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The other kids? We are at the mercy of the hedge fund owned ‘Independent Fostering Agencies’ who have unlimited marketing/recruitment budgets, scoop up potential carers and charge over the odds to the local authority who have parental responsibility for the child. They are wholly unethical, and it should be **** outlawed…but rich people have to get richer right?
Having heard MrsMC quoting prices her authority gets charged, I know damn well that the residential care workers aren’t the ones getting extremely rich by exploiting the system
You might be surprised just how much residential care costs.
You might be surprised just how much residential care costs.
Having helped a local authority expose a major fraud from an adult care "charity", I know that despite the overheads in setting them up, there's a lot of scope for fiddling the figures
Fair enough. I only know it in the context of nursing homes but costs per patient are much much higher than most lay folk understand. I can see a couple of grand a week in staffing costs easily for a disruptive youth.
We spend upwards on £18000 on some individual placements, per week per child.
Complex needs and a broken care market.
It's not the staff getting rich.
My point about Independent Fostering Agencies should not be conflated with the issues around high cost residential. IFAs do the same as local authorities (provide foster carers that look after children in their own home). It's just that they are morally bankrupt.
@johndoh is there a foster carers support group you can attend? When I worked in fostering we held these regularly, and they are ideal for talking problems through with other carers who may have been though the same or similar situation , and from whose experience you can benefit. If there isn’t a group or you are not able to attend, you could ask to be paired up with another carer for some 1:1 support. Training or other get togethers are an ideal way of widening your fostering support network. Hopefully you have all this in place already though.
My other two thoughts were about being tested as a foster carer by your LAC, which I suspect you will have heard all about. Thoughts such as “are these the people who will stick by me? If not I need to know sooner rather than later”. A honeymoon cycle, rather than a period with a beginning and end.
my other thought you have touched on in your OP, attachment. It’s possible that your young person is stuck at a much earlier age than their chronological one, and can revert to a toddler tantrum stage. I suspect much as a toddler doesn’t know why they are tantrumming, your young person won’t either. Patience , distraction, etc as you would with a much younger child. Not asking why, or shaming them inadvertently. I would say filming them falls into this latter category and may be in contradiction to your safer care policy anyway.
it’s good that you have a clinical psychologist (?) you can talk to and I hope you find them helpful. also seek support from your fostering SW which I think you said do anyway
you and Mrs Johndoh are doing an amazing thing, as rewarding as it is difficult.
Eventually, he came back, prepared his vegetables then served himself with everything, including the chicken, which he ate all of!
So confusing. So exhausting. And it was a shame because he’d had a great day – he had tried martial arts class for the first time (a breakthrough) and loved it, and hadn’t holed himself away in his room as he often does.
Two breakthroughs, one day. Well done.
It's so hard not to focus on the outbursts, sometimes they will be the price of success. Perhaps the stresses of trying the new thing earlier meant he was walking the tightrope later on in terms of mood control?
You should definitely chalk the day up as a win. A tiring win, but a win nonetheless.
is there a foster carers support group you can attend?
Unfortunately no – there used to be a good network apparently but Covid has put paid to all that. We are in contact with two or three much more experienced fosterers who are helpful, but that's it.
My other two thoughts were about being tested as a foster carer by your LAC, which I suspect you will have heard all about. Thoughts such as “are these the people who will stick by me? If not I need to know sooner rather than later”.
He knows ours isn't his 'forever home', but unfortunately social services cannot find him one. One household said they would take him permanently then changed their mind at the last minute after meeting him 😐
You should definitely chalk the day up as a win. A tiring win, but a win nonetheless.
I think you are right! He also went back to martial arts class last night - that's two more activities done in the space of three days than he's managed in the last 15 months that he has been with us.
As a mildly autistic parent to a high functioning autistic 10 year old boy you have my total admiration. It's HARD.
Some pointers from my side: you remember the last episode of Chernobyl, in the hearing room with the simple explanation of how to keep a nuclear reactor in balance? Autism's sensory component is exactly like that. Your kid's brain will fill up with inputs and it will require regulation to calm down. You have inputs which add to the things that need to be processed (noise, visual, proprioceptive, stress) and therefore make the reactor tend to run away and regulatory inputs which aid in processing, calming the reaction down (my son skips, rides his bike, skis, climbs).
The items that increase reactivity may not necessarily be bad things - a particularly enchanting book, textures on surfaces he touches or even sees during the day, too much screen time, an idling cooker hood. Then there are the truly bad inputs which can dramatically effect reactivity and lead to meltdown - the boron tip on the control rod: sudden loud noises (dyson & airforce hand dryers can get fu%^3d!), people shouting, a car horn or even a door bell. Needing the toilet is somewhere in between these two and quite often the input from that is totally incorrectly interpreted as a stimuli rather than a flag saying "I need the bog". When we have issues with behaviour it's often our first line of attack & the fight to get him to accept the fact he needs to go can run to many rounds.
On top of that there's inputs that your child may use as regulatory forces, but which can, if unchecked, lead to cataclysmic events - the xenon poison in the reactor. For my lad this is anything with visual tracking: computer games, water running (pooh sticks screw him over big style), marble runs. You can tell it's getting to him as he'll stimm. His stimming output is jumping on the spot and flapping his arms. Mine is making a sound like a turbocharger. Took me 45 years to work that out. FFS.
Does he self regulate at all, does he: run, jump, skip, lift weights, physically fight/wrestle (not seen this but have heard it can be evident)?
The best regulatory thing we've found is forest schools. He started to go to one once a week after school from about age 5 where he'd explore nature, look after some chickens, cook things on open fires. Had an immediate, dramatic calming effect. Seriously it was like having his reactor fitted with not Soviet controls.
When we ran into an issue with his last primary school (evil witch of a SENDCO / class teacher decided the most appropriate way to get through to him was to shout in his ear) we turned to the forest school staff for advice. They recommended we move school to one that had a higher emphasis on outdoor learning. Again that had an immediate calming effect. I do not recall one single school day in the last 4 years where he has protested about going to school. They also understand his need to self regulate and will just open a classroom fire escape & let him go off and skip for 10 mins. Utterly amazeballs.
Does he have a formal diagnosis and an EHCP? We were lucky and started the process a very long time ago. I know people who have 7 year olds that have, this year, been rejected from paediatrics as the waiting list is so long they will be dealt with as adults by the time they get to the front of the queue.
Simple things that help loads: fidget & chew toys - poppy silicone fidgets are great, but I also made some out of old chain & cassette sprockets; ear defenders (in ear or external "working in the turbine hall" jobbies) - almost switch like in effect; time limiting activities - screen time in particular; having a big timetable board to limit the impact of transitions; diet - hungry autistic child = unstable low power RBMK, keep them topped up with slow release snacks if they won't eat properly. Do they know they're autistic? My son self-diagnosed aged 6, a truly wonderful day as we were trying to work out how to tell him.
Its way out of my skillset this stuff but I just want to repeat what was said above. Issues with food are often about control not the food itself. When you have little control over your life you use what you can control. I have seen this in a variety of forms
physically fight/wrestle (not seen this but have heard it can be evident)?
Weird you should say that - at the martial arts class yesterday (they do a wide mix of all sorts of fighting) they were doing that and he loved it. Conversely, if someone touches him (even just an accidental brush of the arm), he has a meltdown.
Simple things that help loads: fidget & chew toys
He chews gum when he is trying to self-regulate.
Issues with food are often about control not the food itself. When you have little control over your life you use what you can control.
Absolutely – and it's not just food (see my other post about the water bottle - which he continues to refuse to use).