Sarah Jane: I recruit foster carers

Sarah Jane wears two different hats when it comes to fostering and adoption. She’s a foster carer recruitment officer for National Fostering Group and an adoptive mum to her 11-year-old son. At work, it’s her job to meet would-be foster carers and tell them what fostering’s all about, alongside looking after the agency’s team of foster carers. She helps people who want to foster get a realistic understanding of what’s involved and prepare to apply. Sarah Jane has personal experience of the challenges of bringing a child into your home after adopting her son eight years ago. Candidly, she describes feeling like she’d “kidnapped” him from his family when he first arrived and how many things she wishes she’d done differently. Looking after a child who’s experienced trauma can be challenging and she’s learned what a difference Therapeutic Parenting makes – helping a child understand their emotions, responding with acceptance, compassion and empathy. Both at home and at work, she’s witnessed the benefits of allowing children to feel what they feel without trying to fix it. It’s not an easy journey but helping a child feel they belong somewhere is the most rewarding thing ever – supporting them to become the best they can be.

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Transcript

Sarah Jane Transcript

Interviewer

As everyday people, we don't always have a chance to talk about our life to be heard, but we've all got a story. And this is Sarah Jane. So, welcome Sarah Jane, thank you so much for joining me today.

Sarah Jane

Thank you, Helen

Interviewer

So, the sort of headlines that I know about you is that you are a carer recruitment officer.

Sarah Jane

Yes. 

Interviewer

For the National Fostering Group or within the National Fostering Group. And you are an adoptive mom. 

Sarah Jane

Yeah. 

Interviewer

So, they're the headlines, but we're going to learn a lot more about those two things, really. And how maybe they are quite incorporated with each other, aren't they? So, tell me a bit more about what it's like being a carer recruitment officer and what that entails.

Sarah Jane

Well, I love the job because no two days are different [sic] and it uses a lot of the skills and experience that I've picked up in life. So, I will, um… it incorporates a little bit of marketing. We engage with our, with our foster carers. So, I'll organise walks, lunches, breakfasts with them, and that's nice for them to meet each other. We also encourage people who are in the enquiry process to come along and meet other foster carers so they can find out what fostering is really like, beyond the advertising.

I also do home visits. So, when somebody's sort of had the first telephone enquiry, uh, contact with us, I'll go out to their home. I'll have a look around their space, point out if there's any health and safety issues, you know, in the back garden, like an uncovered pond or, you know, wiring that needs fixing, something like that. 

Interviewer

Yeah. Anything practical?

Sarah Jane

Anything practical. Yeah. And I'll also ask them lots of questions about their life so far, what their interest in fostering is and, um, what their experience of looking after children or any kind of transferable skills, such as looking after vulnerable adults, elderly people, for example. And then I'll answer any of their questions about fostering at the same time. And after that, we, um, we make a decision, well, the team manager will make a decision on whether we invite them to apply with us.

We might ask them to go and get a bit of extra experience looking after children if they can. Sometimes we've recommended people, depending on their circumstances, volunteer at a local youth group or Scouts, Guides, something like that. 

Interviewer

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

Sarah Jane

Or, there might be some work needed on their house. One of the things that we ask people when they first ring up, um, there's like a, not a tick box exactly, but you know, you do need certain things to be able to foster. And one of them is a spare room. People often think… people come to us with big hearts, they want to help children. They've maybe got children of their own. Um, or they may be looking after grandchildren, on occasion, and they think it's going to be okay if, um, the foster child shares a bedroom with their birth child or if, when their grandchildren come the odd weekend, the same thing happens. And we have to explain that a foster child needs their own dedicated space. 

And you can imagine a lot of the reasons for that. You know, a child who's experienced a lot of moves possibly - but they've certainly experienced a huge amount of loss already - they need somewhere to feel safe. They need somewhere that they can, a space they can call their own. So, a lot of foster carers then, you know, allow children to make that bedroom their own space. They'll keep it kind of neutral, um, and then the child will personalise it. 

Interviewer

So I can tell that this job really is more than just a job to you, isn't it? Like, it means a lot. 

Sarah Jane

Yeah. 

Interviewer

Like you do it with, with heart, you know? What was it that led you to it, really? 

