Barnardo's Fostering & Adoption NI

BFANI ON TOUR! A Conversation With A Birth Mum

• Barnardo's Fostering & Adoption NI

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How would you navigate life if your childhood was marked by neglect and abuse? In this very special episode from our BFANI on Tour! series, we meet an English birth mum who experienced two of her three children being taken into foster care but then later, with her third child, found support from a Barnardo's in the shape of a Parent and Child foster placement. 

Our birth mum recounts her own early life experiences and the fateful choices made whilst she was young, vulnerable and traumatised herself. She reflects on the heartache and loss of her children, navigating relationships with her children's foster carers and ultimately reveals how three months in a Parent and Child Foster placement turned her life around for the better.

Don't miss this extraordinary story of transformation and resilience, healing and empowerment.

Please be aware that, in this episode, we will be covering difficult and sensitive topics including domestic abuse and sexual violence - so please be mindful of your own self-care. Thank you.  

Learn more about fostering and adoption with Barnardo’s:
https://www.barnardos.org.uk/get-support/fostering-and-adoption

To learn more about fostering and adoption in NI, visit our Linktr.ee:
https://linktr.ee/barnardosfosteringni

To ask a question, give us some feedback or make a topic request, email us at:
BFANI@barnardos.org.uk

Foster belonging with us!

Ness:

Welcome to the Barnardo's Fostering and Adoption Northern Ireland podcast. Each episode we will meet families and team members from right across our fostering and adoption services. We're aiming to get behind the scenes so we can learn more about what it's really like to foster. Just a quick note before we start this special episode of our podcast. We'll be talking to a mum who's experienced her two children being taken into foster care. Later, when she became pregnant with her third child, she was supported by binados in a parent and child foster placement and, thanks to that support, was able to keep her daughter. Her two older children remain in foster care and one of them is with Barnardo's foster carers.

Ness:

Please be aware that we will be talking about difficult and sensitive subjects, including domestic abuse, so please be mindful of your own self-care, thank you. So please be mindful of your own self-care. Thank you. First of all, it's really good to see you. I haven't seen you in a while. I won't introduce you for obvious reasons, but I'm wondering if you would just start just giving us a little bit of your backstory about what happened to you and then to your children.

Birth Mum:

I came from a family that were domestic abusers themselves, so I lived through domestic abuse. I came from a family of alcoholism and at a very young age I had a very unspeakable thing, that should never have happened to a young girl, happen within my family, um, and when I did speak about it, it was it basically it fell through the cracks as saying going back a lot of years ago. Then it brought shame on my family. So then I had my family basically abandoned me. Old were you then? I was nine when my family abandoned me.

Birth Mum:

I was fortunate as regarding having family friends within the vicinity, but they were friends of my grandparents, so they were elderly and they knew what my family were like and they were happy to take me in and I worked on an evening after school as well as worked on a weekend from nine years old to try and actually support myself. So I am going all the way from nine years old and through my teens was extremely difficult. I suffered a lot of bullying within school and the life skills that I should have learned at such a young age I didn't, and the things I learned at such a young age didn't prepare me for adulthood. I ended up actually getting in my very first relationship at the age of 15, which basically was with a guy who was a lot older than me.

Ness:

You were about 15 when you first went into a relationship. Yep, you've been living with your grandparents friends from nine.

Birth Mum:

Yep.

Ness:

In your early development stages, you didn't have very secure attachments.

Ness:

No, then you meet a person who's considerably older than you if you were 15 what happened then?

Ness:

because that person showed me the love that I didn't get from my parents, the attention, the security, the want to be wanted per se it. It drove me closer. Um, because the people that I was living with. They were very old and their health were deteriorating and this person just showed me everything that I'd always wanted. I, literally, I ran with it. I ran with it.

Ness:

then you go and live with this person?

Birth Mum:

After about six months. Yes, I ended up moving in with this person and I actually stayed with that person for 15 years. It's a very long time to be with somebody because of such an age gap. He was my security, he was my safety net. He was basically what I'd never had. That relationship broke down the person in question. I'd actually actually I'd started to pull away, but I was too scared to completely break away. I hadn't. I'd been independent, but from such a young age being with one person who gave you all the securities you needed at such a young age, it was hard to break away. But the one thing that I did learn is when a person is actually cheating on you with somebody else was that was the time to actually walk away. And the person he'd actually been with turned up at our flat that we lived in. That was in both of our names and she actually thought I was his daughter. I told her exactly who I was and she nearly fell to the floor how did that feel for you in that moment?

