One of the more curious aspects of ‘child care’ by the State, a state of being lauded by those on the left wing, is the utter abruptness with which you become an adult.

In normal life, by which I am old fashioned enough to mean a life in which you are brought up by both your Mother and the very same man who fathered you, admittedly a near forgotten concept today, adulthood is a gradual process; a process subject to many discussions, arguments even, an ongoing process.

An entire forest has been consumed writing about the way in which ‘children’ morph into ‘adults’ aided, abetted and sometimes comprehensively derailed by parents. We agonise over a generation ‘still living at home at 25′; the soap opera genre fills endless hours with the ‘you’re not going out in that’ – ‘I’m seventeen Dad, it’s my life’ conversation. Memoirs wail over lost opportunities ‘I had to stay and look after Mother’; jobs lost because ‘Australia was too far away’. Biographies detail the sexual inclinations kept hidden until parents were safely six foot under; career paths thrown overboard in the 30s when Father was no longer around to whine piteously that the son who should have been a lawyer was growing his hair and surfing on Bondi Beach.

It is a world entirely unknown to those who have been in care. ‘In care’ means that the day you are 16, the State washes its hands of you. Utterly, totally, completely. Not only washes its hands of you, but has rules and regulations in place to ensure that you do not keep up any of the tenuous connections you might have formed with your temporary – shall we call them ‘Statents’?

Nobody will comment on what you wear at 17. There is no Sunday lunch bubbling on the stove that you can drag an unwilling boyfriend to, in order that his flaws can be exposed under the unrelenting familial gaze. No occasional ‘hand-out’ with a harrumph from the bank of Dad. You can’t join in with the communal moan as friends complain that they could be having fun at Christmas, but they ‘have to go home’. No one to blame but yourself for job opportunities lost. Your sexuality is entirely free to go in whatever direction it choses. You can’t blame your Mother for ‘making me homosexual’.

Personally I looked on these ‘handicaps’ as a huge advantage in life – but that is my personality. I prefer to focus on the positive – that doesn’t mean that I have forgotten the sheer terror of waking up in a small ground floor room in Brixton and realising that from now on, I was  unremittingly my own responsibility. I was 16. I had – I remember it only too well – a pair of jeans, a polo neck jumper, a pair of black walking shoes, a bright green skirt ‘with braces’ (yeah, well, there was no one to form my fashion sense either!) all bought for me after much deliberation by Miss Grey in Staines. It had taken me half a day to figure out how far I could make the £20 go…it included a length of fabric from which I made myself a ghastly turquoise and yellow mini dress. Really the only possession I have that dates before June 1st 1966 is a photograph of me in that bloody dress outside that little room in Brixton. That and a cigarette case that belonged to Ginny – I still have it if you are reading this Ginny!

‘Adulthood’ occurs overnight if you are in care. It is not just a birthday. It is a statement of fact. If you want someone to remember your birthday next year – you had better start making friends fast. If you want to eat, you’d better start learning to cook – fast. It is the deep end of the swimming pool of life, in the freezing mid winter. Some people never do make it to the surface.

One such person was ‘Suzi’ who appears in the Rochdale Borough Safeguarding Children report. Suzi was one of the girls abused in Rochdale. Groomed. By grooming, they seem to mean that Suzi had learnt that sex was a useful currency to obtain food – and drink. Rather too much drink in Suzi’s case. And drugs. Probably clothes too, because we all need them. And eventually, a baby.

The ‘Social’ stayed in touch with Suzi. Surprised? Didn’t I say they let go completely at 16? I did, but if you are surprised, you skipped over a sentence. There was a child involved. The baby. Suzi might be an adult, expected to figure out life for herself, but there was a bawling, squalling, real life child for the child protection team to tick boxes over and hold meetings about.  The box they ticked was ‘at risk‘. That was their job description: dealing with children ‘at risk’. So they warned Suzi that they might have to take the baby away from her, if she didn’t ‘grow up’ overnight.

