I could not foster children. I would not choose to do so. I cannot separate myself emotionally from a stray or lost animal, especially if it is young. What use would I be to someone who needs to have stability and recognition but who ultimately, if everything works well, will move on to a more permanent home with a new family? What if I didn’t approve of the family chosen to be my foster child’s new forever family?
In my work I have met a number of professional carers. I have not necessarily approved of them all and I have sometimes wondered how some of them passed the assessment and reviews to which each foster carer is obliged to submit themselves.
For a while in the UK, foster carers could never allow the children they looked after to call them Mummy, Daddy, Auntie, Uncle or anything of a close and homely nature. This appears to be on the wane again and now carers in some local authorities are actively encouraged to make the children’s stay as close to a home environment as possible. This brings us to that important and emotive word – attachment.
Suitable placements?
If a baby is placed on a foster setting, they are usually sent to a home where the carers have expressed the desire to look after only babies or very young children and usually on a short term basis – babies who are put up for adoption are generally snapped up, especially if they are born with few obvious difficulties.
White skinned babies will be adopted very quickly. Those with black or brown or even olive skin tones may not be so lucky. There is a huge emphasis which in my opinion is in excess of normal expectations, for children from dual heritage to wait until a ‘suitable’ adoptive family comes by. These families hardly ever exist and where they do, the emphasis on culture and ethnicity is possibly far greater than the birth parents intended, but what can they do?
Whilst I question the logic of removing a child from its country of birth – why not do something to support the country to look after its own children? – I have come round to the notion that to be loved, protected and included is by far a better option than to be left waiting for the perfect family.
It is important to remember that when children are received into the care system, the first step is to place them with a short-term carer(s) to enable them then to be matched with a long-term carer(s), depending on the anticipated eventual outcome for the child – adoption, return to birth family or respite care.
This counts as one move. The second move occurs when they are placed with a long-term carer. If the long-term placement breaks down and the child is moved again, this is the third move. One long-term placement disruption places the child in the three-or-more moves category.
Children in care experience placement disruptions and moves for one or more of many reasons: bad behaviour, poor matching, lack of long-term planning, moved back to birth family ‘too optimistically’, retirement of carer(s), illness of carer(s), move to a less costly placement, move to a placement nearer home, de-registration of carer(s), child’s allegations of abuse by carer(s), etc.
Effect of moves on children
Frequent moves can be very damaging for the child. They can lead to lack of trust in adults, disrupted education, loss of friends, disturbed behaviour, attachment disorders, etc.
Any move is traumatic for a child. Imagine what it is like to move a child even once into a new and unknown family in unfamiliar surroundings and to a new school away from all the child’s friends. This can be very frightening.
Imagine what it is like to do this three, four, five or more times. The largest number of moves that I am aware of is 27. How can attachment possibly be successful in such a climate of uncertainty and stress? It is unlikely that any child will attach themselves effectively to any adult.
The following passage is taken from www.standards.gov.uk/eyfs/resources/downloads
What is evident from neuroscience is that ‘normal’ brain development in early
childhood is dependent upon environmental input and, for parents and
carers, this means warm and loving, appropriate interaction with children who
are living in a safe context, in which they are nourished and nurtured and
allowed opportunities to explore.
Gopnik et al (1999) summarise evidence from research in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, linguistics and other disciplines to provide an account of how babies and young children learn about the world around them, about people and relationships, and about language, linking their discussion to what is known about brain development.
They assert that we know from science that nature has designed adults to
teach babies, just as much as it has designed babies to learn and that it
indicates we should talk, play, make funny faces, and pay attention to our
babies when we are with them – but that we simply need the time to do this
(Gopnik et al 1999).
Redesigning children’s brains
So it would appear that research from a number of disciplines informs us that babies and young children need to play and interact with their parents and other significant people in their lives, because it is in these enjoyable everyday exchanges and conversations that their brains develop – are ‘redesigned’ even – as a result of learning. However, in a society where
parents (and other family members) may have less time to spend in the home, their children could be losing out on the quality time that can be spent doing just those very simple activities on which their brain development can thrive.
The research indicates that we need to ensure parents have support when they need it, that they have time to enjoy being with their children, and that they feel assured that when they are at work, their babies and children are still enjoying interactions with other key adults and children. Some of the main messages for parents, early years practitioners, policy-makers and researchers about the changes in thinking about early brain development and function can be found in Shore’s summary of the differences between ‘old thinking’ and ‘new thinking’ about the brain, which has been adapted for Figure 1 below.
Figure 1: An adaptation of Shore’s (1997) chart of ‘old’ and ‘new’
thinking about the brain
What we used to believe |
What research seems to indicate |
Brain development depends on the genes you inherit. |
Brain development occurs as a result of a |
Experiences before the age of three do not |
Early experiences affect the ‘design’ of the |
A secure relationship with a primary care-giver is what provides a positive context for early development and learning. |
Early interactions impact on the way the brain is ‘wired’ as well as creating the context for |
Brain development is linear: in other words, |
Brain development is non-linear: at certain |
Young children’s brains are much less active |
In the early years children’s brains are much |
This points to the fact that throughout the first three to four years of life, where a child is placed in a number of unsettled environments, their ability and willingness to make attachments and form trusting relationships will take a battering. Certainly we already understand and acknowledge the work of Bowlby and others who made very clear arguments for consistency of care, especially in the very early years of life. Alongside this, we must also now consider the impact of a ‘family’ environment which does not quite feel like family.