Birth Mum:

I was gobsmacked, I was astonished, I was angry, I was devastated. I actually felt how I felt when my parents abandoned me. That's how it felt abandonment all over again. Then I actually packed up all my things that I could put them into the car, and I lived in my car for two months when I actually finally left him.

Ness:

So this is in your late 20s. You were then living in a car.

Birth Mum:

Yeah, it was actually just before my 30th birthday.

Ness:

What happened after that?

Birth Mum:

After that I was living in my car, but I was also working. I was in a very vulnerable state, but I was trying to support myself as well as trying to get myself somewhere to live. And then that's when I actually met my children's father.

Ness:

And that's when you met your children's father. So, after all of this, these challenges that he'd gone through and this point of quite a vulnerable place, you've been living in your car, you're looking for work, you're trying to support yourself on your own, and then you met butchery's father yes how did that relationship start?

Birth Mum:

actually met in a nightclub. He was calming, nice, romantic. Funnily enough, I look back and I think to myself, where did that person ever go to? But he was, and he was very good at making you see something that he wanted you to see and that you needed to see at that moment in time.

Ness:

And it was like that for about six months it sounds a bit like he bowled you over a bit in those first six months he did?

Birth Mum:

yeah, he did. I was very vulnerable, in a very vulnerable stage, with everything that had gone on, and I made wrong choices.

Birth Mum:

You made wrong choices yeah, I made wrong choices. I believed he was everything, um. I then ended up staying with him, didn't have a place of my own, everything was his name. Um. I was actually claiming benefits at that time and after the six months I found out I was pregnant with my first child, and at first he was shocked. Then he was excited. Three months into the pregnancy everything turned.

Birth Mum:

Once I'd actually got past the three-month mark, he then started turning quite aggressive, quite nasty, turned around and stated that I'd trapped him, turned around and stated that I had destroyed his life. When I turned around and stated to him that I'd walk away, he would then become violent. The violence became once a month. I'd seen all of this with my parents, so to me it was like the norm. And then, once I'd actually hit the six month mark, I started thinking I can't do this. I wanted to try and protect my child. I had nobody, no friends, no family, no one.

Birth Mum:

I then actually tried to leave, but when I tried to leave, he tried to kill me at six months pregnant. All of his friends. They kept a very close eye on me. I wasn't allowed to leave the property without permission and I wasn't allowed to leave without one of them with me. It was very difficult and very hard, and fear got the better of me. The violence was on and off, sometimes could be quite severe, but the violence that I suffered was never towards the stomach area while I was pregnant. It was always to the legs or to the head. The stomach area never got touched. When my child was born and I had to have my first child by an emergency cesarean section, I was in the intensive care ward after having to have an emergency section and I can remember him coming and he saw the child and he turned around and stated to me that this wasn't his child and that was literally hours after the c-section I can't imagine how that felt for you that didn't that.

Birth Mum:

That it. It ripped me apart and then he sat there laughing, stating I'm only joking, I love you, I love our child. You and our child are everything to me, constantly, constantly twist, twisted everything, stating look, I'm the only person you need. You don't need anybody else. I will look after you and our child.

Ness:

I will provide. I will do everything. This must have been very disorientating for you. There you are, a new mother with your first child, your hormones all over the place and you're in a relationship that sounds frightening and it also events and dangerous, and you must have been questioning yourself quite a lot as well.

Birth Mum:

I was constantly questioning myself, but every time I thought of leaving I just remembered back when I did try to leave, and I did try a second time after my first child was born, and that second time he also tried to kill me. Then the violence got extremely bad. He was coming home from work and he was battering me while the child was in the Moses basket. He was a very, very violent person. He raped me on several occasions. When my first child was four weeks he became so violent. I tried to walk out of the house and he basically grabbed hold of me. I was able to. One of his friends was there and he'd actually had enough of seeing him beat me, so he actually held on to him and them two in the hallway got into a fight.

