A year is probably too long to catch up, but I’ll give the last twelve month’s fostering a paragraph of its own.

Little Jamie ended up staying almost four months, and in that time he and I developed a lovely relationship.  Despite his autism he was very responsive to our interactions and I was happy to see his sign language and speech develop considerably during that time.  But when his first foster mum finished her medical treatment she was keen and ready to have him home, so we transitioned over a week, then said our goodbyes.  The next few months saw no placements – very few babies and toddlers came through our agency during that time.  So, after a little discussion with the family, we decided to put our “preferred age” up to six, and a few days later we were placed with a five year old girl I’ll call Beckie. That was in mid January  so Beckie has now been with us six months. Angel still comes to us for respite one weekend a month – he loves Beckie (but I’m not sure the feeling’s reciprocated).

Although this is the first time Beckie has been in fostercare, it would appear she has had a fairly disrupted early life, often being cared for by friends and family members for significant lengths of time when her Mum was unable to do so.  I think an older sister, now seventeen, has paid a large part in her care as well, and Beckie seems very attached to her, and seems to miss her more than she does the rest of her family.

The early weeks with Beckie were pretty easy.  She was quiet and undemanding,  happy and contented.  She seemed  remarkedly easy going and very adaptable.  A  good thing, as in those first few weeks with us she started Prep at the local school,  had thirteen badly decayed baby teeth removed under general anesthetic, and was involved in the lead up and actual wedding of our oldest daughter, Jess.

In those first few months I concentrated on helping Beckie to feel like she belonged in our family, giving her as many “normal” family experiences as possible. She responded well to a fairly structured bedtime routine, and boardgames and story reading  became integral to that. She wasn’t very ready for school so we often spent time doing activities and games to help her learn her sounds and numbers, and to improve her fine motor co-ordination. Now, half way through the school year, her improvement has been quite noticeable, and she spends most of her spare time on these activities (yesterday’s rainy Sunday afternoon she spent  making cards for all her friends at school,  asking me to spell all their names as she wrote in each one) .

I must admit the last few months Beckie hasn’t been quite the cheery and easygoing little girl she first appeared.  As she’s settled into the family she seems comfortable to let her guard down, so we sometimes experience  contrary and defiant behaviour that was previously unseen. I think she also struggles to balance the ongoing relationship she has with her birthmum, who she sees weekly for a couple of hours, and her growing attachment to me. Kids sometimes pull back when they realise they’re growing closer to their fostermum, maybe in a sort of emotional loyalty to their “real” mum and to protect themselves from being hurt. I see this quite clearly in Beckie.  We will have a couple of good days where she’s very happy and cuddly with me, then she suddenly does an about turn, refusing to comply to the normal demands of getting ready for school or bed, telling me she hates me, not wanting me to touch her or clean her teeth or brush her hair, activities she normally loves me to do.  Eventually her anger just dissipates or turns to distress and she lets me soothe her with cuddling  and rocking, and it all comes good again.  It seems like a cycle we just have to have.

Portia, who turned sixteen last week, is in year ten and very involved in her sports, music and drama – plus she has a parttime job  working in a local bakery five hours each Saturday.  So long as she takes her Concerta every morning, she stays on top of it all.  By the end of the day she starts getting a bit hyped up and disorganised, and that’s when she starts annoying her brother and sister with her jibes and nagging.  Luckily she usually takes herself to bed about then.

Seth has had a difficult start to the school year.  After seven blissful weeks of school holidays over the Summer he started in year eight the first of February.  We immediately struck trouble – in the first weeks of school he ran away four times, usually following an altercation with a teacher.  The kid who used to switch off and lay his head down on the table and refuse to work when he got overwhelmed  had begun to act out instead.  Not exactly aggressive, but definitely oppositional and belligerent.  And teachers were not willing to deal with that!

I attended meetings at school and we discussed what was happening to Seth – a new school year with a lot of new teachers who just didn’t know FASD  (because I hadn’t the chance to properly introduce them to it – very few professionals in Australia do know about FASD), an increasing gap in his ability and understanding and the demands of the year eight curriculum, the contrast of school with the freedom of the summer school holidays, and the raging hormones of an almost fourteen year old . We were stuck with the limitations of a state school system that only provides real special education in schools specifically for kids with an IQ under 70.  Kids like Seth are offered the services of a teacher aide (he shares his with three other boys in the class) and a modified program i.e. lower expectations and easier worksheets within the regular classroom with a curriculum aimed at the typical year eighter.  Seth was sitting in a maths class with kids learning about fractions and decimals whilst he struggled with a page of  equations requiring number facts to 100, without the concrete materials he would need to complete these sums (which he’d be too embarrassed to use even if it was made available).  He usually managed to get through half the day, but by the end of break at 12 o’clock,  some little frustration would result in a blowout and he’d do a runner!

