This is about my life in a fostering family of several young people in Wales today.
There are also all the other people in this house, my own growing up too quickly children who seem to be here less every week, and of course the student, the mistress of all we owe money on. There are three green goddesses (big green 1950's fire pumps): Gloria, Isabelle and the belle.
That's not mentioning other vehicles and items of plant, all sorts in fact.
This is a really complex young man. After a few days of variable behaviour today we went for full blown riot.
His mobile phone has been used to intimidate and abuse, he has threatened with a knife, Billiard balls and fruit has been flying. The door of my bedroom has been redecorated with shaving foam and mashed banana and lots of writing on the wall, an attempt has also been made to smash the door.
The ceiling in his bedroom is slowly being removed.
And why you may ask, well if you have any answers please let me know.
Personally I have seen nothing to trigger this.
This is life in the fostering fast lane!
Would be nice if they paid Jag level fees to cope with the speed, but of course they are still paying for a Morris Minor and expecting it to out run the Jag....
Sitting here in the fostering fast lane I think the hard shoulder looks really inviting...
I think it says enough that I have been unusually silent.
We have been in full on work mode.
It's hard to say where to start but enough to say that laddo is supposed to be a suicide risk.
Like so much about this lad it was all news to us.
Then social worker says we have to become more vigilant which it a bit of a lot to ask as we are foster carers not a registered staffed home. If they want waking nights with 15 minute checks then they needed to get him somewhere where that was on offer.
This was enough to give the SW a touch of the vapours and set her off to asking us to get the doctor to assess him. The GP decided after a few minutes that this was serious so yesterday I got to spend 2 hours with a psychiatrist, for him not me I hasten to add.
The day before he was more normal than normal, the first time in 25 days.
Then yesterday he was off again and today he is wandering round the house screaming. It really is something to see, this man's behaviour.
The looked after childrens nurse was quite quite bemused by him and some of his behaviours.
We are struggling along, a couple of days of calm and now the mayhem is off again.
Where on earth are we going next.
Phew, whatever they are paying us, it isn't enough.
Talking of which the fostering team were asking us today indirectly if we would hold on to him. In truth I think we would, the student set out her financial stall. Allowances, education, regular weekends free. Would come in at half what they are likely to have to shell our for specialist residential. Would they go for it?
Of course not, it was too much to pay, yet again, they would rather save themselves a few quid by spending a fortune.
Since money has figured large in international matters these last few weeks. Maybe it's time I took 5 minutes to talk about money.
The fact of the matter is that little I is likely to leave here for a specialist residential with education attached. Put another way it's going to cost roughly ten times what it costs to keep him here.
So of course you might think they would be prepared to "do what it takes" to keep him here.
So yesterday we got a letter saying that we must claim off our insurance for any damage he has done and that, because they are nice people, they will reimburse us the extra costs incurred in lost no claims etc.
As if, if i start making damage claims left right and centre the issue will not be increased premiums it will be getting cover in the first place.
They included a lovely piece of spin "the agency MAY not be liable" thats lovely because the agency is actually liable under fostering regulations. Regardless of their handbook or what letters they write, they are liable.
But it's little things like that which make you think it's time to put him in the car and leave him on their doorstep. So they will have saved themselves a few quid by spending a fortune.
It went from 5 pm till 1.30 last night - no let up.
Then out of bed as if nothing had happened.
Up to a review meeting where the reviewing officer had been changed. I really must have been tired, I groaned as she said she was to be his reviewing officer, need to become more tactful.
Another note to self, best not bring up his medication at the mental health review. Most people in the room were on message when I delivered my views on his medication.
I could have been more tactful though.
Then the meeting ended and he announced he was going home for the afternoon.
Now normally I would be cool with that if he had arranged it with us (no) but really we are a family of 8 and everyone else was at home. So he had to fit in around that. Thing was he had told his sisters he would be home today.
So he threw rattle out of pram big style, mum went (how tough was that for her?)
He ran off and went home.
We went to the fostering base camp office where a manager was really good supportive even.
