The ugly truth of a care leaver

"Life is hard, life has challenges. We all know that. It's how we approach those difficulties and deal with them that shape us into who we are.

We all have inner strength and as humans can adapt to survive in this world.
In life we want to be happy. We want to feel love. Love is what gets us through life. The love and support of our families, the encouragement and care of those closest to us. Growing up those elements are vital for us to develop as healthy human beings.
What about those who never had love? What about those who never had encouragement? What about those who never had support?
Forgetting about what some people never had what about those people who had the opposite, damaging end of the spectrum?
What about those who had hate? What about those who had neglect? What about those who felt abuse?

Well I'm aware first hand how those who did have that negative upbringing are stunted from healthy, mental development.
Lots of children who were bought into the world in troubled homes do end up in the care system. Often in multiple foster families and sometimes children's homes.
What I want to focus on though is what happens when that child becomes an adult.
At seventeen that child is on their own. Chucked into the world on their own with the occasional superficial advice from a support worker.
But hey, they've had a rough start in life but it's what they do now that matters right? You get to hear people say 'well I moved out when I was sixteen and I made it OK'.
Or another thing that annoys me is people who get nice things and go on holiday all the time and are like 'well if you work hard you get nice things'.
The thing is, is that these people do not have the slightest clue.
Physically, most care leavers are on even grounds with everyone else. Mentally, people have no idea how much on a different wave length some of us are... and not by choice. People say 'just choose to be happy' or 'just get on with it'.
How many charity's and support is there for older people who are now alone and have no family? How many people feel so sad for those people? A lot of people do because dur it is sad.
How tragic is it to have that same thing at eighteen? To be completely alone. To have to figure out everything. To have the same cycle of waking up, going to work and then going home to be all alone.
Those people who have all those fancy materialistic things and go on great holidays blah blah can claim what they like about how hard they work but I'd like to ask - would they have the same motivation if the following factors applied?

1) Your family no longer exist
2) You don't have a nice home
3) Most of the money you get from your pay has to now go on living
4) You go home to be alone
5) In fact most of the time you are alone your own
6) Also your head is so messed up from all the traumatic childhood experiences you've had
7) Oh and also you get to look at your arm every now and then and embrace the scars that will never go away
8) and the stretch marks and excess weight from all the times you were so alone you ate for some kind of comfort
9) You're so stressed all the time you feel like you are dying

I could go on and on and on but I think you get the idea. 
Let England continue to fail care leavers. Let England continue to have unrealistic expectations. Let the system fail the most vunerable people.

Because I mean of course with all the above issues care leavers can:
1) Find somewhere to rent at 18...because of course they know so much about tenancy agreements and contracts etc and aren't bound to end up in some sort of financial trouble
2) Oh and let them do that while they legally still have to be in school
3) and have that full time job on the side
4) Yep, they can make great decisions on their own, no help required at all
5) Oh, finances...yeah paying rent, studying, working...eeeassssyyy.
6) But when we do have to drop out of college of course we can get to Uni with no A levels
7) Homeless? We'd never become homeless...

So yeah we can be successful right?...
We don't have to practically half kill ourselves doing so?

That is all"

Blog by a care leaver Hannah Lucy Ide, 

(Reproduced with her prior permission)

Demons

‘Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder’ – We have all heard of this. We recall how our veterans returned from the battlefield traumatised by the horrific things they had seen, and how that trauma blighted their future lives.  A little known fact is that some people who grew up in the care system may also suffer from very similar disorders that don’t stop when they leave care in their teens but haunt them throughout their lives.

Most children are taken into care for their own protection as a result of abuse by adults.  That was what happened to me. For many of us, the nightmares began there.  They should stop there, but sadly, for some they are reinforced by abuses within the care system. That was my experience as I was abused at the hands of thoroughly evil men who were supposed to be caring for me.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is completely debilitating for the sufferer and will usually have life changing effects long after the original trauma has ceased. Some people will rely on medication to manage the symptoms for the rest of their lives.  Too often, once it has started it cannot be stopped, but fortunately that was not true in my case. With support I have regained control - no more waking at night screaming, not knowing where I was, not being able to communicate, not being able to enter a crowded room.