The school tried hard to come up with some solutions to the problem but none of them could really address the underlying difficulties of teaching a kid with all the learning difficulties of FASD. Basically  Seth ended up home again for the next three months, not even home schooling – just no schooling at all.  At the end of May we got him along to a small community school about twenty minutes from home, for kids who have not met with success in mainstream schools.  He tried it out for a week or so and agreed it was better than his old school, so we enrolled him and he’s now been there the first two weeks of this term.  He’s not enthusiastic but he does get up each morning and leaves on time with Ian, who drops him on the way to work.  He’s in a class of twelve, with each kid working individually. The mornings are spent on numeracy and literacy, the afternoons he chooses from a number of electives – designed to build upon the kid’s interests and strengths.  It seems like Seth is staying safe and sticking to the computer programs.  Hopefully he’ll be adventurous and take on some art, music, or martial arts program in the months ahead.  I feel hopeful that this school will be able to work with Seth, despite his significant learning disabilities and consequent behaviour problems, and keep him somewhat engaged for another few years before helping him move into employment.  Is that too much to ask?

In the meantime I try to educate just about everyone I meet on FASD.  We were allocated a social worker (through the Department of Education) to help us work out Seth’s schooling needs.  She’d hardly heard of FASD before meeting Seth, but took it upon herself to go off and research, so that should hold her in good stead for the future when she may well meet other alcohol effected kids, even though they may not have a diagnosis (there being no real FASD diagnostic services in our state, or even the country, that I’ve  discovered) .  I’ve tried to educate Seth’s pediatrician, but she didn’t seem all that interested except to try him on a few medications, ritalin and straterra, neither of which seemed to have any noticeable effect. The principal and integration teacher at his old school certainly know a lot more about the effects of alcohol on a child’s brain than they did previously – it may help them to understand other children presenting with similar learning difficulties in the future.  And every foster carer I talk with learns a little more about what they should be looking for when children come into care, even if I can’t refer them anywhere for diagnosis and services, as I would love to be able to do. Since Seth joined our family as a tiny baby over fourteen years ago, I have endeavoured to learn all I can about FASD, for his sake, and to support  all those other parents out there also living with the damage from fetal alcohol. Some hobby, hey?

This little guy is presently with another carer (a friend I’ve known for years)  but she has to go in for an operation on Monday and will need a fair bit of time to recuperate before she will be ready to have little Jamie back with her. We’ve had a few visits with him and one overnight stay, during which he seemed fairly settled, so hopefully he’ll adjust to the move without too many difficulties.

Jamie demonstrated some unusual characteristics during his infancy which concerned his carer (a very experienced lady who has been fostering babies for over forty years) and were put down to early trauma and the lack of a good attachment prior to coming into care at five months.  With good care and attunement he improved and developed a good relationship with his carer but she still had concerns.  It took months to convince the protective worker, who saw Jamie rarely and felt there was nothing unusual about him, to allow her to take the little boy (then almost two) to see a paediatrician.  A couple of visits later the doctor diagnosed Jamie with autism which explained a number of his odd behaviours and gives everyone a little more direction.

He is two and a half, has very little language, plays with toys in a fairly limited fashion and interacts with people on his own terms.  In the short time I’ve had him with me I’ve found he will listen to simple conversation and short stories,  engage readily in fun, physical play with me and the two older kids, enjoys being held and accepts hugs and other affectionate contact. I’ve yet to see him dissolve into rage or even get upset, but I hope he already feels comfortable enough with me to be held and soothed when that does happen (as I’m sure it eventually will!)

I wonder what Angel will think when he arrives for the weekend (end of next week) and finds another two year old in his space and with “his” family.  I’ll have to rope Portia in to be very available that weekend (she’s pretty good with little kids – lots of experience in a fostering family) so we can share the attention around.  Should be fun….(but anticipating hubby will spend a fair bit of time hiding out in his study!)

Now I’m off to sort out our fosterkid’s  room – just a bit of dusting and rearranging of toys and clothing – ready for the new occupant.

The calmest times of the weekend were long walks in the pusher when he even had a nap, bathtime – where it was worth wiping up bucketfulls of water to have him contained in one spot for almost an hour, and bedtime – he snuggled in my arms with his thumb in his mouth, wrapped in his favourite soft, fleecy blanket, and peacefully drifting off to sleep.

