A blog about Mental Health - My transition from Care and Custody

When I was 17 years old, I was in custody at Wetherby young offenders’ institution awaiting release. I told my youth offending officer that I didn't want to go back to live at my mother’s house when I was released. It was very clear to me – I had lived there in the past and it hadn’t worked for me. I couldn't see anything that had changed sufficiently to mean it could work this time.

My social worker had stopped all contact with me when I was in custody. No visits, no calls, no letters – nothing.  In effect, I had been abandoned for the second time by my corporate parent.  That meant that I had no social worker to turn to for help or advice at a critical time in my life, and nobody on the outside who would try to find a safe and supportive place for me to live when I was released.  

I longed to be released, and when the day of release finally arrived, the feeling of being released, of being free,  was better than any drug that I'd ever had before in my life.  Alongside the ‘buzz’ of being released was a deep underlying feeling that I would never want to experience any form of custody again. I had the 'light bulb' moment just after I had been sent to the young offenders’ institution. I told my friend in the court cells that I have ‘had enough of this shit’ and I didn’t ever want to be in that position again. We went to different jails. He got a longer sentence than me because he was 18 years old.

When I was released, I reported to the youth offending team office as instructed.  I was told that I was to go and stay at my mother’s home, even though I had told them that it was not what I wanted and it had never worked for me in the past.  I was told that was where I was to live - I had the choice of being homeless or staying somewhere that had never worked before.

 I knew it was going to be hard for me if I lived at my mother’s house not to go and find my old friends and slip back into the ‘revolving door’ of taking drugs, then committing crimes to pay for them.  That route would result in me being a ‘statistic’ - just one of the 70% or so that re-offend within a year of release.  I went back 'home' and as I feared within a few weeks I was told to leave because I was clashing with my mother. We had never enjoyed a positive relationship and I hadn’t expected it to change, but nobody listened to my thoughts, wishes or feelings.

I left my mother’s house and went to the housing office to see if they had anywhere for me to live.  They offered me a bed and breakfast room about six miles from the office. Nobody took me to visit, and I had to walk there. Within the first couple of weeks at the B&B, my emotional health started to deteriorate very quickly.  I was moved to a hostel, which was being used to accommodate drug users and other homeless abandoned care leavers like me.  I was only there about three days before I was taking lots of different tablets in a desperate attempt to end my life. I felt worthless, with nobody to help me apart from my youth offending officer who gave me an appointment of one hour a week. I was isolated and in despair because I didn't want to take drugs or commit crime. That would have been my easiest option to fall back in with the ‘old crowd’ but I wanted a better life than that.

In 2008 I was admitted to a psychiatric ward for three weeks with severe depression. I had stopped eating and I couldn't sleep. I wanted to pull all my hair out, because I was so angry, angry and frightened. I had no one.

If it wasn't for the hospital and the mental health team I would possibly be dead now. I didn't give up when I was discharged. I went back to the hostel and was given a place on a project a few months later. I was involved in that for six months, possibly the best six months of my life. It kept me out of trouble and away from drugs. I owe everyone there a massive vote of thanks for teaching me skills and giving me opportunities that I would of never have gained otherwise.

Being an unsupported and confused care leaver, I had never been equipped or felt safe enough to deal with most of my own demons.  I had never grieved for all the friends I had lost to drugs or who had given up and committed suicide.  I just got on with my life until my world was rocked again when my relationship with the mother of my beautiful son came to an end. I did not cope with the stress, and found myself back in hospital for seven weeks. Again I had tried to take my own life. My head felt like it wanted to explode; I was pulling my hair out and pulling at my face to the point at which it was a complete mess.  Again, the medics managed to stabilise my condition and I decided that I should dedicate my life to making a difference for others. I know that I can help others struggling as I did, using my learning from my negative experiences to support them to make more positive choices.

Then in early 2014 I found myself back in hospital again, this time for four weeks. I was suffering severe depression.  I just felt useless and that I was letting people down. My passion had over spilled at times but I wouldn't want to change that. This last experience of hospital was hopefully my last ever time, but I know that I still have unresolved issues from the experiences that I had as a child and young person. Will I ever fully get over my past? Probably not, but it isn't going to stop me moving forward with my life and making positive change.

