It's a bit of a tell tale really, if i am here bashing a couple of messages a week - it means I have too much time on my hands. If there are great chunks of time with no posts, it's probably kicking off big style.
Over the years she and I have fostered rather a lot of young people, would take me a good while to list them but we could pretty much name them all. Well except him who was here for tea. Literally, came put his stuff in the room had his tea climbed out the window and vanished into the night.
Then you get the others like Big D who came at 7 asked a week later if he could stay till he grew up. Has grown up and is showing no signs of moving on 12 years later.
Then of course we have D the littler the rest of this message will be about him and so he'll just be D from now on.
D's mum has been a one woman job creation scheme for social workers 7 children 3 adopted 4 fostered. D came from what could be described as a pretty chaotic background and came into care aged about 7, 10 years ago.
He has always tried to keep us entertained but i really think he is excelling himself at the moment. 17, staring leaving care in the face he is really struggling to get it. At 17 of course he can expect greater independence which he thinks is great, he can also expect to have to contribute more around the house and to become more self reliant ready to move into the flat he wants when he is 18.
Without prompts to go in the bath he is dealing with personal hygiene by not bothering. Clothes washing is another challenge he has to face which he also deals with by not bothering.
The game has really been upped the last few weeks as a bewildering series of narratives are starting to emerge. Naturally as a normal 17 year old he got himself a girlfriend about 6 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago she had his baby, all fairly miraculous I'm sure you would agree. Sadly the baby died within the hour of it's birth, a event which took place in half a dozen different hospitals, depending on when he was asked. I should add that none of the hospitals listed knew anything about a baby and a couple did not even have maternity units.
The tragic dead baby incident didn't last long, a couple of days later the baby had apparently come back to life and D was caring for it at night and we, so everyone was told had charge of it during the day. The student was particularly impressed with this, caring for an imaginary baby being so much easier than dealing with a very real D!
Things really got out of hand on Facebook when people started to "bully" him. It turns out there were two groups of people, one taken in by the Walter Mitty narrative, offering sympathy and asking to be kept up to date with all the latest twists and turns of the story. There was a second nasty group of bullies who kept saying horrible things like - he was making it all up.
Nastiest of all was the person who said he knew D's alleged girlfriend, knew for a fact she had not been pregnant, knew for a fact she was not pregnant and knew for a fact there was no baby.
When this first came to us we took the bullying claim at face value and so suggested D take the whole sordid business to the Police who are very keen on this sort of thing, and since it was all on FB it could simply be printed off and everyone get charged.
When he declined, we took matters into our own hands went on FB to do some investigating and discovered the whole story. You miss so much if you are not on FB every hour!!
Of course this was against a backdrop of a D who desperately wants to be living independently. Now, you might have a view of whether someone who can't manage his laundry can manage his whole life. The student was very supportive, offered him a cot we have going spare for the baby too. Last week D and a bunch of friends were going to set up home in a large flat in the middle of town. All well and good. The whole deal looked too good to be true, the flat was to rent for £450 per calender month, which for a 5 bed property was for nothing. Time for a bit of research, first off five bed flats in multiple occupancy fall under fire and other regulations and would need fire certificates electrical tests and meet a lot of standards. A check with the letting agent revealed this was not being let as 5 beds, rather is would be let to an individual. That person would need a bank account, credit and police checks (something that would rule out pretty much everyone D knows) before they could take a tenancy on the whole building. Then of course they could deal with the 4 spare bedrooms they had by subletting them to other people. These subletees would need to sign tenancy agreements, to do which they would need to be 18 and of sound mind. A typical room in a shared house round here is about 60 pounds a week so we are looking at a nice little earner for someone.
Chances of D and his little mates with their extensive collection of convictions and ASBOs with none of them in work ticking all the boxes - pretty much zero.
Un daunted D is marching on. D is not as badly off as other young people having access to Disability Living Allowance. He was briefly in charge of this at 16, when records were set for the speed at which he could empty his account. In one frenzy he had cleared 300 pounds in 48 hours with no idea what he had done with it. This couldn't go on, so we set up a system whereby his DLA went into a deposit account, D had a reasonable weekly sum put in his current account. This meant he usually had money in his pocket and he was accruing a nice sum which he had to spend if he wanted a new laptop or decided to learn to drive. This was not to his liking and last week he decided to raid his own savings in fact in 14 days he got through 1100 pounds on precisely what we are not sure.
