Originally recorded Q1: 2023 with Central FM – The Forth Valley’s Local Radio Station.
- Introduction to David & Jacqui
- The F form experience
- The matching process
- The big reasons for fostering with Aberlour
- Work-life balance and being a male foster carer
- The finances in foster caring
- Other ways Aberlour supports their foster carers
- A message to those thinking of signing up with Aberlour
Introduction to David & Jacqui
Liam
Hi, I’m Liam from the Central FM Breakfast Show, and I’m really, really happy to be focusing on fostering on our latest podcast series at Central FM. Our first episode is chatting to David and Jaqui Adamson, who have been foster caring for quite some time now, and they’ve joined us today to tell us their story. How are you both?
David
Fine, thank you.
Jacqui
Good, thank you.
Liam
Nice to see you. You guys have lots of experience in foster care, which we’ll come and touch on very soon. I wanted to really start off and just get a wee background on you guys and what you’ve did before the world of fostering. What was the makeup of your family, your work and everything else that you were doing beforehand?
Jacqui
So prior to foster caring, I was a childminder and so had lots of little kids running about the house on a daily basis. I did that for about five or six years. Before that, I was a mortgage advisor with a large bank. My childcare kind of fell through when we had our little boy, and sadly my mum became ill. Which made me move on to “What can I do now to incorporate my own child care?” So, it was very much, “You know what? I’ll look after other people’s children for them”. As well as being able to look after my own son. At that point, I’ll pass over David, who worked away from home quite a lot with his job. He was a refrigeration/air conditioning engineer, and I’ll let you speak to him.
David
I’ve done that for too many years, and I went up the ladder a bit. I started working from home, and I was dealing a lot with the kids when I was about. So, it was nice seeing all the kids and seeing the child minding kids Jackie had grow up and dealing with them, dealing with their parents. It was enjoyable.
Then I just decided to… sorry, we decided to start in fostering. So we went through the process of becoming foster carers, and once that was all done, we’ve done some.
The F form experience
Jacqui
Now through the F form, first of all, which is quite, quite intensive.
Liam
That process takes about to get through?
Jacqui
Six and nine months.
Liam
Not constant for nine months?
David and Jacqui
Oh no, no, no.
Liam
Obviously, there’s so many things that the guys are going to look at and learn about you. They’re going to want to learn about you and your family and the makeup of what you’ve got going on, your experience, and just what you’re like as people as well.
David
Yeah. The F form is really good for the whole family. But it’s also because we had a young son at that time that was well and truly involved in the whole process, which has to be because he’s coming into this journey with us as well. It’s not just myself and Jackie doing it, it’s our family. Even the grandparents were sort of involved in it as well. The child is coming in, or children are coming into your family, become part of your family. So, the whole family deals with everybody.
Jacqui
Yeah, because my mum and dad were interviewed. My brother was interviewed. But it’s not intense. It does take that six or nine-month process. You’ll maybe have a meeting one week, and then you’ll get some homework, finding out about your local area, what your local area can offer the children in that area for different clubs and things they’ve got on, and what type of community you live in.
So yeah, it’s not, after a six months, Monday-Friday, intensive application or anything like that. We found it really good. You kind of find out about yourself as well. It goes right back to your childhood. How you were brought up? What schooling was like? Right the way through to marriages, broken marriages, exes. We used to always laugh with our social worker, virtually saying to her, “Like, you know what colour knickers we’ll be wearing” because they know so much about you, and you’re so open and honest.
David
The relationship you build up with the social worker that’s doing your F form, you’ve got to have a bond when you’re doing it with them. Because they are asking some awkward questions, some personal things. And if you’re just open and honest and quite happy, then it comes like a friend, to be honest with you, is dealing with your F form because she knows you inside out.
The matching process
Liam
Jacqui, I’ll ask you this question then. Just for someone like me who’s never went through this process before, tell us about that selection process and how it works, how matching with the right family works, and how important is getting that right.