When Angel left my care four months ago it was into the custody of his Grandma but his mother and great-grandmother also live in the home and have some care of him. During the week he spends over nine hours each day in daycare where I imagine he has a number of carers. Having lived with me for nineteen months right through his infancy he developed a pretty strong attachment which I feel is still very evident when he’s back with me for just that one weekend a month.  I wonder who he feels close to the other twenty-eight days?

I worry that with so many caregivers in his life he doesn’t have a healthy strong attachment with any single one of them and this could be detrimental to his development – to his language acquisition, his ability to focus and stick to an activity, or to quieten down enough to play a game or listen to a story.  All weekend I struggled to do any of these things with him – I’d have to catch him first!

But he is a child who engages well with people. He often came to me and ask to be picked up (he knows the word up! …and to raise his arms).  He was happy to share cuddles when he hurt himself or was getting a little tired.  He excitedly showed me things, gave me things and greeted all members of our family, people and animals with delighted joy. And he’s quick to laugh when anyone engages him in a bit of fun. He especially loves the rough and tumble activity he shares with thirteen year old Seth.

I don’t feel confident that Angel has managed to transfer his attachment from me to another significant person in his life (and who would that be?) but I have to hope that the strong, secure relationship he developed with me over the year and a half that I was his mum has given him qualities and resilience that will help him to  grow and develop as he should.  And I hope that Grandma agrees to continue these monthly respites so I get to see him grow for a little while longer and continue to spend time with this little boy that I so love.

(That’s a story in itself.  Mum’s little township was cut off from the airport by floods, which meant hubby and I had two nights in a motel biding our time and impatiently waiting for the water to go down.  When it didn’t my Mum we chartered a helicopter to pick us up and deliver us to the soccer field near her house – an amazing 25 minute trip hovering less than one thousand feet above the coastline of northern New South Wales!  What an adventure – and weren’t my kids envious!)

I can keep myself busy and useful and I don’t mind my own company, but when you’re a foster carer not having a little one to care for leaves life feeling a little empty. So it’s been rather nice the past month or so minding a friend’s little boy a couple of days a week.  This little fellow, nearly three, has been in care with his baby sister for around seven months now.  When I saw my friend (a single mum with no adult children at home) struggling to meet the needs of these two littlies or find any time for herself, I offered to  help with the little boy (I’ll call him Shane) who I’d met a few times and felt very drawn to.

This is the second time Shane has been in foster care, the first time being as a baby.  It would seem both his Mum and Dad have personal problems of their own and struggle to parent their two babies  adequately so Shane appears to have missed out on a good parental attachment and has also had experiences that have caused him significant trauma. He’s a little developmentally delayed, has poor speech, doesn’t know how to socialise with kids his own age, is quite aggressive to his little sister and even occasionally to his carer, and is prone to meltdowns for reasons not always obvious to those looking on. So when I pick him up on Tuesdays and Thursdays to take him home with me for a few hours his carer has a chance to spend some uninterrupted time with the little girl and I have time with Shane trying to make up for some missed experiences that most three year olds would take for granted. And we have fun.

Shane loves playdoh, water and bubbles and, when given a little encouragement, slopping about in shaving cream.  At the park he likes to lay on the grass and play in the tan-bark under the swings.  Sometime soon I need to pick up some clean river sand and fill the plastic sandpit so he can play about with that too. He likes to hold my hand to walk along the curb, but he doesn’t like the swing and won’t come down the slide.  When I make him an obstacle course he will climb over and into things but not under or through them so we’ll work on some of those challenges.

His carer complains that he won’t be comforted easily, that she can’t cuddle him or soothe him, so Shane and I spend quite a bit of time working on that.  We play baby games with his fingers and toes.  I sing little songs that end with me hugging him or tickling or kissing him on the nose.  I roll him around on the shaggy floor mat that tickles his bare tummy. I have furry, fluffy puppets and teddies move over his body and up his tshirt, hugging him and caressing  his face.  Mostly I wrap him in a soft coral-fleece baby blanket and I cuddle him on my lap as I rock in the chair and whisper little stories and songs in his ear and tell him what a sweet and lovable little boy he is.  I only have Shane those few hours twice a week but I’m determined to make the most of our short time together and give him what his own parents were unable to and his foster carer finds difficult to.

While I don’t have a child in my care I borrow someone elses and on those nights I go to bed feeling like my day was worthwhile.

My daughter Jess works at our fostercare agency and tells me there are no more than one or two placements coming in each week at present, and a good number of carers available, so I’m guessing it might be a while before we have another little one in the house  (and so few kids coming into care has to be a good thing,  doesn’t it?).

