by Cathy Glass
‘The care plan for Lucy is a Full Care Order,’ Stevie said, oblivious to my sentiment. ‘Then for a relative to look after her long-term, if there is one, or, if not, a long-term foster placement to match her cultural needs.’
I nodded. ‘Lucy would like to use the bus to go to school from next week,’ I said. ‘Is that all right with you?’
‘Yes. Why shouldn’t it be? She’s not likely to run away. She hasn’t got anywhere to run to.’
‘I just wanted to check with you first.’
‘Well, if that’s everything, can you take me up to see her now?’ Stevie said, putting her pen and notepad into her briefcase.
I stood and led the way out of the living room and upstairs to Lucy’s room, where I knocked on her bedroom door. ‘Lucy, Stevie wants to see you,’ I said, and opened her door a little. ‘Can she come in?’
‘No!’ Lucy said loudly. ‘She can’t!’
I glanced at Stevie, but opened the door slightly wider so I could see in. Lucy was sitting on her bed cuddling Mr Bunny. ‘She needs to see you, love,’ I said. ‘To make sure you’re OK.’
‘Tell her I’m OK,’ Lucy said rudely.
‘And I need to talk to you,’ Stevie added, over my shoulder.
‘Go away. I’m not talking to you,’ Lucy said.
‘Don’t be rude, love,’ I said. ‘Stevie only wants to help.’
‘I don’t want her help,’ Lucy said.
‘Suit yourself,’ Stevie retorted with a shrug. I think it was supposed to be a joke to defuse the atmosphere, but it didn’t work.
‘Bugger off!’ Lucy shouted.
‘Lucy!’ I cautioned. I felt embarrassed by her rudeness and, as her foster carer, responsible for her behaviour.
‘If you don’t want me to come in, you can come to the door,’ Stevie said.
‘No.’ Lucy said. ‘I’m not moving.’
Lucy could be very determined when she wanted to be, and I thought of her previous carers, Pat and Terry, who’d spent hours trying to talk her out of the bathroom and had then had to break down the door. It was clear that Lucy wasn’t going to come out or even come to the door, so I moved aside so that Stevie could see into the room and see Lucy.
‘Is there anything you need?’ Stevie asked from the open door.
‘No!’ Lucy said.
‘I’m trying to arrange contact for you to see your mother,’ Stevie said. Lucy didn’t reply. ‘I’m also trying to trace your father and your uncles to see if they can offer you a permanent home.’
While all this was correct social-work practice, I thought that mentioning another move now, when Lucy had only been with me a week, could be very unsettling for her.
‘Don’t care!’ Lucy said. ‘Do what you want. You will anyway.’
Again, I felt embarrassed by Lucy’s behaviour, although I appreciated that she was angry and frustrated. ‘Lucy, you’re a big girl,’ I tried from where I stood. ‘Try talking to Stevie properly.’
There was no reply. Then Stevie said, ‘All right, I’ve seen you. I’ll be in touch. Take care.’
She closed Lucy’s door, went along the landing and headed downstairs. I followed her down, but as we neared the bottom a loud crash came from Lucy’s room. I shot back upstairs while Stevie went to fetch her briefcase from the living room. I gave a perfunctory knock on Lucy’s door and went in. Lucy was sitting on the bed with Mr Bunny clutched to her chest, having overturned the table. Her expression was one of anger, but her eyes glistened as though she was about to cry. ‘I’ll be with you in a second,’ I said.
I quickly went to the top of the stairs. Stevie had fetched her briefcase from the living room and was ready to leave. ‘Lucy’s upset. Can you let yourself out?’ I asked.
‘Will do,’ Stevie said. Then without any trace of irony she added, ‘Have a good weekend,’ and let herself out.
Chapter Sixteen
Testing the Boundaries
Adrian and Paula appeared on the landing, wondering what the noise was. ‘It’s all right. Lucy’s table fell over,’ I said. ‘I’m going to have a chat with her now and then I’ll make us some dinner.’ We’d been fostering long enough for them to know that a loud noise coming from the child’s bedroom and a chat meant that the child was upset and angry and needed me. They both returned to their bedrooms and I returned to Lucy’s room. The light was on and I sat on her bed, close, but not quite touching. She was now holding Mr Bunny in a sitting position on her lap facing her, as though she’d been talking to him. Neither of us spoke for a few moments, and then I said, ‘Stevie says you can start going to school by bus next week, so that’s good news.’