Jacqui
Yeah. So basically, when you go through your F form and that social worker knows you inside out, gets to know your family, gets to know all your quirky wee traits, how your family operate and when they get referrals through from social work. They’ll have a look at the background of the family they’ll have… I mean, for instance, our boy is quite hyperactive. He’s quite out there. And I remember when we went through our F form, them saying, “You know, we don’t want to put a really highly strung kids in your household because then you’re going to have two kids bouncing off walls. And, you know, we’re going to look at more sombre children. And these can be children, you know, who have been neglected”.
But then they bounce off our own son. He’ll sort of pull them out of that shell that they’ve maybe been placed in. So, they work really quite hard with you to get the right placement because you don’t want to have kids coming into a placement that doesn’t work. I think it’s also really important that if you don’t feel that child’s right for you, you say “no”.
You could go, “Oh, my heart’s leading me here. That’s really cute. And I want that wee one”. If they’re not right for you, it’s absolutely fine to say “no”. Because, again, you don’t want that placement failing, and then that wee one’s got to go on another family. Again, the whole meeting up process, your whole matching process is that you might have that child, will maybe go meet at park, and then they’ll maybe come to your house. That’s given that we’ve all got time for that. Sometimes It doesn’t happen as easily as that. Sometimes it is a case of straight into your home.
David
It’s loads of experience for you to meet the child first and to feel like you just another adult. To get the feel of that person, how you feel around them, how they feel around you. It can take a month. It could take a couple of months. Just to get these meetings matched up and to see the child come to your house, see how the child feels in your house, and how you feel with the child in your house. Which as Jacqui says, it’s…
Jacqui
Sometimes we don’t have that luxury.
David
It’s got to be a good match for you because it’s upsetting for you as an adult, for the job you’re wanting to do, to look after a child. If it doesn’t match correctly, then that’s upsetting for everybody when it does break down, which nobody wants that to happen. So that’s why the matching process is such a thorough thing.
It’s just to make things work the first time, the best they can. And at the end of the day, that could maybe last year, it could last for two years. It doesn’t mean to say that the placement is going to be forever because things, unfortunately, do happen.
Jacqui
I mean, even us down to our short break carers also get matched with the children because, again, they want to enjoy the short break. They’ll go and meet with the short break carer and get to know the child and saying, “I can deal with this child, and I like having them around the house, and the child likes to settle there as well”. Because, again, they’re only going there for maybe a week or a couple of days at a time and things. They need to be comfortable where they’re going, and I think that that’s really important to get it right for the child.
David
Yeah, definitely.
The big reasons for fostering with Aberlour
Liam
It shows you the lengths and the breadths that Aberlour go to to make sure that the right families are chosen for the children. They obviously need it. I know it was one of the main reasons you guys moved to Aberlour for fostering was that kind of family ethos that they have going to make sure that your family was looked after, not just of the kids coming into your care. It’s important that you guys were looked after and were integrated properly with the new kids that were coming in.
David
It was night and day moving to The process of moving over with them was plain and simple. And from there, if you need something, if you want something, if you need help or just a chat.
Jacqui
I think what the main reasons that we did move over was support for our own son. That was kind of lacking previously, whereas when we spoke to Aberlour, you could almost get that sense and that feeling that there was so much more support going to be in place for him. They really involve our son within everything that they do. He’s met a lot of the children that are in care in Aberlour, with other carers, and he gets invited on days out with them, and he’s also got his own family worker as well.
He’s now 13. We know not all 13-year-olds want to speak to their parents about their troubles and strife. However, he’s got a fantastic relationship with his family worker. So, if he doesn’t want to talk to us about it. In fairness, he’s pretty good. He’s pretty level-headed. He will speak to us. But there is times that he is like, “Right, get my family worker on the phone. I want to speak to her”. You know, just to sit and have a chat. She’ll take him out for dinner, and they can have a wee chat and see what’s going on and see how the girls are getting on and, again, just how he’s coping.
It gives him that sounding board that’s not his parents. It’s not his family, school, whatever. It’s a wee bit further out that he can tell her how much they annoy him and what’s been going on. It’s really good to have that right through his whole childhood. In fairness, there’s no sort of any particular age that’s aimed at.