The phone exploded as step dad wanted him out of there, so we all came home.
Home we all came, and where does it go from here?
We had a wasted time session with him in the living room tonight, based on reason and stuff like that.
Lots of wood cut while himself was telling us we need to take him to town.
The job took a while and then we got it done.
Off to tow we went and he was not impressed as little D was not for going into town with him reckoning that down that road lay a lot of grief.
So he was not prepared to make that journey himself. His big trip into town to buy things became a trip to Morrisons..
He was upping the anti big style by the time we got home and has been looking for conflict at every turn.
No one has really engaged with that, though there have been a few "moments".
He has kicked off pretty solidly all night, though the notion that if the student and I don't get to sleep then we will not be driving to Daycastle for his review tomorrow did initially throw a spanner into his particular works.
After his mum told him he could decide as much as he wanted that he was moving back home tomorrow but that it wasn't going to be happening until she agreed it, he got lots less keen to go.
So it was chainsaw duty yesterday, noting that the "tons" of wood that used to cost us 20 quid now cost 25 and seem to have shrunk a bit too.
Either that or we didn't half get some wood done.
Most of a bundle of hardwood done in one go.
He has an unhealthy interest in the chainsaw, could be very unhealthy for him if he plays with it!!
He is also fixated on the mower, he spent ages trying to get our old defunct mower to run.
End of day was a lovely run out to the beach to let the kids off the leash for some serious stone skimming competitions.
It's odd going to that beach that is so strongly linked to my childrens early childhood. Taking them there as young children, armed with tools for serious sand castleing and stream daming.
Still staggering on and getting a grip on very complex behaviour.
No actually, he's just very very immature.
He had the suprise of his life yesterday, he was kicking off in the car and, found himself stood on the kerb 50 miles from here on his own.
Obviously a new experience.
The only way he could get himself back in the car was by controling his behaviour.
He has been refusing to take his medication and is now eating for 3.
Life in other areas continues.
We have serious works to do on the house in Brittany, management has been monitoring the Euro and said last week we should shift money over there as the pound is sliding.
I left it a bit late but the deed is done, in compensation I moved more than she suggested, I doubt i moved anought though, the pound, with our masters messing the economy big style is moving from haveing the value of metal it's minted in to not being worth the paper it's printed on.
So it's eyes down for the weekend and the holidays.
6 weeks of unmitigated relentless respite less work.
Now just watch some social worker ask, at the end of that, if we had a good "holiday".
Happens every year.
Not been a bad day, we are still unable to understand how the behaviour is so changed.
It is tempting to look at the fact he is eating a lot more fresh fruit less processed food, no fizzy drinks, we never buy the stuff (he has taken to bottled water and discovered he likes tap water) it could not be as simple as that could it?
Actually I don't buy it it has to be more than that.
We are both completely zonked out, i could sleep for a week.
Management had to go off yesterday for five hours leaving me on my own with the man himself.
Tallie was asleep and both girls helped by locking themselves in their room with a pile of CD's.
It was pretty fraught stuff but he remained calm then started disclosing, but that was a game too. I got a name and checked it, finding it was his sister the one who gave him some ganja the night before he came into care as she was clean out of booze to give him.
He has been brilliant so far today, him and me have fetched 20 tons of wood from the wood yard. I'll give him this he's not shy when it comes to work.
He is calm pleasant and sociable, swearing is vastly reduced.
The looked after children's nurse has been trying to see what she can find out but the social worker has been stonewalling her and refusing to share even the name of his psychiatrist. The SW has been dismissive despite being here when he was being a bit manic seeing a smashed up car and caravan. You cannot ignore broken ad twisted metal - or maybe you can.
The LAC nurse is incredibly good, knows us well, her stock phrase is:
"If anyone can come up with a way of dealing with that R&T can"
She has used the phrase i have just heard just once before:
"If R&T say they are dealing with someone who has %%%%%% that's good enough for me"
Last time the phrase was used it was about a young man who had really severe mental health issues about which the SW was in total denial.
Turned out we were right and he was wrong.