Lucy shrugged, as though it no longer mattered.
There was silence again and then I said, ‘You know, it’s all right to be angry and upset sometimes, but it’s better to talk if you can. I think there’s a lot going on in your thoughts that needs to come out. Have you tried talking to your social workers?’
‘There’s no point,’ Lucy said firmly, her expression hard. ‘They don’t listen.’
‘I’m sure the social workers do listen,’ I said, ‘although they may not always be able to do as you would like them to.’ Many children in care want to go home and blame their social workers for not making this happen, although I didn’t think this was the reason for Lucy’s hostility.
Lucy shrugged dismissively. ‘Mr Bunny thinks the same as me, don’t you?’ she said, looking at him. ‘He doesn’t talk to social workers, either. He’s always with me when they visit. He was before. He knows they don’t help me.’
‘Mr Bunny has been with you a long time,’ I said. Lucy nodded. ‘So what do you think Mr Bunny would tell me if he could?’ I asked. Children can sometimes share their worries by using a favourite doll or toy as a mouthpiece – to say what they can’t.
Lucy sat very still for some moments, her eyes still glistening with unshed tears as she concentrated on Mr Bunny. ‘Do you think there’s something he’d like to tell me?’ I prompted.
There was more silence and then, still looking at Mr Bunny, Lucy said: ‘He’d tell you that social workers came to see me lots of times, but they didn’t help me. He would say I was often hungry and cold, and I had to do all the washing in cold water. He’d say my aunts and stepdad were horrible to me, and that I wanted to live with Sammy, or someone else, but they didn’t talk to me. He’d say they talked to my aunts and stepdad, but not to me. I was so unhappy I wanted to die.’
A cold shiver ran down my spine at Lucy’s last words. This is when it would have helped to have known more of Lucy’s past. ‘You must have been very unhappy,’ I said gently. ‘Who is Sammy?’
‘He was my friend at school,’ Lucy said, concentrating on Mr Bunny. ‘Sammy lived near me. He had social workers who helped him. I wanted them to help me. But when they came to my house they believed my stepdad and his girlfriend. They were good liars. Mr Bunny knows, don’t you?’ She gave Mr Bunny a little jerk so he nodded his head. It was pitiful and touching. I moved a little closer to Lucy and slipped my arm around her waist.
‘Does Mr Bunny know how old you were when this happened?’ I asked, trying to fit this into the jigsaw of Lucy’s past.
‘I was six,’ Lucy said with conviction. ‘I know because I was so bad that year I didn’t get any Christmas presents. I didn’t have any birthday presents either, because I was bad.’
‘You weren’t bad,’ I said, horrified by this cruel treatment.
‘I was,’ Lucy said. ‘My aunt said Father Christmas wouldn’t come because I’d been telling lies about her at school. But I didn’t. Mr Bunny knows I didn’t. I told Sammy because I was so unhappy and he told my teacher. It wasn’t my fault. The social worker came and told my aunt to get some lotion for my nits. She was so angry when the social worker went. But then she took me to school and was friends with my teacher. I thought they were ganging up on me, so I didn’t tell anyone again. And because I told, we had to move and I lost my only friend, Sammy. There were more socia
l workers after that, but no one helped me, so I don’t talk to them any more. There’s no point.’
What a shocking indictment of our child-protection services, I thought. All that social services involvement, on and off for much of Lucy’s life, while she waited for someone to rescue her – and no one had.
‘Didn’t any of the social workers speak to you by yourself, away from your aunt or stepdad?’ I asked.
‘No. I would have asked them to take me away if they had. I knew I couldn’t live with my mum, but she wasn’t horrible to me. She just couldn’t look after me. I thought that when I came into care it would be better, but it’s not, is it Mr Bunny?’
‘Isn’t it?’ I asked, shocked. ‘It should be. What’s wrong?’
