The Fostering dilemma

The general thinking in social care is that all children should be raised in a family setting, surrounded by loving parents and siblings, as well as extended family members. This is obviously correct for the most part. But when that family is dysfunctional or abusive, the lived experience of the child can be extremely negative. When they need to be removed from that dysfunctional or abusive environment, the choice of service they receive will depend on the level of dysfunction and abuse; this necessitates a period of adjustment from the ‘lived family experience’ to the new surrogate family. This is an incredibly important time in a child’s life, one that will set the foundations of their future as they live the rest of their childhood and move into adulthood.

This is the time they most need to understand the function and purpose of ‘parents,’ ‘parenting,’ and the concept of ‘family.’ This is especially the case when the child is removed at an older age. Children removed from families when they are young often find a place within a foster home, understanding that those caring for them are not their natural parents but that they are the chosen child of those parents and therefore have value. Older children are best served, in my opinion, by a period of reflection and love, a detoxification from the dysfunctional- a period where they can be helped to understand their place and their function as a child in a society that requires them to grow up so quickly.

Placing these children immediately into a foster family when their trauma is still raw and not yet dealt with, or more seriously, buried, can often result in children rejecting perfectly good, caring, and competent foster carers, and beginning a series of foster care breakdowns, gathering with them a history of disruption and misunderstanding that too often results in a referral form that only a residential home will consider.

I offer an alternative approach, one that sees early financial investment in residential care, with a clear aim to love unconditionally the child, to help them navigate their trauma (not learn to bury it), and to help them understand that their family was dysfunctional and not that they were ‘bad’ or at fault. This is a process that can lead them to understand that a foster family can provide them with a real opportunity to grow in a functional family home, where they can begin to understand that dysfunction was in others, not themselves.

There is a danger in this, especially with older children; they can learn all that I have just said and decide that living in a children’s home actually suits them at that time. They may not be ready and may not ever be ready to trust another set of parents.

This does not mean we have failed; it just means they have been given a choice and used their self-determination to choose their own way forward. Our new home in Minehead will work with children to help them make their own choices, but to do so in a way that promotes the family as the ideal (but not the only) unit of caring and growth.

The children we care for at Minehead will learn that they are not the problem, not the ‘bad’ kid, and not the reason for the dysfunction in their family, but are the innocent results of others’ dysfunction.

It will take a trusting Local Authority partner to allow this to happen. Residential care is expensive, primarily because of high staffing costs, intensive staff training, and a village or herd mentality. Foster care is cheaper, and as unpalatable as it is, we are in a period of low budgets and the need to cut services. We understand this, but we have shown through action that we can change lives; we can support children out of residential care and into foster care, but we do it carefully.

Somerset, above all others, has seen this work and is willing to partner with us to offer this route into positive foster care for a number of their children. We are excited and enthused to work with them; this is an exciting time for us all.