My story is sadly not unique. Every care leaver has a different story, but too many reflect the struggles that I experienced, and too often they are faced with coping alone and without support or a safe and secure place to live. That’s why I support the ECLCM campaign to introduce the option of ‘Staying Put’ rights for ALL care leavers until they are at least 21 years of age.

Thank you.

Ben Ashcroft

ECLCM

Supported care leavers today or broken adults tomorrow?

How many children and young people in Britain have a worse start to life than 'looked after children'?

62% of 'looked after children' have been abused or neglected. This causes trauma, damage and distress which is often compounded by the experience of coming in to care. Is it any wonder some young people go off the rails when they have experienced so much pain in their early lives?

Can you imagine going through what some of these young people have to go through? No probably not. 

None of these children ask to be abused, neglected or abandoned. When 'the state' takes a child or young person into care then it should, as the corporate parent, be doing everything in its power to help them overcome their experiences and prepare them for leaving care. They need help to develop the life skills necessary to cope as adults in the same way that all children prepare for independence,

For looked after children though this is very different, as at best independence is forced on them at an earlier age than their non-looked after peers. These children and young people often feel abandoned by the leaving care experience, some for the second time in their short lives. 'Lightening', they say, ‘doesn’t strike twice in the same place.’ Well children who leave care often feel that it does.

Young people who live in children's homes don't have 'Staying Put' rights when they leave care because in 2013 the coalition government decided that these rights were just for fostered children. They may not feel it, but these fostered children are relatively fortunate. 

Children living in residential care don't have a 'residential care ambassador' or even very many people raising awareness for them. Who has TRULY championed the plight of residential care leavers in England? At least fostered children approaching leaving care have benefited from awareness raising by most of the major charities and child care organisations. They can rely on the support of the Children's Minister responsible supporting them.

This is not the case for children and young people placed in residential care. What does the Children's Minister have to say about children leaving residential care? However translated or interpreted, the lesser arrangements made for them give out a message “You are different, possibly second class, less worthy, less deserving".  He does not mean to say that, but how else will children and young people from residential care perceive being treated differently and denied all the options of their fostered peers? Who speaks out for residential care leavers? 

I have said this on social media before - that if adoption and kinship care aren't appropriate options, then ALL 'looked after' children and young people no matter where they live, be it foster care or residential care, should have equality of opportunity. We shouldn't accept blatant discrimination against often vulnerable children and young people who happen to live at the wrong address, or in the wrong type of care. It was not their decision so why should they suffer discrimination? ECLCM believe that it is purely for financial reasons that 'Staying Put' has not been implemented for residential care leavers – those 16, 17 and 18 year olds who our society appears to think can be so easily discarded.

We need to invest in 'our' children and young people now instead of trying to fix thousands of broken adults in years to come. We need change so that many more children and young people have the chance to have a great future, and are able to experience the good things in life.

'Looked after' children, are children, just like any other children. Please stand with us at 'Every Child Leaving Care Matters' and be a voice for children and young people, Let them know that you, at least care.

Finally I would like to thank and welcome our two new members of our core team who will add great experience and skills to an ever growing campaign that is only going to get stronger and stronger as our message spreads and our support grows.

Thank you all for being a voice and part of our campaign.

Ben Ashcroft
Every Child Leaving Care Matters core team

Is the care system just another troubled family?

We at ECLCM worry that this government simply does not appreciate its obligation to children and young people in the care system. It routinely fails to support care leavers, but this may be because it simply fails to appreciate their situation, and its obligation towards them. We have seen evidence that the government does feel concern about vulnerable families, but somehow this concern does not seem to extend to the children leaving its care.

A good example might be the ‘Troubled Families Initiative’ introduced by the coalition government in 2011. We won’t offer a view on whether this was a good or indeed a bad initiative.  What matters is that Mr Cameron, his colleagues and advisors considered that it was a way forward and adopted it as policy. Neither will we take issue with their definition of a ‘troubled family’ – it appears to be the government’s default position. A ‘troubled family’ is described in the programme as:

 “…..characterised by there being no adult in the family working, children not being in school and family members being involved in crime and anti-social behaviour.

These families almost always have other often long-standing problems which can lead to their children repeating the cycle of disadvantage. One estimate shows that in over a third of troubled families, there are child protection problems. Another estimate suggests that over half of all children who are permanently excluded from school in England come from these families, as do one-in-five young offenders.

