Child care worker fostering a child in his care ???

Derrick was about 10 or 11 I remember, but small for his age which made him rather cute.Truth was that he was a really handsome boy,  blonde and god looking as boychildren go He had a much older brother in care in the same 'Home". His background history was complicated and painful, like every child in care, but his biggest need was to somehow experience a safe reliable adult male figure, ... a sort of 'father' model so to speak.

I was designated that role. I was to be that figure for a period of time.

At first it was as was planned in his 'treatment programme'.-  conscious, planned, professional. The idea was that that this would happen for three to six months and then I would help to make another male worker acceptable to him . We were to build on my relationship to allow him to make 'good-enough', trusting relationships with adult males.

It didn't quite work out like that. In a few months I found myself saying, "my Derrick" and "that little Derrick of mine". "my boy ". The professional relationship was becoming, No, dare I say ... had become a filial one. The staff saw it. I didn't really. At staff and case discussions it was discussed and they would warn me and say that some other male worker should be used. But by that stage I didn't care or bother myself with the warnings because I knew that I wanted to foster Derrick.

So, I took the idea to my wife..

"Let's foster one, Let's take in Derrick.. he has a mother, but I think that he is pragmatically orphaned."

Well two events happened at approximately the same time. My wife and I had two of our own biological children both teenagers. We lived in a house on campus. I was the Director of the "Home" ( Residential Treatment Centre). We called a family meeting and I put my proposal.

My own children were remarkably rational. "If we take him in as our own", they said, " He would always be a "Home boy" who we have 'borrowed , from the organisation - singled out for special care, given the best and ... you can say 'loved' more than the others". It's not fair on him, on the others nor on us who have to face the other boys every day somehow or another.It's not a good idea unless you leave the "Home" and we live somewhere else. It's not a good idea",they said.

My children were right. I couldn't argue against their logic. I could only say, But he will fit in" and He needs to be fostered" amd I really like the boy" ( I avoided the "love" word).

In that same week, Derrick was apprehended by the police and charged with malicious damage to property. Secretly he had been making his own collection of motor vehicle bonnet badges. hen he was caught he was busy breaking off the bonnet badge of a Mercedes Benz which was parked in the city street. He need it in his collection.. The incident forced him to reveal his full little hoard of broken off bonnet badges. They were mainly from luxury cars.

" Whats the bid deal/" He said. "It's no problem man" . the cars belong to 'larnies', and I hate 'larnies' (slang for rich middle class people) They just buy another one man"

It was this incident that thrust me into a reality check and I was forced to rethink about what I had been denying all along. I had forgotten that Derrick was in the Treatment Centre in the first place because he was in need of specialised residential care. he was a deeply troubled child with behaviours that typified almost every boy in the Centre. The treatment he needed was group residential treatment of the type that he would really only get in the "home".  It was not the stealing incident itself that made me rethink. It was the realisation that if I 'professionally' took everything into consideration then it was clear that foster care with my family  whist I was a child care worker for his friends and his group in care , .... if I took into real consideration his own mother and his brother, as well as the reality that he would be the 'chosen" amongst the others ... then it wasn't a good idea. fostering him would complicate his life .It was likely to bring him hurt rather than healing and my family was likely to get hurt too. There was a lot going for it and there would have been some benefits but the cost outweighed them. It was noble, but not the solution for Derrick.

We did not foster Derrick,

NOTE
This is a purely hypothetical narrative for the purpose of putting forward the issues of fostering a client .... Derrick is based on a combination of a number of children and does not exist as an individual. .