And it’s great for him to get about and see all the other kids as well, and feels part of the family helps him join in. It’s not just Mum and Dad’s job. It’s everybody’s together. The girls that they look after are part of our family as well.
David
Aberlour days out are for everybody. For the adults and for the kids. And it’s nice seeing them all mix.
Jacqui
David being the biggest kid there. [laughs]
David
It makes a good day out. Whether it’s go-karting, water skiing, climbing a hill, or doing anything. Just have a laugh. It’s what we’re all there for. Just let go and have a good day. And that’s what really, nine times out of ten times, happens.
Work-life balance and being a male foster carer
Liam
You mentioned the “J” word there, the “job” thing. For people who are listening in and maybe thinking about doing what you guys did. And I’ve got a similar situation myself. The childcare costs are so astronomical now, and working from home has become a more popular thing.
Maybe people look at their work-life balance after the last few years. How do you find your life balance is now, generally? As a couple, you’ve got all the kids, some of which have grown up now as well. But do you feel like it was the right decision for you guys?
Jacqui
Absolutely the right decision. When we first started talking about fostering, David was going to be staying at work. He was going to continue on with his career, and I was going to give up the childminding, and the fostering would be my, what we call the “main job”, would have been mine.
However, as it happened, David was getting to an age that it was like, “You know, do I want to keep going with the same career?” He went through a particularly difficult stage at work. Then we decided at that point, “Actually, why don’t you give up?” And I would continue on. I continued for a little while with childminding, but it really didn’t mix, so I’ve now got another part-time job. I do two 10-hour shifts a week, which gets me out the house. David does everything to do with foster caring within the house. I obviously will come along when my shifts allow.
David deals a lot with all the hearings, with the meetings that go on with the girls social worker. And I think I’ll let you talk a bit about that. Just being in the male side of the caring. You know, everybody expects that females will be in the childcaring and they’ll look after the children, whereas David’s very much the househusband, the dad at home.
David
Yeah, it’s fine. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s been a change in career, an eye opener, a big learning curve. Overall, and even through Aberlour now, I’m on the foster panels for foster carers who were foster carers or new foster carers coming in. The knowledge that I’ve got can help them as well.
I’ve been doing that for a couple of years now, the hearings and that. Yes, the role mainly, sometimes, is “women orientated”. But there is more carers. Aberlour has carers meetings for them to meet up once a month just to air your s, find different strategies and just to get together and talk. If you’re having problems, then advice from longer carers or just different ideas. Just a bowl to put a pot in to try and help each other.
Jacqui
I think even at the beginning, there was a lot of talk, like when you had one of the girls in hospital a lot. She was in and out for skin conditions, and all sorts and a lot of people were quite surprised. “Oh, you’re like the main… like you’re caring for this one, but you’re a man?”
David
There’s a lot of nice comments from the hospitals or whatever department of the NHS professionals I was dealing with regarding the girls. It was nice comments, and from that point of view, it sort of settles you. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve worked with the females and other things in my areas of my job. So it’s not an issue for me. But yeah, the stigma of “it’s got to be a woman”, and when you do come in, and I’ve been through The Fostering Network meeting different male carers as well and from the west, from east, from north. They’ve sort of had the same sort of stigma, and it was nice to discuss all these sorts of things, but it’s not a bad stigma. It’s just the stigma.
The finances in foster caring
Liam
No, you’re right. It’s a good thing to bring up, actually, because I know for a fact that Aberlour are very much open to all different types of parents. It could be single parents, same-sex parents as well, right across the board.
Just while we talk about the job side of things, I just want to touch on the finances a little bit with you both because also that is a big consideration. It may be an awkward topic for some people who are maybe thinking about this move, that just don’t want to ask the question because they might think it rude to ask, “How much I’m going to get?”
