by Angela Hart
A white two-parent permanent family is needed, living in the local area, so contact with extended family can take place. She is very close to her grandmother. Ideally she should be the youngest child by about three years, or the only child.
Contact: Supervised contact with birth parent to continue, decreasing to four times a year; weekly contact unsupervised with grandmother to continue.
Status: Full Care Order.
Generally, there is desperate shortage of potential adoptive parents and foster carers, and there was not a rush of carers coming forward to offer a home to Maria. This was a problem, as Social Services had already exhausted all the contacts they had on their books, so they were forced to consider the possibility of looking out of the area.
When Babs got wind of this, she hit the roof, got a solicitor involved and told the local authority: ‘If necessary, we’ll take legal action to stop you moving Maria out of this area.’
Although she couldn’t look after Maria full time herself because of Stanley’s poor health and whatever the historic ‘issue’ was that prevented Maria from being allowed to live with her grandparents, it was understandable that they didn’t want her to go and live somewhere miles away, where they might only see her a handful of times a year, if that.
Babs’s threat to take legal action left Social Services stumped. They couldn’t find anyone suitable locally, and now they couldn’t move Maria anywhere else without having to fight a legal battle that would potentially cost the local authority a great deal of money, and which they might well end up losing.
It was at that point that Jonathan and I were asked if we would consider being matched with Maria long term. Of course, this had crossed our minds in the circumstances. We cared very deeply for Maria and it seemed exactly the right thing to do, not least because Tom and Dillon were both approaching sixteen and would be moving out shortly, leaving room for us to take in other teenagers. Until now Jonathan and I had not pushed ourselves forward, as we were repeatedly reminded by Social Services that they would prefer us to foster another teenager who would benefit from our specialist training.
‘What do you think?’ Jonathan asked me, when we had some time to ourselves to talk about it. ‘It makes sense. Shall we do it?’
‘Well, we said from the outset that we’d be happy for Maria to stay with us for as long as she wanted to be here,’ I said. ‘And I still feel the same way. I really would like to be able to help her to become the sort of person she so clearly has the potential to be.’
‘I feel exactly the same way,’ Jonathan agreed.
Our conversation was that brief, and when I told Social Services we were happy to keep Maria on, I think it’s fair to say they snatched our hands off.
All that remained was for me to tell Maria that we would like her to stay with us until she had finished school. She was still only ten and in her last year of primary school, so this was a long-term commitment and I felt nervous when I prepared to pass on the news. It was one thing Maria wanting to stay with us until our next camping trip, but how would she feel about staying for the next six years?
‘You’re joking,’ she said when I told her the plan. There was no reaction on her face at first; I think she was completely surprised.
‘No, I’m not joking. What do you think?’
She ran into my arms and hugged me, and then she began dancing around the room singing, ‘I’m stay-ing. I’m stay-ing.’
For some children, having to move from one foster home to another can seem like an endless journey of rejection. It doesn’t matter how many times it’s explained to them that the reason they’re being moved on again has nothing to do with them; they still believe it has, particularly if they’ve come from a home where they feel unloved and unlovable. I think Maria had always believed that no one wanted her – after all, even the grandparents who loved her couldn’t have her to live with them permanently. When she knew that we wanted her to be part of our extended family and that she was going to be staying with us until she was old enough to live independently, I think that, perhaps for the first time ever, she considered the possibility that she might not be totally unlikeable after all.
I had already explained to Maria that Tom and Dillon were soon to be placed in supportive lodgings nearby, which were shared houses or flats supervised by Social Services, provided in those days as a stepping stone for foster children once they reached sixteen. One of the first things Maria asked when she knew she was staying was whether the five of us could still go on the caravan trip that we had planned.
I reassured her that we could fit in the weekend break before the boys moved out, as that had always been the plan, and not long afterwards we had an absolutely brilliant time at a campsite on the coast. Maria tried her hand at wakeboarding and loved it, commenting very memorably that she’d had the ‘best time of my life’.
On our way home in the caravan Tom and Dillon asked if they could still come for Sunday lunch sometimes, once they had moved out. Of course I said yes, as this is something I always encourage the foster children to do, and Maria cheered. It was wonderful to see that she’d formed a bond with Tom and Dillon and seemed so content. The weekend before the boys moved out we had a farewell meal, as we always do, which everyone enjoyed. Our household would not be the same without the boys and I knew Maria would miss them, but nevertheless we would still be able to give her as much security and continuity in her life as possible. It was the very least she deserved, and Jonathan and I were delighted to have Maria with us long-term, at last, without the uncertainty of any further court decisions hanging over us.
29
‘It makes it all worthwhile’
We all missed Tom and Dillon. The house seemed very quiet and there was a lot less cooking to be done, except of course on a Sunday, when they usually joined us for lunch, often along with my mum. Both boys were doing well in the supportive lodgings and had left school and embarked on college courses, which they were thoroughly enjoying. If anybody asked me if I was sorry to see them go I found myself saying: ‘Yes and no’. Of course I missed having them around, but my overriding feeling was one of pride that Jonathan and I had helped get them to the stage where they could stand on their own two feet and take on responsibilities. That is our job, and we see it as a positive when children grow up, become more independent and do well for themselves.