Sarah Jane

I think it was ‘cause my life changed completely when we adopted our son, um, nearly eight years ago. Before that I'd been working in… I was a reporter and then I was a press officer. And then for years I worked in theatres programming and managing theatres. And, um, we adopted… my husband's got two grown up children…. but I'd always wanted to be a mum. But, because I've been busy working I left it too late. And I also felt there was a need, that there were children out there who - I'd read about the shortage of foster carers and adopters - and, um, so I wanted to do it for that reason as well. And I read a lot about it, researched it, went into it with my eyes quite wide open. Um, I think as far as you could.

But when we adopted… I thought I was just going to take a year off work and then I was just going to be able to go straight back to work because, you know, that's what a lot of…  because we were adopting a school-aged child, um, and that was my experience of, you know, friends and family who'd had their own children. And I actually didn't work for three years because I needed to give our son that amount of support for him to settle into our family life. 

Interviewer

Yeah. 

Sarah Jane

I also found the experience quite exhausting, to be honest. I was kind of in my late forties when we adopted and it was just looking after a small, very energetic child who was absolutely bereft. We felt like we'd kidnapped him for quite a while because he just wanted to be back with his foster carers and back with his siblings. And, we didn't feel like we were doing a good thing. We felt like we'd, you know, taken him away from everything, even though we knew that he wasn't able to stay where he was. Emotionally it was quite traumatic for, for everyone, especially for him. Um, and he really needed me as his primary carer. He found it really hard when he went to school, when he was in reception. 

Looking back, there's so many things I wish I'd done differently. And one of them is I wish I'd kept him off school for an extra year and just given him that one-to-one time. Um, I thought he'd be better at school because he would have other children around and he'd be occupied. But he struggled as soon as he went to primary school. He had a really hard time. Um, and the school did their best. But I think when you've got a class of 30 children, the majority of whom are very compliant and eager to learn and socialise with other children, and you've got one who can't sit still for very long, who needs the attention of the teacher all the time and gets very upset if the teacher is not paying them attention. Um, and the school wasn't trained at the time in trauma and attachment. So, our adoption agency came out and did some training with the staff. I also provided the SENCO and his class teacher at the time with a fantastic book called Inside I’m Hurting, which has been written specifically to give teachers and teaching assistants an understanding of what children who've experienced trauma and who might have attachment issues are going through in the classroom, but also lots of practical strategies to help them.

So, it might be something like, um, obviously a class teacher of 30 mightn't even have a TA in the classroom with them. But it's things like they can say to the child, you know, every time I do that with my hair, it means I'm thinking about you. And, to a four or five-year-old who's completely at sea and is longing for that recognition and acknowledgement and is in survival mode, you know, a simple little gesture like that - particularly if it's something habitual that you might be doing kind of, you know, every 10 minutes or so anyway - can make all the difference between them feeling safe and feeling like they need to start ripping down the displays off the walls or running out the classroom.

Interviewer

So, you are quite passionate about Therapeutic Parenting, aren't you? 

Sarah Jane

Yeah. 

Interviewer

I've heard those two words quite a lot, but I don't really know what it is or what it entails. So, what is Therapeutic Parenting?

Sarah Jane

Well, it's based on a, um… an American psychotherapist came up with this system called PACE, which stands for playful, accepting, compassionate, and empathic. And it's, it's a style of parenting that some people do naturally, but it's a style of parenting that is very different from traditional parenting, which is what most of us have experienced. And when you are securely attached - when as a little baby, you've cried and somebody's picked you up and comforted you and fed you and, um, you know, made sure that your nappy’s clean.

Interviewer

Yeah.

Sarah Jane

And all the other things that we do for babies. Um, then you grow up quite eager to please grown-ups and trusting that the world around you will meet your needs. A child that has suffered chronic neglect and abuse, um, doesn't trust adults. They learn maybe not to cry because when they cry, they get belted or screamed at. Or, crying doesn't bring anybody to them for hours… days.

Um, and sometimes you get families where there's older siblings. So, you might get a three- year-old who's kind of trying to change a baby's nappy or trying to feed them, but it could… they could be trying to feed them with something completely unsuitable, like breadsticks or, you know, whatever is around that they might eat, uh, that a baby can't. 

