Ask Sam letter

Hi there,

Thanks for your letter. I'm really pleased that you felt able to tell me how things are for you at the moment and how you are feeling.

It seems like you have been through a tough time. Now that you have been placed in foster care you are feeling alone and isolated because you are with people who you don’t know. It's a scary situation that you find yourself in but your foster family will be trained to help you. It will take some time to get to know the people you are living with. One way of getting to know them is spending some time with them. Perhaps there is someone in your foster family who you feel you might be able to talk to about the way you are feeling. Alternatively, perhaps you might feel able to write down what you would like to say and let that person read it. 

As you have been put in foster care you will have a social worker. It’s their job to help you. Maybe you could contact your social worker about things. If you don't want to do this, you could at least speak out to them when you next meet so that they can try and help you to feel more comfortable. We also have some information on living in care which might help you.

You also said that you feel upset and angry, and perhaps these are normal feelings to have when you have had to go into care. There are some techniques of dealing with anger on our Anger page, which you might like to try. Some people say that keeping a diary of feelings can help get things out of your system and make them feel more manageable and this might be something you could try.

ChildLine are there for you too and if you would like to talk more about your feelings or what is going on for you please contact a Counsellor either by phone on 0800 1111, logging on for a 1-2-1 chat or by sending them an email. The counsellor will listen and support you and try to help you to find ways of coping. You could also check out our message boards to see how other people have coped when being put into foster care.

Take care for now,
Sam