Birth Mum:

I was able to stand with my back, holding my first child in my arms. I was able to stand with my back against the front door and actually prise the front door open and just get out of the door before he came after me, got out onto the street, he literally grabbed a hold of my ponytail and pulled me back with a four-week-old baby in my arms. I spun around to stop me from going backward onto the concrete with a baby in my arms and I was trying to. I was actually crouched over my child, trying to protect my child while he was punching the living lights out of me and I was screaming and neighbors around actually heard me. They came out of the house and basically there was two very, very big gentlemen that came from one of the houses that came across and they were then starting with with him and one of the neighbours then took me and the child into their house for protection. The police were already on the way.

Ness:

So this is the first time that the police have been involved, and presumably were social services involved at this point, or did they come? Yes, okay.

Birth Mum:

He was then arrested and he was taken away. The police officers took photos of all the bruising on me. My legs were black. My head all around here was black. My face was swollen. I was black on my arms. I had bruises everywhere, everywhere. I gave a lengthy, lengthy statement A lengthy statement, a lengthy statement and me and my first child was taken to hospital and we spent the night in hospital for observations and then we were taken to a refuge.

Ness:

So you were taken to a refuge at that point with your first child.

Birth Mum:

Yeah, after that I was glad to be free, but I was scared. I was very scared because I was alone. The only people I knew was his friends. I had nobody and I spoke to one or two of his friends, and then he found out that I was speaking to one or two of his friends and he then actually started getting them to tell him things, which then just completely walked my mind again. As time went on, I stupidly, very stupidly, started visiting him in prison until it was stopped. I redacted my statement, but despite the fact of me redacting my statement, it was still getting charged, and rightly so. I then finally got a property of my own, but he was very much back in my head. Even though social services were involved, the trust didn't provide me the support that I actually truly needed, and that was hard for me because it was just basically them coming and checking. That was it.

Ness:

I was left on my own when you look back, what would have been helpful for you?

Birth Mum:

I believe if they'd have actually put me in, even if it was a centre where people you know I can't just say women, because there's men that suffer this as well, but people that have suffered such violence that can actually get and not only that, my background actually get parenting support also the support of breaking away from a person who can groom very well yes.

Birth Mum:

I believe would have been very beneficial to me, instead of me being put back in society with no family, no friends, just a social worker and you feeling as though you're just constantly being judged as a bad mother it must have been a lot of shame in your experience, even though actually you were struggling to make sense of what was going on with yourself and trying to do the best by yourself and your child.

Ness:

You were vulnerable.

Birth Mum:

I was extremely vulnerable. I made very, very bad choices because I'd not been shown or guided any other way, so my choices were very bad.

Ness:

So when you were in this new place that was your own, you got back together with your children's father. Is that what happened?

Birth Mum:

Yes, we did. I found it very, very difficult because I was alone yeah, because you didn't have anybody and he was the only person that he.

Birth Mum:

He was very good at twisting everything that you thought you know. I mean, if you turn around and say to that you had enough love for yourself, no, I have all the love you need. So it became very, very difficult and again the violence started. He wasn't living with me, but the violence did start again and the coercive control started again and being raped started again and that's how my second son came about. And it was very hard when I became pregnant with my second child very hard. I had one very small child. He was I think he was seven months. So it was very, very difficult, very difficult. I concealed the pregnancy and I don't know how social services actually even felt for it. I'll be honest with you, I really don't, because I was the size of a house.

Ness:

You were hiding the pregnancy from social services? Were you already aware that your first child might be removed? Yes, because it's already happened.

Birth Mum:

Yeah, yeah, I was already aware that there was every possibility that it could take my first child and and then, of course, the second child I concealed, and I did conceal it and it was. I think he was about just over a week old when no, actually he was less than that, no, he wasn't even a week old when social services actually turned up, when I had both the children.

Ness:

So you got through the whole pregnancy without social services, realising that you were pregnant.

Birth Mum:

Yeah, I don't know how, and I regret every bit of it. It was extremely scary because to me, I was trying to protect my children from going into the care system, but in the same breath, I was trying to protect my children from their mother being killed or them becoming to any harm. In my head at that time, that's how I was thinking, that's how I was seeing things, and it got to a stage of where, when social services found out about my second child, the children's father had moved from one country to another and basically to another, and basically I felt there was only one thing I could do to try and save my kids, which was follow him. And back then I believed it was the right thing, but it really wasn't. None of what I did was right, it was all very wrong.

Ness:

Can I move on to when?

Birth Mum:

Yep.