Before we took in any other teenagers or children, Jonathan and I decided it would be nice to take Maria on a holiday abroad. This would finally give her the break Social Services had agreed they would pay for after Maria didn’t come to Portugal with us when she was younger, due to her habit of running away.
Before we mentioned the idea to Maria herself, I rang Maria’s latest social worker, Emily.
‘We’d like to take Maria on holiday to Menorca,’ I told her. ‘She always loves the weekends and holidays we have in the caravan. So we thought it would be nice for her to have a real holiday, somewhere where the sea is warm and sunshine is pretty much guaranteed. But I just wanted to see what you thought about it first, before we make a formal request for permission from Social Services.’
‘It sounds like a great idea,’ Emily said. ‘I know all the other kids you’ve taken on holiday have thoroughly enjoyed themselves and had experiences they might never otherwise have had. I’m sure Maria would enjoy it too.’
‘I’m sure she would,’ I agreed. ‘The other thing is, you weren’t working with us at the time, but when Maria came to live with us when she was nine, Social Services were going to pay for her to go to Portugal with us. That didn’t work out, because she was going through a phase of running off and it was deemed unsafe, but we were promised Social Services would defer the payment until next time.’
‘Leave it with me,’ Emily said. ‘I’ll put in a request, in principle, for Maria to go on holiday with you and for Social Services to pay her share of the cost of flights and accommodation.’
When Emily phoned back a couple of days later, she spoke to
Jonathan.
‘Emily said it’s OK for Maria to come to Menorca with us,’ he told me later that morning, as he handed me a cup of coffee. ‘We just have to let her know the details when we have them. Unfortunately, though, Social Services are now saying that they won’t pay anything towards it. Emily said to tell you she’s sorry, but there’s nothing she can do as they don’t remember ever promising to pay for her holiday. She said she has put all this in a letter to us.’
‘What did you say?’ I asked him, feeling annoyed on Maria’s behalf.
‘I told her not to worry and that we’d pay for it ourselves.’
Jonathan was frowning, and I caught his hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Of course you did,’ I said. ‘As if we wouldn’t. We promised we’d take her, so we will. It’s just a shame Social Services don’t feel the same way about their promise.’
Jonathan’s frown turned into a smile and I knew that he was thinking the same thoughts as me. There was no point in wasting time or energy on arguing with Social Services about their broken promise. Now it was time to look forward, not back.
Jonathan and I have always been happy to cover the additional costs incurred when we take children on holiday. Social Services sometimes give a small extra allowance, and we’ve had the odd occasion when relatives have contributed, even if that has simply meant providing some extra spending money or just a few pounds for souvenirs. Generally, though, Jonathan and I cover the cost of holidays ourselves. It’s lucky we have our business, which earns us a comfortable, regular income and fits very well around our fostering commitments. Our view is that as long as we have enough to get by on ourselves, we are very happy to spend what we can afford on the foster children. With no children of our own, we don’t have to think about leaving an inheritance behind. Life is for living, and if we can share what with have with the children we foster, then all our lives are enriched.
‘Maria’s going to love Menorca,’ Jonathan said. ‘Imagine what she’ll think when she feels how warm and soft the sand is there, and sees the colour of the sea.’
I was sitting with Maria and Jonathan at the kitchen table having dinner when Jonathan asked her, ‘How would you feel about coming on holiday with Angela and me, to Menorca?’
‘Are you serious?’
Maria looked at him steadily, her head tilted to one side, then turned to look at me as she asked, ‘To Menorca? Is that Spain?’
‘Yes. Well, not mainland Spain,’ I told her. ‘We thought it would be nice to go to Menorca, which is one of a group of Spanish islands called the Balearic Islands, in the Mediterranean Sea. We’ll show you on a map after supper. It’s got a really . . .’
But Maria was no longer listening to what I was saying. Pushing her chair back from the table, she jumped up and flung her arms around my neck, then did the same to Jonathan, almost deafening us with shouts of, ‘We’re going to Menorca!’
‘First, though,’ Jonathan said, when she had calmed down enough to eat the rest of her dinner, ‘we need to get you a passport.’
In fact, getting a passport for Maria proved to be fraught with difficulty, not least because Christine had changed her daughter’s surname unofficially twice, so that the name Maria was known by at that time wasn’t the name that was on her birth certificate. In the end, we had to get a letter from Social Services explaining the discrepancy. And then we were good to go.
Jonathan was right: Maria did love Menorca. She loved flying in an aeroplane for the first time, she was brimming with excitement on the taxi ride from Menorca Airport to the apartment complex we were staying at, and she was ecstatic when she saw the swimming pool and the sea.