Suzi told two separate agencies that she was being sexually abused when she was 15. Frequently. Nobody took her seriously. It was a lifestyle choice. The Police did make enquiries with the fast food outlet that she alleged was part of a ring abusing her – that led to repercussions from the less than impressed adults who were abusing her. Suzi drank more than ever, and took to self harming. A waste of time because no one cared that she was slashing herself – but they did care that she might be neglecting her baby. They were worried about all those male visitors to the house…

Child protection processes were instigated in respect of the baby. Such a cold phrase.

Today, we have yet another report. It purports to detail what went wrong with Suzi and her young friends. It is careful to give a right to reply to anyone it even mildly chastises. It is full of platitudes. Lessons will be learnt. Investigations identified 12 members of staff, including social workers and senior managers, whose conduct was culpable. Five have already left the authority – to work in the same job in another authority? We are not told. Seven await their fate. It will be mild, we can be sure of that.

We have endless column inches consuming more dead trees than Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement but with scarcely concealed racism, dancing around the fact that eight of the nine offenders were of Pakistani origin. It locks into the Colonial myth of dark foreigners abusing our white girls. It suits the political agenda of the moment regarding immigration. It gives everyone a chance to say what they really think of the Pakistani’s.

We have more column inches devoted to the question of the future employment of the various heads of department. ‘Heads should roll’ cry the British public.

South Yorkshire Police are throwing £500,000 into a pot to pay for an analyst to work across the force ‘understanding’ the exploitation issue. A crown prosecutor dedicated to child sex cases in the force area, whose diary will be controlled by officers to prioritise the most urgent cases. Terrific, we can expect more prosecutions in cases like this. Sadly we will only get ‘more prosecutions’ if more young girls are hauled through the courts to describe in graphic detail exactly how the nasty man forced his penis on her.

What we DON’T have, what nobody is even suggesting, not even tentatively, is that we have a programme to make sure that the horse doesn’t feel the need to bolt from the stable.

A family isn’t just a place where you have a roof over your head and one or two meals a day. It is not a technical statement of fact. It is a support network that you throw off gradually, as you feel competent to do so. It is the one door in the entire nation that you can knock on, unexpectedly, on Christmas Day; and for all the rows, the arguments, the bitterness, have that door opened by someone with a look of delight on their face – not a ‘Good God, what are you doing here’.

Until such time as State care recognises that people need that anchor, that one door they can always turn to; that they don’t grow up overnight just because it’s September the 27th, or April the 14th, then girls like Suzi will find themselves someone, anyone, who will pay attention to them when they are feeling low and scared, and since they start their adult life with sod all except their bodies, then they will trade those bodies.

Prosecuting the offenders, hounding every Pakistani taxi driver out of the country who might be involved:

The report notes that some progress has been made in removing the operational licences of taxi drivers and fast-food outlets that have come under suspicion. An off-licence was also closed.

Rolling heads from one authority to another:

Ms Eastwood was allowed to take early retirement in July last year and Mr Garner resigned three months later.

Is only so much sticking plaster to appease the knee jerk public. Girls like Suzi will still be kicked out of care at 16 with no one to turn to.

I’d be more impressed if that half million had been put into a fund to send them a birthday card every year, phone them up once a month and check they are wearing their vest, tell them they’ve got too thin and moan about the washing they’ve brought with them…

That’s what they really need. If we’ve got the money to fund Ms Eastwood’s early retirement, or pay for an analyst to figure out why the taxi drivers weren’t prosecuted, then we had the money to do that…

I’ve just heard from Barnardos for the second time in 49 years, they’ve sent me a tick box questionnaire wanting to know whether ‘the service met my expectation’ and if ‘my cultural and ethnic backgrounds were respected by staff’. They’ve given me two lines to fill in ‘what would have improved your experience’. I couldn’t fit this blog post into two lines so I’ve torn the questionnaire up.

Edna Fletcher
May 25, 2013 at 18:30

I neither like or dislike myself. As to self knowledge- one never stops
learning.

Elena ‘andcart
May 25, 2013 at 18:00

I have never wished to be someone else. I quite like the person behind my
eyes. And there is absolutely nothing perfect about me. But that’s it you see.
I am the person behind my eyes. And oh how well I know me. All of the ghastly
mistakes and all of the stupidity, and all of the ability to half forgive
myself.

