Foster Carer Quotes

One of the foster carers kept a video library of musicals that we worked our way through en famille at weekends, and so, although I fervently wish that I wasn’t, I’m very familiar with the work of Lionel Bart, Rodgers and Hammerstein et al. Knowing I was here on the street where he lived was giving me a funny feeling, fluttery and edgy, verging on euphoric. I could almost understand why that frock-coated buffoon from My Fair Lady had felt the need to bellow about it outside Audrey Hepburn’s window.

I feel so apart from these people. We’re the same age, but we’re different breeds. Different species entirely. While these motherfuckers were riding ponies and screaming at magicians, demanding more impressive tricks on their eighth birthdays, I was eating out of trash cans. When they were ten, they were going on vacations to The Hamptons and stuffing their faces on Maine’s finest lobster. Meanwhile, I was kneeling in a filthy back alley, shooting Narcan up my foster-carer David’s nose so he wouldn’t fucking OD and die. Apples. Oranges. I can never be like them. Understand them. Fuck, even tolerating them is going to be a challenge.

It was interesting to note how rarely social workers appeared to have initiated kin placements (4%) (see also Doolan et al. 2004) ... Given how rarely it appeared that social workers had made the first move to instigate kin placements, it was not surprising to find that for the majority of children with unrelated foster carers (57%) a kin placement had apparently not been considered.

loved them and they were the new kids on the block. I called my mum. ‘Are you sitting down?

dominated by the needs of the damaged child, but I don’t mind. Like many foster carers, I’m driven by a powerful need to ease their pain. I remember myself as a child, walking by our local newsagents on the way to school. Outside the shop stood a little wooden figure of a beggar boy with polio, both legs fixed in metal callipers and a forlorn expression painted on his face. He held up a sign saying ‘Please give’ and there was a slot in the top of his head for pennies. Undeterred by the bird droppings across his shoulders, I would give him a quick hug, longing to take him home and make him better. My pulse quickens as we pass over a deserted bridge lined with old-fashioned street-lamps. After seven years of fostering I still feel an intense excitement when taking on a new child. It’s only been a few days since my last placement ended and already I’m itching to fill the void. As we drive past the riverside council blocks I’m reminded of one of my previous charges – three-year-old Connor, a boy who spent a large part of his day roaming the

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covered in stickers, scribbled notes and photographs of children. Addie wondered who the children were and whether they all lived here, with Ruth and Sam. Whatever Penny and Ruth were planning, Addie’s photo was never going on that fridge. She strained to hear what Penny was saying to Ruth. Penny had her serious face on, which was worrying. Ruth was nodding. She glanced over at Addie, her eyes soft and watery. Like the police officer’s eyes, just before she made Addie let go of Mam’s hand. ‘Almost done, Addie,’ she said, smiling. She turned back to the stove, stirred her pan of milk, as if everything was normal. As if everything was fine. Ruth didn’t look like a foster carer. Not like Dawn anyway. Dawn, with her pink hair and high heels, her endless phone calls, her high-pitched

Those procedures might include certification by independent practitioners that the patient was terminally ill within the meaning of the relevant law; that the patient had voluntarily requested euthanasia, having been fully informed of the prognostic and palliative facts; that there was no undue influence on the patient from relatives or carers; that there had been a ‘cooling-off’ period since the request for euthanasia; that the request was signed and duly witnessed; and so on.