There was yet more excitement to come, on the day he want to get another 200 pounds from his savings only to find he had but 90 pounds left things took an altogether more alarming turn. Mid afternoon, we got an urgent phone call from college, they had credible intelligence that a group of young gentlemen from college town intended to visit the ourtown youth club that night to settle a few differences with D and a couple of his mates. The differences would be settled it seems by a generous dose of fisticuffs.
So of course off to town we went arriving moments before a senior youth worker who had received the same message. Youth club was closed for the day and the police invited along in case there was any kind of disturbance. I'll say one thing for the Police round here they do good lockdown and, by the time events were due to unfold the centre of town was like the Marie Celeste.
We never really got to the bottom of why a bunch of people were prepared to drive no little distannce to have an altercation with D. I could not help but notice this was the day when he was going to get 200 pounds but only walked away with 90. Was someone perhaps looking for their 110 pounds??
What would he need 200 pounds for anyway - none of the answers that sprang to mind were good ones or perhaps it was for something for his baby!!
Of course the fact there was no 200 pounds has been an act of major distress, where had all his money gone he demanded, he had spent it, he was told. Why was there not more Educational Maintainence Allowance being paid, EMA is paid to young people who turn up at their education establishments not ones who frequently bunk off into town, futhermore if on those days they do turn up they chose not to behave in class they also risk their EMA. Did he want us to take it up with college on his behalf, he changed his mind.
Of course things have further tightened for the poor angel, as I said at the very top, at 17 things are a bit diferent to when you are 7, particularly in respect of pulling your weight around the house. This has been another of his master strokes D has two strategies for chores, strategy one pretend there arn't any. Strategy two, start an argument about it.
Things have rather come to a head as he sits in his little flat created down the end surrounded by landry rubbish and dirty crockery. The student has decided to apply D's own methods to his principal benefit of living here, that is a lift into town when he needs it. This has been a cause of much hilarity and totally messed up his social life. We don't use strategy two just strategy one, why would we be going in to town when we don't need to? Working of course on the real life principal, if you put nothing in you can take nothing out. D is putting nothing in so thats what he has to take out.
We are, apparently most unreasonable people. I can't wait to see the tale he makes up to put on FB
Fostering ahhh - all you foster carers out there - whateverh they pay you it ain't enough...
R
Over the years she and I have fostered rather a lot of young people, would take me a good while to list them but we could pretty much name them all. Well except him who was here for tea. Literally, came put his stuff in the room had his tea climbed out the window and vanished into the night.
Then you get the others like Big D who came at 7 asked a week later if he could stay till he grew up. Has grown up and is showing no signs of moving on 12 years later.
Then of course we have D the littler the rest of this message will be about him and so he'll just be D from now on.
D's mum has been a one woman job creation scheme for social workers 7 children 3 adopted 4 fostered. D came from what could be described as a pretty chaotic background and came into care aged about 7, 10 years ago.
He has always tried to keep us entertained but i really think he is excelling himself at the moment. 17, staring leaving care in the face he is really struggling to get it. At 17 of course he can expect greater independence which he thinks is great, he can also expect to have to contribute more around the house and to become more self reliant ready to move into the flat he wants when he is 18.
Without prompts to go in the bath he is dealing with personal hygiene by not bothering. Clothes washing is another challenge he has to face which he also deals with by not bothering.
The game has really been upped the last few weeks as a bewildering series of narratives are starting to emerge. Naturally as a normal 17 year old he got himself a girlfriend about 6 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago she had his baby, all fairly miraculous I'm sure you would agree. Sadly the baby died within the hour of it's birth, a event which took place in half a dozen different hospitals, depending on when he was asked. I should add that none of the hospitals listed knew anything about a baby and a couple did not even have maternity units.
The tragic dead baby incident didn't last long, a couple of days later the baby had apparently come back to life and D was caring for it at night and we, so everyone was told had charge of it during the day. The student was particularly impressed with this, caring for an imaginary baby being so much easier than dealing with a very real D!
Things really got out of hand on Facebook when people started to "bully" him. It turns out there were two groups of people, one taken in by the Walter Mitty narrative, offering sympathy and asking to be kept up to date with all the latest twists and turns of the story. There was a second nasty group of bullies who kept saying horrible things like - he was making it all up.
Nastiest of all was the person who said he knew D's alleged girlfriend, knew for a fact she had not been pregnant, knew for a fact she was not pregnant and knew for a fact there was no baby.