Elena ‘andcart
May 25, 2013 at 10:44

I sometimes wonder if it might be better to leave children in abusive
homes. At least you find yourself fighting to get out and stand on your own
two feet. And you are more likely to succeed just so you can say, “I proved
you well wrong.”

Edna Fletcher
May 25, 2013 at 13:37

I would not wish that children subject to serious ongoing physical abuse,
(I do not like the idea of smacking but would not wish parents to be
demonised or have children removed for this unless they were agressive in so
doing), or sexual abuse to stay with their birth parents. But emotional
abuse / serious ongoing neglect, (not just not having the right clothes /
food when poor- although you might have chosen not to reproduce in such
circumstances), are things that affect people so that they might rise to the
challenge by forming external relationships to deal with emotionally and
practically difficult situations- they are also things that extended
families could more readily challenge when they see and care what is
happening.

I would prefer more extended relations to be the ones to get in and
intervene- it does happen and it can keep the youngster more safe than the
system without loss of better relationships.

Elena
‘andcart May 25, 2013 at 15:50

That isn’t quite what I meant, and often extended family don’t want to
know. But I suspect that getting your self out of it and succeeding is in
the bones. Something you might not know you’ve got until or unless forced
to fall back on it.
I only know that I would rather be me than anyone
else I know, who might have been better treated.

Edna
Fletcher May 25, 2013 at 17:34

Agreed that many extended family may not want to know, I do not have
a rosy view of families or parents- but in the scheme of things they are
mostly what we have. Some do create their own ‘family’ through close
friendhips, but quite often these are no less ‘fragile’.

Like you I prefer the devil I know to that I do not know and not the
life of someone who appears to have been better treated. No parents are
angels and it strikes me as pot luck and trial and error if they raise
children well. But I know people whose children appear well raised and
polite to the world- but the internal family is not as ‘neat’ as it
looks.

I remember a work colleague saying if you look at other people and
wish you had their lives what you don’t see is the full ‘content’ of
their lives, this may prove to be not palatable. The grass is not always
greener.

Moor Larkin May 30, 2013 at 13:06

@ I remember a work colleague saying if you look at other people
and wish you had their lives what you don’t see is the full ‘content’
of their lives, this may prove to be not palatable. @

Thinking quickly, one grandfather was part of the Army of the
British Empire suppressing the natives on the North west frontier in
the early 1900′s, another grandfather was oft-quoted as saying that
the only good German was a dead one, my mother thought the Russians
had the right idea in 1968 because they didn’t have students on the
streets, and I had more than one uncle who referred to black folks as
“toasted Irishmen”, (a phrase that covers a whole swathe of offences
probably) and my aunts felt that “birds of a feather should flock
together”, whilst my dad thought the unemployed should work or be left
to starve, and homosexuality might exist, but not on his watch.

Any self-respecting social worker nowadays would have hoisted me
out of that maelstrom of prejudicial upbringing within a flash of a
marker-pen I imagine……………..

Edna Fletcher
May 25, 2013 at 21:35

Meant

‘ But emotional abuse / neglect, (serious ongoing neglect must be dealt
with)’ is what I meant to write.

Neglect runs across a spectrum from odd acts of omission to putting
your needs and wishes before that of the child but yet loving the child.-
to harming the child with cruelty and indifference to the childs needs. We
all can be neglectful at times so unravelling it is necessary.

Elena
‘andcart May 25, 2013 at 22:22

Has it ever occurred to any of you that some children don’t actually
need or expect help? And wouldn’t know what to do with it if it was
offered?
“Tell me all about it, Dear. You must have had a really bad
time when your mother died, and then you behaved a bit badly.” Me? I
never behaved badly. It was the bitch my father married who beat me half
senseless when dear old Daddy wasn’t watching. Probably because I was a
very attractive child. And she was ugly. Such a simple thing, but so
very pertinent when shit comes to bust. She hated my mother, and so she
hated me.
This is entirely by the by and the fact that I am deaf in
one ear is no longer relevant. And believe it or not, I always felt
sorry for her. Which no doubt made her hate me even more. Nothing to be
done about people like this. You get on and you get out. And you do as
well as you can. Just to prove that you can.
I do not feel even
remotely sorry for myself. That bitch made me who I am today. And for
that I will be eternally grateful.