That isn't the issue though, I think in this case he was dumped in desperation and the team think that if they ignore what is going on somehow it will go away. I am bewildered at that as the social work manager involved knows us of yore and he should know that we will not play that game.
His mood swings are huge and unpredictable, the violence very intense and totally not directed at anything.
People trained in behaviour management are talking about "triggers" but what do you do when there aren't any and the rage still runs?
When I first spoke to his SW I thought she was pretty good but now I am starting to have doubts.
For a start he came without documentation consenting to medical treatment signed. How basic is that?
I am not very coherent, think I need sleep and loads of it.
Late in it the student got threatened with a brick a bike was thrown and much abuse was endured by all. Tallies Clio got damaged something that really scared himself, I think as Tallie is not the sort to take that.
He went on to take "an overdose" of sleeping tablets, poured all his tablets into a pint glass and worked them into a suspension, then told everyone he was going to take them. When he thought no one had eyes on they went down the sink.
This morning things went off bright and early.
He started with a bit of car keying the806, then tore the electrics apart on the Saxo.
Next he moved on to the caravan, it took a few goes but eventually he did it serious damage. Fortunately not our tents or sleeping bags that we want for the future just the caravans interior that was obviously not meant to be hit with an iron bar.
Ohh I forgot the iron bar - here's one he threatened me with earlier.....
At one stage he was trying to set the caravan on fire and I was chomping at the bit with the Green Goddess that's full of water with Branwen to copy all on film for you tube.
Green Goddess puts out caravan fire - that would have been supercool!
The one thing I would have wanted him to do and he could not bloody well manage that!!
What really annoyed him though was learning that we had planned to scrap the van and sell it on for bits this year and now we would get 400 pounds compensation off social services instead.
I reframed his anger directed towards us as something good he had done that made us money.
His anger is though, I suspect control directed.
He turned it on and in 2 seconds flat he was normal.
And did I mention how the local farmer has reported someone running across his fields and trying to drive them on to the road, maybe not.
Is he happy?
Oh dear, turning lively downstairs time I was not here.
Normally you can foster about anything for a little bit of time.
This young man has been seeking grief from day one though.
Last day was a series of explosions and threats, thing is though looking back at it when we left a car engine running and unattended, despite the bravado he did not try and drive it off. Just as well the clutch does not work and he would not be able to get it into gear but he didn't know that...
He has been threatening to start the digger and drive off in that too.
I am not a great believer in labels for young people and especially the ADHD one. This is not the place to dig into the details of how and why.
Anyway, we had a fantastic festie disrupted by our new young man.
Actually by his standards he did rather well.
He started Friday morning announcing he would lose it that morning and that we were not going. This got him precisely nowhere. Gwion got talking to him telling him all the things they could do at the festie and to my eternal shock came the hour and even with management not here he got in the car. He was a bit fidgety on the way down but seemed to cope better than expected again.
There were a few minor spats but all in all he did OK till Saturday afternoon. Then he decided to start poking then hitting someone with a stick which she responded to by taking the stick off him.
This was a classic example of the type of thinking contact with conventional services engenders. Children are encouraged to explain themselves in terms of their ADHD. his take on it was that the adult was not allowed to take the stick off him and that she was in the wrong.
Hitting her with the stick was just a joke and a laugh, then when he started to get angry at her it was because she had taken his stick not that he had hit her.
He could not make the causal connection, that's not ADHD, it's not learning.
He said he should have "warned her" that he might blow, he said. We asked if she was warning him when he jabbed her with the stick and she asked him to stop.
No response.
Eventually, and here the out of control nonsense kicks in. He decided to go back to her for more but got very concerned when told his choices were walk back to the car or be placed in it by site security.
He got a grip on things eventually and went and sat on the car.
I feel he has used his behaviour to control others in the past as not long after that he "told" management that they were leaving now. She said no actually they were leaving in two hours, unless he planned to kick off in which case it would be later still.
Not much of one for psychology that one.....
