A foster carer has lifted the lid on a hilarious comeback one boy gave him when he said hello in Russian.
Phil Watson, has been a foster carer since 2010 and is now a recruiter of foster carers for Liverpool City Council. After the release of the new John Lewis advert, which follows a foster dad-to-be learning to skateboard in order to have something in common with the teenage girl, Phil spoke to the ECHO his own experiences with fostering.
The 52-year-old, who lives in Mossley Hill and teaches foreign languages at King David High School, spoke about the arrival of a 10-year-old boy who needed care after his mum fell ill as such an example. He said: "About 10 years ago, we got a message saying 'can you foster a boy, we think he's 10, and we think he's Russian and can we drop him off at your house this afternoon?'.
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"At the time, we were on a list of emergency foster carers. The backstory was that this 10-year-old boy had gone into school in the morning and during the day, his mum had been taken very, very ill.
"She was in hospital, the doctors knew she had a son, so they rang up social services, who then suddenly had another child on their list. They rang available foster carers. Nobody knew anything about this child because he wasn't from a difficult background.
"They rang us and we thought: 'Well, we haven't got much information, but we know that he hasn't got anywhere safe to live and we've got a safe home', so we said yes. There would be more problems that would arise, but the foster carer attitude is that we can solve them when they arrive.
"Just imagine this, this 10-year-old boy has no idea that this is happening. As far as he is concerned, he's in lessons.
"At the end of the day, in his mind, he's going home to see his mum. The head teacher then wants to speak to him - that's never a good thing, as we all know.
"He goes into the office, sees the social worker - a 'lady with a lanyard' as many foster kids call them - and she has to explain to him that his mum is ill, he can't see her today. They have to convince him to get into the social worker's car to go to foster parents.
"This poor kid is driven across Liverpool, he thought he was going to go home but now he's on the way to our house. We were told he was Russian and I teach languages. So I'd been on YouTube to work out how to say hello in Russian.
"The lad left for school in the morning ready to come home at 3pm. He's got no clothes, no additional stuff. He arrived in his school uniform and he came through the door and he looked pretty shell-shocked. My first word to him was "privet", which is Russian for hello.
"His first words back to me were: 'Why are you speaking Russian? I'm not Russian'. I said 'oh, sorry, where are you from?'. He then said 'I'm not from Russia mate, I'm from Moldova but I live in Kenny. Moldova's nowhere near Russia, lad'.
"There's Moldova, then the Black Sea and Ukraine and then there's Russia. It's about 1,000 miles away from Russia. Imagine if you called a Scouser a Manc."
For foster carers, a lot of work is done to make the children feel comfortable in their surroundings. Phil said: "Can you imagine being a kid and going to live with strangers with absolutely nothing?
"With no memories, with nothing to make you feel safe, no teddy? You just think that's an awful thing for someone to go through.
"As a foster carer, your role is to keep that kid safe and make them feel safe. Then you can begin the process of helping them navigate all that life entails."
On the night that the 10-year-old arrived at Phil's Mossley Hill home, helping him feel comfortable was achieved through playing FIFA and discussing crisp flavours. Phil said: "Me and my birth-son were playing FIFA that first night.
"He got involved and he wanted to be Moldova and we were the Rest of the World. In a way, we managed to make the worst day of his life less rubbish.
"The 10-year-old boy spent the evening playing FIFA, eating Monster Munch and discussing what his favourite flavour was. He had nothing with him apart from the school uniform he was wearing and an Adidas bag, with a pair of swimming trunks and an AA car care manual for an Austin Allegro - I have no idea why.
"We found a way of getting him to go to school in the morning. School was a safe space for him. We ended up getting into a routine with him."
After a year or so social workers found out he had family in Moldova and they were able to take care of him until his mum got better. Phil and his family gave him a present before he returned to Eastern Europe.
Phil said there number of children going into care is increasing.
He added: "There is a national shortage of mainstream foster carers at the moment. Unfortunately the number of children in care is going up and up and up.
"John Lewis have made an emotional advert and it's a very good place to start. But you do have to get trained and you will get trained. You can find out more on the council website, but as long as you're 21 - and ideally have a spare room, you can help.
"It's a case of thinking: have you got space in your heart and space in your home to look after a child who will almost certainly have had a very difficult time?"
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