Granted, these things have not disappeared completely - I can manage my demons with support, but I am by no means cured - but I am getting better. I am better to be around, better to talk to and most importantly better to listen to. I don't ramble ... Only in writing I suspect.

During my childhood in care I saw two children take their own life - a girl aged sixteen and a boy aged around fourteen. In fact, he was a friend of mine and his death hurt me really deeply. I was told later, his family didn't even attend his funeral…but I'm rattling on. Sorry.

My original point was that children can suffer with PTSD symptoms as children which can continue and even worsen into adulthood. If this is not identified quickly enough, the outcome can be truly devastating; to not only the poor individual who suffers not knowing what is wrong but also their new family. Loved ones often bear the brunt of the mood swings, the suicide attempts for no apparent reason. They can't comprehend the crushing feeling of worthlessness that envelops the grown up child from care, who are reliving the agonies of years before dragging them once again into further despair.

My condition was not recognised until I was 58 years of age so you can imagine the devastation that I endured during my life. Not just me, but also my loved ones and the people around me. To love someone but feel unable to express that love, to struggle with expressing emotions and the strong feelings inside can be so destructive. People see you as cold and unapproachable when in fact the truth is the exact opposite. You want to be needed; you want to be touched; you want to be able to approach and enjoy the company of others and to be able to join in the fun, but you are emotionally incapable of doing so.

How on earth can a child of 10 year old be so affected? Horrible isn't it? It is horrible for the child, horrible for the teachers, the social workers and all who try to care for them. It is horrible for everyone who participates in the child’s lonely life. For the child, this is a life of being locked into your mind, locked into a world you think is fantasy but in fact is a cruel and cold reality. The turmoil in the child's mind then manifests in their actions and how they relate to other people and other children. I was going to say’ ‘play’ with other children, then but there's very little play in the life of an abused child.

The next time you see a child in the corner of the playground not joining in the fun, spare a thought for that mite who might be facing demons that you could never comprehend in your worst nightmare. It’s a short life to that point but it’s a life that will have seen more than most people see in a lifetime.

I’ve not mentioned the anger.  When a child is unable to express how they feel because they don’t know how, don’t have the self-esteem or their feelings are in turmoil, that can escape in an explosion of anger which will surprise and horrify those around them. This is described as ‘challenging behaviour’. When a child is abused in a relationship where they are powerless and impotent, where their feelings and well-being don’t seem to matter, that also gives birth to an intense anger, which can live just below the surface for many years to follow if not addressed.

What has all this to do with ‘Every Child Leaving Care Matters' you ask?  Helping children make sense of their lives and learn to face the world as a happy and fulfilled adult takes time, sensitive care and support. This is particularly true at certain times of life – adolescence for example. The teenage years are traumatic and difficult for most children. For many children in the care system, they can be living hell.

This is a time when children need security, continuity of care, caring relationships. Yet for many of the most vulnerable children in the ‘system’ in residential care, this is a time of life under ‘Staying Put’ when they may be compelled to become ‘independent’. Is it any wonder that so many care leavers struggle as adults?  Reflect on these words:

Every child leaving care matters

Kev Edwards

The Silent Ones

Children in the care system are each different and each respond in their own way to the stresses and struggles that being in care means to them. I wish to focus on a group of children in the care system who are often overlooked. These children are usually quiet unassuming souls who have been desperately hurt and abused, frequently so badly that their will and their spirit is broken.

They may not present behavioural problems and demand little attention from their carers, but they wear their inner sadness in their eyes and carry despair in their souls. They feel unwanted and unloved and are amongst the most vulnerable children in the care system.

These children have often been subject to abuse in all its forms and enter care at their lowest point. Care is supposed to provide a safe haven but for many of these children, it does not.  They may have good practical care – three meals a day, a clean bed to sleep in, but it simply isn’t the care they need. Even when the carers are kindly, these children need more than hugs or arms enfolding them. Within the care system, they are too often no more than a number, another call on limited resources, another name.

These children need to feel wanted, to belong, to be loved and cherished. In their struggle for acceptance and belonging, they often fall in with the ‘wrong crowd’. At least in the crowd, they feel a degree of acceptance that allows them to feel less lonely, less isolated, less irrelevant.  To them in their state of vulnerability, this mere acceptance is a good thing. Tragically, far too often, it isn't.