So anyway he went and sat in the car and waited. Looking miserable and a little angry. But of course if his ADHD was real he would not have been able too do that as he would not have been able to control the behaviour.
The student went home leaving me and the rest of the crew to do a late shift as stewards. My did that ever turn interesting!! Hedge jumpers had been a problem the night before so we solved that one definitively.
Putting Bethan and Branwen on the high sky line of the field I went into one part of the field and Harley, Beths BF to the other. He was all in black and I had camo gear on. Nestling into the darkness and the long grass I was able to hear people as they approached along the nearby road. We had a simple system of torch flashes telling Bethan and Branwen how many and where they were heading.
It was quite funny, I would hear them coming up the road signal where they were headed and Bethan would lie in wait. As they cautiously stuck their heads over the hedge she would pop up in full stewards gear with a torch and ask "are you looking for me ?" I would know she had popped up as they would come running back past me in obvious panic.
It didn't take long for them to cotton on there was no way in up there and soon we were back in the main site where mayhem was ensuing. I think it was about 5 am by the time I got to sleep then back up at 9 and off again. Thank god for strong coffee!!!
We had a great time though, hopefully there was enough money to make sure we go again next year. Lots of the smaller festivals are folding with only the big commercial enterprises seeming to survive.
It will be a shame really, there is something nice about the small festivals run by volunteers which break even most years, the commercial festies can be soulless affairs. .
The student is auctioning, that could turn all dear.
Little D has his catering GCSE practical, well the first bit anyway and the kitchen is being torn apart.
Of course, to do your practical these days you actually have to cook food. This is a welcome move on from days of yore when cooking was about how to stick ready meals in the microwave.
Of course no one will actually eat it, well it might be our tea, so it could taste vile, so long as it looks OK.
He started this morning saying (not to me) he was going to "kick off big style" today.
There was a lot of moodiness and looking for conflict.
There has been targeting one of the other looked after kids.
There has been a chasing next doors sheep across the field.
If you met the guy who owns them you would call this "suicidal behaviour".
Gwion has been in the thick of all this.
But I think the looked after child has had one of the best days of his life.
He found the hatch to the attic in his room and found our kids old Brio in the loft.
There is a huge train track layout in his room.
Mr Health and Safety would be giving him a big lecture about going up in the attic, but, you know, somewhere I lost that script.
This is very immature behaviour, or as a therpist once said he obviously has not finished being 5 so he is not ready to be 6.
Mr Hoodie, for that was he, has thrown his hoodie off and is at this late stage in the day, not "kicking off" but running wild and burning off energy.
He had a proper meal today and he is starting to eat. He had been removing himself to his room mealtimes.
He saw some of the food we brought back from France in the fridge and decided he might try it. Something completely new, his face lit up with wonder and he emptied the carton.
Now about this ADHyperactivityD......
We have imposed a bedtime which will be 11,
That could be an obstacle.
It could all change in 20 minutes.....
I am sure there is a mountain to climb but I also think we are passed the lower slopes.
We are off to a music festival tomorrow I think this might turn all interesting.
The weather has been a real mixed bag; this morning brilliant sunshine with an afternoon of torrential sky leaking.
Lucky the mowing of lawn got done in the morning.
The caravan needed to be moved today which is a simple little job after all.
Move a caravan from a field to outside the house where there is access to electricity, 50 yards, the work of moments.
So first job is let the legs down.
Perhaps I should re introduce Mr Samba, called that as the first time I took the thing to a festival hitting 50 was the begining of a bouncing Samba with van and car dancing all over the place.
I did actually cure this by pumping the tyres up to 50 psi, I think they might have formed into a fixed shape when stood so they were slightly oval, the extra pressure pushed them back round.
But anyway the Samba van has a very clever system for the legs. These are the things that hold it stable when it's parked. Everything is hydraulic so rather than lots of cranking you just pump it a load of times and the thing is stable and automatically level.
Taliesin (yes lets blame him for a change) suggested we park it on a bit of an angle so lots of the legs were at big extension and the ones at the front were under real load as the van was trying to roll backwards.