Meantime I’m helping out with a little boy who’s in care with a friend of mine. He is two and a half and has suffered a good deal of trauma and neglect within his birth family.  He and his baby sister, just  turned one, have been with my friend for six months, and although things have improved (not so much screaming and head-banging) he still has some very challenging behaviours.

One problem is that he is quite aggressive towards the little girl, and has to be constantly watched.  He is prone to sudden outbursts and periods of dysregulation, and is also somewhat developmentally delayed.  He really needs a lot of individual attention and my friend finds this difficult – as a single parent living alone she feels unable to meet his needs fully when his little sister needs her so much too.

So whilst I have a fair bit of spare time I’ve committed to taking the little boy (I’ll call him Shane) out to the park or back to my place a couple of times a week.  I’m hoping to give him lots of sensory experiences, like water and sandplay,bubbles , coloured rice, playdoh and suchlike, because I think he’s missed out on that sort of play, and it might help him “catch up”  a bit.

A few weeks ago I sprayed shaving cream over a little plastic table and he played with that very happily.  His favourite pasttime  was to run a little metal car through the sludge then give the car a “bath” in the tub of water I had on the floor.  He became very repetitive with this play so I let him go for a while then diverted him with a few other ideas.  But he definitely preferred his car bathing.

When I gave him a sponge and showed him how to wipe the shaving cream off he became very engaged with that too.  Between the two of us it took some time to completely clean up the mess, but it was in the middle of the kitchen, so no drama.  I took some photos too.  Thought I might make some little laminated books of the activities we do, to try to encourage his speech.  He’s really only speaking in single words, so this needs some encouragement. I’m enjoying this little guy’s company, and am hopeful my time with him will be helpful to him, as well as giving his carer a little respite.

So with no full-time placement I have lots of time to do stuff that is usually too difficult with a baby or toddler around.  I’ve had my sewing machine out making curtains and cushions (and little padded sleeping bags for Seth’s pet rats). I’ve been reading more, doing a little knitting (a hooded poncho for my little friend Holly’s baby born doll – hope it works out.  I’m sort of making it up as I go along!) and the other night my hubby and I took the two kids to the movies – no babysitter required!

I am keeping busy – and that’s without the scrapbooking I keep promising myself to get back to – so I guess it doesn’t matter that I might be waiting a while for a foster child…..but I can’t help but feel that I’m just in limbo, and I won’t feel completely satisfied till I’m fostering again.

Home schooling Seth with a toddler around was difficult enough, but we were renovating at the same time which added extra noise, mess and stress to our lives.  I was so busy most of the time keeping Angel out of trouble as our old kitchen and family room were slowly demolished that I often had to leave Seth working alone, usually on the computer, which meant he never got much work done.

When Angel went off for a couple of hours access or went down for his afternoon nap I attempted to spend some active learning time with Seth.  But wouldn’t you know it, that would be the time the builder would call me out to discuss some tedious but important aspect of the renovations. By the time I got back to Seth he’d lost the little bit of enthusiasm we had built up and I’d wear myself out trying to reignite his interest, usually to no avail.

Is this typical of kids with FASD do you think?  Seth is very difficult to engage, and he doesn’t possess a lot of curiosity about the world.  He showed a little interest in a few aspects of bodily function (typical of a twelve year old boy) so I went out and bought a rather expensive and exciting book (a DK book called “ALIVE – the ultimate pop-up human body book”).  I figured even if we just read it together and explored all the little pop-up sections and the working bits he’d learn something about how the body works, but getting him interested was like pulling teeth!  I got excited about stuff I hadn’t looked at since year eleven biology, but he didn’t share my interest.  Even when I traced around his body (onto a wall that would later be painted over) and we used the book to draw in the main organs  in his body, he kept asking me how long was it going to take,  when would Portia be home, could he go and ride his bike…

In the end most of Seth’s learning came from his interest in computers and cameras. If I could use either of these in the process of him doing an activity it would be a little more successful than if I didn’t. (Thank goodness for modern technology!)  He shares these interests with his big brother and they spent one day together in early December making a video for a competition run by Big Brown Box. Wasn’t Seth thrilled when they won the competition and he’s now impatiently awaiting the delivery of a new computer as part of their winnings.

As much as I enjoyed spending time with Seth during his homeschooling stint (but feeling forever guilty that I wasn’t teaching him enough), I must admit I was glad when mid December came around and we decided it was time for him to graduate from Primary school. Our State schools don’t break up till a few days before Christmas but the private school system tends to finish a week earlier – so that’s the timeline I followed.  The whole family went out to dinner, we presented Seth with a certificate and a book and he began his seven week break before commencing  Secondary School the first week of February.

