Everything Foster Care.
This podcast is dedicated to talking to experts and others about all aspects of death and dying. You know, that thing we don't really want to talk about!
As a hospice carer and former psychiatric nurse as well as writer and former Theatre director, I invite guests to talk about their roles in and what to expect in the last four weeks of life. What happens to the person dying, what help is there, what to do before and after the event.
Many of the families we go in to see have one thing in common and that is that they don't know what to expect. I thought that a Podcast may help and then discovered so much to explore that is of interest to people such as alternative funerals, what do Hospices actually do, what role do religions play?
So join me for the first interview as we begin this Podcast with Clinical Nurse Specialist Becky Rix where we grasp the nettle and discuss what happens to us generally in those last four weeks.
Time to explore "Everything End of Life".
Everything Foster Care.
What It Feels Like To Be In Care And Why More Carers Matter
What does care feel like when you are the child being moved, matched, and measured? 'The Hidden Poet' who helps us to understand what it's like to be a powerless child being moved from placement to placement.
From the first emergency placement to the moment a teenager is told they are “independent” and handed a key. Through vivid poetry and first-hand stories, we trace how scarcity—too few social workers, foster carers, and children’s homes—turns protective intent into a carousel of rooms and rules, and why better matching depends on growing a diverse pool of carers.
We look honestly at children’s homes without easy labels. For some, a residential home offers safety and structure that family life did not. For others, the best chance is a stable foster placement that lasts long enough for identity, school, and friendships to settle.
The thread running through it all is trust: how long it takes to build, how quickly it can be shaken by moves, and what happens when a young person finally feels safe enough to exhale.
A powerful reading of “Sixteen” lays bare the cliff edge at leaving care—bare rooms, bills, and danger at the door—and asks a hard question: would loving parents push a child out like this?
Foster Carer Camilla explains why mentoring led her to foster, why she chose teenagers, and how months of slow, steady care can turn into the moment a child says, “I love you.” The message is clear and urgent: more carers mean better matches and fewer moves; stronger aftercare means a bridge, not a drop. If you care about children’s safety, dignity, and future, this conversation will stay with you.
If this resonated, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review so more people hear these stories and consider fostering. Your share might be the nudge that creates a new safe home.
For those interested in what Palliative care looks like at home there is "The Last Kiss" (Not a Romance)
Available on Amazon now
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Kiss-Romance-Carers-Stories/dp/1919635289/ref=sr_1_1?crid=13D6YWONKR5YH&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9._59mNNFoc-rROuWZnAQfsG0l3iseuQuK_gx-VxO_fe6DLJR8M0Az039lJk_HxFcW2o2HMhIH3r3PuD7Dj-D6KTwIHDMl2Q51FGLK8UFYOBwbRmrLMbpYoqOL6I5ruLukF1vq7umXueIASDS2pO91JktkZriJDJzgLfPv1ft5UtkdQxs9isRDmzAYzc5MKKztINcNGBq-GRWKxgvc_OV5iKKvpw0I5d7ZQMWuvGZODlY.fqQgWV-yBiNB5186RxkkWvQYBoEsDbyq-Hai3rU1cwg&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+last+kiss+not+a+romance&qid=1713902566&s=books&sprefix=The+Last+kiss+n%2Cstripbooks%2C107&sr=1-1
Hello and welcome to Everything Foster Care again with me, Jason Cottrell. And in this episode, we're looking at what it's like to be in care. So on the other side of the fence from being a foster carer. Um if you like it, please subscribe, share, and uh download whatever you want to do. Um specifically share, because if you're not able to become a foster carer, some of your friends might, or it might just trip them to think, oh, I could look into that a little bit. And that's what we're aiming to do. Just spreading the word, getting it out there. Okay. Hope you enjoy it. Hello again. So when kids come into care, my understanding now is that there aren't enough social workers, there aren't enough foster carers, there are not enough care homes, kids' care homes, and therefore the choices are limited for where these kids can go and what is suitable for them, which means that quite often they get moved on. Uh and children are moved on not because they fail placements, but because the placements fail then or the system fails then. This is what that looks like from their point of view.