In moving it we struggled to get the rears to go up and the fronts being held down by the weight of the truck simply would not budge at all.
This was turning from a "let's go and move the van" into something far more complex.
So anyway, unable to hitch up, because the tow hitch was inches over the ball on the 806 I decided to box clever. Pulling the caravan forwards would collapse the legs naturally.
Raiding a Green Goddess for rope, we pulled the caravan forwards, which meant one leg went down a bit and the other, dug in driving the caravan towards the fence.
Now of course room to manouvere was a spot limited by the presence of Taliesin's champ (lets have another go at the man....) and a rather substantial breeze block wall.
97 locks and the car was pointing slightly the right way.
Another pull and the front came down.
Not quite enough of course to hitch up so the wood pile was raided and the 806 backed up on blocks till the hitch locked.
Pulling the thing forwards would relieve the pressure on the legs and with hitch hitched we were in business.
Well no, the van was in a gate and there was still a champ close in front. It came out of there on a triumph of my driving and Big D's judgement.
Turn it round and reverse in nice and tight on the house; tomorrows job, clean it all.
I wonder what people think when they decide what to share about a young person.
I suppose really behaviour is a thing to know about.
The student has the rather comprehensive social work assessment of him and his behaviour, based on one morning she has found lots to add and annotate.
But what about say taking high doses of medication usually prescribed for a diagnosed mental condition?
Is that the sort of thing maybe a carer needs to know beforehand and not get told by the YP when they arrive, apparently not.
I would speculate but it's only speculation that this is a child who has not had enough "attention", then again there isn't actually enough attention in the world for this one.
I am a bit alarmed at some aspects, normally it takes a few weeks for a young person to start to push boundaries but he's done away with that. Already he has decided which buttons he might want to try pushing.
We have as many of you know been long term fostering for a while, even though we started with little angels, then graduated to long term which is what we do now.
Recently, we were asked to look after a couple of teenies. Being asked to take on new placements came as a bit of a surprise for reasons you can research for yourselves
But anyway we were asked a couple of times over the last few weeks to take various little teenage angels mainly I suspect because this is the group that costs real money to accommodate and every week we could contain a child would save the agency a couple of thousand pounds.
You will recall L who arrived here in a blaze of publicity, we were expecting Rambo and got Rupert the bear.
He was a complex young man but nothing like what his records said.
Well today it looks as if we are going to scoop the pool, all things equal and we get I. They have been pushing us for a few weeks to take him, he came into care on Friday and promptly set about redeveloping the carers house. This is not some dewy eyed newby this is a carer with 20 years experience who claims never to have seen the like of this before.
There have been a number of previous carers who seem to have been overwhelmed by the behaviour.
The student and I like to get away occasionally and have a bit of fun on our own but, you know you can have too much of a good thing.
We set off early afternoon, but actually a bit late. When we were leaving daycastle I had an eye on the clock and thought to myself this was cutting things a bit fine.
Plan A had been to see how frugal Bihan the C5 could be if you took it easy.
That had to be abandoned and another plan employed;
Plan B, just how fast is this thing?
The answer was VERY. I did get passed once but that was and Aston martin Vantage and he was obviously in an even bigger hurry than me.
This resulted in a fuel light coming on requiring an emergency diversion into Tesco and we got into the terminal with 5 minutes to spare. Haven't cut it that fine in a while.
So it was on to the Bretagne and let the relaxation commence, I do love that ship, especially as it has the most wonderful restaurant. So feeling a bit full up and a lot wiped it was time to bed, ahh now did I mention our cabin. No I didn't - because we didn't have one.
So having selected a bit of deck we settled for the night, or rather didn't. A very un settled night followed disturbed by vibrations, noisy people and others going about their work.
So my dis was a bit gruntled going down to the car deck where we succeeded in being the last car but 3 to leave making us at this stage an hour late leaving to meet someone at the house.
More driving like my hair was on fire and another pit stop was indicated, meaning I had to find the LeClerc in Loudeac a town I had never been to before and arriving on market day did nothing to help me get through.