Other problems such as domestic violence, relationship breakdown, mental and physical health problems and isolation make it incredibly hard for families to start unravelling their problems.

The cost of these families to the public purse is very significant – approximately £9 billion a year, the vast majority spent on reacting to their problems. And most importantly, most of the money being spent is not providing lasting results and changing lives.”

That seems to make sense – until we reflect that the biggest ‘family’ in Britain is that comprising ‘looked after children’, children in the care system.

There are literally thousands of children in the care system. They live in children’s homes, or foster homes or may be placed within their own ‘family network’ under legislation such as Special Guardianship Orders. Their birth parents have been judged to be unable or unfit to care for them, so that parental duty has been taken over by the state. They have become the children of ‘corporate parents’. Their parents are local authorities, and more specifically central government who are responsible for the legislation that governs their care and who, through the auspices of Ofsted, monitor the quality of their parenting. The government allocate the funds to local authorities that pretty much dictates how much they can spend, and therefore the quality of care that can be offered to these ‘corporate children’.

If we return to the ‘Troubled Families Initiative’ and look again at some of the adjectives and other descriptors the government have applied in their definition, we can use those to compare these ‘corporate parents’ with those birth parents deemed to be incapable of or unwilling to deliver ‘good enough parenting’. The results are eye opening. Let’s have a closer look!

School attendance was one measure of children in a troubled family. We notice immediately that a disproportionate number of children in the ‘care family’ fail to attend school as regularly as would be desirable. These children also tend to achieve lower grades and outcomes. This is not because they are unintelligent or fail to apply themselves. Indeed, in part it’s because before coming into care they are likely to have already had difficulty in getting to school regularly and when they come into care they tend to move a lot.

They may not want to move around and of course their ‘corporate parents’ are not actually going to move with them - it just happens this way sometimes because their ‘corporate parents’ may have placed them somewhere not able to meet their needs, often based on how much it costs rather than whether it was the best place for them to live.

We don’t suggest that the children in care don’t see their parents as role models going to work – most don’t actually know who their corporate parents are. How many politicians make themselves known to children in care and genuinely work to convince them that they are doing their best for them?  ECLCM would suggest too few. For example, in the last few weeks we tried to engage with politicians from all parties to talk about children in care. We and other caring organisations approached politicians and broadcasters requesting that politicians be asked directly where they stood on children in care – if they got into power, how would they help children in the care system? There was no response.  We can only assume from that there weren’t enough votes to be gained and little public interest in these children to whom we are all corporate parents.

Do children in the care family have family members who are involved in anti-social behaviour? Absolutely they do!  Even though only a tiny proportion (2%) of children come into care as a result of anti-social behaviour, after a few years in ‘care’ they are found to represent a massively high proportion of perpetrators.  Perhaps we need to do as successive government have done - blame the (corporate) parents.

Using the government’s definition of a ‘troubled family’ once more - does the ‘care family’ have long term problems? Absolutely it does! There has been little improvement in outcomes for children in care over the last forty years and that seems pretty ‘long term’ to us.

Are children born to adults who were in care likely to enter care themselves? Absolutely they are - the chances of this happening are considerably higher than the entry of a child into care whose parents were raised within their own birth family.

A picture is emerging.  The child of ‘corporate parents’ is likely to have had had a difficult childhood, with relatively poor role models as parents. It is likely to have suffered from (inevitable?) attachment difficulties, given it may have had 5, or 10, or 20 or even more different sets of carers during its care career. How on earth is such a child supposed to be a great parent?

The surprise is that many care leavers make such remarkably good parents given their experiences in the care system.

Does the ‘care family’ experience child protection or safeguarding problems?  They certainly do – we need only ask those children, now adults involved in the campaign for justice following historical child abuse. It would be folly to imagine that in 30 years, 2015 will be described as a year in which no ‘historical’ organised abuse took place. We need only ask those girls and boys in care who are targeted by rings of sex offenders organising child sexual exploitation across the UK. We fear that the true extent of this is yet to be reported.

We’ve already noted the issues related to educational achievement and offending behaviour among children in the care family, so nothing needs to be added.  The facts should speak for themselves.

What about the long term care given by these corporate parents to these care children as they mature towards adulthood? Examination of ‘life after care’ in this country over decades is depressing reading. 