SPEAKER_00:They call it care, but it feels more like being boxed up and passed along from hand to hand. Different roofs, different rules, different faces telling me to trust them, to settle, to stay. As if I haven't learnt already that nothing's fade. My clothes fit into one bag, that's how I know I'm temporary. Slip it up, move again, a new bedroom of old wallpaper, a stranger's smile stretch too thin. Make yourself at home, they say. But home doesn't come with an expiry date. I keep my guard sharp, don't get attached, don't unpack too fast, don't let your laughter slip out too easy. Because when the next door closes behind you, it echoes loud enough to let you s if you let yourself leave. Social workers write my life down in files, pick boxes for trauma, sign forms for birthdays they won't remember. My story looks smaller on paper than it feels in my chest. But still, sometimes stuff will make pee and not ask for my history first. Sometimes a kid in the house will share their charge with that fuss. Sometimes I catch myself laughing before I can stop it. And I think maybe, just maybe, there's still space for me to grow roots, even if I've been replanted too many times to count.
SPEAKER_04:I don't know how many foster kids there are in the country, but they mostly all need to say big thank you, because the person that wrote and performed that piece is awesome. Don't you think? So we talked about there's a big lack of resources and we need more foster cares. Uh and that's to give up greater choice for people so that when kids go into a different family, there's an array of different families that can be the they can choose from well like they can choose from, but the social services can choose from to best match those uh those kids. Um and if there's no match, of course, or there's other reasons, kids can end up in care homes. Now I don't think we ought to give kids homes a bad rap, because they're trying to do what they're trying to do, but they're not the best option, are they? Although for some, and if you listened to Jenny Malloy's interview, yes they are. Uh she was she's took her boys into uh I think Stoke Mutant Police uh space with her two little brothers when she was nine years old, just because life in a care home kids' care home was eminently preferable to them living at home in that chaos that they were living in. Still figure. Uh but was it like when you've been living in a ke kids' care home, and you get to 16 and you had people there to look after you, to tell you what to do, to uh to help you with your homework maybe, or to help you with just generally crisis of growing up. And then at 16 or 18, that all stopped. But Al Deprey wrote uh brilliant poem because it happened to him. And um he was kinda lucky in one way because he then went to uh university, and if you have a look at the his full interview, you'll hear his whole story, and it is uh yeah, it's quite a story. But here's his poem about catching out, horrible term, but aging out of care.
SPEAKER_01:Um I've got a poem that I wouldn't mind reading on camera here, which maybe if you want to stick it up on your website at some point, because it's very relevant to things, it's about that cliff edge drop-off that is still happening where children hit 16 and um and then the you know they're out in the real world, you know, and the support basically drops off as well. And I wrote a poem about that, which I feel sort of expresses how I feel about it, but also the situation.
SPEAKER_03:Have you got a hand now?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Crack on? Do you want to? You know, yeah, I can what I I might be able to do is put a little gap in between and we'll um we'll yeah, I really would love to hear that.
SPEAKER_01:Go and add it in. All right, okay, I'll do that then. I'll just um Okay, so I I feel that there's a cliff edge. It wasn't addressed when the um the English uh peer review happened. Um it was basically a lot of promises were made. Um some of it was implemented, a lot of it went by the wayside because we had a change of government. And one of the things is that yes, kids sort of will have an accommodation, a place before, while they're 16, up to 16. And then after that, you get this cliff drop. So I wrote this poem. It's called 16. 16. Last scene. Heading for accommodation, stripped of former regulation. A bed, a table, stalls from space, a pretty dismal, lonely place, no pots that clatter, no more chatter about the things that do not matter. Life is now a constant battle fixing leaky pipes that rattle. Buy the shopping, deal with cash. Sort appointments, dump the trash. Avoid the gangs that prowl the stairs and passing strangers stony glares. Shouting neighbours, please pack it in. Try not to think of trafficking. The threat of modern slavery. Living here takes bravery. Sixteen. Used to residential care support staff, who were always there, a home from home, I won't forget. Was also where us children met. We had a laugh, some tough times too, but always managed to pull through. That was back then, and this is now. I have to cope, I'm not sure how. I'm not an adult, just a child, except to forage in the wild. Care is ended, just support, as if the whole thing is my fault. Hostels, bedsits, tents, and flats, children in them simply stats. This act is pure discrimination. Speak out, I fear, recrimination. Reality, not just bad fiction, adults here with sad addiction. Grown men who have been in jail. I'm being set up here to fail. Independence at a cost. Freedom gained, but friendship lost. No real contextual connotation, threat of sexual exploitation. A high court judge said it's okay for kids like me to live this way. I have no bank of mum or dad, no trust fund or a penthouse pad. Just this bed, that table, and a stool where I do my homework out of school. It's not ideal. In fact, it's grim, this situation that I'm in. No level playing field for me, no fair play or equality. They call this corporate parenting, as if that really is a thing. Would loving parents ever dream of kicking kids out at sixteen?
