Friday 20 February 2009

The First Step

Today I took my first step.

The first step towards becoming a foster carer. Sue from Foster Care Associates visited me for a chat. Well, it was more of an interview than a chat because she wrote down most of what I said.

She told me that it would take about 6 months to go through the vetting procedure, which includes 3 days of training.

I thought about becoming a foster carer during the summer just gone. I asked for an information pack from the Local Authority and spoke to someone on the phone. The person said they needed someone like me, with my background - mother hood and teaching primary children.

I bought a book on the subject from Amazon Attachment, Trauma and Resilience: Therapeutic Caring for Children by Kate Cairns
to give me some idea as to what I was letting myself in to. I read just enough of the book to come to the conclusion that this job would be too hard for me.

Also I did not want anyone poking their nose into and judging my life.

However I knew I needed to do something other than teaching as I was not happy being part of an education system that is detrimental to children's learning and emotional wellbeing.

I have now come to the conclusion that fostering is my next step, my next calling. So I contacted Foster Care Assosciates and have now started on the long road to becoming a foster carer.

I have started a new blog to document this journey so please subscribe if you are interested in following this new adventure.
The new blog is at http://a-fostering-journey.blogspot.com/