And so you find that, um, with traditional parenting that is based on reward and punishment…. So, if you are a good girl you get a snack after this or I'll take you to, you know, McDonald's or we’ll go to the pictures at the weekend… doesn't work with a child who has attachment issues, who’s learned not to trust that the world is a safe place and their needs will be met. So, it's more about looking at their behaviour, trying to work out behaviour as communication, trying to work out what that behaviour means.

They don't always know. 

So, it's helping the child understand their own emotions. Um, so it might be a case of, when a child loses a game and has a bit of a tantrum or meltdown at the end of it. So rather than say ‘oh, come on, it's only a game, you know, cheer up, I was never good at sports when I was a kid or I used to always use lose at Monopoly’ or, you know - say, ‘I can see this is really tough for you. It's not easy to lose’. And just leave it at that, you know, offer comfort. Um, but don’t… just let them know that you see them in the moment. 

Interviewer 

Yeah. 

Sarah Jane

That you understand what they're feeling. It may be they don't understand what they're feeling. It may be that that losing at the game has triggered this enormous sense of other losses… 

Interviewer

Yeah.

Sarah Jane

… That are buried. They can't even remember what they've experienced. ‘Cause a lot of people have said to me - and I've read this in books as well, you know - that they think that when you adopt a child, particularly if they’re before, you know, the age of five or six, that they won't remember anything about their early life. Well, there's another great book, um, called The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk, I think his name is. And um, he's written about how trauma impacts our bodies, so that we have a physical pre-verbal memory of trauma that can be triggered by… a breeze coming through a window can remind somebody of - they might not even get a picture of it - but that breeze reminds them of when they were a baby and they were lying cold and neglected in an unheated flat.

Um, and that can kind of send them into a sense of panic and again, survival mode.

And so, I think making sure that, um, even if there isn't an obvious reason for why a child is behaving in a less than desirable way, should we say… you have to kind of always think on your feet and be there with empathy. Maybe, um, try and think outside the box. Is there something in their environment? Is there something that has given them a sensory, um, memory that you can help? 

My son cannot bear to be hungry. And he goes from being not interested to being starving and he gets a… even though he's 11… he still is panicky if he's hungry. It's as though… he knows he’ll be fed. I'm a feeder anyway, so, you know. But he, he just, um, I mean I think it's partly he gets hangry. Uh, and I can relate to that, but I think, um, it's beyond that. I can see that being hungry does something to him that makes him feel really unsafe.

Interviewer

Unsafe. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Jane

When I first went for foster training - um, ‘cause I was a respite foster carer, briefly, with Liverpool City Council - we were told to, um, if we had a piece of jewellery on to take it off – um - I think it was pre mobile phone days, we'd all be anxious about our phones now! - take it off and put it under your chair. And, we were sitting in a circle and then we had to leave it there for the workshop session time. And you could see people were getting twitchy because, um, they were wondering kind of, was it safe?

And it was a lot. For a lot of people it was wedding rings. And, um, that was at the end, the social worker who was leading the training explained that that kind of underlying sense of unease is something that lives permanently with a child that has experienced trauma and, um, has attachment issues because they're never for a moment…. So you imagine that, you know, like pre-job interview, pre-date, but you know, not in a good way, um, all those kind of physical sensations of fear and anxiety that you've got, coupled with maybe really low self-esteem because if nobody treats you well, then you're left with a very long-lasting feeling that you are not good, that you're not worth love and care. 

Interviewer

Yeah. 

Sarah Jane

Um, and if you imagine all those feelings kind of, you know, suffusing your body, um, how are you going be able to cope in life?

You know, when we're not at our best, are we, when we're, when we're anxious and afraid? And yet for a child who's had those experiences… 

Interviewer

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

Sarah Jane

…That is their day-to-day experience. 

Interviewer

Yeah. 

Sarah Jane

And then we expect them to sit quietly in a class and, you know, sit on the carpet, do what I'm saying, even though you don't know me. And…

Interviewer

Yeah. Something that you said that I really liked then was about - and I think we all do this in everyday life, we all try and fix each other, don't we? If somebody tells you they've got an issue, nine times out of 10, most people will try and say, ‘have you tried this?’ You know, ‘oh, don't cry, don't get upset’. You know, whereas there's really something in, as you said in terms of a child, just allowing someone, a child or an adult, to just feel how they're feeling and, and allow it rather than trying to fix it or, you know, put a plaster on it, sort of thing.

