Meet Siobhan

Siobhan is a beautiful 23-month-old little girl with blonde hair and big blue eyes.  She’s a very inquisitive little girl who giggles, laughs and runs around when happy.  Siobhan enjoys cuddles and likes to sit on her foster carers’ knee for a story.

Likes

Siobhan enjoys playing outside in the garden. She loves going to the park to play on the slide and is getting more and more confident on the swings. She’s also very keen on jumping in the muddiest of puddles!

Health and Development

Siobhan presents as an active and healthy child, who is up to date with all immunisations and developmental checks.

Whilst Siobhan is meeting all her physical developmental milestones, she does have a mild speech and language delay and is currently receiving support from the Speech and Language Team.

Siobhan has an increased likelihood of having a degree of learning difficulty and potentially ADHD from hereditary factors as her birth father has a learning disability and ADHD. Siobhan’s birth mother also has some learning needs.

Education

Whilst in placement Siobhan has thrived with the opportunity and experience of attending various play groups. She enjoys attending playgroup on a twice weekly basis with her foster carer and plays nicely with all the other children.

In placement, Siobhan enjoys playing with her toy cooker and will make pretend cups of tea for the foster carer. Siobhan is able to play independently for around ten minutes or so, but she likes to return to her foster carer for reassurance after a while.

Behaviour

Upon coming into foster care Siobhan was very wary of men and would become upset if left alone with a male; this included the male foster carers. Over the past months, this has decreased, and Siobhan now seems much less anxious around males. There is no known reason for this behaviour.

Siobhan previously demonstrated some overfamiliar behaviours, and it was described by her foster carers that she ‘would wander off with anyone’. However, Siobhan now has a better understanding of individuals she is familiar with, and is becoming slightly warier of strangers.

Upon entering foster care Siobhan didn’t have much of a routine, but she has really thrived in the structure of her placement. Siobhan enjoys the routine in place and will remind her foster carer by pointing if they have forgotten something.

Siobhan’s foster carer reports that Siobhan will seek to comfort eat when upset, tired or unstimulated. When unhappy or wanting something she cannot have, Siobhan will sometimes stamp her feet and shout; her foster carers have also reported that on some occasions, she has banged her head on the floor when she could not have her own way. Whilst ensuring her safety at all times, her foster carers have largely ignored these behaviours which has meant that these incidents have decreased, and Siobhan can now be easily distracted with another activity. Again, such incidents are often linked to Siobhan wanting more food, despite having eaten enough.

Needs

Siobhan’s adoptive parents will need to continue to nurture Siobhan and give her the stability she needs to reach her potential. Siobhan’s adopters will need to be mindful that Siobhan’s future developmental needs are unknown due to the aforementioned parental learning disability.