Just two days before Christmas our renovations were all complete including the new kitchen and an enormous under cover deck which is perfect for family gatherings and a great place for toddlers to play.  We set up a plastic cubby house for Angel and bought him a ride-on tractor with a trailer. After months of not being able to let him outdoors to play, except out the front on the asphalt driveway,  I could now just close the child-proof gate and let him wander in and out as he pleased.

Not for long though. Soon after that was Angel’s court case, and a decision was made that he would go into his Grandmother’s care after four weeks of transition which included increasingly longer overnight stays.  So during the end of January and the first few weeks of February Angel spent most of his time with his birth family, coming back to us for a few days at a time before returning to Grandma again.  He seemed fairly settled in both homes, although he was always very excited to return to us and cried quite pitifully when the worker took him away.  But the reports from his protective worker were positive and she felt he was building a good relationship with Grandma so when it went to Court on the 18th of February custody was awarded to Grandma and he returned home the next day.

Life is quiet without our lively little boy, and at times I miss him terribly, but I reminded myself that the outcome of reunification is what we as foster carers strive for.  But it’s hard parenting a baby for nineteen months then having him leave.

So now we’re taking a break from fostering and I’m having a catch-up time.  Portia and Seth have been at school for six weeks, and Angel’s been away for most of that time.  With the renovations complete I have a few building and cleaning and sewing jobs to complete which would be impossible to do with a toddler around.  I hope to cross them all of my list by the end of term as we’re going camping for a week over Easter and when we come home I’ll let the agency know we’ll be available for placement again.

In the meantime I’ve been doing a bit of extra training, mostly around infant care, although we’re looking at taking on a toddler to preschooler next time rather than another little babe.  I’m rather keen to try out all that training I’ve done (including  seminars by Bruce Perry and Kate Cairns) on reparenting the traumatised child and building up a relationship with an unattached child which will be much more pertinent to fostering an older toddler than a small baby.

Meanwhile, I have plenty of time to read my favourite blogs, and no excuse not to regularly post in mine!

His family have access with Angel three times a week in their own home, so this access at the DHS rooms rarely occurs. For a while he wasn’t collected unless they rang to confirm, but often they’d turn up anyway and he wouldn’t be there, so now he goes most weeks and is returned soon after – an hour and a half in the car, often with him screaming, for no good purpose. I’ve asked for this Thursday DHS access to be scrapped, but we’ll have to wait till it goes to court this week for any decision on that.

I have concerns for Angel’s situation. He is transported to supervised access three or four times a week. Sometimes he is picked up by one worker, supervised by another, then returned home by yet a third. Today, at least, the one worker was doing the whole access and both trips, and even informed me she’d be doing all of tomorrow’s visit too. That’s a plus.

I just wish she was a worker he already knew, but this is her first time with Angel. It didn’t stop him going to her readily, and I can see he is getting used to going to all these strangers without any anxiety. Yet just two months ago he was a typical securely attached eleven month old, preferring to be with mum and reluctant to go to the arms of unfamiliar people. He still looks out for me, and will come to me first for comfort and attention, but that readiness to go with other people worries me quite a bit.

DHS and my foster care agency are both aware of this less than ideal arrangement of supervised access for all their infants, not just for Angel. They’ve even held a few forums for carers and workers to discuss the issues and try to work out some more appropriate policies around infant supervised access. A shortage of case support workers means they cannot usually manage to assign the same worker to every access, and juggling so many children’s access visits generally results in some split shifts with a changeover that results in a second worker transporting home.

It’s good if the carer can also help with transporting, to reduce the number of strangers that the child has contact with. I now regularly pick up Angel from his birth family’s house one day a week. As well as easing the demand for workers it gives me a chance to interact with Angel’s Grandma, who will soon have custody.

The first week didn’t go so well and I came away feeling a little apprehensive about how I was to develop a rapport with her. But the next week we started talking and she suddenly realised I was Angel’s carer and became a lot more talkative. Obviously the week before she had thought I was yet another new worker doing transport, although she may have been puzzled to see Angel straining to get out of the stroller to get to me.

The last couple of weeks I have arrived about twenty minutes before it’s time for Angel to leave and Grandma and I sit on the couch, talking as best we can about Angel’s routine and playing little games with him. Her English is fairly limited and I can’t speak Vietnamese at all, but with body language and hand gestures we’re doing OK. Angel goes happily between the two of us, playing peekaboo games and being chased and tickled, and there’s lots of laughter, so I hope he is sensing a growing relationship between us that will give him a feeling of connection when he has to leave me to go live with her.

