Blog: Helen
Helen Crafter is a former midwife from Chiswick who has played a vital part in the lives of hundreds of people during her career.
Here, she remembers the moment when a young boy she cared for met his adoptive parents and headed for his ‘forever home’.
A very special moment for me was when the last little boy I had went off for adoption last Spring. It was so lovely seeing him bond with his adoptive parents.
They met in a park and I could see them all just falling in love immediately and he ran to them. He was playing with them and was blowing them kisses. It was special.
I didn't expect it because you think children have a sixth sense and they won’t want to go to other people, feeling that you're trying to separate from them. But I still see him quite regularly and they have proved to be a fantastic family together.
It’s their first child and their joy and his acceptance were just magic - like it was meant to be.
He probably had a very naturally extroverted personality, but I used to take him to lots of play groups and sit back a bit. I think I worked at making him quite independent in his play. I wasn't in his face all the time, so I'm sort of putting it down to the fact that the children I knew were a little bit older and particularly friendly. That would draw him in and they would hug him and pass him toys and things.
I must also mention our family finding social worker, Jonas at the Council. He's done it for seventeen years and he's fantastic. He arranged a meet in a very independent place. It wasn’t anybody's home. There was nobody else around. It was just a big open park on a weekday afternoon. I was asked to stand back as much as possible, not to ignore the little boy, but just to let him be really. And let them go to him. And I'm sure Jonas had had a word with them as well.
I think when people are thinking about fostering or when I talk to them about fostering, they say, ‘Oh, it must be awful when the child leaves’, and I'm sure a lot of the time it is, but it isn't always. It doesn't have to be necessarily.
You know the right decisions are being made for the child and you know a really suitable family's been found.
That’s a joy in itself.