I visited a foster setting for very young children and babies where both the male and female carers hardly ever spoke to any of the children they looked after and certainly never really played with or spent time other than changing nappies or feeding them. Each child in that environment was much quieter that most other children and certainly more passive. It may have been the carers’ way of coping with the loss of each successive child but it was a huge price for each child to pay. Under-stimulation at this stage can have detrimental effects on the potential of children.
For some very fortunate children, to be fostered is to be protected and safeguarded from a life of misery and pain. It is never easy to accept that one’s parents or family may not want you or be able to care for you. It is never easy to understand and accept that an addiction is placed higher in priority that the comfort and wellbeing of a child. Thousands of foster children make very successful adults and parents which tells us more about the tenacity of individuals than it does about the fostering system. Do we do enough, I wonder, to safeguard the mental health of children who must enter the foster care system? Only time will tell.
i really feal that more needs to be done on the failing care system and attachments
Of course the quality of Foster Carers varies, along the spectrum of poor – oustanding. This, unfortunately is mirrored in all professions/roles in working with children and young people and inadequate practice/care needs to addressed in all these cases across the care profession.
However, I am a Foster Carer, for long and short term placements. I know that I am an oustanding carer and give everything to this role that is possible, creating incredible outcomes for these children. Three of our placements have involved the care of babies. What is often not understood is that Carers such as ourselves would offer these children long term care, through adoption, residency orders, special gaurdianship etc. I have even been to court to fight for the right of a child not to be seperated from his primary attachment figures (ourselves) and prevent the long term damage that can be caused through broken attachments, in particular for under the three’s. This cost my partner and I hugely on a number of different levels. The pain of this fight, can still be felt today. The truth is that Fostering agencies can be very reluctant to support foster carers in wanting to care long term and can take a very oppositional position. This can be evidenced in numerous examples that I have direct knowledge of – even when continued care by the Foster Carers is clearly in the best interest of the child and no better alternative has been offered – other than routine adoption. Attempts can be made to silence carers in the court and long term planning process for the child – leaving carers feeling totally distressed and deeply frustrated knowing that these children will unnecessarily (and avoidably) experience such a deep sense of seperation, sense of rejection or abandonment, loss, grief etc. Why the option by the decision makers to inflict such pain on these little hearts and souls is taken is beyond many Foster Carers understanding. This conscious omission to prevent a child from experiencing significant harm could clearly be viewed as a form of instituition abuse. We had nothing to lose by pursuing wanting to care long term for the babies in our care – only a broken heart and knowing that you are being cynically viewed and oppossed. The babies had everything to gain.
The role and potential long term care of babies in Foster Care needs to be seriously understood, valued and supported where atall possible. The question should be ‘Is it possible for this child/baby to stay in this Foster Care family?’ This question, as a matter of routine, is tragically ignored by those involved in the long term planning process.
Many thanks,
My heart goes out to Pete Simms, my partner and I have been foster careres for 20 years we have a permanent child but I use the term loosley as I feel constantly threatand by the system we work within.we have also cared for short term chidren. I share petes view as I cannot make social workers understand the effect this constant threat is having on our relationship with our permanent child and on each other the strain some days is almost unbearable We as foster carers are expected to bring a child into our lives and care for the child with no set expectation from the system as to what they require from us as foster carers ,with very little or no support and them they cant seem to understand when things begin to go wrong. I watcht a friend loose a chid after a 5year placement broke down they will (the child nor the foster carers) will ever come to terms with this devistating event in their lives but very little was done to help avoid this happening in the fist place.good luck to all
thank you for reading Lyn
with what you have put about “Effect of moves on children” i totally agree with you because i am inn care my self and i have been in umm 1 year now and i have been moved around 12 times when i lived with my parents well i didnt really live with them i lived with every one else but them such as family and friends scince i was 13 i have moved 24 times and i am going to be leaving care in about 3 months because i am nearly 16. moving around for me really has messed my head up well it did do any way i wa going out on the streets getting pisssed and stoned i was messing my life up because i thort it could’nt possibaly get worse scince i have been in care i have only moved 12 times because i could’nt find a place ment that suited me and my needs. and i found it really hard being in care. but now i am living in a nice care home and all my needs are getting met. what im trying to say is that it’s not the children that hate the foster carers it’s that they hate the fact that they are in care so they sometimes take ity out on the carers. so they move and move and move untill its either good at a placement or strict and they realise that they have been doing wrong.
not all children have a head like me but i know how they feel because me and the people that i have met throughout care are in the same boat .
thank you for listening x x
What would be the effect on a baby of being moved eight times in its first six months?
i think its wrong the system has tgot my daughter and im having her back. bastards.