Lucy gave a little shrug and I held her closer.
‘If you can tell me what’s wrong, I’ll try to put it right,’ I said.
She gave another shrug. ‘I know foster carers have hot water and they do my washing. And I have nice clothes and no nits, but I still keep having to move. It’s like no one wants me. I don’t have a family of my own, and no one loves me.’
My eyes welled. I felt so sorry for her, but pity wouldn’t help her. ‘You will have your own family one day,’ I said positively. ‘Stevie is going to find you one. Do you remember I explained that when the judge makes his or her decision – in about a year – you will go to live with your forever family? I know it will mean another move, but it will be the last one.’
‘I guess,’ Lucy said despondently. Then, addressing Mr Bunny, she said: ‘At least I’ll always have you to love me, won’t I?’ She gave the soft toy another little shake so he nodded his head. The scene was so tragic I could have wept.
There wasn’t much more I could say to Lucy, other than reassure her as I had been doing and also concentrate on the present. I suggested she come downstairs to help me with dinner. I didn’t want her sitting alone in her room while she was feeling so low, and also I was trying to involve her in the preparation of her meals and hopefully improve her eating. Lucy did come down with me and helped – peeling and chopping vegetables and then laying the table – but she didn’t eat any more. In fact, she ate less. I thought this might be due to the previous upset, as she was subdued for most of the evening. At bedtime I asked her if there was anything else she or Mr Bunny wanted to tell me, but she said no. I tucked her into bed, kissed her goodnight and went downstairs where I sat in the living room and wrote up my log notes. When I’d finished, I looked through the paperwork Stevie had left.
The placement forms were as I’d expected and included, among other things, the form that gave me the legal right to foster Lucy on behalf of the local authority. The essential information forms, which Stevie said would give me what I needed to know, were a disappointment, with many of the information boxes left blank. Lucy’s full name and date of birth were given, together with her mother’s name, date of birth and ethnicity as white British, but there was no other information. The box for Lucy’s father’s details was even barer, without so much as a name, but it did give his ethnicity as Thai. Under the ‘Other Relatives’ section it stated that Lucy had two uncles who were in their thirties and a great-aunt, but that they weren’t known to Lucy, and there were no names, dates of birth or contact details. Lucy’s doctor was given as her last – when she was at her previous carers’ – and I’d register her with my doctor soon.
I read that Lucy had had a medical nine months previously, the test results of which were normal, although she was in the bottom percentile for her height and weight, and it was noted that she had a poor appetite. There were no details of her birth, and under ‘Education’ it gave the contact details of her present secondary school and stated that Lucy had missed a lot of primary schooling and was therefore three years behind with her learning. All of which I knew. The next box was headed: ‘Does the child have any behavioural issues?’ and the answer inserted was ‘Yes’. It then stated that a foster carer had noted that Lucy had difficulty expressing her emotions in an acceptable way, and could easily become angry and aggressive. It didn’t say which carer had made this observation and it didn’t matter. From what I’d seen so far, I thought that the second part of this statement might have some truth in it – Lucy could fly off the handle – but the first part certainly wasn’t true. Lucy had just spent half an hour talking to me, so she could express her emotions in an acceptable way given time and encouragement.
The care plan was included in these forms and was as I expected: the social services would apply to the court for a Full Care Order, and then a suitable relative or foster carer would look after Lucy permanently. What was most striking in these essential information forms was the condensed bullet-pointed history it gave of the social services’ involvement. It began when concerns had first been raised, when Lucy was six months old, and continued to the present and her placement with me. I couldn’t remember ever having fostered a child before where there’d been so much social services involvement, with so little result. I knew it wouldn’t be the fault of any one person, but I felt the social services held a collective responsibility for monitoring a case, rather than intervening.
I finished reading and closed the folder with a heartfelt sigh. The poor kid, I thought. Little wonder Lucy felt no one cared for her or loved her; no one had.