Sarah Jane

Yeah. 

Interviewer

That's, that's really quite groundbreaking, isn't it, when you think the difference? Can you see the difference that makes in children and maybe in your own son when instead of saying, ‘oh, shh, don't be upset’, you've actually just said ‘that must be really difficult for you’?

Sarah Jane

Yeah. It's really hard to suffer someone else's pain, isn't it? 

Interviewer

Yeah. 

Sarah Jane

And we do want to put things right. And I think, um, I mean, having said that… Therapeutic Parenting, I'm reading about it every day. I'm learning about it every day, but I still find it really hard to put into practice because when my son does something… like when he's playing online, for example, and he gets very heightened emotionally and he starts shouting at one of his friends, you know, one of his class friends, um, and I found myself kind of coming back into, you know, ‘if you say those words to somebody that's not kind, and if you keep talking like that to them, you, you're going to have to stop playing that game’.

And, um, which makes him worse because I've… he's already in a heightened state. And if you think about talking to, you know, I don't know, an angry drunk - hopefully he's not had that experience. But if you imagine, um, seeing on TV, somebody who's in that state and they're out of it and they're angry and, you know, maybe police are trying to calm them down and de-escalate the situation… um, starting to say to them ‘how did you let yourself get into this state? You put that bottle down, or I'll be, you know, locking you up in prison’. And you watch the police and these programmes and they handle things very differently, don't they? They mostly talk soothingly. Um, you know, they look at the, the immediate circumstances of the moment. They don't make threats. They don't criticise the person. And as I say, they try and keep their body language open and their voice calm. And when I manage to do that, even if my son is really, really about to blow…

Interviewer

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

Sarah Jane

Um, I can, you know, bring it back down. It makes a massive difference.

And he's learning as well because now he says things like ‘Mum, I'm not going to play this game anymore because I know it makes me feel really, um, you know, anxious or really, well, he uses the word ‘heightened’ now because he's heard that in school. 

Interviewer

Yeah.

Sarah Jane

And so he's learning about himself. And he's learning about, you know, that he needs, maybe needs, a mid-morning snack. Um, so if he were going out for the day, you know, if I'm not going to be there, he'll talk to me about what he's going to take with him so he doesn't, kind of, get hangry. And I think that's valuable, sort of teaching him to understand his body, his mind, his emotions. But as I say, it's hard because you do just… And I think when you're out in society as well and your child is, um, you don't, you know, you don't want them to be viewed as naughty. And I'm learning less and less to give one about what other people think. 

Interviewer

Mm-hmm. 

Sarah Jane

And just to kind of focus on him and his needs in the moment. But, it's kind of difficult with children. I think all parents feel that anxiety.

Interviewer

So, earlier on, you talked about when you first adopted your son and how difficult that time was, and that really struck me when you said it was like you felt like you'd kidnapped him.

Sarah Jane

Yeah.

Interviewer

How did you get through that time? You say it was several years, wasn't it? 

Sarah Jane

Yeah. 

Interviewer

And how did you apply some of these strategies that we talked about to help you through that?

Sarah Jane

Um, it's kind of…  it's a bit of a blur now because it was so tiring. Um, I think it was… it kind of, it got better because I think what was hardest at the time was I didn't have any… a support group. And a lot of my friends who had children said ‘Oh, all children do that’. And I think the thing about children from a trauma background is, you know, they do the same things every child does, but with more frequency and more intensity. And, um, and then sometimes they do things that, you know, a lot of children don't do.

Interviewer

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. 

Sarah Jane

Um, and their need is so great all the time, their need for you, you know, being followed from room to room, not being able to settle to anything. I know that this depends on the individual, but I know talking to our foster carers that with younger children… But you can understand that – that anxiety. If you go out of the room, they may think that you are, you know, you are not there. 

So, I think I coped with lots of, kind of, walks, getting out loads for, you know, walks with friends. And just talking to some really good old friends who I felt wouldn't judge me because I wasn't, you know, a perfect parent. 

Um, I found that there were some people that I couldn't talk to about it at all. Maybe the fixers, you know, the ones who couldn't… especially because people are so happy for you when you adopt and they think, and I'm sure when people foster as well, ‘Oh, that's a marvellous thing you’re doing, I've always wanted to do it, but I, I couldn't bear to give them away, you know, I couldn't bear it when they moved on’. And, so they don't want to hear that there’s….