They might be thinking the people at Aberlour think, “They just want the cash”, you know, “they’re not interested in the kids”. But actually, it’s a very, very important point. You guys have to think about it very carefully. You were replacing your incomes from your jobs. You need to make sure you’ve got enough money coming in, both for yourselves as a family, but also, to look after the new kids who are going to be joining the family. Aberlour are fantastic at this because you get your fee on top of all the allowances and stuff for that as well. So it does seem like it’s very well set up to allow you to make that decision.
Jacqui
Definitely, I think Aberlour’s route around that is very much that we were always told, “We’re looking at one of you at least, sort of, giving up your job”, and they recognise that you’re that full income down, with an extra one to possibly even three bodies to feed and clothe and look after.
The fee will virtually replace a decent salary. Then you get your allowances that are for that feeding, watering, looking after, and clothing. Our two go to different clubs. They go horse riding, the swimming and have lots of out-of-school activities. Again, that allowance covers that quite easily, doesn’t it? It’s replaced your salary.
David
We replaced my salary with what we get from Aberlour. Not everything, but it was enough.
Other ways Aberlour supports their foster carers
Liam
Let’s talk a wee bit more about that kind of day-to-day support that Aberlour helps out with. Of getting those tricky moments when the children come through your doors over the years. I know they’ve got so many different ways where you can literally just pick up the phone, and they are there for you.
David
You can pick up the phone. They’ll come and see you, and you don’t have to make it a serious thing. You can meet them for a cup of coffee. You can meet them going for a walk if there’s things to talk. Our social worker knows us as well, she knows the girls well, and she knows Sam well. To be honest with you, she’ll read you from walking in the door how you are.
Jacqui
It can be even something as simple as if you are… and I hate calling it “a crisis moment”, but you know, we call it “a hiccup”. I don’t like “crisis”. We like “hiccups”. If you are at any point that you’re like, “I need a bit of support here”. It can just be a case of picking up the phone, and they’ll speak to the wee one. They’ll get them laughing, or I’ll get them joking, or they’ll let the child hear it from a different perspective.
Sometimes you can get yourself so deep into it that you can get a bit overwhelmed and like, “Where am I turning next? What do I do now? You know what, I’m going to pick up the phone this time.” A lot of the time, you’ll sit back an hour, a day, a week later, and you go, “Gee-whiz, what was all that about?”
David and I work really quite well together, and the fact that I can see when David’s at tipping point. It’s like, “Stand back, I’m going to take over”, and comes that fresh brain in to say, “Right. We’re going to deal with it slightly differently”. We’re always coming up after the events with, “Right, do you know what? Maybe next time we should try it this way. This time, we’ll try it that way”. But, all that comes from your carers’ meetings, it comes from your social workers, the girls’ social workers.
“This is what we had.” “This is how we dealt with it.” “It didn’t actually work that time.” “You know, next time, we’re going to try it.” We’ve come up with quite a few different strategies, whether that’s been going for a drive in the car. Kids love to talk when they’re in the car because there’s no face-to-face contact.
Liam
I’ve got an almost 13-year-old and a baby at the same time, so both ends of that, and the car works for both.
Jacqui
Absolutely.
Liam
That’s been good. She’ll go to sleep. He’ll blether away about what’s bothering him.
Jacqui
Yeah. But there’s, there’s no sort of face-to-face.
Liam
The eye contact bit.
Jacqui
And it’s like, don’t feel so intimidated. It’s just, “Actually, you know what? We’re going to go for a drive.”
David
And I’m the same as you as much as I’ve got my own 13-year-old son. I’ve got my two girls, I’ve now got my granddaughter as well. So I have the whole age group.
Jacqui
The whole shebang.
David
The whole deal.