Some people don’t like to be reminded of the statistics, but even so, here are some of the more well known facts:

·          - 22% of care leavers were living in accommodation not deemed to be suitable;

·          - a third of care leavers are not in education, employment or training - compared with 13% of all young people;

·          - a quarter of young women leaving care are pregnant or already mothers and nearly half become mothers by the age of 24;

·          - 23% of the adult prison population has been in care and almost 40% of prisoners under 21 were in care as children (only 2% of the general population spend time in prison);

·          - almost half of young men (49%) under the age of 21 with a care experience have come into contact with the criminal justice system and about 27% of young men in custody have spent time in care;

·        -  over half of young women (55%) in the 15 – 18 age groups have spent some time in local authority care. This is further supported by the Ministry of Justice prison population statistics which show that over 25% of prisoners had been taken into care as a child;

·          - around a quarter of those living on the street have a background in care;

·        -   care leavers are four or five times more likely to commit suicide in adulthood; and

·          - between 45-49% of looked after children aged 5-17 years show signs of psychosocial adversity and psychiatric disorders, which is higher than the most disadvantaged children living in private households. Physical and mental problems increase at the time of leaving care.

      How much more evidence is needed?

One factor in the coalition government refusal to implement ‘Staying Put’ for all care leavers was cost. 

Let’s concentrate on cost for a few moments. Not cost in terms of lives, wasted potential or humanity, just cost to the Exchequer. It costs a great deal to take children into care and to look after them whilst they are there.  ECLCM believe that, given the data reproduced above, it costs a great deal more in the lifetime of children from the care system (those who do not commit suicide) after they have left care.

Too many are ill equipped to contribute to society; too many enter prison or claim benefit and too many have dependents who will themselves enter care. The ‘care family’ is failing and perhaps its greatest failure of all comes at the end of childhood in their teenage years when the ‘corporate parent’ decides they no longer need to be receiving care. For children in residential care, and indeed for many in foster care, the reality these young care leavers face is the ‘care cliff’. This point is often not long after their sixteenth or seventeenth birthday when they are all too often cast adrift, abandoned by their ‘care family’ to make their own way in the world. This time of life is when ‘good families’ are planning for their children to go off to university, start their first job or take a gap year – all supported by their parents commonly until they reach their mid to late twenties and often beyond. These lucky children will be supported and welcomed back ‘home’ long after that not shown the door and expected to survive despite all the disadvantages that being in the ‘care family’ has bestowed upon them.

Is the ‘care family’ a ‘troubled family’ as the government defined it? It certainly seems to meet all of the criteria as children progress through their childhood. Where it is most apparent just how troubled the troubled care family is when its children are sixteen, or seventeen. That’s when the ‘corporate parent’ says to them “You are not our children anymore”.

Every Child Leaving Care Matters and they deserve better than we their corporate parents deliver. That is why we ask you to sign our petition and support the campaign for Staying Put to be available to all young people leaving care at least until they are 21.

Staying Put – An ethical question?

So now the General Election is over, and we can reflect upon the impact the result will have upon care leavers.

From the ECLCM point of view, it looks like it will be business as usual at best. The last coalition government gave us ‘Staying Put’ exclusively for young people leaving foster care, thus excluding care leavers from residential care (and providing the raison d'être for the ECLCM campaign). It also perpetuated a system that makes life unbearably hard for many vulnerable care leavers trying to cope with minimal support in the community. It seems to us that a Tory government with the promise of severe welfare cuts is unlikely to make life any better for this massively disadvantaged group.

Many people fidget when we refer to the disadvantage statistics and how care leavers are massively over-represented in almost all of them.  They accuse us of being ‘negative’. That’s unfortunate, but sadly we are likely to see care leavers figuring even more prominently in these statistics in the next five years unless something changes quite quickly.

Yet things don’t change quickly for care leavers. When I left care in 1968, probably less than 1% of care leavers made it to university. Now it’s about 7%. In 47 years, only 6% more care leavers make it to university – a record for Society to be proud of? At that rate of progress, how long will it take before all care leavers receive the option to stay on in their placement until they are 21? 

I was one of the lucky 1% who eventually made it to university. I was one of the few care leavers of my generation who was able to qualify at university, in my case as a social worker, and was fortunate enough to return to university again many years later and graduate again with a first class honours degree. I wonder how many kids from care will be able to get on the government’s new  ‘Frontline’ social work courses  in the next few years, and how many will be able to afford to go anyway? These are serious questions as the new government takes shape.

