Reunification, experience from a Real foster carer. 🏡

425 days

The original call had been to take this child for a weekend, but foster care is notorious for change. Jayden would end up staying for 14 months.

The first weekend in our home I asked Jayden if he would like to watch television with me and he responded, “I don’t want to watch True Blood”. Jayden was three years old. I suggested maybe we could watch the Wiggles instead.

Jayden’s Mummy and Daddy had some big issues to work through. They had both grown up in foster care. They both had negative experiences in foster care where they were moved multiple times. They LOVED Jayden and they wanted to be a safe home for him, but they had never experienced a safe home themselves. It was going to be a huge task for them to learn to be safe parents.

Jayden’s parents were provided intense in-home support. It was a crash course in everything they should have learnt growing up, how to pack a lunch box, what is appropriate discipline, housekeeping, how to create a safe home, what television shows a three year old should watch. They were doing really well and Jayden’s visits with Mummy and Daddy went from supervised to unsupervised in public, then to unsupervised at home. The visit times started to increase. They were twice a week, then three times and the hours started to get longer too. Five months after coming into care, Jayden had his first sleep over back at home with Mummy and Daddy. There were challenges but everyone made it through.

Everything was on track for reunification. Sleep overs increased to two nights per week. Jayden would come back to our house tired and emotional and there were hard days. It is really hard to be three years old and not understand why you can’t just stay with Mummy and Daddy. Because visits were going so well, they were increased to three sleep overs per week.

The first week of the new arrangement Jayden was with Mummy and Daddy when a big scary incident happened at home. Mummy made the brave decision to take Jayden to Child Safety and stop the visit early to keep him safe.

Everything ground to a halt and we were all back at square one. Contact visits were immediately reduced and supervised. Because kids have an amazing ability to blame themselves for everything, Jayden thought he had done the wrong thing resulting in the big scary incident. He hadn’t, it wasn’t really anyone’s fault. Mummy and Daddy had their big issues, and they were trying really hard, but that day they had struggled and made a bad decision. They still LOVED Jayden and they still wanted to be safe parents. The work had to start all over again.

Mummy made the choice to leave Daddy and Child Safety supported her to find housing. It was decided she would be the primary parent for reunification and visits slowly started increasing with her. The same as before, longer times, an extra day added, then sleep overs. By the time sleep overs started with just Mummy this time, Jayden had been in our home for 11 months and was now four years old.

The first night with Mummy was rough! Jayden had been so excited and nervous and about a dozen other emotions that when he got to Mummy’s house, he lost control of his behaviour. He was testing her to see if she would send him back to us. He was trying to figure out where he fit. He had to learn to trust Mummy again. Mummy rang me at about 10pm in tears. Jayden was still awake, refusing to go to bed, demanding I come and collect him and using some pretty foul language. Mummy felt like she had failed. She was ready to give up. We had a little pep talk, all parents need those sometimes! Mummy decided we would try one more time to get Jayden to bed together. On speaker phone I reminded Jayden, Mum was the boss of her house and he needed to listen to her. I asked Mummy to tell Jayden the consequence if he refused to go to bed. She decided Jayden needed to go to bed or he would not have television time the following day. Television was always a big motivator for Jayden, so it was a perfect and appropriate choice of consequence! A huge step for Mummy. With some whinging Jayden went to bed.

The nights slowly increased for the next three months until Jayden was spending four nights with Mummy and three nights with us. We knew reunification was coming soon so we organised a party where everyone could say goodbye. We had cake and a jumping castle, and everyone came with presents.

With ten days’ notice the decision was made that Jayden was ready to go home forever. The next time he came to our house would be the last time. He had been with us for 14 months. We decided not to tell anyone the final date. We wanted to be able to say goodbye to him ourselves without anyone else there or checking up on us.

And he left.

Husband and I sat in our very quiet house. We cried, we ate chocolate and we watched sad movies. We didn’t have it in us to call people to tell them Jayden was gone, so we put a post on Facebook.

“425 days.

He was in foster care for his birthday, Christmas, Easter.

He learnt to use the toilet and nice manners. He learnt to brush his teeth and that if you want a cuddle you don't need to scream and swear, you can just ask. He learnt what a bed time story is and that it feels good to be tucked in tight at night. He learnt to spell his name. He learnt to spell my name. Sometimes, just by accident, he called me mummy.

When he found out he was leaving he told me to find another kid for his room and when I asked where I would find such a kid, he suggested buying one from Kmart.

He arrived with dirty clothes on his back. He left with suitcases, boxes, bags, all filled to bursting.

He has gone home to his Mummy who loves him very much and who has worked incredibly hard.

People would say how lucky he was to have come into our home and family.

We were the lucky ones.

Goodbye little dude, it’s been a blast”.

Mummy still has big issues she has to work through every day and Jayden struggled to fit back into life with Mummy full time. There have been tears and phone calls. On three separate occasions we were asked to prepare for Jayden to come back into foster care. But, with support, Mummy and Jayden have been able to figure out a way to be safe and happy together.

Reunification isn’t perfect. It isn’t a fairy tail ending.

Reunification can be hard and scary for a foster carer. We loved Jayden for 14 months and we had seen reunification fail the first time. It took a lot to be able to put our own feelings aside, trust Child Safety and believe this little boy we loved, would be okay.

Reunification is also beautiful. As foster carers we were a safe home for Jayden when he needed it most. We were a safe home while Mummy got help. We got to be a part of putting a family back together.