I'll talk a little of me now if I may.  I excelled in school because it was a release from the stress of care, a way of getting away from the despair of a life of pain and hurt.

At the age of fifteen I was due to be adopted by a family who had taken to me from my friendship with their daughter at school.  I was going to be the son they never had, the son they wanted. I felt wanted and valued at last, and I was happy for the first time ever.

 It wasn't to last though, and when it crumbled it was through my own stupidity. Looking back I can see why it went wrong, why I went wrong.

Not knowing what love was, and not knowing how to express or receive it made me feel empty inside. I was a shell unable to comprehend the damage I was about to inflict.

 I made their daughter pregnant!  This was truly devastating for everyone involved of course, but for me it was the beginning of a very long and deeply unhappy period in my life.

My behaviour suffered and I was expelled from school. I was sent a way to an ‘assessment unit’ the infamous ‘Redbank’ in Newton le Willows in Lancashire. For me at that time, this place was barbaric and like hell on earth.

I don’t intend to dwell on what happened there. Some things are too painful and must remain private even now, many years later. Let’s just brush over it.

My next placement was ‘Bryn Estyn’ in North Wales. I had been desperately unhappy at ‘Redbank’, but going to ‘Bryn Estyn’ was like going from the frying pan into the fire. It was far worse than the previous placement.

Again I'm not going to speak of what happened there, but as may be evident, a pattern was forming in which I was being punished severely for my juvenile stupidity. I know I had acted stupidly, but as I reflect I think it was possibly inevitable. It was inevitable because I did not know how to love or be loved.  The care system that had taken it upon itself to care for me had not seen fit to instruct me in the facts of life and I had no idea what love was. Shouldn’t someone have been teaching me that there is a difference between sex and love?

I digress; let's go back to the children like me who have been abused, beaten and broken.

 There's no escaping it; the system has let both them and me down.

If they're not shown love or respect in care, how can they hope to cope on leaving care at the age of sixteen? They are still little children when the ‘system’ discharges them and expects them to be ‘independent’.  There can no escaping or dodging the issue; it can't be glossed over -  these children like me are let down by a system that goes through the mechanical motions of ‘care’ often without actually offering what ‘care’ should really mean. By that I mean emotional acceptance, a sense of belonging, being taught that you are worthy, being listened, to heard, respected …loved? 

Too many of these children are simply unready and ill equipped to cope with life on their own in their teens. Many need to stay in care longer. Many need to stay at least until they are 21 years old because unlike children in a home environment, they may have spent their childhood living in a regime (in some cases a strict regime) where daily routine is strict and must be followed, but which simply has not taught its children anywhere near enough about the outside world. The world outside is different than the world in care – it is harder in many respects, because life in in care for many children is often emotionally sterile, with too many children shrouded in coldness and emptiness.  

This cannot prepare a child to have healthy loving emotional experiences that they have a right to expect when they are growing into adulthood.  Life in care for many has been emotional survival. This environment is not what they need to have as they prepare to enter the outside community.

Notwithstanding the emotional price, for too many the care environment doesn’t teach them how to look after themselves as far as work, paying rent, feeding yourself, shopping, laundry, bills, etc. etc. In fact, the world outside of care for too many of these children is an alien environment.

Children need to learn these life skills before they leave care. If they don’t they are going to end up in a vicious cycle of crime drugs, self-abuse, prostitution, exploitation – the statistics speak for themselves.  It’s as clear as night follows day.

In conclusion, I was one of the lucky ones.  I kept in touch with my girlfriend of 46 years ago. We are happily married and very proud of our wonderful caring son.

My story demonstrates once more that you can't judge a book by its cover or be judgemental about people based on their by their upbringing or childhood behaviour.

There you have my case for ECLCM. I’m sorry if I drifted and rambled - I’m not a great speaker or a great writer. I am however passionate about what I believe to be a right for children in care. It’s something I know about because of my time in care from the age of six months until I left care at sixteen.

Thank you for reading.

Kev Edwards.

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?