by Cathy Glass
Mr Fitzgerald opened the door to the quiet room and I followed him in. Reece was seated at a small table between the two TAs and he was painting. He looked up as I entered and grinned, pleased to see me and apparently oblivious to the reason for my being there.
‘Hi, Cathy,’ he said, waving his paintbrush in the air. ‘Look, I’ve painted a big spider, and ‘ere are the ‘airy legs.’
My first thought was why had he been allowed to indulge in one of his favourite activities, painting, when he was supposed to have been reprimanded and in disgrace? By letting him paint, the school had effectively rewarded his bad behaviour and sent him the message that if he stabbed a TA with a pencil then he would be taken from the classroom and be allowed to enjoy himself by painting! The school should have known that.
‘Yes, I can see,’ I said to Reece, with no enthusiasm for his painting. I purposely didn’t show my usual delight for his work, as I was about to tell him off. ‘Reece, do you know why I am here? It’s not the end of school, is it?’
‘No,’ he said, dipping his brush into the paint again. ‘Why you ‘ere, Cathy?’
The head was hovering to one side and the two TAs were looking expectantly from me to Reece and back again. I hoped that Reece had been told off at the time of the incident and that they hadn’t simply left it to me, for too much time had elapsed for anything I could say to have a real impact. Cause and effect has to be immediate with children, particularly those with behaviour problems, so that a bad act is sanctioned with the loss of a treat or privilege at the time, and the reason for the withdrawal of the privilege explained. Absolutely no way would I have allowed Reece to paint.
‘Reece, put that paintbrush down now, please,’ I said firmly. ‘We are going home early because of what you did and said to Mrs Morrison.’
He didn’t put his paintbrush down but looked up at me, amazed. ‘Why we going ‘ome, Cathy?’
‘Because you hurt Mrs Morrison with a pencil and shouted something very rude at her.’
Reece continued to look at me and I could see he was trying to retrieve the incident from his memory. But of course it had happened over two hours before, and for a child with learning difficulties that is a very long time, and since then he had been playing happily.
‘Did I?’ he said, grinning self-consciously.
The head and the TAs looked at me, waiting for my response.
‘It’s not funny,’ I said sharply. ‘You have hurt Mrs Morrison and she has had to go to hospital. Now put down that paintbrush straightaway. We are going to get your coat and go home. I will need to talk to you.’
Reece put the paintbrush in the paint pot, stood up and silently came to my side.
‘I’m not pleased, Reece,’ I reinforced. ‘I have heard bad things about what you did. You will say you are sorry to Mr Fitzgerald now, and on Monday you will say you are sorry to Mrs Morrison and Miss Broom.’
‘Sorry,’ Reece said to the head.
Some of the fear in the head’s eyes went, as it did in the TA’s. For it was fear I’d seen on their faces when I’d first walked into the quiet room, with the head keeping his distance from Reece, and the TA’s indulging him and keeping him amused. And if I’d seen their fear so too had Reece, for he’d had the example of his mother, who instilled fear through her aggression and shouting. I’d little doubt that Reece had been in control of the situation in the classroom, and also here in the quiet room before I’d arrived. I also knew that he would continue to push and challenge the boundaries in school until someone stood up to him.
Mr Fitzgerald took us to the cloakroom, where Reece put on his coat. Then he saw us out of the school.
I was silent in the car driving home, allowing Reece time to reflect and feel my disapproval. When we arrived home, I first made myself a cup of tea before sitting Reece in the living room and going over what had happened and why it was so very wrong. Intentionally harming someone is obviously wrong to anyone from a ‘normal’ background, where the rules of good and kind behaviour have been put in place from the start, but not so with Reece. He had spent his life in a highly dysfunctional family and, from what I’d heard at the case conference, one where violence was an acceptable part of every day. It was therefore nothing to him to lash out at someone as he’d doubtless seen his mother do countless times before. Reece listened as I spoke, and agreed it was wrong, as he had done when I’d previously told him about the sexual incidents. But I inwardly sighed as I spoke, for three incidents in three days had hardly got us off to a good start. I knew the head was doubting my claims that Reece’s behaviour had improved at home, as I would have done in his position.