Edna
Fletcher May 26, 2013 at 11:20

Elena- without going into my life I was told I was ‘too proud’ to
accept help. I became highly self sufficient and seriously independent
of mind and operation as to have not followed accepted ‘norms’ of the
society around me. I questioned everything to the point of re-assesing
my own beliefs. I think this is to be rigorous and not sheep like.
Human being behave like sheep- as we have seen with the Savile
scenario- but they do not have to.

The fact that a child does not accept help may be more to staying
on ‘the sidelines’ and dealing with each day as it comes looking
outwards, however hard and upsetting ones situation, (there are things
I can recall which astound me I coped with). But I am also of very
strong character and do not seek relationships to ‘fill emotional
holes’- but most do. Maybe that is the trick – you face life and all
it brings and come up with each knock / difficulty to remain human and
concerned unlike some around you. But that does not make us easy
people to deal with as comments on this blog suggests.

Anna Raccoon May 26, 2013 at 11:34

+ 10,001!

charlotte May 24, 2013 at 22:15

I had a fabulous childhood with 5 siblings and very loving parents who we
all meant the world to. With our extended family of grand parents, aunts,
uncles and cousins we were never short of love. I don’t think a day went by
though without mum gently telling us how very lucky we were. A girl in my
class at school had been orphaned when both of her parents died and left her
and her brothers and sister orphaned. She and her siblings lived in the local
orphanage and she hated it there. At 16 she was turfed out and was expected to
manage on her own, my mother was appalled and took it on herself to ‘mother’
the girl and keep a caring eye on her. Mum wasn’t overbearing but was there
for the girl and it’s no surprise that not long after leaving the orphanage
she married and was then able to take her younger siblings from the orphanage
to care for. Luckily the girls marriage worked well and eventually she had
children of her own. I think my mum helped a lot when the first baby was born
because the girl had no role model to follow. My school friend would fret
about the baby crying with colic and mum could ease her stress having had so
many children herself. The girl had 20 years of support from my mum and grew
into a confident woman with an adorable family, that is what she wanted it was
her life’s aim, she became a fantastic home maker. Practical support is more
valuable than sitting in a committee meeting making useless plans and charging
the earth for them. Helping someone build a new home with a gift of a couple
of tea towels some bed linen and saying what a great job they’ve done is
important, it’s a kindness that costs very little. I try to follow my mum’s
example, but I’m not nearly as effective as she was and certainly not half as
successful at self sufficiency as the girl I went to school with.
It seems
that professional carers only do the job for money, it’s just that a job. I
know someone who wouldn’t take her disabled sister after their parents had
died because it would mean 1 less foster child in her care and lost revenue.
It’s an awful world we live in.

Engineer May 24, 2013 at 21:25

Anna, I think this is one of the most powerful pieces you have written,
because it is written with the voice of experience.

I have often wondered, from the safety of a fairly close and loving family,
whether we’ve got the whole ethos of Social Services fundamentally wrong in
the UK. We send some (no doubt sincere and committed) youngsters to University
for three years, stuff them with theories that may or may not be valid, then
throw them out into the wide world and expect them to guide others – others
with problems and traumas they could not possibly begin to comprehend. Where
is there underpinning experience of life, especially the harder aspects of
life? No wonder we end up with what appears from the outside as a bunch of
careerist time-servers who promise to ‘learn lessons’ after yet another
scandal, but never seem to.

Perhaps ‘social work’ is more complex than a council department of salaried
nine-to-fivers with a secure pension to work towards can cope with. Perhaps
there’s room for the Churches, for voluntary organisations, for hard-bitten
old timers and old lags gone straight, for more fostering (“not if they
support UKIP” – the epitomy of all that is wrong with Social Services
departments), and maybe just for being there for people with problems; just a
cup of tea and a sympathetic chat would be more use than clipboards full of
tick-box questions. Abandoning youngsters at 16, just when they need the
guiding hand, the occasional arm-round-the-shoulder chat pointing them in the
right general direction, maybe even the occasional metaphoriocal kick up the
fundament, just beggars belief, somehow.