So all in all we arrived at the house hot and flustered, definitely hot; it was 32 C in the back garden.
We've had this house since March 2003 and we knew then it would eventually need a bit of work doing. With our mate Youenn on board we worked out a schedule of things to do that need doing pretty much this year, with a back up list of things to get done at some stage in the future.
The electrics are a fire risk nightmare and half the roof needs doing. Funny thing in France; the slates are clipped on to a wooden frame; when you change the roof most of the slates simply go back on with new clips. In our case a lot of the pine boards which are of course softwood to start off with will have to come off and a lot of the battens behind them need to be replaced too.
So anyway it was time for lunch and on we went, the usual restaurant experience 4 fantastic courses for 11 euros.
Back to the house and a work break. The student went off on strimming bent and I went into town to pick up a load of stuff someone wanted us to bring home.
The temperature was past 30 C and we were both a bit phased by the warmth of it all. Thankfully the new strimmer saved us a pot of time over the old and soon we were heading North for the ferry. The students sister has a house in Sgriniac a bit North of ours, a place we last visited 20 years ago. So armed with a map and only the vaguest notion where the house was we set off and damn me we soon found it and also found her sister was out. Not having a huge pot of time to spend we high tailed it for Morlaix cross country.
Warning bells should have sounded when we passed a lake, I asked where that was, there was no lake on the map she said. A little while later signs appeared inviting us to turn left for a town that should have been on our right. Ahh yes, been here before time to hang a turn round back track and find the junction where we had gone wrong.
Still we arrived in St Pol, made a brief stop in Red Cash then went to LeClerc. By this time we were both completely pooped, we got bored with the shopping long before we had everything we needed, had a "bucket" moment and went to find our tea.
There are allegedly some fantastic restaurants in St Pol but normally we park in the terminal in Roscoff, enjoy a stroll into town and either go to the creperie Ty Sauzon or the Baie de Halong which is a Vietnamese restaurant.
After a fantastic meal and with change from 50 E in my pocket we went back to the car and drove to the ferry, far too tired to walk that night, though I did feel loads better after eating.
We were anyway pushing it a bit for the ferry and were one of the last cars to check in. I was doing this in hope that we might get shoved onto car deck five which would win us 30 minutes extra in bed. The ship was arriving at an obscene 5 am, we could not turn up at little D's nans before 10. It's a 2 hour trip; that meant we might have 3 hours to kill.
Our luck of the night before held and we were loaded so close to the bow doors that if the car was much further forwards it would have got wet!
So there we were then on the ship at 11 PM French time needing to be off the ship at 5 AM UK time. 6 hours later - not much time at all with a need to find a cabin and fit an early morning coffee or three in there too.
Morning seemed to arrive to soon, it felt like I had barely got to bed and the alarm went off. Away we went on the way home, well in many ways we got all sensible. Pulled over in the services for a couple of hours sleep half way up the M5, collected the young man and home we went.
I must say I was a bit emotional when I got home as was the love of my life so we decided even more sleep was needed and went for a few hours before getting up again barbecuing some of the fresh mackerel no one son had caught and having an early night.
I was up and at them bright and early this morning mowing a field before it got too hot, but that was then. The management is snoring gently on the bed beside me. Waiting for the social worker to call, could be a long wait.
We have been moving money around, I have sent some to our french bank account and it will be there tomorrow.
I have paid some off my Barclay Visa card and it is there allready.
She has paid some from our HSBC account into her HSBC visa credit card and it will be there 2 days hence.
In the branch they suggested she withdraw cash from our current account then pay it into her credit card and it will be there instantly. There may be logic but none that I can see.
She has picked up the phone to complain and they have asked her for some of the 10 digit security code she has never been given.
She is just a small ammount annoyed. She is delivering a master class in swearing.
Despite her diploma in computing she does not really DO technology. She is properly annoyed.
This drivel is all copyright to me, an Ageing biker hippy living in west wales
I would of course be delighted if someone wanted to publish what they read one here but you have to ask first. Otherwise I might get angry and you would not like me when I am angry.
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