I’m not going to lie to you. The application form? It’s a brute.
My brother has a bit of a phobia of application forms and if he caught sight of this specimen, he’d be running behind the sofa just as he did when he first saw Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Sorry Si but it’s true.
How have I gone 2 years working for EFS without truly studying the application form? Careless, that’s what I’ve been. Well, this week I’ve had my eyes well and truly opened. There I was serenely thumbing through the application form when my eyes fell upon 4 relatively harmless words: Every. Address. Since. Birth. For about 3 seconds my serene thumbing continued uninterrupted until-
What? You want what? Every address since birth? This filled me with horror. There was a time in my life where I was barely conscious of where I lived (such things were a mere distraction to the real business at hand – partying!). Remember the details now, over 25 years on? You have got to be kidding me!
Apparently they are not kidding me.
All I can say is thank God for old friends, google maps and postcode finder. And also thank God that what started as the world’s most arduous task actually turned out to be a lovely little virtual trip down memory lane. I (virtually) stood outside many a front door that I had long since forgotten about and reminisced about what a great time I’d had.
In contrast, I began thinking of the address histories of the children that we look after at EFS. How on earth can many of these children keep track of where they’ve lived? Many of them have moved so many times that by age 10, it’s not impossible for a child to have moved more times in a single year than I have in my entire life. That shut me up.
So I completed my part of the form, giving all the required information: details of employers, details for referees, experience of volunteering or working with children etcetera, etcetera.
Then I handed the form to Jim.
I watched as he casually thumbed through the form and counted. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (he reads more slowly than me)….
“They want what? Since birth?”
I left him to it and chuckled my way into the kitchen.
2 days later, Jim finished the application form and I gave it a good once over. Something towards the end of the form caught my eye.
“Jim,” I casually called out to him. “I never knew you’d been arrested….”
Well, EFS want real families and that is definitely what they’re going to get with us. You see, Jim and I grew up in a time when it was ok to make mistakes. Yes, we did stupid things as teenagers like get drunk, act like a prat and get ourselves arrested (well Jim did). But those things didn’t follow us everywhere and we weren’t constantly reminded of them. In fact I don’t think you could say that Jim was ever held back because of his mistakes. And there’s no photographic evidence either. Not like the teens we at EFS look after who grow up in an online arena where their mistakes are catalogued and shared and preyed upon. These are kids whose criminal records really might count against them in a way Jim’s never did. It’s another sobering thought. Pardon the pun.