I remember that on my social work course all those years ago we talked about ethics. Even now, I recall the debate about ‘Kantian’ and Utilitarian’ ethics.  If my memory serves, Kant said that there were two questions that we must ask ourselves whenever we decide to act. Firstly, could we rationally expect everybody else to act as we did?  If not, then he said that we shouldn’t act that way either.  Secondly, he said we must ask ourselves whether our actions respected the individuality of other people rather than simply using them for our own purposes.  If not, then it would be unethical for us to perform that action.

 “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end but always at the same time as an end.” – Immanuel Kant, ‘Groundwork of Metaphysic of Morals’

All people should always be treated individually as a person of value in their own right and not just used or ignored in order to achieve something else. The end can never justify the means.  Child care legislation over the last twenty or so years reflected this ethical perspective, aspiring to tackle discrimination and facilitate equal opportunities.

‘Utilitarian’ philosophers took a diametrically opposed ethical view. They said that every action should be judged by its consequences.  It was ethical, they said, to act in order to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. These philosophers recognised that the action in itself may be unfair or unjust, or some people may suffer, but if it resulted in the majority of people benefiting, then it was ultimately morally acceptable. 

How valid these debates still are! Those charities and organisations who support ‘Staying Put’ as it is currently embodied in statute clearly take the ‘utilitarian’ view. They tell us we must work with government ministers within the system and lobby for change in the longer term.  They argue that ‘Staying Put’ is progress because it could result in most care leavers benefiting more quickly by being allowed to ‘stay put’ in foster care until they are 21 - even though up to 9% of care leavers who don’t live in foster care won’t  be given the same options.  It is an honourable argument, particularly as they argue that they will continue to campaign to gain the same rights for all care leavers over time. We fear that ‘honour’ alone will bring little comfort to those excluded from this option.

Most of the ECLCM team are care leavers who have first-hand experience of what it means to be discharged from care as adolescents, unready, under supported and under resourced to cope in a hostile world. We identify very strongly with the feelings, fears and aspirations that young care leavers have. I guess that makes us ‘Kantians’. We don’t accept that the end justifies the means and that any young person failing, becoming ‘collateral damage’, is a price worth paying in order that the majority get improvements in their life opportunities. To make matters worse, we are hearing around the country that many young people in foster care who should qualify for ‘Staying Put’ are not receiving it. So much for ethics!

Our campaign is called ‘Every Child Leaving Care Matters’ – not just some children, and not some children based on a promise of ‘jam tomorrow’ that may never arrive. We want ALL young people leaving care wherever they are placed to be allowed an option to stay put in their placement until they are 21 if it meets their needs and wishes.  Is that too much to ask?

'Staying Put' on benefit?

Staying Put on benefit?

First, the good news. This government’s level commitment to offer Staying Put for young people leaving foster care was most welcome. And, from what I see, more young people are staying with their foster carers post-18. That's all to the good.

However...

Staying Put in foster care mostly comes with the expectation that young people will claim benefits. Young people usually have to claim housing benefit and remain with their former foster carer under supported lodgings. This enters the young person and carer into a new world of bureaucracy for both. 

Some (former foster) carers are helping young people to get into employment - they do not want young people to enter into adult life by claiming benefits, if at all possible. But they're now taking on a new role – do they need insurance? Does anyone have to register as a provider of adult services?

Carers are sometimes offered a top-up payment by local authorities, over and above housing benefit, to the level of their previous foster care payments. But the funding agreements are inconsistent and may not make the continuation of placements possible for carers for whom this is their only source of income. This uncertainty can place a massive emotional burden on young people and their carers at a key point of transition to adult life. Government have rather neatly passed the burden of form-filling and dealing with multiple departments on to young people and their carers – that doesn't make any kind of sense to me.

Carers are not usually offered any support - a day after the young person leaves care, their former carer is now their landlord and not entitled to any support. Local authorities are not in any position to find additional finance for this with the small amount of Staying Put monies currently allocated to them.

Local and central government are now expecting foster carers to offer Staying Put. But some foster carers will feel that this is something they never committed to. Young people may be placed with them for longer than was ever anticipated. They don't want to let anyone down, but they might think the goal posts have been moved. And, don't forget, they're self-employed, though we often seem to think of them as quasi-employees.

