Own two feet


Up in the air
October 22, 2010, 12:59 pm
Filed under: leaving care, Life in care, Social workers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

I wasn’t prepared for the Panorama programme ‘Kids in Care’ as it flashed on my television screen.

The blur quickly fixed itself in the eyes of ‘Connor’, an angry fourteen year old in care. In the short clip, no doubt shown to jack up audience numbers, Connor is shown attacking his social workers car and leaving its window smeared with blood (at least I think it was blood).

His rage caught me off guard, not out of shock, but more from a forgotten familiarity. I remember that rage and then I remember the vacuum. The hole in my childhood that screamed out to be filled. I often reached for rage. 

When I sat down to watch the full documentary last week I armed myself with a pen and a pad to create a little distance. I spent the whole time scribbling… recording statistics (seventy thousand kids in care, a forty per cent increase of kids in care in the last two years – there has been no increase in the number of foster carers). I scribbled down names and ages, older Connor 14, younger Connor 3, Shannon 14, Hezron 15, the social worker Chris Rogers 21.

I took down why the kids were in care; drugs and alcohol, a murdered father. I wrote how long they had been in care; 5 years, 14 years… it started to become a form filling exercise, an exercise I have criticized in this blog before and yet here I was doing it myself. It’s easy to create a gap with ‘facts’ and keep young people in care at arms length.

But kids in care have to be more than what Connor called ‘just a name on a list’. Underneath the screaming and shouting, the blood and the spit, the drinking and the drugs, the swearing and the ‘I don’t cares’ they are screaming out for understanding. They are screaming out for love… they are not screaming out for adults surrounding them with forms and clipboards and stupid questions.

They’re screaming out for more.

It’s the same scream we all scream out into this world at times, but most of us are able to fall into the arms of mums and dads and brothers and sisters and aunties and uncles and other family members and friends for kisses, cuddles, comfort and understanding.

This goes for children and adults alike. If this support is missing and there is nobody else ready to hear that scream and catch them as they fall, then they will keep falling.

As Jacky, the children’s home carer, says we just need a lot of love and a lot of trust and when kids know they’re secure everything starts coming together, without that it often feels like its always falling apart. Trust isn’t easy to get, it takes time and it takes consistency and kids being constantly moved destroys any chance at gaining this trust. The system is broken and has been for a long time regarding the number of moves young people are involved in care.

We need more from help and drive from those in the higher echelons of our political system. Connor said ‘we are second class’ and it hurt because I remember feeling just that and it’s a hard feeling to shake as you get older.

We deserve more. We need more. My words feel like a broken record spinning round and round and it’s a record that has played during both the times of the Conservative and Labour Governments. Can this new coalition Government spin another tune? Or will they comfortably settle into a blame game of who didn’t do what?

A good start would be a real push for recruiting foster carers that goes beyond a poster campaign and an advert on a cheap cable channel. We need something like the recruitment campaigns rolled out for the army and the teachers because this is just as important. Is there anything more important than feeling safe and secure, loved and wanted? Shouldn’t everything else come after this?

I also think there must be other models of looking after young people in care than we currently have. Are there any pilots currently happening? Help me out there, or does anybody know of any other countries doing it different, doing it better?

The above was pretty much written the next day after the programme aired. I’ve now had a few days to think the whole thing through. There is no doubt the programme was important, but I do fear that whenever kids in care are on television it’s always the same kind of story…dysfunction in all its guises. It almost feels like exploitation.

Maybe I’m part of that in some way with this blog telling my own dysfunctional story, still I think it’s important that rather than always perpetuating the stereotypes we need to see more of the other side to life in care. We need to see how life in care has been positive for many people, both children and carers.

I remember standing in the playground as an eight-year-old boy staring at planes as they left their vapour trails in the sky. I dreamed of one day being on one, but never thought I would. I never cared about being a pilot, I just wanted to be as high as those planes and look down on the world.

I remember my first time flying to Majorca on Britannia Airlines with my foster family the Halls. I remember how amazing it was to get plastic blue cutlery and food on a tray in little compartments. I remember take off and everything shrinking as we climbed. I remember flying through the clouds and I remember looking out of the window into the darkness and seeing a storm rage in the darkness.

It was beautiful and is still one of the greatest moments of my life… can’t say I remember much of Majorca.

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I may have left care, but it has never left me
September 14, 2010, 2:45 pm
Filed under: leaving care | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

My positive side says that going into care was ultimately for the best. I can see the path that was being plotted for me. All my school reports before I left home talk of wasted potential (this counts for secondary school too) and constant fighting. On one occasion my care file talks of me being restrained for an hour and a half at school before the police were called. I was ten.