Interviewer

Difficulty?

Sarah Jane

Yeah. Yeah. And I know that there’s a lot of like young mums who have babies who really struggle as well. Because everyone, you know, ‘oh it’s such a joyful thing having a baby’. And it is, but it's also really hard, you know, you've got no sleep. Um, you know, your relationship might kind of really suffer because, you know, you haven't got as much time for each other and you are sleep deprived and all the knock-ons of that.

And people don't always want to hear that, or they don't want to offer the practical… or they can't because everybody's working or, you know, busy with their own lives. 

Interviewer

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

Sarah Jane

I think joining a support group would've made… that would've been a, like, made a massive difference to me - just be being with other adopters in the same place who were going through what I was going through and, and could… and maybe where the children could get together and play a little bit. 

Interviewer

But was that not an option for you? Did you not…?

Sarah Jane

Well, the agency we adopted through, um, weren't based in Liverpool and so it would've been quite a drive to kind of… not that much of a drive, but like an hour each way. And, I can't even… for whatever reason, I, you know, didn't avail of what was on offer with them because I didn't want to drive.

Interviewer

Yeah. 

Sarah Jane

Um, probably again, because I was tired. Uh, and I think it was just the, the little rewards were the times where, you know, where you felt that you were getting through. And you felt that you were making him happy. 

Interviewer

Yeah

Sarah Jane

Because I, I think it was, it was those things that, um… The other thing, we did get some support as well, there's a fantastic thing that was set up a few years back, um, amazingly under David Cameron's government. But it was because of another Tory MP called Edward Timpson of the Timpson Shoes Empire. His family, his father, Sir John and his wife, Alex Timpson… set up a trust because they fostered and adopted a lot of children. So, Edward grew up in a home where he knew the struggles of children who’d suffered trauma. And, um, so he set up this adoption support fund, which allows adopters to go to the local council via their post-adoption support social worker and apply for money from the adoption support fund for therapeutic interventions.

So, we had some early support and we've had ongoing support, therapeutic life story work, for example, sort of helping a child understand why they are where they are, which is very age-appropriate, you know, and very kind of supportive. 

Interviewer

Yeah. 

Sarah Jane

And I've also had Therapeutic Parenting sessions paid for by that ,as well. And that's really, really helped enormously. And, of course, our fostering agency, Fostering Solutions, like a lot of fostering agencies, they provide similar support. We've got a really great system called, um, TAPS - Therapeutic and Practical Support Services. So, if a foster carer is struggling with, um, a, you know, a child's particular set of behaviours and feel that the normal training and talking to their supervising social worker and other foster carers, um, still isn't helping them manage, then they can apply through their supervising social worker for dedicated therapeutic support from our small team of, um, a psychotherapist and her assistants. And that, I know, people have found that really, really helpful. And it's kind of saved some situations where people have felt on the brink of ‘I can't deal with this anymore’. 

Interviewer

Yeah. So, can you remember when there was maybe like a breakthrough moment when you felt like you were getting to the other side of it? 

Sarah Jane

Yeah, I remember one. When you adopt, you kind of, it's, although, you know, the child is prepped that ‘this is going to be your forever family’ and you do this… we did a DVD showing him all the places where, you know, we'd be bringing him to. And, um, all the family members that he'd be meeting and what his bedroom looked like and things. And that was sent with a cuddly toy and a book of photographs with the little descriptions and stickers and things – age-appropriate again. Um, so, and then you have like 10 days of introductions where you go to the foster carer's house and then gradually you, maybe, take him out for the day and then towards the end of that you take him home. And, um, I think, um, and then the adoption order you can apply for that, it's got to be at least 10 weeks from when you first bring a child home. And that's to give you and them time. 

But we both agreed that we wouldn't go through the court system until we felt that our son was ready for, you know, was kind of accepting and happy to be in our family 

Interviewer

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

Sarah Jane

And we took him, we were told we weren't supposed to… We did all the funnelling, you know. We didn't introduce him to the family members for quite a while. And um, that's what they call it ‘funnelling’ just to, you know, so that it you bond with the child 

Interviewer

Yeah.

