I looked after a friend’s foster baby over the weekend.
Liam is around four months old and quite a calm, responsive baby. He fed well every three hours, and slept ten hours at night. Between times he was happy to be held or to play on the floor or in his reclining chair with toys hanging about him.
So that was fine, but juggling his quite simple needs with those of Angel, now almost ten months old, was quite difficult. Sometimes I had to leave one discontent whilst tending to the other and that doesn’t fit my philosophy of baby rearing.
Luckily, being the weekend, at least one other person was around at all times, either hubby or one of the kids. I was constantly calling upon someone to hold/ play with /soothe a baby, whilst I bathed/ fed/ dressed/ changed the other.
For some blissful moments they were both awake and happy giving me time to sit on the floor and just play with them – one on each side of me so Angel wouldn’t sit on or grab the face of his smaller friend.
They didn’t share any daytime naps, but at least they both went to bed around eight and I had a few quiet hours with the rest of the family before Angel woke. He’s not a great sleeper and a runny nose and persistent cough is waking him even more at the moment ( while Liam managed his ten hour stretch!).
Although little Liam was quite delightful all weekend, it was a relief when his foster mum picked him up around six. The rest of us headed out to tea at my son Ben’s place (luckily, as I’m not sure I’d have found time to cook) where I relaxed with just one baby to watch, feed, change and settle.
Only two other times in my fostering career have I had two babies at once. In the first case they were eleven month old twins, a two week emergency placement. They were relatively easy. Being older babies, and maybe accustomed to waiting for each other, they were happy to play and interact with each other during the feeding and dressing times and would snuggle up against me, one each side, to take a bottle.
On the other hand an overlap of placements a few years ago gave me a two month old, an eight month old and a toddler – and none of them sleeping well at night. I constantly felt one of those babies was missing out, and never felt the contentment I experience when parenting just one baby.
It’s experiences like this that prevent me ever accepting two babies at the one time on a long term basis, but others do.
With a scarcity of available carers desperate workers will often ring an experienced foster mum and ask her to take a second baby. It may initially be short term, but we all know how that pans out. I don’t doubt these babies are adequately cared for. A foster mum will put home and family on hold to make sure she meets the needs of the littlest ones she’s caring for, but to whose detriment?
We need to remember that all babies coming into care have suffered trauma. Maybe from a drug or alcohol effected pregnancy, possibly neglect within the birth family, even physical abuse. If nothing else the child has suffered trauma by being removed from a parent.
So when these babies come into care they need more holding, more soothing, more immediate attention to their needs than a secure, untraumatised baby. Placing two or more babies together makes this difficult for a carer to achieve. But where else do these babies go?
More available carers would certainly help. I know in Victoria, the state in which I live, foster carer numbers are gradually decreasing. On one particular day in 2006 there were 985 carers actively providing placements for 1,5o9 children, and it’s estimated a further 900 new carers are required to allow for good matching of new children coming into care.
Our own agency is struggling at present when a new placement comes in as there are so many factors involved in making a good match. They would like to have a number of families to choose from suited to the age, gender, length of placement and behaviours of the child; not just relying on “who has a spare bed?”
I am involved with a state wide initiative that is looking at the equally important issues of recruiting and retaining foster carers. One of the conclusions I’ve drawn from my involvement is that lots of little projects are as effective as one big one, and easier for agencies to implement.
Ideas like:
- Billboards in strategic places;
- Regular media coverage to promote foster care as a worthwhile occupation;
- Personal talks by carers to take the information to work places, clubs, schools, churches;
- websites that make it easy for possible recruits to get all the information they need, quickly;
- Targeting specific groups like particular cultures or the Gay community.
A guest speaker from a marketing organisation being employed to help us promote foster care, stated that only around 6% of the population are ever likely to consider fostering. Somehow we need a profile of that small group so we can specifically target each and every one, and not waste time and energy on the other uninterested 94%.
Maybe more research into why people foster, and why they continue when others drop out, will assist us. Apparently that is what this organisation intends to do, so I’ll be interested in the results.
In the meantime, we also have to retain the carers we have for more than the average two to five years. I personally think that the new models of foster care that I’ve seen introduced recently will help. They are giving carers what we’ve asked for:
- Partnership in a professional team caring for the child.
- Being acknowledged and respected for our role in the child’s life.
- Involvement in case management, including decision making when possible.
- Good communication between all parties.
- Reasonable reimbursements.
I think if you add peer support to this list, plus agency support and legal assistance when a family has an allegation made against them, then you’re a fair way towards ensuring that you don’t lose any committed carers for avoidable reasons.
Personally, I began fostering sixteen years ago when my youngest child started school, with the intention of giving it a go whilst my own children were still young and I was a mum at home. If I’m busy parenting three, I thought, why not four or five?
I figured once they were older and more independent I would be ready to move on too, maybe to further study or working. Well, they grew up but I didn’t move on. I think fostering has become my calling.
Seth and Portia still need very active parenting and I’m in the enviable position of being able to stay at home, so fitting an extra young child or two into our family is quite manageable – and so very rewarding. Despite all the everyday annoyances and frustrations and the tedious chores that go with being at home, I love the actual time spent interacting and caring for the kids, and I just know there is nothing more worthwhile that I would want to be doing.
While I’m in such a positive mood I think I’d better go recruit those 900 odd extra carers we need so I’m never asked to take two babies at a time!