This week is Angel’s court date. It is almost certain he will return home but we don’t know yet how long the reunification plan will be. I hope the magistrate is not so insensitive as to send him home immediately as I don’t feel he’s ready yet. The visits home still overwhelm him and he very much needs me in his life to help him feel secure. A month or more to increase access times and introduce a few overnight visits will work in his favour and help him to build up a little resiliency to draw upon after he’s left our family altogether.

This is the most difficult stage in a placement – the child leaving our family. I don’t give it any emotional space yet, except to prepare Angel himself (as much as you can prepare an infant just past his first birthday) and the other children, Seth and Portia.

When he’s gone I will have plenty of alone time to hopefully see my way past his going, to deal with the family’s grief and prepare for the next child to join our home. I’ve done it before, but each child is different, and how I feel each time, is different. I just know it’s never easy.

Much of what she had to say focused on the effects that an unsatisfactory or disrupted attachment has on a baby’s development. None of this is new to me (I’m an avid attendee at seminars and conferences, and love to read parenting and fostering “text” books) but she had a very personal way of describing the process which really brought home to me how an attuned baby engages with his caregiver.

This engagement lays down patterns in the brain to ensure that they develop all those important life skills like how to form a trusting relationship with another person, how to self-regulate and to curb impulses and control rage, how to recognise and acknowledge their feelings and those of others.

Any foster carer can look at a child and see the behaviours that indicate “this child’s brain did not form the necessary templates in that first year or so of life”. The child very obviously demonstrates the consequences of this deficit: is unable to trust others or rely on them for help and comfort, needs to control everything and everyone around them, hasn’t learnt to check their impulses or control their rage, and shows no awareness of their own feelings and certainly is unable to show empathy for others.

I look at my own daughter Portia, who has been with us for all but the first year or so of her thirteen years of life and recognise that these behaviors still form a noticeable part of her personality. Her need to control members of her family, particularly her little brother and her dad, drive them both to distraction. She tells them what they should be doing, or how they should be doing it, with utter confidence in her own infallibility.

Luckily, she’s doesn’t get into a rage very often (although plenty of those hissy-fits that teenage girls seem particularly prone to) but she still has a great deal of difficulty curbing her impulses. Despite the guidance she’s had at home and school with the mantra “stop, think, do” we’ve yet to see that being consistently used although she’s not in trouble for scrapes, damage and breakages as much as a few years ago.

But I’m happy to say that Portia is learning how to recognise how others are feeling and to change her behaviour accordingly. At nine or ten she often had social problems at school and most of it stemmed from her own tactless comments and actions. It seemed at that stage that the only way to boost her shaky self-esteem was to put down everyone else and build up her own accomplishments with lots of bragging and showing off. I’d say she’s come a long way since then.

Certainly I now see a quieter and more genuine awareness of her own strengths. She doesn’t need to brag or compete as much as she used to, and when she makes a derogatory comment about someone she’ll catch herself and try to explain why it is she feels that way, which opens up the opportunity for a bit of a learning discussion on why people behave as they do.

When she came to us as a quiet, timid, undemanding, slow-developing one year old, I didn’t know about the effects of neglect and trauma as described by Daniel Hughes and Bruce Perry. I knew nothing about therapeutic fostering and reparenting, but I knew from parenting my own babies that this little girl and I needed to bond. So I did what came naturally, treating her as if she was a much younger baby, which wasn’t at all hard because she was a tiny little thing and nowhere near walking yet.

I wrapped her in a cosy bunny rug and snuggled her into my body as I rocked and sang to her (even though she seemed to never need soothing or to be settled to sleep). I carried her around in a baby pouch on my chest despite her legs dangling down past my waist and making it very difficult to go upstairs or climb up hills and rocks when bushwalking.

Eventually I transferred her to a hip sling which didn’t keep her quite so close but was a great deal more convenient. When giving her milk I always held the bottle and snuggled her on my lap. I would not let her hold the bottle, which she was used to. She needed to rely on me for that warm soothing milk, and trust me to provide it.

I managed to keep that routine going till she was over two, despite her little foster brother arriving in the meantime who also needed constant feeding and soothing. I played baby games with her at a time when most kids have moved on to more sophisticated pastimes. Lots of patty-cake and peek-a-boo games, riding horse on my crossed legs whilst facing me as I sang to her, silly rhymes that babies love, with tickling and blurting on bellies and pressing of noses. All attempts to regain what she’d missed in her first year of life: attunement with a caregiver.