Sarah Jane

In those early days, weeks. Um, and then we weren't supposed to take them on holiday, or you're not supposed to take them on holiday for a year, but we, um, ended up booking a week in a caravan in Northumberland in July and, um, we had a really, really good trip. Um, he'd been on caravan holidays with his foster carers, so he was kind of, he still loves caravan holidays. Um, the weather was… we were really blessed with the weather. We just had a proper lovely seaside week and we took him on a boat out to the Farne Islands to see the puffins. And on the way back there was this horrendous thunderstorm, thunder and lightning and horizontal rain coming in. There was a woman praying out loud and I had him on my knee, wrapped my coat round, round him and, um, he was terrified. My husband was nudging me, looking at the skipper of the boat who was just standing there in a T-shirt and shorts with a can in one hand and a cigarette in the other, just completely unconcerned ‘cause to him it was nothing. But, um, when we got back to the caravan, he was, he kind of calmed down very quickly, um, the way kids do. But uh, later on he had a phone call with his sister who was still with the foster carers. And when he got off the phone, he, he said, um, um, ‘Mummy, I want to stay in your family’. And that was, um, it was huge. You know, it was kind of, um, yeah….. Anyway, that was, that was just a lovely moment and we were kind of just relieved to hear it, I suppose. 

Interviewer

It must have felt amazing. 

Sarah Jane

It really did because, you know, for a long time he was waking up in the night, he was constantly asking for his foster carers and his sister in particular. And to hear that was just great. And then I think it was the following… it was the December that year that we had the, we went to Court and we had the celebratory party. So, even then we didn't kind of go into it straight away… And we talked to him about it as well and just sort of prepared him for it. 

And I think the other thing was like, um, our families all embraced him straight away.

My husband's from a sort of big Liverpool/Irish clan and they, they just sort of took him into their hearts straight away. My family are more kind of, I've got siblings, half-siblings living in America and um, a lot of my family kind of don't live… they moved away from Liverpool years ago. But everyone's been really supportive and kind of loving and accepting, um, of him and just think of him as one of the family. And that's helped him. 

I know going into teen years, I think, is when we really start questioning our identity, you know, everything about what makes us us. So, I know we'll probably have, um, we'll probably get more life story work for him in the future. We’ll continue to talk to him about identity. We try and encourage him to be the person he is. Um, ‘cause he's just an amazing person. We thought we were adopting this very quiet little - I think his foster carer used the word – ‘plodding’ boy. Um, you know, there was, there was no great sense of his personality before we brought him to live with us. 

And he's just amazing. He's so bright, um, interested in everything. He's really kind. He's fantastic with babies and little children and um, he's just got a tremendous enthusiasm for life. Um, a lot of the things he likes, like I don't - I think partly ‘cause of my age and partly because I've just never really liked. He loves, um, you know, ‘cause he's into celebrity culture and stuff like, you know, and…. But it's introducing me to, you know, I just, he's so enthusiastic about everything. I enjoy kind of hearing about his interests.  And things like I've always loved swimming, but I've never been, I've just been a kind of, you know, doing my lengths… nothing…. And I took him swimming every week and he couldn't swim at first, but he's learned gradually through just being in the water and holidays with family and, um, lessons at school.

But once he learned to swim, he's become really confident. He's not a competitive style swimmer, but one of the things he's taught me to do is, uh, swim underwater with my eyes open and dive for rings and a bit of jewellery. Whatever I had on me at the time, we'd drop and we'd go down for it and, you know, and that was so that I've started to enjoy snorkelling when we go abroad because I've got more confidence at being underwater now. 

Um, so things, I dunno, it's all so gradual. That ‘I want to be part of your family’ was the biggie. And then I think since then it's just become very… He did go through a phase where he would say when he was about eight, um, I remember him bouncing on the trampoline and I'd just got off and then he went ‘You are not my real mommy’ And he just said it like that kind of, and it wasn’t, um…. it was like a blow to the stomach. 

Interviewer

Yeah. 

Sarah Jane

But, it wasn't said with any malice, it was just kind of, you know, almost said to, to see what… how I would react. And I said, what, you know, I always say, I said, ‘well I am your real mummy’. I said, ‘you've got a tummy mum’. Um, I said and named her name. I said, ‘and you've also got me’. And um, I said, ‘so you, you've got two mummies and I'm the mummy who looks after you every day and loves you to bits and gets on this trampoline with you, even though I shouldn't’. And ‘cause it's got increasingly hard as I’ve got older. 

