Lucy Stevens - 20th January 2023
Here’s the thing about me. I need to know what’s happening. I don’t like change; I don’t like SPONTANEITY. I like to know what I’m doing and when. If things suddenly change or if something happens that I’m not expecting, it makes me feel really really scared. I don’t like people touching me or getting in my space. When they do it makes me want to break free. I don’t like it when people lie to me or talk in riddles. Just say the truth and explain it properly.
I love reading. I’m not interested in my phone or games, TikTok or Snapchat. I just love to read. My foster carer, Sue, says that is why I know so much. She’s probably right.
Sue gets me. She knows that when I’m angry it is best NOT TO HUG ME. That would be like if you were angry, someone sellotaping you to a chair and refusing to let you go. That would just make you more angry and you’d have nowhere to go to with that anger. She knows that I like to know exactly what is happening and so she has always written down everything for me and stuck to a routine that feels safe and good for me.
BUT she also says that sometimes stuff happens that we can’t control. She told me it is like in one of my books where you think the story will go one way but then something comes like a BOLT OUT OF THE BLUE and the whole story changes. She says all we can control is how we react. So, we’ve been working on that. It’s not easy.
I’ve been here for ages now. This is my home. My bedroom is blue and I have a whole wall with my favourite pictures on it. I sometimes just lie on my bed and look at the pictures and they make me feel SERENE. Sue is the only foster carer I’ve had. But when I first came here it was awful. I didn’t know where I was going and I had never met Sue so I didn’t know then that she was nice. The social worker showed me a book all about Sue. I still have it and sometimes I look at it. It’s weird to think that she was a stranger once and when I look at the book I just think about what I felt then and how it doesn’t really seem like the same Sue. Like maybe there were two sues but now there is just one.
She does a lot for me. She noticed that school was really hard for me. I heard her arguing with my social worker once about it. Sue says it wasn’t an argument it was ADVOCATING. After the advocating, I changed schools and things got a lot better. I now have Pete who helps me. He explains things to me clearly and doesn’t lie about things.
One of the pictures on my wall is a horse. Sue got me riding lessons. My instructor told me that horses can tell when someone is scared or when someone is not nice. The horse I ride is called Willow and her nostrils go huge whenever she sees me and she sort of dances, so she obviously knows that I’m nice. Horses are wise.
Sometimes I still worry about what would happen if Sue didn’t want me any more or if I got so angry that she couldn’t look after me. But I am a whole lot less angry now so I just hope that doesn’t happen. There was a boy in my class who also had a foster carer but she said she couldn’t look after him any more and so he had to leave school because there was no-one else nearby who could foster him. I wanted to tell him about Sue but I also didn’t want him to know about Sue because Sue is my foster carer. I was TORN. Pete says that’s a normal way to feel, like you want to help but you also feel scared for yourself. That is HUMAN NATURE. Pete says it’s not my job to find him a home, that is what his social worker is there for.
I just think the world needs more Sues.
And more horses too.
If you’re interested in fostering someone like H, please contact us via our website, Facebook or email us at team@easternfosteringservices.com
Eastern Fostering Services - The small agency with a strong family feel
