today we really started our journey to becoming foster carers. we met with a woman from the fostering team at social services. she seemed really nice. she asked lots of questions and made lots of notes. she tried to be honest about what fostering the age group we are looking at is really like. she told us to worst case scenarios, and some best case. it was a bit eye-opening, especially as she talked us through some of the common reactions that birth children have when foster children come onto the scene. apparently copying bad behaviour is not uncommon. i would be lying if i said that i'm not worried about some of the potential things that could happen. but i still feel quite positive about how we could help someone.
it was also quite strange to have to quantify how you are able to look after a child. 'what skills and abilities do you have to enable you to foster?' we had to think of words to describe how we parent, which is actually more difficult than it sounds. there will be a lot more of that to come too. we have long forms to fill in, which require evidence foreach point. it looks a bit daunting, and will take up to six months before we get final approval and are given a placement. keep your fingers crossed for me xxx