How do we ammend things so that the orphaned young, the wayward, the
misunderstood, have someone they can rely on and turn to? I don’t know the
answer to that, but can’t help thinking that collectively, we need to find
ways.

Edna Fletcher
May 24, 2013 at 21:57

The tragedy is that putting an arm round or similarly physically
comforting a youngster nowadays will be often be construed as ‘perverse’ or
‘physically abusive’ by the parents or political correctness brigade
including SS types. I now would be wary of helping a youngster needing this
kind of warmth because the outcome could be so awful. We now have
generations of ageing people who would think twice because of possible
perceptions and consequences.

In countries other than the UK one would not need to think to keep
‘distance’ from a youngster needing an arm round him / her. Is it a wonder
then that so many children in state care lack experience of warmth from
adults- when the recruits to SS mirror society’s near indifference to the
fact that a 16 year old is still a child in most respects and no caring
parent could leave such a child rudderless in a dangerous and difficult
world.

We relatively ‘oldies’ may want to change things as some of us understand
the cruelty. But we have a major hurdle when the elected representatives
running the country are so blinkered as to see the current state endorsed
institutions as needing ‘support’ rather than dismantling. But unless this
happens and the replacements are something more akin to humane levels of
form and function there is no hope for change. Instead, As Anna noted in
another piece, we will get more and more laws and guidance for officials of
the state.

carol42 May 24, 2013 at 19:40

I thought they were responsible until 18, 16 is far too young to be out on
your own for most people. I know when I lived in Scotland they had some
supported flats for young people leaving care where they got help adjusting to
managing money, cooking etc. there were never enough but that seems a better
idea. I had a family and didn’t have a clue at 16 how to manage anything.

YS May 29, 2013 at 17:38

Councils have a duty to provide advice and support to their young people
up to age 19, and a power to do so up to age 21. They are encouraged to make
sure that young people stay Looked After for as long as possible, preferably
until they reach 18 if that is in the best interests of the young person.
They should make sure that when young people do leave care they are equipped
with the necessary life skills, and receive adequate financial and other
support at what is a difficult time for all young people. Getting this
package of support right is crucial to improving outcomes for care leavers
to make sure they have the stability and support they require to fulfill
their potential educationally and to develop the life skills to enable them
to make a successful transition to independent living. For example, when a
care leaver is at college, the local authority should make sure they have
suitable accommodation particularly outwith term-time, and that they are
able to buy books and equipment, or travel to and from college.
(from the
Scottish Government’s ‘These are Our Bairns’)

Fat Steve May 24, 2013 at 18:22

Preponderance to the law doesn’t surprise me at all –Many WERE drawn to the
law less as a means to making a great deal of money than a wish to achieve
something along the lines of Justice—-as funny as it may seem now when I was
younger law was considered a ‘caring’ profession and many of those who have
had a tough time wanted to prevent it happening to others as a way of living a
life and earning a crust —–a realisation that with just that little care — at
the right time —-that moment in a Court of Law when the truth outs—- one can
change a person’s life for the better —no not a ‘bleeding heart’ sorta caring
that stems from empathy —Savile was a great empathiser –I reckon its why he
was such a popular entertainer and such an interesting character being
something as I see it as a metaphor for life in England in the 70s and 80s
–all goodish intentions to give a self serving ‘nod’ of ‘caring’ to poor
outcomes and not much trying to change things so poor outcomes are avoided or
prevented from the outset before things spiral down. Still when everything is
reduced to the common denominator of money everything is valued in monetary
terms —- justice included —– well then everything has a price doesn’t it? —and
everything is solved by throwing money at it —here’s a tenner now take your
problem away coz money solves it. Fascinating to speculate on the outcome of
Suzi’s life if the right understanding had been shown to her at the right
moment in time —Fascinating to speculate how much time it might have taken
then and how much time it might take now.

