also to have you know, I've found a group of people that I've just kind of met recently that I go to this new group and they're just knowing me as Carol. They don't know me as a mum, a gran or a foster carer. So I'm kind of getting my identity back because I didn't know who I was. You know. I just know that I'm doing all these kids but I yeah to ask lots of questions, to get lots of support and to have to have an outside, like fromtraining as well those are like really good tips.

Ness: 46:10

I hope so but I wasn't.

Carole: 46:13

I wasn't like this 20 years ago. You know, I wasn't 20 years ago or 15 years ago. I wasn't like this. I was totally naive and I was just.

Ness: 46:21

I think all the training and everything's you know, a lot has changed in the last 15 years yeah, there's a lot of support, and I think you also need to give permission for yourself to make mistakes, to not to not know the answers.

Carole: 46:37

Yes, and to be able to ask questions and support when you need it because every child is different, so that that is the thing to accept that they are all different and you just want them to be the best that they can be, not the best that someone else can be.

Ness: 46:52

The best that they can be, yeah it's about the limitations, yeah, but sometimes you can kind of push them and you can get like a wee bit better outcome for them and that so like that little, that little non-verbal child understanding that he has to be able to hold themselves until the food comes out of the machine, Until the light beats. Oh Carole, thank you so much for talking to me today. It's been a real pleasure and so insightful and I really appreciate you spending your morning with me. Thanks for listening to this episode of Bernardo's Fostering and Adoption NI podcast. To learn more about fostering and adoption with us, search for Barnardo's online or find the link in our program description. We love to hear from you your thoughts, questions or future topic requests. To do so, you can contact us at bfani at barnernardosorguk. You will find our email address also in the show notes.