Liam
Can I just take your numbers on speed dial for future reference? [laughs]
David
24-hour pickup. [laughs]
Liam
And you could be my buddy, actually. [laughs]
David
But overall, we do talk at night and are thinking different things, do a lot of research on training for what issues the girls have. We hand over to Aberlour if we can’t find enough. Kerryanne, one of the supervisors, has searched for us for stuff. She found it, we go on the course. And the loop of training there is, the door is always open for training. If you can find it yourself, or Aberlour have offered it because emails are sent out on different training for different things. So overall…
Jacqui
So overall, and there’s no pressure, I know a lot of people think, “Oh my God, I’m going to spend my days training”. There’s no pressure. There’s a lot of training that’ll come up that we’ll look at and say, “Actually, no, that’s not for us”. That’s absolutely fine. But you do get a bit sucked into it. I really need to know about this, and I really need more about that. And again, it’s a case of sending an email saying, “Right, tell me about this”. And always there to say, “Right. We’ve got a course here running that day, can you make it?” or some of it’s just from home, some of its webinars. So again, it is at your pace.
Liam
You’ve talked about that learning curve there. That’s learning on the job, I suppose, if you want to call it that too. You’ve also said you’ve learned loads about yourselves through the process, especially that initial sign-up phase and learning about your background and your history. What would be the overriding feelings you would say about your fostering journey entirely?
How would it make you feel when you look back at everything you’ve achieved with the young people that have lived with you?
Jacqui
Absolutely. I would say incredible because there can be really tough moments, and there can be I’m not I’m not going to lie, but there are times that you’re just like, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore”. And then you look back, and you think, “Actually, you know, it’s not these kids’ faults”. Take a breath. Look at what they were like that day they walked through your front door, and look at what they were like two years ago. Look at what they’re like now. We’re now six years down the line. Massive difference. You look back and think, “Yeah, you can pat yourself on the back”. So, it is really rewarding. You can pat yourself on the back and say, “Actually, you know what? That was down to us. Down to us as a family.” Not saying singlehandedly. Yes, with support. Our two are thriving now. Even though, don’t get me wrong, they absolutely still have their issues. It’s not a quick fix overnight or in five years or ten years. They’ll always have those issues. But to see just how far they’ve come, and I think also looking on the other side, where they would be had they not come into looked-after care, and would be a completely different story. It’s almost like the sliding doors of life.
A message to those thinking of signing up with Aberlour
Liam
For someone listening to this right now who’s maybe on the fence. What would you say to them about signing up with Aberlour?
Jacqui
Absolutely. Do it. You know, again, it’s not, “Oh, my God, if I sign up, that’s me. I’ve got to do this”. There’s loads of stages in between the two.
David
There’s lots of stages and Skills to Foster, which is a really good course to do. You have to do it anyway, but it’s a really good course. We’ve been in a few with new people coming in, and we’ll tell how it is. We’ll not put nice flowers and all that around it. We’ll tell you what it’s like being a foster carer. Yes, it is hard, it is testing. Yes, you have upset days. Yes, you have great days. But again, there’s no difference for, and I hate to use the word, “normal” children and having foster children, that’s just different.
Liam
Yeah, that’s true. Family has its up and downs.
David
Yeah. And at the end of the day, again, when I have a bad day, and the girls go to school, or Jacqui is at work, or my son’s at school, you have your own time, a bit of time out. You decide what you want to do, but yes, there is times it’s been to the hilt. Me personally, I look back at the photos from when they first came to where they are now. And I think, “Yeah, we’re doing something right here, and we’re doing well”. And it’s not just us. It’s everybody.
Jacqui
I think it’s also important to mention as well that we have a short break carer as well, and the girls have individual short-break carers. Again, you’re thinking about it, you’re thinking, “Will I do this? This is going to tie my whole life up. I’m never going to get a holiday again. I might not be able to take this child out the country”. Yes, you can. You know, don’t be put off by it. I’ve got this 24-hour childcare that I’ve got to be there 24 hours. And currently, we have one weekend in a month and virtually minimum. And just like any other child would do, they would go to granny’s for the weekends, or they would go to Aunty Jo’s for the week.
David
You need a break.
Liam
Absolutely.
Jacqui
And Aberlour, I’ve got to say, are very, very good at almost making you have a break. You’ll be able to go on a holiday with your own child for a week or, you know, it’s not just a weekend. If you’re going on a fortnight’s holiday or you have something planned.
