Casey Watson - A Boy Without Hope, Part 3 of 3

Todays fostering is more fluid than ever before, I think. It has changed so much over the years that Ive been doing it, and though budget cuts and new regulations often mean that we carers often get the thin end of the wedge, the changes have meant that we have become a lot more flexible in our approach. We have to be, because the children coming into care today are far more complex than the children I was asked to foster all those years ago.

Take our situation with Miller, for example. They say all political careers end in failure, dont they? But what they dont say, and perhaps shouldnt, is that sometimes fostering placements end in failure, too. At least, thats how I saw it for the first weeks after Miller officially left us. That I was a failure, because Id failed to keep my promise to him. I also thought hard about ending my own career in fostering. If I couldnt make a difference, however small, then what was the point?

Happily, Mike had a stern word with me and told me to stop being self-indulgent. I might be able to work miracles on a furred-up kettle, but there were no miracles in fostering. Just the daily slog of doing your best with training, the right spirit and a heck of a lot of patience and accepting that sometimes things didnt work out. I also accepted Christines patient lectures about the importance of prioritising my family, too. For someone whos never had the chance to bring up her own child, she has spades of parental wisdom. Shed have made a lovely, lovely mum.

And who knew? So far, our shared arrangement has worked out. There is no pressure and the logistics of it are more or less left to us carers. If Mavis has plans for Miller on a particular weekend, she phones in advance and lets us know, and similarly if something comes up for us, we give as much notice as we can and rearrange. It also means that even if weve had Miller one weekend, if Mavis is having a struggle with him, she can ring us and ask for us to do an extra night or two.

And, to our delight and surprise, Miller seems to be thriving with this set-up. One might think that someone with such an appetite for control, would hate the uncertainty and the constant moving around, but he really doesnt. It seems he actually prefers to be in the midst of chaos. Organised chaos at least, at least when hes not in school, whose routines and order, and dependable structure, he seems to love. Nowt so queer as folk, eh? But perhaps the whole family as gold standard idea isnt for everyone. When not in school, he is definitely still a paid-up member of the resistance, and this must be linked directly to his childhood. No matter how we professionals think that order and structure is the only way for some of these kids, it clearly isnt. They rebel against it because it isnt their norm; confrontation is their comfort blanket and they still crave it, no matter how bad it seems to us.

So Im very grateful for Christine Boltons little flash of inspiration that day on the phone, because it has changed Miller almost beyond recognition. He still has his off days and no doubt he always will, and he still tries to control most situations when he can, but in himself, we can all see how much happier and less wound up he now is. We even saw an example of this last Christmas. Miller came to stay with us the weekend before and wed arranged with Mavis to give him his gifts at that point, and shed said he could open one of them while he was with us. His choice was a mobile phone (no surprise there!), which he was ecstatic about, truly thrilled I even got an extremely rare hug. But what touched us most was his gesture towards Tyler.

Hed brought two Christmas cards with him, one for us and the family, and one just for Tyler, which he made him promise not to open till hed left. Which he did, and as I watched him do so, to my surprise, he had tears in his eyes. It read:

Dear Ty

I hope you have a lovely Christmas and I bet Casey and Mike get you a well nice present. I wish I could buy you what I want to get you, Ty, I promise I do. And one day, when Im rich through my hacking and stuff, I will get you the best new guitar that money can buy, I swear down! I have done a lot of bad things, and some of them to you and your family but my biggest mistake was cutting your guitar strings. I wish I had never done that. I wish I could take it back. If I could pick a brother it would be you. Merry Christmas and see you in the New Year.

Miller x

Oh, and I should add that Millers handwriting, always erratic, was a dream to behold. Mr Hammond was (is) clearly doing a great job. And the best news (well, once wed dried our eyes over the card) was that, as I write, he is top of the waiting list for a boarding place. So its within touching distance. Keep your fingers crossed for him.

This is a work of non-fiction based on the authors experiences. In order to protect privacy, names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed or reconstructed.

HarperElement

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First published by HarperElement 2018

FIRST EDITION

Casey Watson 2018

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Cover image Jim Powell/Alamy Stock Photo (posed by model)

Cover layout HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Casey Watson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008298555

Ebook Edition November 2018 ISBN: 9780008298562

Version 2018-09-19

This book is dedicated to the army of passionate foster carers out there, each doing their bit to ensure that our children are kept as safe as possible in such a changing and often scary world. As technology is reinvented and becomes ever more complicated for those of us who were not brought up amid such advances, we can only try to keep up, in the hope that we continue to learn alongside our young people.