Unfortunately for Portia and I this process of attachment was often interrupted over the next two years, mostly by failed attempts at reunification with her birth mum. This would sometime take Portia away from our family for days, weeks, and at one point three months. Also, as I mentioned before, baby Seth joined our family when Portia was not yet two and his withdrawal from alcohol in those early months of his life took a lot of my time and energy.  I guess that Portia, while getting plenty of care and attention, may not have been getting the intensive mothering that her early neglect demanded.

But of course attachment is an ongoing process. Over the years I made extra effort to pull her in closer to me. It wasn’t always easy as through her toddler and preschool years that the quiet, mousy little baby was replaced by a willful, controlling, angry child. I always felt she was distant and detached from me. Even her younger foster brother Seth, who was with us from five weeks of age, developed a very normal secure attachment to me.

It’s sad but true that the more horrible your child’s behaviour, the more you want to distance yourself from them, and the more frustrated and discouraged you feel. Unfortunately this is exactly when you need to be spending more intensive time with the child to bring them in closer again.

Over the years I noticed a cycle. Portia’s problem behaviours would escalate and I would be forever scolding her, feeling cross and annoyed with her and would crave distance, retreating from the intensity of the frustration and stress. Then I’d recognise where I was in the cycle and realise it was time for some very significant bonding.

A child psychologist who saw Portia when she was five for just a few visits, helped me to realise how, when I was overwhelmed by her behaviours, I would pull back emotionally from her and she gave me a few ideas on how to regain some closeness. She encouraged me to simply spend more time with Portia, doing stuff she enjoyed showing her she was worthy of my attention. Playing simple board games, colouring and making things together, singing and dancing to a music CD, cooking yummy sweet things to eat together, standing outside watching her ride her bike up and down the footpath, sharing stories and making up our own.

It amazed me how much time I could find to spend with her once I’d changed my attitude. I concentrated on softening my tone with her, making sure I met her advances with a smile instead of a frown, decreasing my scolding and nagging and replacing them with encouragement and joy in her accomplishments. It felt so good to begin liking her again, and that was made easier by the fact that her horrible behaviour quite noticeably decreased and she did become more likable by everyone else in the family too. Extra bonus – they weren’t always yelling at her and sending her away from them anymore either. Everyone was happier.

This relationship and behaviour cycle continued over the years. Even now I sometimes feel myself slipping and I have to remind myself to seek out Portia’s company and conversation a bit more – a bit more difficult now she’s a teen who naturally tends to spend more time alone in her room with her homework or reading or just listening to loud music. But it’s still worthwhile working on strengthening that still shaky attachment and the rewards are gleaned by seeing a corresponding shift in her behaviour and attitude.

Nowadays the activities are a little different. Watching her play basketball or skate or dive with lots of encouraging words and gestures, inviting her to help me with cooking, or asking her to make her famous choc fudge cake for afternoon tea. It’s sharing funny things on TV or YouTube or reading an article out loud from a newspaper that I know she’ll be interested in (or listening to something she wants to read out, even though it’s not really that interesting to me) or telling her something funny that I think she’ll appreciate. Sometimes it’s just showing her that I am keeping her in mind, that she is important to me.

I sometimes wonder when Portia’s behaviour reverts a little to that impulsive, oppositional, tantrum throwing four year old that she was, could it have been different? Maybe if we’d managed to do more, known better or tried a little harder, focused just on her and not continued fostering (but then we wouldn’t have our sweet son Seth). Or should we just look at the long way she’s come and promise ourselves to never let up or give in, but keep working hard to make sure this kid stays connected to family and community, feels strong and worthy, has focus in her life (thank goodness for all those sports she loves) and do our best to get her through the teenage years unscathed, to successful adulthood.

Well, that’s certainly an outcome worth a bit of hard work!

In my heart I couldn’t believe the Magistrate would really do that to this little boy; just rip him from the family he knows and loves, to return to a Grandma who has become almost a stranger having barely seen him each month. He’s been given the one thing needed if this reunification attempt is not to traumatise him – time. We are now speaking in months. The next court case is scheduled for early June.

In the meantime regular, more frequent access has been court-ordered for Grandma. Next week she has two visits, each of two hours, three visits the following week, then increasing to four the week after that. One a week will be held at DHS and I have been invited to attend a part of that, which I willcertainly do. It can only help Angel to see me with Grandma, and I want to impart a little of his routine and his needs to her if I can. The other access visits will be at her place which will enable Angel to become familiar with the home he left almost nine months ago and the other members of the family. This includes his mum and two older sibs so there are many people to get used to again.

