Horses for Courses

Our social worker has been good enough to invite us to attend 3 different courses that are run by a child psychologist and cover a number of different topics. We were really pleased to be invited to attend these as we figured it would arm us with useful information about things we might expect in the future.

We attended the first course yesterday; the topic was Grief, Loss and Separation for Children.  It feels like most people presume grief and loss come from a bereavement but for looked after children that is not always the case. These children move from placement to placement and often before that have experienced chaotic lives with birth families and so each time this happens the child experiences a loss and the grief that this separation causes. They also loose their possessions along the way along with their surroundings from nursery and school to the familiar set of swings at the nearest park and family pets.

It really amazed me but the number of things children loose naturally as they progress into adulthood but for looked after children is seems to magnify and because many suffer from poor attachments it is made even harder. Sadly some of these loses we can’t prevent, change or make any easier but for a few there is.

We know that our children will come with their things and we have been strongly advised to, wherever possible, replicate what they are used to in order to make the transition a little bit smoother. The more I understand about attachment the more I understand why, I am bit sad that I lack choice (although that is tempered with relief after I saw just how much choice their was) I want to make sure they have the smoothest transition we can possibly give them.

Whilst the course was very interested what I found the most enlightening was listening to the foster carers also attending talk about their experiences of children that have come into their care and then moved on. It reminded me that our children are in such a placement and that their foster carers will have to prepare them to move as well as dealing with their own loss as the children have been a part of their lives for a long time. 

Our next course is in three and half weeks time and covers Foetal Alcohol Syndrome and Neo-Natal Abstinence and is the one course I am not really looking forward to. In the mean time we have 2 other appointments to attend this week and I can’t wait.