Ness:

The children. When you realised the children were going to be removed, what happened? I tried to go back. You tried to go back to where you were from.

Birth Mum:

Yep.

Ness:

Yeah.

Birth Mum:

Even though I had no one? And was that what triggered?

Ness:

social services.

Birth Mum:

It wasn't only that, it was the factor of I was actually living much seeing the children's father. I found it hard, like I say. I mean I found it very hard to break away from him and I suffered a quite harsh beating from him. I suffered a quite harsh beating from him, but again I, I fell over. I did this. I did that constant cover stories, um, but they was able to see it was more than that and it was then notified to social services and a court order was then actually put in place for the children to be completely removed from my care. That happened within the space of four hours, instead of any way of them being able to actually move me and my kid into a supported home, even put me on lockdown. I would have been happy being put on lockdown in a secure place and being supported in every which way. No, it was just automatic removal and the police were involved.

Ness:

How long was it before you saw them again?

Birth Mum:

It was nearly three weeks after them being removed.

Ness:

What did you know about where they were living at that point?

Birth Mum:

I knew that they were living in foster care. That's as much as I knew and that they were living in two separate foster homes. That's as much as I knew. I knew nothing else.

Ness:

How long did that situation carry on that you knew they were in foster homes, but you didn't know anything more than that?

Birth Mum:

but you didn't know anything more than that. That carried on for a fair few months before I actually got to know who well, basically first names of who the foster carers were. And then I got to meet the foster carers, but the foster carers had already made judgment of me, of my situation, and I was, as the old saying goes, I was found wanting. I was judged as a bad father even by the foster carers because of what was told to them by social services even by the foster carers because of what was told to them by social services.

Ness:

Was this something that you felt when you met them, or was this something that was communicated to you?

Birth Mum:

It was something that I felt because of how they would portray themselves towards me, the sheer distanceness of them, them watching me with my children when I was saying goodbye to them.

Ness:

It was very much portrayed in every which way, so you felt very self-conscious when you were spending time with the children.

Birth Mum:

Yeah, when I was greeting the children and when I was saying bye to the children.

Ness:

And that went on for quite a long time. You then became pregnant with your third child and had a different experience. Do you just want to, if you talk about that?

Birth Mum:

Yeah, I. I became pregnant with my third child again, which was through rape, and my third child's father thought it was thought his revenge would be, before I even knew I was pregnant, would be to tell social services that I was pregnant I didn't even knew I was pregnant, would be to tell social services that I was pregnant I didn't even know I was pregnant myself. Social services asked me if I would do a pregnancy test. I did it willingly and in front of them, and it came back positive and I was literally, literally only. I wasn't even four weeks pregnant. I was in the very, very, very early stages of the pregnancy. I didn't even know I was and over a period of time I think it was within two months of finding out I was pregnant.

Birth Mum:

It then became knowledge to me that they were going to look at taking my third child from birth and taking my third child straight into foster care without even giving me a chance. Considering all the work I'd done over the time of working with Women's Aid, working with counsellors, building my life back up, working with social services, doing several courses, I've tried to actually understand why I made those decisions, to learn how a perpetrator works. A perpetrator works on how they actually twist everything in your head and how they can really get into your head. I did all of this work over that period of time, even while I was pregnant with my third child. I was doing this work. Their decision was for my third child to be taken from birth straight into foster care.

Ness:

Had you broken up with your children's father at this point? Yep, yep, that had actually happened already.

Birth Mum:

I was actually raped in December 2018 by the children's father. 2018 by the children's father. Uh, that was the last time I ever saw him, um of my own accord. So from 2018, I had actually broken away from him and was trying to stay well away. I changed my number, I locked myself away. I did everything within my powers for him not to get any contact with me at all.

Ness:

And you're being supported by Women's Aid at this time.

Birth Mum:

I was being supported very much by Women's Aid. They were supporting me tremendously. I then found out I was pregnant.

Ness:

When did you first?

Birth Mum:

learn about parent and child fostering through women's aid, through a lady whose name I use in my third child's name and this lady is sadly deceased, unfortunately, but she'll always have a very closeness to my heart. He helped me tremendously with a lot of things. She was the one that actually told me about it because she had learned about it on a case that she was actually dealing with and it was the first time that she'd come across it. How was it described?

Ness:

to you.