At the end of four weeks the transition will be reviewed to make sure Grandma is abiding by the guidelines and demonstrating her commitment to her grandson. I guess if she doesn’t seem to be complying the plan for reunification will be reassessed. I hope she comes through with flying colours. I need her to, to be able to believe that going home is in Angel’s best interests.

All kids belong with their family, and if that family doesn’t meet my ideals of the very best family for that child, who am I to judge? I did have a little dream, when Angel’s birth family moved off the scene for a bit, of him moving on to a loving “permanent care family”. Whenever he was at his most charming and cute (and he’s very good at that) I imagined how delighted his new mum and dad would be adding him to their family. I’ve participated in transitions to adoptive and permanent families in the past.  Although it’s always difficult farewelling a child who’s been yours for so long, the outcomes for both the child and families have always been excellent, and I look back at all of them very positively.

Angel returning home means a shift in my projective thoughts. I can do that (well I hardly have a choice do I; I’m the foster mum). Not knowing the family at all makes it more difficult, so I’ll be pushing for more contact over the next month, and hope I can develop some rapport with Grandma, even though we don’t speak the same language.

I don’t anticipate having contact with the family after reunification (as I still do with one little girl who left my care five years ago, but still regularly stays with us, and is truly still my little girl) but I would like to have a positive image of Angel within his home and family to help me cope with him going.

Angel’s family have been given their chance. I’m on the sidelines watching, hoping they do a good job of it, so my heart is easier when the day finally comes when I have to hand my sweet little boy back to them.

There is a strong possibility that Angel will be returned to his grandmother’s custody this week. At present she is only seeing him every few weeks for a one hour supervised access along with other family members. With the possibility of him returning to her care it was suggested to her that access be arranged on a daily basis leading up to the court case, so if the decision is made to send him home at least she will be a little more familiar to him. But she refused, on the basis that she cared for him his first three months, has been seeing him since, and knows him. But how can he know her?

For the last eight and a half months Angel has been in my care and, as would be expected, has formed a strong attachment with me. For the last few months the feeling at his care plan meetings was that there was a strong likelihood he would not be moving back to family and that we should be pushing for permanency plans to be made. His birth mum showed no signs of overcoming her dependency, and Angel’s grandmother was not wanting custody of the baby, being more than busy enough with his older siblings. Neither were taking full advantage of the scheduled twice weekly access visits; in fact sometimes four or five weeks went by between visits. Our concerns were to move Angel’s case plan from family reunification to Permanent Care, but each time it went to Court the outcome was yet another three week Interim Accommodation Order, even though D.H.S. (Department of Human Services) were pushing for a Custody Order.

Until just two weeks ago when the Magistrate refused to roll over the Interim Accommodation Order, claiming that Angel should not be in foster care as there was no significant risk to him at home. The Magistrate directed that we send him home that day. Fortunately the D.H.S. worker managed to convince her that it wasn’t in Angel’s best interests to be returned home with no transition, having not even seen Grandma for almost two months, so we were granted till the next scheduled Court hearing to make plans for his reunification.

D.H.S. workers are trying to make these plans believing if we end up with the same Magistrate she’ll send Angel home the very same day. But Grandma obviously doesn’t have a great understanding of how attachment works (most people don’t) and doesn’t seem keen to learn. What is more she has never worked well with D.H.S. workers so they haven’t had much chance to explain to her how important it is for Angel to have time to begin attaching to her while he’s still secure in his placement with me. Being of a different culture and language with little understanding of English doesn’t help communication efforts either.

I had planned to attend some of those extra access visits too so Angel could see me interacting with Grandma, maybe talking and laughing with her, the two of us playing with him together, so the little guy could see that I approved of and liked Grandma. Then when he found himself living with her, and no sign of me anywhere, he’d hopefully feel ok to love her, because he somehow remembered the two of us together in a positive way.

Now those plans have to be set aside.

Who’s to say Grandma will bother to come to any access now until the Court hearing. Meanwhile I just keep on caring for Angel, giving him all the love he needs, hoping that the last eight months in our care has built up his resilience to help him through this difficult time ahead for him.

I can hardly blame the Grandmother – she just wants her grandson back – but I hope the Court’s guiding principle of acting “in the best interests of the child” win out and we can make a gentle transition for him back to his family. I can’t make myself feel ok about Angel returning home, but I would at least like the opportunity to make such a big change for him happen the best way it can.