When we settled into the holiday, Maria enjoyed being able to choose what we did a lot of time, and not having to share our attention. She told us she missed Tom and Dillon, and I think this was true, as when they subsequently came to visit us she always looked forward to it and thoroughly enjoyed seeing them. However, she wasn’t exactly pining for them, and I think the benefits of being an ‘only child’ for a while really quite appealed to her, especially on holiday.
The apartment we’d booked turned out to be even nicer than it looked in the photographs. It was on the first floor of a low-rise, whitewashed block and had two bedrooms, a small kitchen, a wet-room bathroom and a living room with a balcony that looked out on to the shared swimming pool and to the harbour beyond.
It was a real pleasure to see Maria enjoying herself, and although she did have a couple of sulks while were there, there were no temper tantrums, and no running away – that had gradually become a thing of the past, thank goodness. Every morning, after we’d eaten our breakfast in the apartment, we walked down to the harbour and along the sea wall to a beach. The water was warm and so clear that you could see the fish swimming around your feet.
On the second day we were there, we bought Maria a mask and snorkel in a little supermarket near the beach and, after Jonathan taught her how to use them, she spent the rest of that morning – and almost every other morning for the next two weeks – floating face down in the shallow water, totally absorbed by the life on the seabed. Then we either went back to the apartment for lunch or ate in one of the many cafes that lined the narrow road beside the water. After lunch, we sat in the shade and then swam in the pool.
Whenever we took children on holiday with us, Jonathan and I always insisted, ‘No sunscreen, no sun’. It was a rule we were particularly careful to stick to with Maria, who had fair skin that would have burned very quickly. She sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward every time I handed her the plastic bottle of factor-30 sunscreen and asked her to apply a fresh layer, but she never refused to put it on.
Maria made friends easily with the other children staying at the complex, and Jonathan and I were sitting by the pool one afternoon, watching her splashing around with some of them, when a shadow fell across my sun lounger and I looked up to see a woman standing beside me. I didn’t recognise her until she smiled, and then I realised it was a woman I had seen talking to Maria in the pool a few minutes earlier.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ she said, ‘but you are Angela and Jonathan, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I replied, returning her smile and leaning back slightly so that Jonathan could see her too.
‘Well, I just wanted to say that the little girl – Maria – was telling me what fantastic foster carers you are and how lucky she is to be able to live with you.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ I said, surprised by the lump that suddenly seemed to have formed in my throat.
‘Anyway, I expect she’s told you that herself,’ the woman continued. ‘But I was so struck by the positive way she talked about you, I just wanted to let you know what she’d said. She was telling me about all the nice things you do with her and that, although she wasn’t very happy before she was taken into care, she likes her life now. And she thinks Menorca must be the best place in the whole world!’
‘We like it too, don’t we Jonathan?’ I laughed.
‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Thank you. It was nice of you to think of letting us know what Maria said.’ And from the way he cleared his throat as he spoke, I realised that he was as affected as I was by what the woman had told us.
It was interesting that Maria had been open about the fact we were foster carers. A lot of children in her position don’t want to reveal any personal details about themselves, especially not the fact that they’ve been taken into care. If asked, ‘Is that your mum and dad?’ most would probably say, ‘Yes,’ and leave it at that. Similarly, Jonathan and I wouldn’t ever correct someone who referred to one of the children as ‘your son’ or ‘your daughter’.
What made it even more surprising, however, was the fact that Maria hadn’t ever said anything like that to us. There had been several occasions in the past when she made a point of telling us that we weren’t her family and never would be – a statement that was usually made in response to us asking her to do something she didn’t want to do, and that was invari
ably followed by something along the lines of, ‘So you can’t make me.’ Jonathan and I knew Maria said such things more in the hope of getting her own way than to cause us hurt, but nevertheless we were still quite taken aback by what the woman said. It was wonderful, in fact, to hear what Maria had told her about us.
‘It makes it all worthwhile,’ I said to Jonathan that night.
Maria was fast asleep and we were sitting on the balcony chatting.
‘It does indeed. I don’t think I’ve ever been paid such a big compliment!’
He was positively beaming, and we both agreed that taking on Maria long-term had been exactly the right decision.
30
‘You don’t care about me!’
Maria had finally had her ears pierced, for her eleventh birthday, which was something Social Services ran past Christine, as a courtesy. Thankfully she agreed without a fuss – unfortunately she still tried to criticise Jonathan and me and cause trouble sometimes, despite the fact she no longer had the final say on any decisions relating to Maria’s care.
Maria was delighted to have pierced ears and Jonathan and I were pleased too, as we felt that, at eleven, she was now old enough to look after them and cope with having pierced ears. However, Maria then decided she wanted to have a second piercing in each ear. She had started secondary school by now and had made a new set of friends, which I was very pleased to see. However, she claimed that ‘everybody’ in her group of friends had two lots of piercings, and she asked me about this one morning over breakfast.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I think you’re too young for that.’
‘But that’s not fair!’
‘Maria, I am not changing my mind.’
She was furious, and she then asked Jonathan the same question. To Maria’s fury he gave exactly the same response, which set her off on a rant she had had in the past, about how we were ‘telepathic’ as we both knew what the other was saying.