Book review: “If you don’t stick with me, who will?” The challenges and rewards of foster care

“If you don’t stick with me, who will?” The challenges and
rewards of foster care

Edited by Henrietta Bond. BAAF

ISBN 1903699681, £8.95

STAR RATING 5/5

Simply a must-read for anyone involved with foster care, writes
Geoff Corbishley.

The stories of 12 foster carers, describing their experiences of
looking after children, forms the core of this book. Some
placements were successful while others broke down. The social work
decision-making surrounding the placements varies from the positive
to the bewildering.

The human stories – the tragedies, the celebrations, the pain these
children often carry – are all there. There is much that readers
will find moving, such as the foster carer who taught a child to
see a “pretty little girl” in the mirror, not a “whore and a
bitch”.

Yet the book has missed an opportunity to follow through the
personal accounts with a look at their implications for policy.
Perhaps a companion book could be commissioned using the accounts
to consider such areas as the law, safe care, the constraints of
bureaucracy, the double standards of society, and
anti-discriminatory practice in action.

Such a follow-up could prove a useful learning tool for, among
others, student social workers and trainee foster carers.

Geoff Corbishley is a professional foster
carer