‘Reece,’ I finished by saying, ‘I have told everyone at school what a good boy you are. Please don’t let me down.’
‘No, Cathy, I won’t let you down. I’m trying to be a good boy, really I am.’ He gave me a big hug.
I didn’t impose any additional sanction as a punishment for Reece’s behaviour; being sent home early from school was sufficient. Reece liked school and was sad that he hadn’t been allowed to stay for the remainder of the afternoon. When Lucy and Paula arrived home he told them that he was sad because he had been sent home early from school, while omitting the reason. When they asked him why he just went very quiet and looked sheepish and I viewed this as a positive sign. I hoped that Reece understood his behaviour was wrong and knew that the girls would have disapproved, which suggested that, unlike his mother, he did have some moral conscience. Out of Reece’s earshot, I explained to the girls what had happened and they were as shocked as I had been. I told them not to say anything more about it to Reece unless he mentioned it first, for I had dealt with it and we had to move on.
That evening, after Reece had been collected by Sabrina to take him to contact to see his parents, I made an online booking for the four of us to spend two nights (three days) at a very nice four-star hotel in Norfolk for the Easter break. I would not normally have booked us in such splendour, but I had anticipated going away for a full week, so the money I had saved on the week covered the two rooms for two nights. The girls would share one room, and Reece and I another with single beds. I emailed Jamey with the name and the address of the hotel, and then replied to an email from a Mrs Wendy Payne, who introduced herself as the Guardian ad Litem for Reece.
The Guardian ad Litem is appointed by the court for the duration of a childcare case and she (or he) reports directly to the judge. She visits all parties in the case and her report is based on her findings. She advises the judge what is in the child’s best interest. The Guardian ad Litem’s report is probably the most influential of all of the reports before the judge and he will normally follow its recommendations. Jamey must have given Wendy Payne my email address, as it was the first communication I’d received from her. In her email she asked if she could visit us the following Thursday, when Reece would have broken up from school. I replied that that would be fine.
When Reece was returned home from contact that evening I asked him, as I always did, if he’d had a nice time, and he answered as he always did: ‘Don’t know.’ I no longer asked him anything about his life before he came into care. My initial questions about his bedroom etc. had been designed to help him settle in and were no longer needed. I knew that if and when Reece felt ready to talk in more depth, he would do so, for he was beginning to trust me. He had quickly formed a bond with my daughters and me — too quickly, considering he had been with his mother for seven years. And with no attachment to his natural family I wondered yet again what had been going on at home to produce a child who after three months appeared to love us more than he did his own family. Reece had started telling us that he loved us at the end of his second month. He also added how much he liked the house, and his bedroom, Paula, Lucy and me. Often when he returned home from seeing his parents, he would rush in the door, and the first thing he would exclaim was ‘Home sweet home!’
On Saturday we had a relaxing day at home, with Reece playing in the conservatory
that acts as a playroom. Then we ordered a Chinese take-away in the evening. On Sunday I took Reece for one of our rendezvous with his half-sister Susie and her carer, Marie. For the first time that year the sun had some real warmth in it, announcing that spring had truly arrived and summer was just around the corner. We spent a lovely three hours in the park that had become our regular meeting place. We had lunch in the park’s café, where the owner of the café was starting to recognize us and ask us how we were.
All too soon it was Monday morning, and I was laying out Reece’s school uniform and telling him it was time to get dressed. I won’t pretend I wasn’t apprehensive at the start of another school day, after the previous week, but having had a really relaxing and pleasant weekend I was also very optimistic, and so was Reece.
‘I like school,’ he said over breakfast. ‘I like my teacher, and I like Mrs Morrison, and I like Troy.’
‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘So let’s make sure they know that you like them by being kind to them. Mrs Morrison and Miss Broom are there to help you. And Troy wants to be your friend.’ Although after Friday’s incident this was more hopeful speculation on my part than hard fact.
‘I like them,’ he said, ‘and I love you.’
‘We love you too, sweet,’ I said. It wasn’t an exaggeration. Reece was so vulnerable and could be so kind and loving that in the relatively short time he had been with us he’d easily found a place in our hearts.
In the car, driving Reece to school, I reminded him of the rules for good behaviour. ‘There is no need to touch anyone,’ I said. ‘Then you won’t touch them in the wrong way. Listen to what Mrs Morrison and Miss Broom tell you. If you’re not sure about anything, ask. They will help you — that’s their job.’ For I wondered if some of the problem on Friday had been because Reece had become confused and anxious. His learning difficulties required that quite simple instructions had to be repeated, and although Mrs Morrison was very kind, she didn’t have a lot of experience, and I wondered if perhaps she hadn’t fully appreciated the extent of Reece’s difficulties. Not that I was making excuses for Reece’s behaviour on Friday — it was wholly unacceptable — but if he had felt very frustrated by a task, it was possible he had expressed his frustration in the way he had in the past: through anger and lashing out.
‘Now, the first thing we are going to do is apologize to Mrs Morrison,’ I said as we got out of the car. ‘You need to say you are sorry, and promise never to do anything like that again. Do you understand, Reece?’
‘Yes, Cathy, I will.’
‘Good boy.’
And he did. Mrs Morrison was waiting for us in reception and the first thing Reece said when he saw her was: ‘Sorry, Mrs Morrison, it won’t happen again.’ She was truly a lovely lady and had clearly put the incident behind her.
‘That’s a very good boy,’ she smiled. ‘Have you had a good weekend?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ Reece said. ‘I have.’
I smiled at Mrs Morrison. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, lowering my voice. ‘Is your hand all right?’ I noticed she still had a small plaster on the back of it.
She nodded. ‘The tetanus injection hurt more. I still can’t sit down.’ She patted her rump and laughed.
I said goodbye to Reece, and wished them both a nice day. Then I watched them disappear through the ‘welcome’ door before returning to my car.
With Reece now at school I was free to attend training, and I had signed up for a four-hour refresher first-aid course. Foster carers, like most professionals who work with children, are required to have a current first-aid certificate, which is renewed every three years. Mine was still current but the council was offering a short refresher course, so having seen Reece into school I drove straight to the church hall that was being used for the training. Inside I saw a couple of familiar faces and, helping myself to coffee and biscuits, I spent some time chatting and catching up before the course began at ten o’clock.
It was run by a nurse who was very bubbly and easy to listen to. As the course was a refresher, she assumed we had a basic knowledge, and she spent the morning session going over the essentials for the treatment of cuts, burns, scalds, poisoning, epileptic fits and CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) — i.e. mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and heart compressions. We had a thirty-minute break for lunch, in which I chatted to the other carers and thoroughly enjoyed the sandwiches with really tasty though not always identifiable fillings. They made a lovely change from the ham and cheese I usually dragged from the fridge for my lunch at home.
The afternoon session was spent practising what we had learnt in the morning on life-size dummies. We bandaged them, put their arms in slings, tended to their cuts, reassured them and then on our knees gave them mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. While we had a bit of a laugh trying to breathe air into the lifeless dummies, who stared up at us accusingly but fortunately couldn’t complain, I knew how important this technique was. About ten years previously I’d been in the high street when a man had collapsed in front of a shop. He had stopped breathing, and another lady and I had given him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until the ambulance had arrived. The paramedic said that without doubt we had saved his life. A year later I saw the man with his wife, out shopping. Although he obviously didn’t recognize me — he had been unconscious — it was quite emotional for me to see him. I knew that without this life-saving technique he wouldn’t have been out shopping with his wife.
