At least, I thought, at least he would be off to school now. Maybe the change of scenery, the new environment and new people might help. Perhaps he’d even make a friend or two, who knew?
But in that, it seemed, I was probably being seriously naive. He’d been there only a few days when I got a call from the school, one lunchtime.
‘Mrs Watson?’ a male voice said. ‘It’s Richard Firth, Head of Year Seven at the high school. I’m calling about Justin Reynolds. I believe you’re his foster mother, yes?’
I felt my stomach lurch. ‘Yes. Yes, I am. Is everything alright?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have to exclude him from school.’
‘Oh, no. Why?’ I said, mentally saying but not adding the words, what, already?
‘For throwing another pupil down some stairs.’
Chapter 9
It was a freezing cold day at the end of February, and, looking out of the front window, I saw the cavalry arriving, here for Justin’s LAC review.
LAC simply stands for ‘Looked After Child’, and this meeting, following Justin’s distressing disclosures, had already been put in the diary. But given the school incident and subsequent exclusion, the powers that be had decided to flag it up as urgent.
He’d been excluded from school for a week for what he’d done, and I’d been asked to go in for a meeting to discuss things, with both the head teacher and Justin’s special needs co-ordinator, Julia Styles. Thankfully, the girl hadn’t been hurt, and was just shaken, but given the potential for serious injury in what he’d done, it was felt important that Justin be sent a strong message. He had also been told how easily this could have been a matter for the police. Thankfully, though, that wasn’t going to happen on this occasion, as it seemed that the girl’s parents had been satisfied that the school had dealt with the matter appropriately.
Neither I nor the school had been able to establish much in the way of background facts, however, it being almost impossible to get anything out of Justin about it, bar repeated grunts about how all the other kids liked to ‘wind him up’, and how, on that particular occasion, he’d ‘just lost it’. I realised that I would just have to accept that I wouldn’t ever get to the bottom of this one.
Since then, we’d spent a trying week with Justin at home, who was guarded, withdrawn and generally uncommunicative, as well as feeling the effects of his resultant loss of points, loss of TV and computer time being the worst – so perhaps the most effective – kind of punishment. Irrationally, I felt like I was being punished too. Life was so much harder at home when Justin was unhappy.
But now he was back, and so the way was cleared for the meeting with his care team to finally take place and his package of current measures reviewed. I reminded myself to have my notebook and pen at the ready for the review, as I knew that it was to be an important one and I didn’t want to forget anything that might be helpful.
Not that the situation – Justin being absent – was what I’d initially expected. There was something else going to come up at this meeting, I was sure. They’d specifically told me not to even mention it to Justin and said that Janice wouldn’t be invited to it, either. This was very unusual; Mike and I had been told during training that the child is always present at an LAC review, and, if they still have contact, the child’s parent/s or guardian are always invited too. That Justin’s mother wasn’t to be consulted seemed very odd to me. It just didn’t seem right – whatever the circumstances around it – for a child’s future, assuming the parent still had legal access, to be discussed without that parent being present.
But even without Janice it was a pretty big meeting. On my doorstep that morning stood a small but robust posse: as well as our link worker John Fulshaw and Justin’s social worker Harrison Green, there was Helen King (educational support), Gloria Harris (the reviewing officer), Julia Styles (the special educational needs co-ordinator) and Simon Ellis (the supervisor of our specialist fostering programme). As Mike was at work, last but not least, there was me.
Good God, I thought, counting them one by one over the threshold. I just hope I’ve got enough cups.
‘Come in,’ I said aloud, as they made their way past me. ‘We can talk in the dining room – through there. Door to the left. I’ll just go into the conservatory and grab some more chairs.’
I could hear John telling people to make themselves comfortable. Moments later, he’d joined me in the conservatory.
‘Sorry, Casey,’ he said. ‘We’re a little mob handed today, aren’t we?’
‘You’re telling me!’ I said, passing him the least tatty of my tatty garden chairs. ‘Bloody hell, John. You could have warned me we were having a party.’
‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘Here, let me grab that one as well. It’s just that there’s some other stuff come up – quite serious stuff – that needs discussing. Hence the big boss being here, and all the others. Go on – you go and start getting some drinks sorted or something. I can take these through and get everyone settled.’
I tutted at John in mock indignation, though, in truth, he was a master at putting people at their ease, and I always felt more secure when he was around. Which was just as well, because these people, all together, were all a little bit intimidating. They didn’t mean to be, I was sure, but they couldn’t help it. They just were. They were the ones who made all the life-changing decisions, whereas I felt very much the little pit pony, toiling at the coal face.
I went into the kitchen and pulled down my large coffee jug and tea pot and, once I’d filled them, I took them into the dining room to sit alongside the assortment of china I’d already taken through; my non-matching milk jug and sugar bowl and mish-mash of different cups. Why would I have matching cups, though? In our family, we all used mugs.
Seeing them all, I felt slightly embarrassed at my lack of taste in such affairs, even so. It was something I’d definitely inherited from my mother; we’d always been a make-do-and-mend kind of family, always able to find a bit to enjoy a nice treat with the children, but not so fussed on wasting money on posh china. But perhaps, now that I was going to be hob-nobbing with the great and the good of social services, I ought to splash out a bit. I made a mental note to buy a matching set of cups, at least, the next time I did the shopping.
No-one else seemed to notice though – or, if they did, it wasn’t obvious – and, to my surprise, Harrison leapt up and proceeded to be mother; it was the most animated I’d seen him so far.
It was Gloria – the ‘big boss’ – who started the ball rolling, by introducing herself and letting us know she’d be chairing the meeting and also taking minutes – this was going to be pretty official, it seemed. She seemed really nice, though, and I found myself warming to her immediately; she had a friendliness about her, and I wondered what her background might be. She seemed both warm and wise: a reassuring combination. Which was important, as over the last few days, and amid all recent the trauma, I was beginning to find a sense of maternal protectiveness growing inside me. I felt professionally responsible – which I was: Mike and I both were, of course – but now also emotionally responsible for Justin’s welfare.
The next stage was for everyone present to give an update to the others about their contact with Justin and his current condition. John confirmed that he’d been unable to glean anything further concerning the disclosures I’d recently passed on to him. Harrison did likewise – he had no notes with him, but said pretty much the same as John had; no