The Girl with the Suitcase Read online

  The Girl with the Suitcase

  A Girl Without a Home and the Foster Carer Who Changes her Life Forever

  ANGELA HART

  Contents

  1. ‘She’s been in several other foster homes’

  2. ‘They call me Little Miss Trouble’

  3. ‘I don’t like taking my clothes to my mum’s’

  4. ‘I always have ants in my pants!’

  5. ‘It’s as if the paperwork has been muddled up!’

  6. ‘Somebody call an ambulance!’

  7. ‘Why does this always happen to me?’

  8. ‘You could find yourself in a children’s home’

  9. ‘You’ll be a foster care kid forever’

  10. ‘I love buying new shoes!’

  11. ‘Count to ten, Angela!’

  12. ‘Reach for the stars, Grace!’

  13. ‘She’s a harum-scarum kid’

  14. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  15. ‘You look so full of life’

  16. ‘It’s not my fault!’

  17. ‘She doesn’t care!’

  18. ‘It wasn’t comfy sleeping on the sofa’

  19. ‘You won’t believe what Grace just said’

  20. ‘It’s just how my brain works’

  21. ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted’

  22. ‘You are not her foster mum any more’

  23. ‘I’ve made a lot of mistakes’

  Epilogue

  1

  ‘She’s been in several other foster homes’

  ‘Back to reality,’ my husband Jonathan remarked, as we carried our bags into the house. We’d managed to snatch a couple of nights away together by the sea, after unexpectedly finding ourselves with an empty house. A teenage boy we’d been looking after had moved on sooner than we’d anticipated and, by coincidence, the two other children we were fostering were both spending a few days with their relatives during the school summer holidays.

  ‘Do you think it’s OK for us to go away?’ I’d said to my friend Joanne, who was also a foster carer. ‘I mean, it’s mid-week. Should we be doing this?’

  ‘Don’t be daft!’ she laughed. ‘Opportunities like this don’t come around very often. It’s not a long holiday or even a long weekend. When was the last time just the two of you managed to get away for a couple of days?’

  Jonathan and I did take regular holidays whenever we could, and ever since we’d started fostering we’d taken whichever children we had staying with us on our annual week or fortnight away.

  ‘Just us, with no kids? I honestly can’t remember. Must be eight or nine years? Maybe longer.’

  ‘I rest my case.’ Joanne smiled. ‘Just notify Social Services – book the B & B and tell them where you will be staying. As long as everyone has your contact details in case of an emergency, what’s the problem? You’re only going to be a few hours’ drive away.’

  I tentatively took my friend’s advice, though I still felt uneasy about it and couldn’t help fretting to Jonathan. ‘What if a child needs us and we’re not here? And what if Social Services urgently need our help and we have to say no? And there’s the shop. Do you really think we can . . .?’

  Jonathan reassured me that our assistant Barbara could easily run our florist shop for a couple of days, especially as my mum had offered to help out too. It had been my parents’ business before my father died, and my mum had run the shop on her own for a while before handing the reins to Jonathan and me. She wasn’t getting any younger, of course, but Mum was still a very capable woman, and she was always willing to roll up her sleeves if we needed any help. As luck would have it, we only had one small wedding in the diary that weekend, which was unusual for July. This meant Mum and Barbara could easily deal with the preparations for the church flowers, bouquets and corsages. We’d be back on the Thursday evening, when there would be plenty of time for us to take over and organise our regular deliveries too.

  ‘There’s absolutely nothing to worry about,’ Jonathan told me. ‘Everything is manageable.’

  ‘I know you’re right,’ I sighed. ‘But we’re always needed here. I feel kind of selfish going away on our own.’

  A few years after we started fostering, Jonathan and I began specialist training so we could take in children, and particularly teenagers, with complex needs. Now the majority of the children who came to us – often from another placement that had broken down, and frequently in an emergency situation – needed specialist care of some description. Demand for specialist carers always outstripped supply in our part of the country and I felt a huge burden of responsibility towards the social workers who struggled on a daily basis to find homes for kids in crisis.

  It was Jonathan’s turn to sigh. ‘Look, what you say is true and part of me feels the same. I know we’re needed here, but we need a break like everybody else. We haven’t had an easy time of it lately, and every holiday we’ve taken for years has been with the kids.’

  I couldn’t argue.

  ‘Anyhow,’ he went on, ‘I bet you a pound to a penny the phone will ring the minute we step foot back in the house. And guess what? It’ll be Social Services and we’ll be plunged straight back into the thick of a new challenge. We’ll be ready for it, because we’ll have recharged our batteries.’

  I had to agree. The change of scene would do us both good, and I knew Jonathan was tired out and needed to relax. More often than not he was the one who opened up the shop, went to the wholesalers, ran around making the deliveries and closed up at the end of the day. He never grumbled; in fact it was the opposite. He would tell anyone who would listen what a good team we made, and how lucky we were to work together and combine the running of the shop with fostering. Whenever we’d had broken sleep or had been up half the night dealing with one of the kids, Jonathan was the one who sprang out of bed at the crack of dawn without a word of complaint. Disturbed nights had been happening often lately. The two girls who were living with us both had a lot of problems, and in recent times we’d also looked after a succession of children who came to us for short stays, or respite care, as it’s known. Most proved incredibly challenging; for example, the teenage boy who’d just moved on had been in trouble with the police for stealing cars and joyriding. He never came home on time, and sometimes not at all. We’d lost so much sleep during his stay I felt wiped out.