When the course finished at two o’clock, and I was outside, I switched on my mobile. With great relief I saw that there weren’t any messages from the school. I had checked my mobile at lunchtime and taken heart that Reece must have had a good morning; now I was elated that all was well in the afternoon as well. I stopped by briefly at home to take something out of the freezer for dinner and the answerphone was silent too. Then I continued to school for three o’clock.
Parking a little way from the school in what had become my usual spot, I went up to the main gate and pressed the security buzzer. I gave my name and the gate released. I continued across the empty playground (the rest of the school wouldn’t come out for another twenty minutes); then I pressed the buzzer at the main door, and it was opened too. I waited for about five minutes in reception before Mrs Morrison and Reece appeared through the ‘welcome’ door. They were both smiling broadly.
‘He has done so well,’ Mrs Morrison said, ‘I have given him a good work sticker.’
‘I’ve done well,’ Reece repeated, proudly showing me the good work sticker on his sweatshirt.
‘Excellent,’ I said to them both, then to Mrs Morrison, ‘Thank you very much. I am so pleased Reece has settled.’
‘We had a minor incident in the playground,’ she continued. ‘When Reece got a bit overexcited in his play. But it was dealt with by the dinner ladies, and Reece understands now that he has to be more careful.’
I smiled. ‘Good.’ I was sure most boys had to be reminded to be careful at one time or another.
I praised Reece immensely as we said goodbye to Mrs Morrison and then left the school. I continued to praise him in the car as I drove home and Reece talked endlessly about his ‘done well day at school’.
‘There are only two more days in this term,’ I said, ‘and then it is the Easter holidays. We’re going away to the seaside for a few days.’
‘What seaside?’ he said.
‘One in Norfolk, which is on the east coast of England. We will go in the car with Lucy and Paula, and stay in a hotel.’
‘What seaside?’ he said again. I glanced in the rear-view mirror.
‘A seaside town in Norfolk,’ I said.
‘No, what seaside?’ he said louder and more insistent. Then it dawned on me that what Reece was really asking was ‘What is a seaside?’ presumably having no idea, having never been on holiday or seen the sea.
‘Do you mean what is a seaside?’ I asked.
‘Yeah.’ He nodded vigorously, so I explained. He wasn’t the first child I’d looked
after who had never been on holiday to the seaside. We live on an island, surrounded by sea, yet it’s incredible the number of deprived children who have never even made a day trip to the coast.
When Lucy and Paula came home Reece told them over and over again that he had ‘done well’ and we ‘was going to the seaside’. The girls praised Reece for having ‘done well’ at school, but eventually tired of having the description of the seaside I had given him repeated over and over again.
‘Can’t you buy him a toy seagull to keep him quiet?’ Lucy said at last. ‘All that squawking is doing my head in.’ I had told Reece that he would see birds called seagulls at the seaside, and he remembered seeing them on a Blue Peter television programme, and also the noise they had made, imitations of which he honed to perfection during the course of the evening.
I had high hopes when I said goodbye to Reece at school on Tuesday morning. He was still talking about his ‘done well’ day on Monday, and was looking forward to another ‘done well’ day today, as I was. I believed that the setback of the week before was about Reece reverting to learned behaviour when he’d had to cope with a new school, after so long out of school. Starting a new school is pretty stressful for the most able of children. I remember having to move house (and school) as a child myself and feeling very unsettled. How much worse was it for a child like Reece, who had been out of school for six months, moved homes five times and had a pretty traumatic start to life, so had nothing to build on?
At a little after 11.00 a.m. I was in the supermarket, pushing the trolley up and down the aisles to restock the cupboards at home, which seemed to empty faster than I could fill them, when my mobile went off, the ‘Blue Danube’ waltz ringing from my coat pocket. As I took out my mobile and pressed to accept the call, I saw that it was Reece’s school number that came up.