On Saturday morning, with no school, we had a more leisurely start to the day, and as usual I made a cooked breakfast, although Lucy only wanted one rasher of bacon and half a slice of toast. I then helped Lucy with her homework – there was no pressure; she’d asked for my help – while Adrian did his homework. After which Lucy, Paula and I went supermarket shopping while Adrian went to his friend’s to work on a school project. At the supermarket the girls decided I should push the trolley and call out the items from my list and they would load the trolley. I also told Lucy to select anything she fancied from the shelves. I wouldn’t normally have given this invitation to the children I fostered, as we’d have ended up with a trolley full of sweets, biscuits and ice cream and no fruit and vegetables. But I wanted Lucy to have as much say in what she ate as possible, and I was pleased when she selected a bagel from the fresh-bread counter and also a packet of honeycomb cereal. It was a start.
Halfway round the supermarket we came to the aisles dedicated to foods from around the world – shelves of labels from exotic countries: Indian spices, poppadoms, naan and ready-made curry sauces; Chinese noodles, egg-fried rice and sweet-and-sour sauce; Mexican fajitas, tortillas and tacos; and then we came to an assortment of Thai foods.
‘Let’s make some Thai food for dinner tonight,’ I suggested, hoping it didn’t sound too contrived. I didn’t want to make Lucy feel self-conscious by stating why I was suggesting we ate Thai food. I didn’t have to!
‘My social worker’s been talking to you,’ Lucy said easily, with a theatrical sigh. ‘She told my last carer I needed to know more about Thailand.’ Then turning to Paula she explained: ‘My dad is from Thailand, but I don’t know him or anything about his country, and my social worker says I should.’ She rolled her eyes upwards in exasperation and both girls giggled. So much for political correctness, I thought.
‘We’ll discover Thai food together,’ I said enthusiastically. ‘It’ll be fun. I’ve eaten in Thai restaurants, but I’ve never cooked Thai. We’ll make something easy to begin with.’
‘Isn’t it very spicy?’ Paula asked, not a great fan of highly spiced food.
‘It needn’t be,’ I said.
The girls stood either side of me as we surveyed the bewildering assortment of packets, tins and jars. Then I spotted a holder containing leaflets with recipes for Thai food, with a sign beneath telling customers to help themselves. The girls and I began flicking through the recipe leaflets until we came to a Thai stir-fry. ‘I’ve got a wok,’ I said. ‘A stir-fry is easy and fun to make.’
‘Yes, I like stir-fry,’ Paula said.
‘So do I,’ Lucy agreed.
Holding the leaf
let between us, we gathered together the ingredients needed and then completed the rest of our shopping. That evening, all four of us, including Adrian, made the stir-fry, and working together as one family was fun and rewarding in itself. I would like to say that Lucy ate heartily that night, having chosen and cooked the food, but she didn’t. While she’d been happy preparing the food, as before, when it came to eating it her anxieties returned and she ate very little. I knew from my research that this behaviour was typical of many who suffered from eating disorders – they are happy to prepare and cook the food, but not eat it. I was worried, and decided that if Lucy’s eating didn’t improve soon I’d put it to Stevie that we should seek medical advice sooner than she’d suggested.
That evening, Pat, Lucy’s previous foster carer, telephoned as promised, but Lucy refused to come to the phone.
‘Are you sure you won’t speak to Pat?’ I asked Lucy.
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t take it personally,’ I explained to Pat. ‘Lucy’s had a lot of changes in her life and is feeling a bit rejected right now.’
‘Not by us, I hope,’ Pat said defensively. ‘It wasn’t our fault she had to move.’
‘I know, and I’ve explained that to Lucy. She doesn’t blame you.’ But of course, deep down, as far as Lucy was concerned, having to move from Pat and Terry’s was just another rejection.
Lucy was in the living room and out of earshot, so I took the opportunity to see if I could find out more information about Lucy that might help me look after her better. ‘Pat, I know Lucy didn’t talk to you much,’ I said, ‘but I understand you raised concerns about her eating. Stevie mentioned it to me, as I have concerns too.’
‘Yes, I took Lucy to my doctor,’ Pat said. ‘But when I told Stevie she went on at me something awful. Apparently I should have got her permission first.’
‘What did the doctor say?’
‘That Lucy might be borderline anorexic, and that we should try to talk to her about her feelings. But Lucy didn’t want to talk to us. How do you get on with Stevie?’