We’ve got carers there. Equally for times of “crisis”, we don’t like “crisis”, but you know, if it does get to the point that there is a crisis point – off they go to their short break carer, but that short break carer thought “oh my God, I’m going there because I’ve been really bad and I’ve done this, and I’ve done that”. It’s just I’m going for a rest.
Our girls will actually say, “I can’t wait to go for another wee rest, and they enjoy it”. It’s all part of it.
Liam
Of course, they’re all part of the Aberlour family as well, aren’t they?
David
They see each other on all the days out and whenever we meet up. You didn’t just hand them at the door and go away again. It’s like, going and walking to come visit you. You come in, you visit, you have a blether, you talk about life and then you go away.
Liam
It’s been a real lovely chat. Is there anything else you guys want to say just to, really, you know, I don’t want to use “convince” because I think if you want to be a foster carer, you probably already really want to do it to an extent? The finances, or the things you’ve touched on a lot already. Is there anything else you want to add that might just help someone make that decision?
David
If your mindset is there for doing it, do it. It’s a rewarding job.
Jacqui
Ask all the questions. Don’t be afraid to ask financial questions. We still have to have a living, you’re feeding extra children, you’re looking after them, and you need to know that these finances are going to work for you because then that, I think that’s quite a big thing. People are always very much “Oh well, will we have enough money to be able to do this, to be able to do that”.
Ask all these questions. Don’t be afraid, because believe me, they’ll ask you a lot more than you’re going to ask them and do a Skills to Foster course. Again, that gives you a really good insight and will tell you the horror stories. It will tell you what children have gone through in the short lives before you take them on.
At that point, you might think, “Wait a minute. I’m not quite ready for this”. So, again, I think definitely go in, ask the questions. I would say most definitely do the Skills to Foster. It’s two or three days out of life and or two or three evenings that you’ll go and you’ll do it. And again, that’s also really helpful for making that final decision.
David
But you’ve got to remember as well, it’s still a job you’re doing. So you need to realise that as much as you’re being a loving, caring parent to children that need help, it’s still a job. And that’s what you’ve got to look at. It’s a very rewarding job. And so the point is how children come to you and rely on you. Whether the children are with you for the rest of their life, for six years or ten years, you’re only doing what you can do to help them to the best that you can.
Jacqui
Within that time frame.
David
That time frame that you have them to make them better than what they walked in your front door.
Liam
Well, you can see them from both of you guys. You were in a really decent job at the time you were working. Trying to get childcare sorted and stuff as well. But you guys made that decision, and as you can see from both of you, that it’s been a great decision.
David
Oh, yeah.
Liam
I can tell by being in your company.
David
Definitely, it’s not something I would say of I’ve regretted. And it’s been more enjoyable since we’ve moved to Aberlour.
Jacqui
David loves a chat at the school gate with the mums. He’s like the biggest busybody there. [laughs]
David
There’s dads there as well. You’ve got to remember there’s dads there as well. But it’s good, as from my point of view, as a male. It’s not the stigma it’s made it to be. There is a lot of males out there that do it.
Jacqui
A lot of people admire you for what you do as well.
David
I look at it no different to looking after your own children. And the point of that, as I say, I do a lot of the meetings. I was never out of the hospital the first year the children came. The amount of people that were in the meetings I used to go to, I’m down to next to nothing. And nothing to do with it, but the girls’ social worker is a male, and at school, he even he found it, “Oh, a male?” But we got on great. I get on with my own social worker Grace and no disrespect in the staff at Aberlour, they’re so easy to talk to. And if you’re wrong, they’ll put you in your place like a wife would do. [laughs]
Liam
Every day is a learning experience. But it does sound like you’ve got one big family going on there with the guys at Aberlour. So thank you so much, David and Jacqui, for joining us on the first of the podcast series. You can find out more on our Central FM web pages, all to do with fostering locally in Forth Valley. We’ll have more on future episodes to come as well. But for now, thank you, David and Jacqui, for joining us today.
David
You’re welcome. Thank you.
Jacqui
You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.