And, um, but he's done that a few times. A lot of foster cares and other adopters have said that, you know, kids often when they're in the car seat in the back of the car and you're driving, um, they'll come out with something then that's quite important. Or, um, yeah, on the trampoline. He's come out with a couple of other things since then, you know, that he's just obviously not felt able to say in normal situations. Um, but I've always tried to be really honest with him about, you know, the fact that I've never tried to hide or pretend that, um, things aren't as they are. Because I… it's part of his identity and understanding of himself and of the world that sometimes these things happen that, you know, people are vulnerable and they're not always able to look after children safely. 

And, it doesn't mean that they don't… I think every parent loves their kids, but sometimes people aren't, they weren't loved themselves and they don't know how to, how to show that love or they're just not… they've, you know, they might have addictions or mental health issues or they just weren't parented well themselves. So, their, their own survival needs take precedence over those of their children. Um, and he knows, he does know he is loved, but that is the other thing he sometimes says, um, you know, ‘You don't love me’. And that used to be, uh, again, a terrible blow. Uh, but I talked to, um, the therapist who did the Therapeutic Parenting training with me. She said, ‘Ask him what he thinks love looks like’.

I think at the time he was too young for that, you know, question. But I, you know, I did try and go through it. I said ‘Oh, what do you think love looks like?’ And I, I said, you know, ‘do you think it's kind of preparing the food that you like to eat and making sure that you've got enough snacks when you're, when you're hungry?’ Um, ‘do you think it's about playing Roblox games with you? Is that, do you think that might be what love looks like?’ You know, so I gave him a few scenarios, the things I would do with him that show that I love him. Um, and that's kind of, that's just one of those kind of ongoing things that maybe birth parents don't have to, you know, do.

Therapeutic Parenting is slightly… it's kind of weaving that recognition that, uh, a child might struggle with it, their feelings and their emotions that bit more than, um, a birth child who's, you know, being brought into the world feeling and knowing that they're loved.

Interviewer

So, you've had such powerful experiences as we've heard and you've shown such resilience as well within all that, how do you use your own personal experiences of raising your son in your work? You know, ‘cause I imagine there's so many times where as a carer recruitment officer, you know, people will come across issues or have, you know, worries or, um, concerns and you think, ‘oh, I've been there and I've done that and I've got through that’.

How do you use those experiences to help others?

Sarah Jane

Um, well we have to, when we do the home visits where we do these sort of slightly more in-depth interviews with people to find out, you know, um, if they're suitable for fostering, um, I, we always have to give people a couple of scenarios and sort of say, ‘well, how would you deal with that?’ Because I think sometimes people… as I say, I mentioned about the spare room… people don't always realise that they have to have a spare room and that it can't be the spare room they have all their suitcases with winter clothes stuffed in the wardrobes. It has to be kind of stripped of their belongings and neutralised and made a pleasant place for a child to call their own.

Often people who've… particularly people who've got birth children, but even people who haven't, people like me want the experience of being a parent or a caregiver to a child. And their experience is limited to friends and family. And those, as I mentioned, securely-attached children. 

Interviewer

Yeah. 

Sarah Jane

Um, they imagine that a lot of their life is going to kind of continue as it was because they kind of superimpose, you know, the picture of their sister's children, you know, onto their household and think that's how it's going to be. Or their own children and how they were growing up. And so, one of the things I will ask if they’ve got children is, you know, ‘can you tell me if, um, you know, did your children ever show any challenging behaviours?’ And, um, it's without going overboard on kind of some of the things that people might experience, um, it's just giving them… trying to open their eyes to different possibilities. So for example, a single carer might think ‘Oh, I can foster and work’ and they might be able to, um, but they also need to talk to their employer about the possibility of reducing their hours. They have to think about parts of the fostering roles, such as the school run. Um, because even with an older child, they might be taking them to school on the other side of the city because we try and keep, um, things consistent for a child who's experienced a lot of loss and upheaval.

So if they can carry on going to school where they've got their friends and the teachers know them rather than have to uproot them and put them into another part of the city or town…. Um, they… what if they have a child that has got a lot of anxiety around school?

