One of the hardest things for new carers who really do care is understanding that your role stops at the door.
For hours each day, we put these children first and do our absolute utmost to make their day happy and successful. Many of us put heart and soul into the welfare of the kids in our care.
But for children, daycare is only one small part of their world. Each child has a context, a home background over which we have little or no power, even if it's a highly undesirable environment for a child.
Sure, we can fill in the appropriate forms when there's an 'incident', we can talk diplomatically to the parents, we can call in social workers. In extreme cases where there's clear evidence of wrongdoing, we can call DoCS and cross our fingers about the result- but when a child comes from an abusive background (and that can mean physical, sexual, emotional or psychological abuse, or simple neglect) we have to realise the boundaries of our influence.