Birth Mum:

She organised with me to have a meeting, which was fine because we had meetings every week. So we met me to have a meeting, which was fine because we had meetings every week. So we met up to have a chat and see how things were going and see if there was any extra support that she could give and whatnot. And she explained to me that she'd actually found some information out that might be beneficial towards me. So of course I was very interested. Anything, I'd try anything, anything. So of course I was very interested. Anything, I'd try anything, anything. And she went and says have you ever heard of parent and child placements? I went no, never heard of it in my life. She went and says parent and child placements are where you have to go live in a foster home. I goes right, I went. I'm not quite following what you mean here. I went and says does my child go into the foster home? And I just see my child every so often, the same as what it is with my other two children. She says no, you actually live there with the child and get supported from the child being born.

Birth Mum:

Three months away from my due date of going in for a planned c-section, I got straight on the phone in front of the support worker. My solicitor told my solicitor. I then got on the phone to social services and spoke to the social worker and she turned around and went and said to me that she never knew they existed. So she went and said I will take it back to my manager and see what is said from there. Two weeks passed I heard nothing. I was getting very anxious. I got on the phone to my solicitor and said to my solicitor look, I understand getting very anxious about this. I am two and a half months away from my due date. I went and said and nothing's been done. I went and said I want to see if I can go into a parent and child foster placement to prove that I can look after my child safely and to get the support that I need. She went this is right, leave it with me, I'll write a letter to the trust. So that's what she did.

Birth Mum:

A month before I was due to go in for my planned C-section, I got a phone call from social services that they wanted to have a meeting. I thought, right, okay, me thinking well, this is it, I'm just going to lose my child. I've had no hope, feeling as sick as a dog. A week later I went in for this meeting when it was organized, and there was me. I took my solicitor with me, I took my support worker from Women's Aid with me and there was about seven people sat around the table and I'm like there's quite a lot of people here and there's only me and two others on my side. Oh, this is not good. Good, this is not good at all. They turn around and say to me that they have looked into my request of parent and child placement and they are considering it with great force. Um, but they have not been able to find one yet. I was three weeks away from my C-section.

Ness:

So on the one hand, they're like, yes, we'll look into this, and on the other, we don't have any.

Birth Mum:

The sheer fear that was running through me was astronomical. I could not describe it to you. I really couldn't. A week before I was due to go in for my c-section I got a phone call to amanda's date that they had been able to actually find a parent and child foster placement that was prepared to allow me and my child to be fostered by them. But it wouldn't be until two weeks after my child was born. So social services plan was for my third child to go into foster care away from me for two weeks.

Birth Mum:

I told them of the shelter that I lived in. Now it was putting me in a very stressful situation but I was prepared to do anything to keep my child. I told them about the shelter that I lived in and I stated to them look, this person who runs the shelter. They have done such things as from what I have been told as a parent and child placement does, just on a bit of a slightly different scale and different way. I went and says they actually do it where you're locked in the building, you're not allowed to leave the building and there is CCTV all the way around the building and you are monitored 24 7 outside of your room you would have done anything to keep anything, but it meant me going to the same area as where my child's father lived.

Ness:

Right.

Birth Mum:

Which put me in a very stressful situation. They then got in contact with the woman's shelter. They remembered me and they was in agreement to do it. That was three days before my due date. Three days before my due date, three days before my due date, I fell to the floor, grabbed my tummy and just cried. I was so overjoyed at the fact that my child was not going to be taken away from me for two weeks. The sheer relief.

Birth Mum:

And when I, after I'd had my child um the parent and child placement I was going to be moving to, the lady actually turned off to the hospital to visit. I'd seen the profile of both of them and I was so overjoyed with how we connected with each other. I know there was a lot of hesitations for them because of my background, because of my history and because of the child's father, and I understood that, respectively, understood that, respectively understood that. But they were prepared to actually give me a chance and the fact of that chance has made such a difference, such a difference. And then, when I was moved to the woman's shelter, I went straight to the manager and I just flung my arms around her and I cried again. I cried because it was like prayers answered. It was a saving grace for me and for my child how long were you in that placement for?

Birth Mum:

the parent and child foster placement.

Ness:

I was actually in there for three months three months and you were living there and you were being supported, but to a level also monitored, to check that you were okay. What could you say about that relationship over those three months?