  Needless to say, I was very pleased I had finally agreed to go to the seaside. Jonathan and I had a wonderful time, soaking up some lovely sunshine, strolling along the coast and eating fish and chips out of paper trays. With the sea breeze in my hair I felt like I didn’t have a care in the world – well, apart from knowing I had to face the dreaded scales at my slimming club the following week!

  ‘We’re so lucky,’ I said as we watched the sun set. ‘I feel blessed. We have a privileged life, don’t we?’

  Jonathan put his arm around me. ‘We do. We certainly do.’ I didn’t have to spell it out for Jonathan to know exactly what I meant by ‘privileged’. We didn’t have fancy cars or designer clothes and we didn’t live a lavish lifestyle in any way at all. It was the old estate car and a caravan for us; my wardrobe was full of comfy jeans, ‘flatties’ and bargains from my favourite outlet store and catalogues; and the restaurant we ate at the most was Pizza Hut, because all the kids loved it.

  But we were privileged. We were trusted to look after kids who had fallen through the cracks of society. Social Services may have picked them up, but they were still in desperate need of rescuing. When we first began fostering, Jonathan and I naively thought we could save these children by simply loving them and giving them a safe, warm home. For this we thought they would be grateful, and that they’d want to live with us. We soon saw that there w
as a lot more to it than that, and that dealing with the families they pined for would be a big part of the job.

  We learned quickly that one of the keys to fostering success is to show each child you believe in them. Kids in care have most likely been rejected and neglected rather than championed and cherished, as children ought to be. Often, nobody has ever believed in them, throughout their lifetime. With their life in our hands, for however long that may be, it’s our job to show the most damaged and dejected kids we believe in them wholeheartedly, and that their future does not have to be dictated by their past. Once they trust us and believe in us too, fantastic things can happen. It’s such an honour to be given the chance to change a life; I can’t imagine any other job could be so rewarding.

  We had a good journey back from the coast and even managed to catch up with some old friends who lived en route and had invited us to drop in. I felt thoroughly relaxed as we sat on their patio, catching up on all their news. We didn’t stay long; time was moving on and, despite having had such a good break, I was ready to go home. As soon as we’d left the seaside I’d started planning what needed to be done. The washing was the priority. There were our clothes from the trip and I wanted to strip all the beds and have the spare room ready for the next child to move into, whoever it may be. That’s always a priority; if a child arrives at short notice, I want them to feel as welcome as possible, and having a clean, fresh bedroom is very important. The only thing I don’t do is choose the bedding, as I like to give them the opportunity to pick whichever duvet set they like.

  Back home, the phone rang before we had even unpacked the car. I was in the kitchen, reaching for the kettle, and Jonathan was bringing in our picnic rug and cool box. ‘What was it you said before we went away?’ I smiled, raising my eyebrows and nodding towards the phone.

  ‘I bet you a pound to a penny the phone will ring the minute we step foot back in the house . . .’ Jonathan replied.

  ‘And guess what?’

  ‘We’ll be plunged straight back into the thick of it!’ we said in unison.

  Jonathan held out his hand, as if for his imaginary prize winnings, and I answered the call. Sure enough, it was a social worker asking if we could take in a child at short notice.

  ‘I hope we can,’ I said. Jonathan nodded his head in approval and gave me an encouraging smile. We’d been passed to take in up to three children, and if we had a spare room we always did our best to help.

  Normally it would be our support social worker, Jess, who contacted us, as all our placements went through her. There was invariably a list of children who were waiting for specialist placements pinned up on a board in her office. However, she wasn’t working that day and it was another supervising social worker I’d never met before who called. Mrs Chambers was very well spoken and she talked quickly and in quite a brisk, business-like tone, explaining that the child who needed a placement was from a neighbouring authority.

  ‘You and your husband sound perfect for this young girl. There’s nobody available in her region. Can I give your number to the social worker in charge of the case? I’ve heard tremendous things about you and I really hope you can help.’

  The compliment was unexpected and I felt a rush of pride. It’s always a boost to receive praise, though on this occasion I also found myself feeling slightly anxious. I’d learned from experience that kind words from a social worker you don’t know might mean you’re about to be talked into taking on a particularly tough challenge.

  ‘Yes, of course, and we’ll do our best to help,’ I said. ‘What are the child’s circumstances?’

  I found myself wishing I was talking to Jess as usual, because I knew I could trust her to be frank and realistic when discussing a possible newcomer. Jess would always share as much information as she possibly could but, unfortunately, this is not the case with all social workers. We’d heard some disturbing tales over the years. For instance, my friend Joanne had told us of one occasion when Social Services had claimed they had no background information available on a particular child they were desperate to place at very short notice. Joanne took the young boy in that same night, only to discover there was no shortage of notes at all. His paperwork, had anyone taken the trouble to share it, spelled out a set of severe problems that meant he was extremely difficult to manage alongside the other children she already had living with her.

