Top 10 Things Every Child Needs We asked our Facebook community what they considered were the top ten things that every child needs taking for granted that food, water and oxygen are necessary for any child. Thanks to all of you for your input. From the responses received we have identified our top 10. Did…
Fostering Patience It’s Monday again and to be honest I seething, The meeting’s been cancelled and the little one’s teething, I need a decision; it was needed last week, It’s a struggle I tell you, to be smiley and meek. They say to be calm and to focus on child, But I’d like them to…
Acronyms, Labels and People Following on from a comment on one of our Facebook threads we decided to throw out to the Facebook world what they thought about the term LAC (Looked After Child) and the issue of labelling children in care. We were met with a sizeable response which included many opinions and views…
How complex attachment can look like divide and conquer! When a baby has early experiences of regularly and relatively calmly having their emotional and physical needs met through kindly interactions both physically and verbally, consistently and without too much stress then they can relax and get on with growing their brain and enjoying new experiences…
Okay so the one thing I always find difficult about writing blogs is how to start them, so I thought I would first just tell you a little bit about ourselves. My name is Charlotte and I married my best friend and now husband Lee last December, we are 27 and 31 years old. We…
Kelly and her partner Dan have been foster carers for a year. Kelly and Dan live with their son aged 9 and their daughter aged 10. Kelly previously grew up as a child of a foster carer and was surrounded by foster children all of her life. Here she tells us of her first experience…
Jenny Molloy aka Hope Daniels or ‘Hackney Child’, as her social worker files named her, spent most of her childhood in care. She is very proud to refer to herself as a ‘care leaver in recovery’. She is called on by government bodies to advise on the care and fostering of children and helped to…
Missing In The Middle Neither one place and neither the other, Neither with Mum and neither with Brother, Stuck in a world in the middle of two, Feel safer in care but still missing you. Hearing you call and the voice is so strong, But living with you was all kinds of wrong, I’m sitting…
I can’t foster because I am single and not in a relationship or I am in a gay relationship Wrong The findings of a recent survey by ‘The Fostering Network’ suggested that approximately 10% of foster carers are single carers. Without finding any more definitive research, our anecdotal evidence (mainly in the South East of…
Attachment is the relationship and bond a child has with a caring adult or adults. Levy & Orlans (1998) tell us, Attachment is a deep and enduring connection established between a child and caregiver in the first several years of life……Attachment is not something that parents do to their children; rather it is something that…