Spent entire childhood in care - ama

[TeslaGirls]

Hopefully this will put right some of the stereotypes that still exist with children who are looked after or accommodated by by the local authority, "in care" in my day.

I was first fostered aged 18 month, then spent my childhood in a variety of foster homes and children's homes until the care order expired when I was 18.

Here's hoping there's no tumbleweed

Thank you for sharing OP.

What advice would you give to your younger self if you could?

Do you think it's possible for children in care to ever have good relationship's with their birth family?

Sorry, pressed enter too soon

*good relationship's with their birth family if the reason for removal was not down to any kind of abuse or neglect?

What can I do as a foster carer to make children feel welcome? What made a placement work for you?

We have considered fostering. Did you like your foster carers? What made the difference for you between good and not so good foster carers?

Thank you op. I have the utmost respect and admiration for you. It must been incredibly tough, and all the way through.
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger as they say. You have come through this and made a life for yourself. An extra size 💐🌷for you

So many replies, I wasn't expecting any! Rather than name check I'll try and do just one long post if that's ok.

Re childrens homes - you don't have to form relationships with staff, there's no pretence, they're there because it's a job for them. I found that easier, as I didn't want to have to try and force my way in to another family.

Yes, I definitely wish I had been placed for adoption.

Multiple schools, multiple towns and villages - I think there's only one person I know from my childhood now. Moving schools was hard, having notoriety as "the girl from the home". Very much self motivated at the start, by the end of senior school id all but given up I couldn't see the point of doing exams, planning for college etc when I knew I was going to have to move out of the children's unit but didn't know wherever to.

Continuing with education, I think teachers and kids are a lot more aware these days of much much impact a disruptive childhood can have on education. I am close friends with a LAC co-ordinator fir a secondary school, and some of the things she says fills me with hope I would say the most important thing is please take an interest, you may be the only one interested if they achieve an A for example, don't just care that they have handed anything in, make them hand something good in!

Thank you for this thread OP.

Echoing what others have said, you sound very together, intelligent and interesting.

@rumptifizzer CSA is child sexual abuse.

I think it's criminal that 16 year olds are expected to fend for themselves, though again I think that has changed for the better now

I work in Children and Families SW, though not child protection as that's too hard for me

I did ask to see a copy of my file, but a lot of information had been lost. I have 12 printed sheets from it, old school reports, old case review meetings etc. Those 12 sheets represent my childhood as there's no one to ask for dates of illnesses, first steps, first holidays etc.

I have no desire to contact my birth mum, although I do know where she lives now (400 miles away) and did drive past her house once, just to see where she lived

What could your teachers have done that would have made things easier for you?

@Opies I think I would tell my younger self to just keep going, keep following the dreams I had, instead of living down to people's expectations. I wanted a lot of time!

The only time I see looked after children maintaining a good relationship with their birth family is when there is a lot of support on all sides, for the child/young person, the birth family and the foster family. Everyone has a vital part to play and should all be listened to.

I don't have anything to ask, I just want to say that I feel society has let you down, no child should feel unwanted, let alone be abused in foster care.
It's amazing you are able to use your experiences to help others. I hope you can experience the love and fulfilment in adulthood that should have been there from day 1. Thank you for sharing your experiences.

@KickBishop that's such a challenging question! The things my lovely fister parents did to make me feel welcome I completely rebelled against, as I didn't want to be there! Things like including in family events but not pushingbif I didn't want to, acknowledging my need for my own space and even though money was very tight, allowing me decisions in decoration. I think one thing I remember very fondly is being trusted with a lovely piece of furniture that had been in their family for years. My foster mum said years later she was embarrassed she couldn't afford to buy me a new dressing table and I had to havevtgec2nd hand one, she cried when I told her how much it meant to me. Treating all DC abscess FC equal - one family used to give extra pocket money to DC while the FC had to make do, that was hard a lot of the time.

@Bobbiepin I think teachers could have had higher expectations. One did, he would come along to my 6 monthly case reviews and say how much he hoped I would finish school and go on to higher education. But by this time I was a persistent truant and had been told if I was caught truanting one more time I would be moved from my Children's Unit into a remand home which had a secure school on site. My lovely teacher was aghast at that, so while I didn't stop truanting, he stopped reporting me Just that belief that that one teacher had in me still makes me smile today.

@Horseradish and others saying such lovely things, thank you so much, you have no idea how nice it is to read! As I said at the start, I hoped to challenge some of the stereotypes and even though it was decades ago, most of my friends and I were all in care because of something that had been done to us, not because of something we had done

You’re an inspiration, thank you for opening this thread.

Now that you’re a SW do you think CS has changed much, for the better or worse?

@Sowhat I think mostly for the better There is more likelihood of children being believed now, which is so important. There is still a lack of joined up working, no matter how many inquiries are held, which is just awful and sometimes it beggars belief how much things can go wrong. But there are also times when things can go right, it's just those times rarely get reported.

@teslagirls thanks for your response. I've generally worked in comparatively affluent areas. When there are LAC with us they're relatively few (we currently have 5 in over 1200 students) so it's really nice to hear from your POV.

I’ve read your thread, what a lovely person you come across as, thank you for sharing your experiences and I hope your life is good and that of your child. We were kept out of care only because my grandparents helped my single parent dad look after us and I know how lucky we were in that respect. It was v v unusual in the 1970s for a father to be awarded custody of children.

Thanks for your honesty op and I wish you and your children best wishes for the future.

I have two questions:

1. What do you think of the Tracey Beaker books? My dd loves them and I wondered if you thought they were accurate and also whether they are helpful for kids not in care to think about kids in care

2. We are not in a position as a family to foster or similar. I wondered whether there is anything you think we can do just normally in our every day lives to help kids in care. All I could think of was ensuring they are invited to birthday parties and playdates if you know any (we don't, that I know of), but is there anything else?

Thank you for your thread - really interesting but also brought a few tears.

Thank you for sharing all this so openly. Your strength is inspiring.

@Deminism I loved Tracey Beaker, when DD1 was younger we spent many times watching it as it gave me an opening to talk about why I didn't have any family etc. As with most shows, I think it started off fairly realistic, but then kind of lost it - but that could be just me

I know things are different now re looked after children going on sleepovers, but in my day, I was 15 when I had my very first sleepover at a friends house. They had to agree to some quite invasive questions from the LA as well as a police check, but they did it all just so I could sleep at their house for one night. The fact that they would go to do much trouble for me just blew my tiny mind So yes, I think being inclusive but not an 'at all costs' kind of inclusivity as otherwise both you and the LAC risk getting hurt. I know I missed normal family life, even if I couldn't cope with it full time. So going to my friends house for egg and chips for tea on a Thursday instead of it being "Thursday is stewing steak and mash tea" was lovely! (We had the same meals each day/week for an entire year, I can still remember them

@ASauvignonADay don't shed tears for me, I'm over the moon people are interested enough to reply!