At home violence was familiar to the point that when I saw my mum have her nose broken I thought it was her own fault. She just wouldn’t shut up, didn’t know when to stop and one of her male drinking partners thought he would show her how. Of course, even with the blood streaming down her face, it showed her nothing and they probably hugged and made up in seconds. That’s just how things were.

Those of you who have experienced stuff like this will understand what I mean when I say that I just got on with things. It wasn’t even that dramatic. It was the rough edge of normality.

But this life, and what I was seeing, was seeping into me and I was becoming it. Telling whoever I wanted to ‘f*** off’ at the drop of a hat, breaking into schools, fighting, generally not caring about anything or anyone. And if I had stayed I know it would have been hard not to go down the route that my home life was offering me.

In care, one set of issues was exchanged for another. Over time lots of memories from those days have faded away. The faces of carers and children I lived with have disappeared. But I know this is me remembering to forget because it’s often easier that way.

Unless you’ve been there you will never understand what it’s like to be abandoned in this world. When both your mum and dad turn their backs on you that cuts a hole that can never be filled.

As an adult I can now rationalise what happened to me, but the heart is not rational and the pain still remains. There are days when the positive side wins out and I’m happy that I managed to go to university and that my working life has been relatively successful. In my battle with my experience I win out mostly and refuse to let it dominate me, but it is still a big part of me. Take that part away from me and I will lose much of my identity. It’s the bitterest, and yet sweetest side of who I am.

I intended for this post to be about leaving care and it is, but it’s hard to find the finish line. And this can only highlight the desperate need to support young people when they leave care. Going from a controlled daily existence to then being put out into the world to fend for yourself is a scary thing.

Thinking back I’m not sure when I actually left care. Was it climbing out of my last foster parents’ car window and running away? Was it saying goodbye to Lee’s mum (see July’s post) in my university halls bedroom? I’m not sure because I did get a £500 cheque each year from Social Services while I was still at university, which I quickly spent on essential studying equipment… alcohol!

But seriously, I guess I was still part of the system because I also received a letter about independent living. No phone call, no visit, just a letter. Something so important deserved so much more. I had been in care since I was nine.

Recently I’ve been reading about the experiences of young people in care today and it saddens me to see that very little has changed. Support can be sketchy and there is often a lack of understanding from some of the people who are part of the system that provides this support.

Also I see a tragic fatalism that says that this is just the way it is. Complain about the dirty flat you move into as you make the transition from care into the real world and you’ll be told that it’s tough and that you should be grateful. I still feel like people leaving care and those who are in care are squashed into statistics and budgets and reports… people need to remember that we are often people with complex needs who need a solid support system.

I appreciate that we are living in a world of cuts at the moment, but the money and effort put in to support people leaving care could ultimately save money in the long run (not that decisions should always be made on a monetary basis).

The statistics concerning people who have been touched by the care system relating to academic achievement, the likelihood of becoming homeless and the likelihood of going to jail, alongside other statistics scream out that more has to be done. There are care leavers who go on to lead productive and happy lives. But I don’t need a statistic to know that this number is far too low.

I think the final letter I ever received from Social Services was to ask me if I wanted to stay on the independent living scheme, and that if so I needed to take up a flat soon. By then I was living in the Midlands and still had another year of studying. Time was moving on and the truth is I wanted to distance myself as far away from Social Services as possible, so I said no.

I was lucky because I had built a support network around me by then. But that was the last I heard from Social Services. For so long they had been this great hulking thing that had controlled my life, and then they were suddenly gone.

I’ve blagged my way through a lot of my life since then, but there are times when I wish I had been offered some kind of emotional support. Sometimes leaving care can be an elating experience, you can go through a honeymoon period, but down the track the demons can catch up with you. People need help in this department just as much as the everyday things like budgeting, filling out forms, paying bills, writing CVs etc. I never got that help and many others don’t seem to either.

I actually did some research for this blog for a change and there are a lot of great ideas that can be found in various reports and articles about improvements that can made to support the transition from care to independent living. (Such as Ofsted’s report, Support for care leavers). Also the young people this affects are full of great ideas and practical ways to make the transition easier. For example, at the Associate Parliamentary Group for Looked-after Children and Care Leavers.

But, if there is nobody to coordinate these ideas and take responsibility in the higher echelons of government and the related departments and agencies, then the sense of abandonment many feel coming into care will only be further reinforced when they leave it. 
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