  Of course, it’s not that social workers don’t care about how foster carers are going to cope. It’s simply a case of ‘needs must’ in an urgent situation. When it’s late in the day and a child still has no bed for the night, social workers are under great pressure to place them with a foster carer. The child is the priority, and the sad truth is that if Joanne hadn’t taken that young boy in, he probably would have ended up in a children’s home that night, or even a secure unit. This was something we’d encountered earlier on in our specialist fostering career, when we took in a young girl, called Melissa, who was locked up in a secure unit as there was nowhere else for her to go. (I told her story in The Girl in the Dark.)

  With bated breath, I waited for Mrs Chambers to give me some more information about the young girl. I checked the time. It was almost five o’clock.

  ‘I’m afraid I have very little information. I’ll get her social worker to call you, he’s waiting for me to get back to him. I’ll get him to ring you as soon as possible.’ She thanked me very much and ended the call briskly and efficiently.

  I felt anxious as I waited for the phone to ring. The social worker who was phoning was called Barry. I realised I didn’t even know the name of the girl, or anything else for that matter.

  I picked up the phone almost immediately when it rang. Barry sounded like a very affable chap. Like nearly every social worker I’ve met, he also sounded very busy and somewhat stressed, but he had an engaging manner. He told me the ‘young lady’ was called Grace. She was ten years old and her current placement was breaking down. He explained that her carers had given the usual twenty-eight days’ notice to find her a new home, but unfortunately, due to an acute shortage of specialist carers, time was now running out.

  ‘How long has she been in foster care?’ I asked.

  ‘Quite a number of years. She’s been in several other foster homes.’ Barry added that he had only recently taken over as Grace’s social worker, I think by way of apology for not knowing the details of these facts off the top of his head. I could hear him rustling paperwork as we spoke. ‘If you bear with me, I’ll tell you more.’

  I already wanted to give Grace a home. She was only ten years old and she must have been in care from a young age. My heart went out to her, but I told myself not to rush in. I knew I needed to find out as much as I possibly could before agreeing to take in a third child; after all, we already had two challenging children living with us and I had to consider their needs before making a commitment.

  ‘Can I ask, why is the placement breaking down?’

  There was a pause while, I assume, Barry searched through Grace’s file. ‘Apparently Grace “winds other children up the wrong way”. Her “aggravating and disruptive behaviour” has led to the breakdown of previous placements too, it seems. Let me see how many previous placements there have been.’

  There was more rustling of paper and then an even longer pause. Barry tutted and began to count. I could hear him thumbing through lots of paperwork.

  ‘Thanks for your patience. Grace’s file is not the smallest one I’ve seen, unfortunately.’ It’s times like this that I feel a brief, chronological summary of a child’s background and previous placements would be useful for any new social worker to get to know about their caseloads. I wish this was kept at the front of each file.

  Finally, and rather reluctantly, Barry told me that Grace had lived in a total of eight different foster homes, including her current one, from the age of three. My heart sank. No wonder the poor child was ‘aggravating’, I thought. What ten-year-old child wouldn’t be, if they’d been rehoused eight times i
n – what – seven years? Bless her little heart.

  Barry explained that, if we were happy to have her, he would bring Grace to our house the following day, which was a Friday, for a trial visit over the weekend. He apologised for the short notice but said that her current carers wanted her to move out as quickly as possible, as the placement had been breaking down for a few weeks by now. If we were in agreement, Grace would stay with us until Monday morning. She was on a full care order but had contact with her family and regularly went home for visits.

  ‘If it works out and the trial period is a success – and I’m sure it will be, as I’ve heard nothing but praise for you and your good husband – then Grace will spend a week with her mother before moving in full time with you. She’ll also go back to her current carers for a short stay, to say goodbye, before the move.’ The plan was for this to be a six-month placement initially, with a view to extending it longer term.

  ‘I’m hoping you and your husband will make all the difference. I’m told you have helped turn around so many other young lives. If only we had more like you, that’s all I can say.’

  I wondered why Grace couldn’t live with her mother and why she would go and spend a week with her if her trial visit worked out and she was moving in with us. It seemed like a lot of disruption for her, especially as she would also be going back to her current carer to say goodbye. It was a set-up I’d never come across before but I didn’t question it. Experience had taught me to let Social Services take the lead at times like this. At the end of the day, Barry was up against it and the priority right now was to find Grace a new home. The clock was ticking – it was almost five thirty – and we needed to make a decision.

  Quickly, I asked Barry about what seemed to be the most pressing issue. ‘When you say “aggravating and disruptive behaviour”, do you know what that means, exactly?’

  ‘Not entirely, no. I’ve found her to be a lovely young girl, friendly, lively, chatty. She’s not statemented. No medical conditions. Aggravating others – adults and children, from what I can gather – is the thing that crops up time and time again in the paperwork.’