When my son was at his infant school, he often used to hide under the bed, or he would run down the street rather than come to school. Um, and, um, so they need to think about, you know, how their workplace is going to deal with that or how they would deal with that. If a child is, um, saying, I'm not going to, you know, an older child said ‘I'm not going to school today’. And then they might find out that they're getting bullied or, um, there might be ongoing issues with a member of staff that need to be addressed. Um, or sometimes just their social anxiety is so great that they need a duvet day, you know, they actually can't face getting out there.

And, um, so all the things that you might do with your birth child – ‘what do you mean you staying… you're not staying off school today. You are getting yourself in’. But you have to kind of think, well, what would you do if a child, you know, is too big to carry into school? But, you know, how are you going to deal with that? 

Um, I think other aspects of the role as well that, you know, you need a flexible employer, um, is that you're going to have to have meetings with your social worker, with the child’s social worker. Sometimes you have an independent review officer who'll come round and see how things are going. Uh, you know, along with the other social workers. And some children come into care needing a lot of health appointments because they've, you know, they've maybe… because they've been neglected, they might need glasses or they might need their teeth checking. Um, or there might be other, um, you know, other things kind of that need looking at that are going to require a lot of appointments.

Interviewer

Mm-hmm. 

Sarah Jane

So, people have to think about all those kind of things. Um, I think one of the biggest areas that, or the main area where my life experience helps, is in the care engagement because foster carers… I never ever make judgements about our foster carers and how they're dealing with a particular situation. You know, I can just listen to them. I can give them maybe advice, strategies, what worked for me. But, I know what works for the one child might not work at all with another, um, I can recommend books to them. We've put together a library, a lending library for our carers of lots of books both for children and for themselves where they can read, um, about kind of strategies and techniques for, um, working with children. And, um, but I think just being a non-judgemental listening ear is so important.

So, I think that's probably the… and just being, you know, empathising with them because I have been there and I know what it's like - the guilt because you're not, you know, you're not, you're not kind of fixing something, you know. The sense of isolation because sometimes you feel that you are on the side of glass and the rest of the world is going on and your experiences are unlike everyone else’s out there

Interviewer

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

Sarah Jane

Um, and also celebrating the joys with them when their love and care has had an impact and they can see a child start to thrive and blossom, as children do. Um, but I think, you know, the first few months when a child moves in with somebody, a child who's already got that sense that, ‘well, this is just another one who's going to reject me’. There's usually a honeymoon period where they're sort of tiptoeing around and you’re tiptoeing around then, and then the child will come in with all the behaviours to try and test the boundaries and also to prove to themselves that, um, you are going to reject them, just like everyone else in their life has so far. 

So it's, um, supporting carers, we are going through that and just, you know, as, as far as I can, um, or, you know, trying to point them to areas where they might get support, reminding them about the TAP service that we've got.

Interviewer

So we've talked about your, you know, your journey really with your son and, and how you use those experiences to help others within your job and how it's been, you know, it's been turbulent at times, hasn't it? You know, it's not always been easy. You've had to be very resilient. Why would you say, just, just to finish, why would you say it's still worth it? It's been hard, but why is it worth it? 

Sarah Jane

I think it's worth it because, you know, I believe, in society, I believe we've got a responsibility, as individuals, to help other people. Um, you know, particularly the weak and vulnerable. Um, and who's more weak and vulnerable than a child? A child who can't live with their birth family. And I think anyone who's watched the John Lewis advert recently about the… you see the foster parents and the dad training to be a skateboarder.

So, he can, that is so important… finding something that a child, that you can relate to them, connect with them on a certain level rather than imposing your idea of what they should be like. 

Interviewer

Yeah. 

Sarah Jane

And helping that child feel like they belong somewhere, that they're accepted somewhere.

And knowing that you are giving them a chance to go on and be the best person they possibly can be when they've been dealt, you know, a rough hand at the start of their life. That's why it's important and that's why I'll never stop caring. Um, and that's, you know, at the heart of why I enjoy the job I do. 

Interviewer

Thank you so much Sarah. Jane, you've been wonderful to chat to. 

Sarah Jane

Oh, thank you. 

Interviewer

Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. And remember, if you found this podcast interesting and you'd like to find out more, visit nfa.co.uk.