Birth Mum:

at first very scary, but I think that was on both sides. You're in a stranger's house. They're watching you 24 7, everything you do, everything you say. It. It was very scary, very, very scary. But I knew myself that if I didn't open up to them, that it was going to make it very difficult for them to support me and also for me to actually learn from them.

Ness:

Given your past. That is such a big leap of faith.

Birth Mum:

Yes.

Ness:

To attach yourself to someone when you are vulnerable.

Birth Mum:

It was very, very difficult because I had major trust issues. It was very, very hard because I was still seeing them, the same as I saw social services, as these people that are trying to take my child away from me. It was very, very hard and for the first week it was very difficult being there when did it change? In the foster placement. They I was included in the monitoring.

Birth Mum:

I was able to actually see what I was being monitored on. I was also told what I was being monitored on. I wasn't kept in the dark, nothing was hidden away from me, and they welcomed me into their home and made their home my home as well, provided me with such great support in dealing with what, everything that was going on in my own head, dealing with traumas that I had actually suffered, and and also teaching me ways of being able to actually deal with the separation of my first two children.

Ness:

What helped me, in a way, to flourish as a mother towards all three of my children in separate ways it's interesting that it was something about the mentoring and support that you experienced, which was a bit like parenting for you too, yes, which allowed you the space to strengthen your own parenting skills it did it.

Birth Mum:

I was provided within that placement within such a short space of time. Three months is a short space of time, but within three months I was provided with so many life skills that still support me to this day that I should have got way, way back when I was younger. Within those three months I was given so much, so much support, so much learning about life and how life really should be.

Ness:

Tell me a little bit more about that. What sort of things would you say? That you are surprised by that you learned?

Birth Mum:

It's learning the fact that love is shown in different ways and there is negative love and there is positive love. And love to me was always just love. Whether it was negative or positive, it was just. It was a need of wanting, whether it was good or bad. I learned that very strongly in that placement was being loved in a positive way meant that nobody raised the hand to you, nobody told you what you could wear, nobody belittled you, nobody told you where you could go, nobody controlled you. It it taught me to understand that wasn't love, that wasn't life. Life is about making choices that is going to be beneficial to you but also beneficial to your family, not choices that are going to basically just allow you to survive.

Ness:

It's making difficult choices to make the right choices when you came out of that placement, that must have been a bit nerve wracking, to leave the coziness, the support immediately in that, in that house, that you where you felt you were getting validated and you're getting affirmation that you are indeed a good enough mum. And you did come away off those three months, didn't you Learning that actually you, social services, were not going to take your baby daughter away from you, which must have been an incredible relief. But then you found on your own what happened then.

Birth Mum:

I was very scared, very nervous. I was fearful for so many reasons. But the foster carers that I stayed with was always at the other end of the phone and, believe me, I must have pestered the life out of them within that first couple of months of me being back in my own home. I was still monitored highly, um, by social services. I was monitored very highly, but the foster placement, the two people that I stayed with, all I had to do was drop a message or pick up the phone and it was just like picking up the phone if my parents were even half decent parents. It was like picking up the phone to your mother and speaking to your mother and saying look, mum, I'm feeling so I'm doing something wrong here. I'm feeling very, very nervous, very scared. This is happening, that is happening. I'm feeling like this, feeling like that I'm not sure what to do, what to think, and to actually have somebody at the other end of the phone to be able to say look, just take a deep breath, calm yourself down.

Birth Mum:

Is your child okay? Yeah, is your door locked and windows locked? Yeah, you're safe in your own home. You're not doing anything wrong. Your child is well fed. Your child is clothed, your child is clothed. Your child is loved, but you are loved as well, and all of that made it. It just made so much difference. But that support never stopped from them.

Ness:

That support, four years later, over four years later, is still ongoing and your life has changed quite considerably, hasn't it, from what we've talked about?

Birth Mum:

my life has changed dramatically. I am a much stronger person now. I have learned to accept what is best for all three of my children, with great difficulty. But it's been a very, very long lesson and has been very, very hard, but I have learnt to accept what I believe is right for my children. I live a life. I don't let anybody influence me. If I feel as though I'm making a wrong decision, I ask for advice. I ask for support. If I feel as though there is something bad happening, I always seek help. I always talk about things before I take action on them. I also now have several friends which for years I didn't have. Years I didn't have friends. I have several friends. I am in full-time employment. My daughter is just thriving and bouncing off of the walls. Life is just so heavenly. My two older children they are both just thriving in their placements.

