Thanks I can not seem to leave this subject...
I have to confess that the reason I am catching on to this so much is it has triggered about something that happened a bit back - I think before many of you joined
- and I have hijacked Gail's thread because of my own stuff. - sorry Gail!!
I had set my heart on becoming an official foster parent having privately fostered two children over the years , one who I had when she was 12 through to 16 as a private arrangement between her mum and me and she is now grown up in her late 20s with 2 boys and more recently I fostered my friends boy for sometime when she was ill.
I really thought fostering was something I could do well given that I am a qualified teacher and youth worker who worked with young people for over 25 years and am a parent myself and have experience of fostering.
So I applied in response to a two page spread advert in a local paper put in by social services that wanted people to foster all age ranges but were especially intereseted in those wanting to foster young mums with babies who were going through difficulties - sometimes PNI.
There is a real need and national shortage of foster parents with the accommodation and the will to take on young people under 18 and often as young as 14 who have children themselves - a foster carer who does this has to have both the room in their home and willingness to be officially responsible for not just the young woman but you are officially the foster carer for her child too - it is a big responsibility, but one I really wanted to take on.
Especially as since I stopped work due to my accident i mossed working with young people.
Given it was right up my street in that I run this site on PNI - I have a lovely flat as an annex to my home which could accommodate a mum and baby perfectly and the advert said that as these would be older young women who you would be encouraging to look after themselves and their baby and not doing it for them -
physical disability was no bar!They were even happy to hear from same sex couples and single people even those who had never had children!
However the vetting procedure is extremely rigorous for fostering , takes at least 6 months and every aspect of your life is gone through like a fine tooth comb, then you go up against a panel. who decide if you are suitable.
Even your own children have to be vetted, of course Barry was as part of it as me , he was thoughly checked and there is nothing medically or otherwise to prevent him fostering and checks were even taken out on Caja both criminal and health checks and she was interviewed as to her suitability and if it had gone through she would have had to attend training courses with us even though she was only 15/16 at the time.
Basically they passed and I was refused .........They did not think I was suitable to be a foster carer for social services due mainly to my medical history.
It was such a blow to my self esteem I felt completely crushed and defeated!!
My history of PNI was not the only reason, I guess it was several things combined - despite the advert saying that disability was no bar, my disability was another reason.
They also had concerns about my level of mobility and other things in my history which were very much in the past over 30 years and since then I had been a teacher/youth worker for over 30 years and 14 year continuous service for one local authority. That I had counseling following my accident as i had difficulty adjusting to the fact I might be disabled to a degree for the rest of my was relavent - the medical records of having this counseling also figured in why I was refused.
It was made worse by the fact that I volunteered the information about my suffering PNI as it is such a big part of my life and I did not need to, as i did not get treatment for PNI it was not on my medical records except right at the end when I had voluntary psychotherapy and that was not put down specifically as PNI but general stress.
I got the impression form our disscussions that they felt because I still run this forum 16 years after my PNI was 'obsessed' with PNI and therefore not over it and this contributed to my not being accepted as a foster parent!
Maybe in a way this is true as running this site i can not put PNI in the past - but I still do not see it as a bar to my doing a really good job as a foster carer of a young parent !!!!
But also the brief but destructive/unnecessary intervention from social services I had when I was ill with PNI and my subsequent official complaint about social services behavior ( which was documented in my story in Cara Atkins book) was on record and I guess this would count for fostering but not for a teaching job?
I can see though why with all my history I was considered too much of a risk to be a foster carer, I know I am safe and would do a great job - but how can they? and they have to protect children vulnerable young peoplebut it was still a big personal blow one it is difficult to accept..................
and I now I am worried that now that the criteria for being a teacher is much more rigorous than it was when I was employed before that I might not even be able to practice the profession I trained hard to do, qualified in with merit and did for many years???
I can not tell you how being refused as suitable to be a foster carer crushed me and how much it knocked my confidence in terms of feeling able to apply for jobs in the future in any caring, youth work or teaching role.
In fact I do understand that as they live with you the criteria for a foster parent is so much more strict than a teacher - to be a foster parent it is literally a 6 month job interview with various searches, ainterviews, ssessments and training courses during this time and it is very, very intrusive to your family life.
I am a very honest person and unable to hide who I am and I left this process with the impression that I would have had more chance of getting through if I was someone who could put on an act and conform to their idea of who a foster parenting should be.
Anyway as you can see i am still quite hurt and angry that I was refused - it is like a slur on my character and almost like they were saying that I was not good enough to be a parent - no one could stop me having my own child but I was not considered OK to foster someone else's child!!
Anyway I had got over it until I started to answer this thread
sorry Gail as this is all my stuff not yours - I hope you have taken advice and decided what to do??I realized that with my ankle repaired I might want to apply for teaching and I would have a huge dilemma myself whether to mention my PNI or indeed other aspects of my medical history some going back 30 years.
At what point does something become irrelevant?
My PNI was nearly 16 years ago but it still counted for being a foster parent, other things they considered relevant were over 30 years ago but it still counted for this - would it count for teaching now ?- and if I decided that it did not and did not mention it - I could be bared from teaching forever if it was considered to be relevant and that I had withheld information as to my fitness to teach.……..
?
This is indeed for me a HUGE issue and one that could affect the rest of my life. and my ability to earn a living doing what I love and what I am trained for.......
I would also feel so crushed if I was, as with the fostering, refused a job I could do, but not on my skills and knowledge but because of my past medical history.
To have this happen more than once would be devastating personally.
So sorry Gail I have high jacked your thread and I expect this is why you have not responded on this subject for a while?Don't let me complicate things for you - you only had PNI I do have other medical history both physical with my leg and phobic illness when I was in my teens that potentially affect my suitability for employment in a profession that requires excellent mental and physical health.
I am sure though that in itself PNi does not constitute evidence of not good enough health.
As Hopeful says many women working as a teacher must have suffered this if 1 in 10 to 1 in 7 women suffer it .
I would say on the whole as it is only PNI you would have to declare unlike my situation, it would be best to do as you intended and declare it and I am certain it will not bar you from training and teaching
VeriteeX