My family applied to become foster parents but it was two years down the line before it really got anywhere.
They were all approved and the rest of it, but because it took so long my Mum starting working part time to sustain the family. We agreed that because of the ages of myself and my brother (15 and 17) we could only have young children up to about 6 or so, we also could only do weekend respite due to my mum working.
The only children we were ever offered were eight year old twin boys with ADHD and bed wetting, which would need full time care which of course we couldn't do. We thought that was throwing us in at the deep end really - having never had a foster child before.
Eventually 10 year old Ciara came to stay with us (wrong age group again and also full time) but despite this we relished her time with her and loved her like part of our family. It was a bit difficult since when mum was at work I had to be with her a lot - because of her history she couldnt be left alone with my Dad or my Brother.
There was a few incidences, like the fact that she had a menstual cycle and no one had told us, which was obviously really embaressing for her to talk about (she used to hide dirty pants etc) and when she first moved in she cut herself on her finger with her shaving razor, probably out of protest since she had just been split up from her sister - but that was ok.
There was an incident where her taxi had dropped her at the school and she'd run off and the police got all involved and everything, it was her 11th birthday and she'd ran off with a man in his 30s whom she had some sort of history with. Complete shock to us, policemen going though her things trying to figure ut what had happened. She was found two days later with cuts and bruises and our social worker was very apoligetic and said that we could have her moved to another home if we wanted.
We didn't want her moved at all. Despite this we knew her now and she was happy and settled and we worried about her, of course we wanted her back!
There was another issue to do with the whole Catholic/Protestant thing also - the social workers didn't like her being placed with a protestant family because she was from a catholic family. We obviously didn't dismiss her beliefs or anything and supported her when she had her conformation. During the court case surrounding her disappearance and the (I presume) sentencing of the man, her parents actually commented to say that they were very happy their daughter be with us as we seemed like a nice family.
Then one day, after Ciara had been with us nearly six months, our social worker showed up and annouced they were moving her. From our large detached house where she had her own room, to a small semi with three other foster kids even further away from her school! Their reasoning: They wanted to move her to a Catholic family.
After that we were offered one other child some year or so later, but due to circumstances had to turn them down and simply because we were never offered any children under the age of eight or so, and ones that needed full-time care, gradually my parents have retreated from foster care and have found generally to have had a rather negative exprience with it.
So there is my honest story and opinions of fostering, its sounds great on paper and I really encourged my parents to sign up and tried to do my bit...but ti doesn't always run smoothly, who knows where they place the younger children - if they had done so my mother would have happily given up her job (that had been the original plan) to foster full time.
) can you pick the age group ?
