Bruno: the canine advisor

BRUNO may have four legs, a glossy coat and a wet nose, but he has plenty in common with the youngsters that his owner Lynne Brown helps every day. As a result, the rescue dog has become a sort of canine companion to children in care at the Reach Out Care agency in Newton Aycliffe.

“He loves young people. He absolutely loves them and relates so well to them with the blog,” says Lynne – although at that very moment he chooses to growl at an elderly person passing the window outside the room in which we’re talking.

That’s right, Bruno blogs. The secure kids’ log-in area of the agency’s website features his blog, which aims to help young people deal with their own anxieties.

“The section of the website gives them information about us and about important things going on that might be of interest to them. It’s an opportunity to share their concerns with us as well,” she explains.

“Bruno is my dog – a rescue dog – and he tells different stories about his life and activities. He has similar issues as the young people. He was separated from his mother when young and had issues around detachment.

“We have a new dog we’re getting next weekend and this week he’s going to write about having to share his home with a new foster dog and all the anxieties that raises.”

By this time, Bruno, wearing his best designer tie, is posing for The Northern Echo photographer – his second photo shoot after being snapped for pictures for his blog. He’s competing for a best-dressed title at a forthcoming foster carers event, as well as best rescue dog.

A literary award can’t be far behind.

“He did his first article before Christmas – about going to the beach and swimming a little bit too far out to sea. He wrote about the dangers of that,” she says. “The plan is to look at different scenarios our young people might face. So he’s going to be going to the dentist, to the doctor, things like that.

“We try to think of as many issues as our young people might face – first day at school, moving to a new home, having to meet new people.”

Bruno the canine care advisor is well-known to the young people away from the web as he often joins them for activities organised by Reach Out Care. Why does he dress up? “He just enjoys it. He very much has his own individual character,” explains Lynne.

“With our young people, if you’ve got someone who’s sad or upset, they can take him for a walk and he cheers them up. He understands emotions and he relates to them – he knows when somebody needs a cuddle. He’s a very clever dog.”

BRUNO’S past is not without heartache.

The couple who bought him put him in a dog pound when they separated. “He was terrified when I got there – all you could see at the back of the kennel was this pair of little white eyes,” recalls Lynne.

“It took ages to get him out of the kennel and he was shaking uncontrollably. He was really scared. He went home with me that day and never looked back really.”

Today, he’s a bundle of energetic, friendly fun. “He loves children. I lived in a household where there were foster children, so he’s grown up around lots of young people. It’s like he can relate to what a child is going through.

“Now he’s getting a brother called Schubert, a schnauzer, so he’s got lots of anxieties around that because he’s been an only dog,” she says.

“How to share with another dog and again the story will relate to that – will I get as much attention? Will we get on? Again, all the things a young person would be thinking about if another child was coming into their house.”

Bruno has taken centre stage during Foster Care Fortnight, running until May 29. Owner Lynne has been at the Newton Aycliffe agency for three years, initially as a social worker and then as fostering manager. She has worked in a young offenders’ institution, residential care and local authority child protection.

“Coming to a private agency was just looking at fostering from a different perspective really and with a private agency who don’t have as much bureaucracy and red tape.

“I felt it was a way of being able to carry out a social work job without being too restrained by resources really.”

As fostering manager, she works with social workers, education co-ordinators, support workers and admin staff on placing children with foster carers for local authorities Foster carers are constantly assessed and recruiting new foster carers is ongoing, not least because there’s a national shortage, both within the local authority and the independent sector.

“This is very worrying. A lot of authorities are saturated now. Two years ago, we got teenagers who’d been through every kind of placement, whereas now we get babies too.

“It’s to do with marriages breaking down, the recession and the stresses that has placed on family life. There have also been serious cases, such as Baby P, which I’m sure had an impact because we’ve seen numbers rise dramatically in the last couple of years.

“We’re fortunate that we’ve had a really good year in terms of people wanting to become foster parents. We have lots of strategies to find new ones, including job fairs, leaflets and advertising.

What we’ve found more and more is that it’s through word of mouth. In the past year, the majority of our recruitments came from word of mouth.”

The recession means challenging times. “We have to cut our costs dramatically, but ensure we still give an exceptional service. We’re constantly looking at ways we can give added value to the local authority. Now, it’s much more of a partnership between the independent sector and the local authority, and so I feel a moral obligation to help out their budget cuts. Everybody’s had to tighten their belts and we’re trying to do that without it having an impact on our services.”

• Further information at reachoutcare.co.uk.