Ness:

Can I ask?

Birth Mum:

you about that. Yes.

Ness:

How has it been for you with your two older children in placements and how is that relationship, how are those relationships working for you?

Birth Mum:

When the two boys were in their short-term foster placements it was very difficult. Relationships weren't there between myself and foster carers. But when my children went they went into two separate long-term placements and I did not know these foster carers from Adam and I'm still only getting to know them. But they did not. They know everything about my background, from what social services have provided them and what the two children have gone through and suffered. But the first time I actually met the two lots of foster carers both of my boys it was like I'd known them for such a long time. They were so open, so welcoming. They came up and they put their arms around me. They didn't shake my hand, they gave me a hug and they turned around and told me we are really happy to meet you and we're really happy to be supporting your children.

Birth Mum:

This came from both sets of foster carers and we just want you to know that. We want you to be very much involved as the boys biological mother. We know your background, we know you've gone through horrific time. We know the background of the children's father. But we want you to be very much a part of those boys' lives and we will support you as their foster parents to be that, to hear that from people that I'd only met for the first time, I broke down and cried. I think virtually every time I've seen them I've broke down and cried, because they're just so wonderful, they're so loving, they're so considerate towards me, they're so open towards me. They provide me photos. They also even provide me and I I will show you this I can get all being tangled up. They also have um. For one of my boys, I was given a wee gift and this is this was on my last contact with them, and this was last month, in March.

Birth Mum:

I was provided with this oh, it's a little charm, it's like a little sterling, sterling silver charm with a stone in the middle yep, and this is handmade and that actually has a piece of my son's hair in it and I got that from, uh, one of my children's foster carers. It's so lovely and she turned around and stated me you'll always have a piece of him with you. Both boys are doing tremendously with their foster parents and I do call them their foster parents. It's. It took me a lot of years to actually say something like that. It did take a lot of years, but I can actually call them foster parents. I call, I can call them their foster mummy and foster daddy, because both of my children call me mummy. Both my children know who I am. They see me on a regular basis. I never miss one single contact. I'm always consistent and the foster carers ensure that that bond between me and my children stays alive. Even though I only see my children once a month, they ensure themselves within their family home that it stays very much alive.

Ness:

What you're saying is there's a really respectful connection between you, although your contact is very limited with each other. There's an understanding that you're mummy and you've been an awful lot. All of you have been through an awful lot and they've stepped in as foster parents, long-term parents, and they are going to parent and love your children, whilst also acknowledging the fact that you are mum yeah you are an important part of their life and identity.

Ness:

Yeah, yeah, I suppose I want to wrap up shortly, although I am so appreciative of you spending time with me this evening. It's been. It's been very emotional and very important, I think and I just before we end our recording certainly are there any other thoughts Because you know we're trying to attract foster carers into our service Now. There are lots of different families. There are certainly children who have no contact at all with parents and you know, let's just park that aside for a moment, because I'm interested in this discussion talking about creating a collaboration, because that's what you had with your, your parent and child foster carers as well. It's a collaboration between a birth family and a foster family. I'm just wondering if you have any words of advice about how they might build that up with a birth family.

Birth Mum:

To build that up with a birth family through. Everything that I have learned and I am still learning is be open-minded. Don't judge straight away. Read what is wrote and see what the parents are like. In my situation, the foster families are very much making a relationship with me and I see both sets of foster parents, but the father doesn't. That is through choice of the foster parents and through choice of social services that he does not meet the foster parents. For their safety and for the safety of the two children, listen to what social services do state about the two parents, but make a judgment for yourself, because not every parent is the bad parent yeah, I think that's a really good bit of advice, because what you're basically saying is read the reports.

Ness:

Certainly, read the information you're given, but meet the human being yes, basically yes that's brilliant.

Ness:

I'm going to stop the recording and I'm just going to thank you so much off the recording, but I will say thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of bernardo's fostering and adoption ni podcast. To learn more about fostering and adoption with us, search for bernardo's Fostering and Adoption NI podcast. To learn more about fostering and adoption with us, search for Barnardo's online or find the link in our program description. We love to hear from you your thoughts, questions or future topic requests. To do so, you can contact us at bfani at barnardosorguk. You will find our email address also in the show notes.