There are issues for the carer with remaining as a registered foster carer, whilst not having any placements of children in care, though wanting to return to foster care after the Staying Put placement has ended. Are they de-registered, so have to go through a new assessment when they return to foster care?

When government offered young people leaving foster care the chance to stay put, they didn't give local authorities anywhere near the means to make this a reality. The danger is that young people will have had their expectations raised and then find they blame their local authority, unfairly in my view, for not being able to deliver.

So, what's the answer. Well, in the first instance, and as a matter of principle, all young people leaving care at 18 should be able to choose to stay put, and that includes those in foster care, those in children's homes and those in kinship arrangements. We also have to simplify the funding arrangements to ease the burden of bureaucracy and uncertainty on young people and carers. And, of course, we have to make sure local authorities have sufficient funding to deliver the pledge that central government have made on their behalf. That includes payment for carers. It also means continuing to invest in the very support that has been so central to ensuring placements are successful enough for young people to want to stay put in them.  

So, over to you, the next government...

Who will you vote for in May – what will they do for residential care leavers?

General Elections appear to generate far less excitement and enthusiasm than they should. Consider the Scottish referendum – now there was a great example of democracy. The massive majority of the population of Scotland was exercised by the issue and they showed it. Passionate people who really wanted to be heard on an issue that meant a great deal to them. By comparison the forthcoming British General Election appears at times to be focussed more on style than substance; why else would the media be more concerned with who is going to be part of a televised debate than, for example, why none of the parties have said anything about the discrimination against a group of vulnerable Britons who have been consistently failed by our society for at least the last forty years? A group who, unlike their contemporaries in the ‘Scottish Referendum’, are disenfranchised by virtue of their age knowing that by the time they are eligible to vote it will be too late.

As either a supporter or even casual observer of the ECLCM campaign we would like you to think very hard about the forthcoming election. Of course many of you will already be politically active but the probability is that the majority of you and indeed some of those more directly involved in ECLCM are not. We must though engage with politicians across the country if we are to succeed in having the option to ‘Stay Put’ extended to children in residential care. Great though it is to garner support from local councillors we are aware that whilst we already know that many local politicians support our campaign they are largely powerless to do anything. First they need the law to change and second they need the money to implement any such change. Local councillors do, though, have an important part to play in influencing their Westminster nominees so can we suggest you do something proactive wherever you live to help us make the case for residential care leavers in particular and perhaps all children in care in general?

All MP’s and Local Councillors should surgeries for their constituents and you will find that all those who are seeking to become MP’s or join the local council in May will have both public meetings and surgeries(a few may knock on your door and canvas for your vote) in the next few months. Please book in to attend these meetings and ask some questions. For example:

1) Do you believe in equality of opportunity?

2) Do you support the ECLCM campaign? (When, as is likely, you get a blank response please tell them what this single issue campaign is about) and re-phrase as…..

3) Where do you stand on the issue of ‘Staying Put’ for children leaving residential care?

4) Where does your party stand on this issue?

5) Will your party make any reference to ‘Staying Put’ in their manifesto? If not, why not? If so what is your and/or your Party’s commitment to supporting the option being given to residential care leavers until they are 21?

6) (To councillors / would be councillors only) If Central Government provided sufficient funding would you and your party support Staying Put option for residential care leavers?

This may seem like we are asking you to do a lot but if you care about care leavers then we are certain that you will be willing to do so. Children in care who are approaching care leaving age will not have a vote – please use yours wisely, in part on their behalf, and like our partners in Scotland make this an election that counts. Any effort you put in may be rewarded by giving perhaps just a single child have a better life because like the vast majority of us in this country they will not be automatically evicted from home when they are somewhere between sixteen and eighteen years of age. That will make any effort you put in to making democracy work worthwhile. Won’t it?

In terms of what we’ve been up to ….we have had a meeting (exclusively thanks to our supporter Cllr Nina Killen) with members from Sefton MBC including the Cabinet lead on Children’s social care. We fully appreciate that finance is as we were told a major challenge but the principle of all children in care having the option of staying put until 21 was not challenged.