When this first came to us we took the bullying claim at face value and so suggested D take the whole sordid business to the Police who are very keen on this sort of thing, and since it was all on FB it could simply be printed off and everyone get charged.
When he declined, we took matters into our own hands went on FB to do some investigating and discovered the whole story. You miss so much if you are not on FB every hour!!
Of course this was against a backdrop of a D who desperately wants to be living independently. Now, you might have a view of whether someone who can't manage his laundry can manage his whole life. The student was very supportive, offered him a cot we have going spare for the baby too. Last week D and a bunch of friends were going to set up home in a large flat in the middle of town. All well and good. The whole deal looked too good to be true, the flat was to rent for £450 per calender month, which for a 5 bed property was for nothing. Time for a bit of research, first off five bed flats in multiple occupancy fall under fire and other regulations and would need fire certificates electrical tests and meet a lot of standards. A check with the letting agent revealed this was not being let as 5 beds, rather is would be let to an individual. That person would need a bank account, credit and police checks (something that would rule out pretty much everyone D knows) before they could take a tenancy on the whole building. Then of course they could deal with the 4 spare bedrooms they had by subletting them to other people. These subletees would need to sign tenancy agreements, to do which they would need to be 18 and of sound mind. A typical room in a shared house round here is about 60 pounds a week so we are looking at a nice little earner for someone.
Chances of D and his little mates with their extensive collection of convictions and ASBOs with none of them in work ticking all the boxes - pretty much zero.
Un daunted D is marching on. D is not as badly off as other young people having access to Disability Living Allowance. He was briefly in charge of this at 16, when records were set for the speed at which he could empty his account. In one frenzy he had cleared 300 pounds in 48 hours with no idea what he had done with it. This couldn't go on, so we set up a system whereby his DLA went into a deposit account, D had a reasonable weekly sum put in his current account. This meant he usually had money in his pocket and he was accruing a nice sum which he had to spend if he wanted a new laptop or decided to learn to drive. This was not to his liking and last week he decided to raid his own savings in fact in 14 days he got through 1100 pounds on precisely what we are not sure.
There was yet more excitement to come, on the day he want to get another 200 pounds from his savings only to find he had but 90 pounds left things took an altogether more alarming turn. Mid afternoon, we got an urgent phone call from college, they had credible intelligence that a group of young gentlemen from college town intended to visit the ourtown youth club that night to settle a few differences with D and a couple of his mates. The differences would be settled it seems by a generous dose of fisticuffs.
So of course off to town we went arriving moments before a senior youth worker who had received the same message. Youth club was closed for the day and the police invited along in case there was any kind of disturbance. I'll say one thing for the Police round here they do good lockdown and, by the time events were due to unfold the centre of town was like the Marie Celeste.
We never really got to the bottom of why a bunch of people were prepared to drive no little distannce to have an altercation with D. I could not help but notice this was the day when he was going to get 200 pounds but only walked away with 90. Was someone perhaps looking for their 110 pounds??
What would he need 200 pounds for anyway - none of the answers that sprang to mind were good ones or perhaps it was for something for his baby!!
Of course the fact there was no 200 pounds has been an act of major distress, where had all his money gone he demanded, he had spent it, he was told. Why was there not more Educational Maintainence Allowance being paid, EMA is paid to young people who turn up at their education establishments not ones who frequently bunk off into town, futhermore if on those days they do turn up they chose not to behave in class they also risk their EMA. Did he want us to take it up with college on his behalf, he changed his mind.
Of course things have further tightened for the poor angel, as I said at the very top, at 17 things are a bit diferent to when you are 7, particularly in respect of pulling your weight around the house. This has been another of his master strokes D has two strategies for chores, strategy one pretend there arn't any. Strategy two, start an argument about it.
Things have rather come to a head as he sits in his little flat created down the end surrounded by landry rubbish and dirty crockery. The student has decided to apply D's own methods to his principal benefit of living here, that is a lift into town when he needs it. This has been a cause of much hilarity and totally messed up his social life. We don't use strategy two just strategy one, why would we be going in to town when we don't need to? Working of course on the real life principal, if you put nothing in you can take nothing out. D is putting nothing in so thats what he has to take out.
We are, apparently most unreasonable people. I can't wait to see the tale he makes up to put on FB
Fostering ahhh - all you foster carers out there - whateverh they pay you it ain't enough...
R
Posts
1 comment:
definitely not enough...best of luck to you both!
Post a Comment