It’s not unusual for a child to miss their family and so it’s important our foster carers feel prepared and able to manage emotions and behaviour sensitively and appropriately. Foster carers may use their own skills from either personal experience, or training provided by Hampshire County Council. Tim and Sarah have been fostering for five years and have shared how they helped Oliver*, who was missing his Grandad.
“When we first met Oliver, he had told us he really missed his Grandad, so we talked about the plan to go to his Grandad’s house one day and reassured him that we would be seeing him soon. We made sure to talk about Grandad in our conversations at home and put photo of Grandad on his noticeboard next to a photo of us so that he could see we were all part of his life together. We used photos to show him the days he would be at our house and the days he would be at Grandad’s house. We told Oliver that we could see he was missing Grandad, that it was ok to feel this way and for now he was with us but would see Grandad at a different time.
There are different resources you can use or refer to, for us we read the ‘Hands are not for hitting’ book with Oliver. We would get down to his level and talk in a very calm and controlled voice, hoping he would mirror this in his response. A gentle touch on the arm would reassure him when giving instructions to demonstrate empathy and help him to regulate his emotions.
We encouraged him to be creative through painting, clay modelling, play doh, craft, junk modelling, dressing up, puppets, playing musical instruments, playing in and outdoors. He loved playing with the plastic animals in the jungle garden outdoors especially. This encouraged him to think out of the box and experiment with different ways of playing. We started going to music and singing group which he struggled at first, sitting on my lap for the whole session, but after three sessions he felt comfortable with joining in playing the instruments which was lovely to see.
Oliver also talked about Mum a lot when was first with us and would often ask when he would see her again. We made sure we had photos of Mum in our house for him to see and put a photo of him, his Mum and sister in his bedroom. We talked about his Mum and made a photo calendar of the number of days there were before he would see her again. This was a visual way for Oliver to see that he would be seeing Mum again soon. We encouraged him to try naming his emotions and over time his questions decreased, and he was easily comforted by us when he did become upset.
When it became time for him to move onto adoption, we started calling birth Mum by her name and started referring to adoptive parents as Mum and Dad. We used a personalised book with photos of his birth family and his new adoptive parents whilst keeping his routines to help him to feel emotionally stable.
For each child we foster we keep a contact book available for birth families to see at their contact sessions. In this book we record how the child is doing and what they have been up to that week. For the young children we care for we create a baby’s first-yearbook where we record all of their firsts; achievements and their developments which is something they can look back on in the future.”
*Name has been changed