1 year later

Well, it has been a very eventful year, to say the least.

My partner and I have been guardians of my sister for a full year now. There have been many ups and a slight equal amount of downs. She has fully adapted to living with us and we have also grown to adapt to living with a teenager. We never thought this would happy but I am grateful that it has happened. I have had to grow up so much over this year, I am thankful to her because of this.

We have the same Father different Mothers. We took her in due to family breakdowns in the household where she was living at the time. She did not feel safe and had nowhere else to go. It was either she comes live with us or she went into Foster Care. I just couldn't let that happen, I would never forgive myself if that did happen.

There have been many times where we have struggled and been stressed due to adapting our 1 bedroom flat so that she would be comfortable but we managed. We have been finally getting somewhere with the local council in regards to getting a bigger place to be able to comfortable with 3 of us living there. We recently got partially accepted with a 2 bedroom flat, which means Mason and I can finally have a bedroom. For over a year now we have been living in our open planned front room/ kitchen. So for a year, it has been our bedroom/ front room/ kitchen. It's been a hassle but we have always made it work.

We meet with the social worker who is assigned to working with us every 2 weeks, she is lovely. She has openly told me and Mason that she wants to work with us to keep Grasiey (my sister) in our care. It will be 4 years until she can move out, this will be when she turns 18. I've asked myself over and over am I ready for that type of commitment? I've always come back with the same answer, " I could never allow her to go into care, if I was in her shoes and she was in mine, she would do the same for me".

Our families have always told us how proud they are of us and that we are doing a lovely thing for her. I just want her to have the upbringing that I had when I was growing up.

Going back to the night when she phoned me, she was in tears, she was telling me that she didn't feel safe within the home that she was in. When she moved in with us, my other sister came along too, that sadly didn't work but this was not our fault. She was not cooperating with us, she was putting myself and Mason under a huge amount of stress. She was with us for around 4-5 months in total, she left once and came back a couple of months later but then went again.

I'm not going to lie to anyone but we have outright turned around to the social and asked them if we would be able to adopt Grasiey. We want her to feel apart of the family, its sad that she doesn't but I know it is going to take a long while for her to get used to being with us.

Does anyone have any tips for caring for a 14-year-old?

I want to thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this.

I hope everyone is keeping safe during this difficult time.

Much Love