We are scheduled to meet with and make a presentation to the Labour Group from Liverpool City Council on 30th January and will follow this up with their counterparts in Warrington in March. Obviously we are grateful to all of these politicians for agreeing to meet with us and also to Steve McCabe the Labour Shadow Cabinet member in Westminster who has – in some part thanks to Bill Esterson MP – agreed to meet with us to discuss ECLCM and (though he doesn’t know it yet!) one of our group will be joining a constituent of Andy Burnham’s in one of his constituency surgeries in February. Limited resources we may have – passion and commitment in abundance. Please fight with us.

Just a thought - for care leavers

Just a thought – For care leavers

by Joanna Banana

As I sit here, surrounded by my pets and sipping Baileys on New Years Eve 2014, with my unofficial ‘foster daughter’ curled up asleep on the settee fast asleep, I felt I just needed to write down my feelings on why ALL care leavers need the unconditional support of just SOMEONE!

I’ve worked with teenagers for over 13 years now. I’ve run units for students classed at ‘at risk of exclusion’ and because of my experiences I later became a foster mum and this lead to becoming a ‘Staying put’ mum for those who want to stay in their placements (homes) after the age of 18.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fairy godmother, no matter how old you are I still expect to be treated with the respect I deserve and I still expect all to respect my boundaries and expectations if you’re sharing my home. What you do get in return though is that my home is your home, I care for you as though you were my own and every day is a new day and a fresh start. I have always felt that ALL young people, deserve the basic right to have a place they can always call home and someone to always call on no matter what happens or how old you are!

Why should it be fair for a care leaver to be expected to fend for themselves once they reach 18 just because they’ve been placed in a residential unit or a foster placement that’s not continued? The average age for young people leaving their parents home now is around 27!? and then the support still continues after that. My parents still support me and I was a nightmare of a teenager. I wouldn’t have my own house and my work ethos if it wasn’t for my parents and family’s unconditional love and support. What about the times we’ve physically fought, the times we’ve not done things our parents are proud of? Do they just cast us out forever and say ‘Get on with it now’? Put it this way, I know I’d have not been where I am now without the support I had.

So WHY? is a young person, that through no fault of their own, who have been placed into the care of the local authority, expected to be able to cope? and on their own!

There’s also a lot of stigma and assumptions made care leavers and yp in care! Well they may take drugs or drink too much, they may steal from me, they may have mental health issues, they may not be ‘saveable’ so what’s the point? They will be happier on their own, doing what they want to do!

REALLY? Just imagine some of the most horrific things happening to you that could possibly happen in your life… not just one or 2 things every few years but everything, all at once and ALL the time. Some of these young people never have a magical childhood as they have to look after themselves and live in an adult world right from the beginning. They may only have have ever experienced abuse, crime, neglect, violence, constant rejection and the list could go on. Just imagine how YOU would deal with this and from a very young age.. what kind of coping mechanism would you develope without the guidance and support of someone that makes you feel safe and loved?

You may end up in a foster home but what if that foster home is not a good match as there’s not enough suitable carers in the area and you have to be moved a few times? What if you feel insecure and do something they don’t consider normal?? and want you away from their own children to keep them safe from you and you have to move again? What if this becomes the norm and you start getting older and the only place you end up feeling safe is with some gang or drug users or criminals because they accept you for who you are and then you end up in a children’s home and the circle of destruction becomes endless? Who’s at fault? Is it their choice do you think? I leave the decision to you.

All I know is; who’s to say that your own flesh and blood don’t end up struggling with the same issues and for far less traumatic events happening in their lives and do you give up on THEM? I know my family don’t! perhaps I’m just lucky!

All I know is, the experiences I’ve had as a staying put mum and foster mum have been both very rewarding and sometimes very challenging at the same time but is that any different from being a natural parent?

I have learnt a lot from the young people I work with and at school I’ve often stood up for them if they’ve rebelled against the system or just been themselves. What’s the difference between someone in care doing it and rebelling rather than the Simon Cowells and Richard Bransons of this world that did the same? I’ll tell you, they’ve not had the consistency, guidance and support of a family who help them channel that fire and single mindedness into something more constructive. They’ve not had the same people to fall back on if things don’t work and it’s not just all about money either.

Well it’s nearly midnight and I’m going up to my late, foster son’s room to light a candle in his honor so I bid farewell for now.

Please don’t forget our care leavers – They deserve our unconditional support and care and the odd kick up the bum (like our own kids)

Happy new year folks xxx