SPEAKER_03:That's brilliant.
SPEAKER_04:That is really, really good. And and it's so powerful. Wow. I mean, wow, you know, powerful stuff once again. Uh and what must it be like when all that support just disappears from you? I mean, I think during um the last few years of 2023, 22 review, uh things have changed and there's more support for kids coming out of care. Uh well, you know, we kinda hope so. So there we go. I can't tell you what it's like being in care. I wasn't in care. We had a bit of a tricky childhood, our kid our family. You know, we had that thing where we lived in a um a loft, essentially, and um we had to take turns sleeping on the floor. So we know what it's like to be poor, but not necessarily traumatized and then going and being taken away from your family, which is more of a trauma, and then going to care, which can be more of a trauma. So to leave this particular session, I thought I'd ask my friend Camilla to tell us about why she became a foster carer, what inspired best about it.
SPEAKER_02:Hello, Camilla. Uh hello, Richard.
SPEAKER_04:Excellent. Yes indeed. Boom. Um so what for you is the best thing about being a foster carer?
SPEAKER_02:Um I think for me it's uh you put in a lot of hard work to gain the child's trust or the children's trust. And it might seem like you're not getting anywhere, but that day when you realize that they feel safe and that they really trust you, I think is the best feeling.
SPEAKER_04:Uh it's absolutely absolutely is. Um I had a a small child after about uh six months of of being quite you know standoffish, sidled up onto my lap and I said, uh, you know, I've asked you to go and sit in the other room because we've done some cooking and done this, and then she just looked up at me and I said, Why are you sitting on my lap? And she said, Because I love you.
SPEAKER_02:And I kept you, didn't it?
SPEAKER_04:And for what for you, uh what inspired you to become a foster carer?
SPEAKER_02:Uh that's a great question. I heard um somebody called Camilla Batman Galage on the radio years ago talking about her charity Kids Company, which tried to help inner-city children um who were at the risk of joining gangs and stuff, and she tried to mentor them and get them off the streets and get them in. And she really inspired me, and I think it started from there. So I started mentoring one of the kids there. Um, and then uh and I didn't have my own children, so I decided that it was a way of being able to be a parent, but also trying to be a bit helpful at the same time. So that's why I did it.
SPEAKER_04:That's beautiful. And how long have you been doing it, just out of interest?
SPEAKER_02:Uh I've been doing it for nearly five years.
SPEAKER_04:Five years. We're only into our third and we're uh we're loving it. We've had some tricky times and uh we've had some absolutely glorious times.
SPEAKER_02:So Exactly.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Which is kind of like parenting anyway, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04:100%. I was a sixteen and nineteen years old. Uh and um they have b over the years they've driven me nuts and uh lifted me up, and uh they're just amazing girls now. So fabulous, you know. And you go through all those stages, don't you? That's like the teenage stage as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well that's all I've done. I've only done teenagers really.
SPEAKER_04:Oh right, okay.
SPEAKER_02:I went in, you know, into the big into the big ones.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, well, you didn't mess around then, because that can be Yeah, that can be quite tricky. All right, well, we'll leave it there. Thank you so much for giving me uh your time and waiting for me to get it.
SPEAKER_02:Don't worry, please. No worries.
SPEAKER_04:Never mind. All right. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_02:Let's just watch for seeing.
SPEAKER_04:Bye.
SPEAKER_02:Bye.
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