Mudplugger May 24, 2013 at 16:08

Those of us who had a conventional family took so much for granted, it’s
only when you think back to being that age, and what it must have been like to
live those vulnerable years without that background of permanent 24/7 care,
that you realise how different it was for those youngsters in state
‘care’.

Yes, families can be a pain in the arse – they apply rules and standards
you don’t get to influence, they interfere in all those fun aspects of your
young life such that you’re convinced they’re intent on your non-enjoyment of
anything, they coerce you into excesses of school-work and press you towards
reliable and lucrative, if turgid, employment. But they do it because of what
they are and what you are to them, only you don’t realise it at the time or
realise that some others don’t get that.

Reading posts like this helps to put it into context and emphasises how
little real gratitude most of we lucky ones ever expressed to our families
while they were alive. But it also shows that some, like Anna and many
commenters, can overcome the negative start they had and ascend to levels
which their state ‘carers’ would never have imagined. Respect.

Anna
Raccoon May 24, 2013 at 16:17

Actually overcoming the negative start is the norm, not the exception. We
tend to hear more about the Suzi’s of this world, and the benighted Duncroft
lot, but through the Savile saga I have been privileged to be back in
contact with several dozen of the girls I was in care with – and I am amazed
and delighted at how well we have all done with our lives – with a
preponderance towards the law strangely.

There is a similarity in our lives – we all seem to have emerged bloody
angry and determined to succeed. That doesn’t take away from the fact that
there still should be a safety net for those who aren’t so bloody minded and
just ‘go under’ with the stress of it all. It needn’t cost a fortune, just
basic human kindness (and not tick box questionnaires!)

Don Cox May 24, 2013 at 16:05

One problem is that doing the transitional care you suggest properly would
need many thousands of hours of face-to-face chat and help. How can this be
paid for?

The same problem afflicts the Probation service, which appears to be being
abolished.

Anyone with teaching experience will tell you that weak students need ten
times as much personal attention as strong students. The same applies to
“students” who are trying to live outside a care home or a prison.

There are many examples of people who started work at 14 and by
determination and talent led highly successful lives. Naturally, being keen
and optimistic, such people get plenty of help.

But what about the ones who have little determination and no talent?

Anna
Raccoon May 24, 2013 at 16:09

“How can this be paid for?”

We could start by using the pool of money that is dipped into every time
there is an inquiry to see where it all went wrong, or the pool of money
that pays for golden handshakes as the guilty parties slope off to pastures
new, or even the pool of money that is used to expensively prosecute the
perpetrators….

If care actually meant care, we wouldn’t need to ring fence those pools
of money….

Saul May 24, 2013 at 16:16

Or even the £18 billion in benefits that goes unclaimed.

Edna Fletcher
May 24, 2013 at 16:25

Or even pay using the largesse stolen on the tax funded gravy train
carrying politician, senior public sector staff and the good and great who
‘serve the countries citizens’ cold turkey.

Don Cox May 24, 2013 at 15:51

“Care but not loving care” is what Dickens describes in “Oliver Twist”.

The problem is still there because suitable staff who could really care
about the welfare of orphans and the neglected are rare. There are not enough
good people to go round.

So what you get is a preponderance of career “carers”. And every critical
enquiry makes them more determined to tick all the boxes and stick to all the
rules in the most impersonal way possible.

YS May 29, 2013 at 17:32

And your solution is…?
‘Good people’? By whose standard do you measure
‘good’?

I’ve seen both exemplary, so-called ‘career carers’ – carers who find
themselves unable to give up their long-term foster child and who decide to
apply to adopt – and miserably inadequate kinship carers with whom I
wouldn’t place a dog.

The transition period for care leavers hasn’t been handled well in the
past – with our most vulnerable young people cast adrift. There have been
improvements. Pathway Plans are certainly robust here in Scotland – though
of course for the majority of this blog’s readers this will be yet another
example of the nanny state…

I’m bemused by the contradictory approach adopted by so many contributors
here: that Social Workers should keep their totalitarian mitts off and stop
dictating to Johnny Public whilst at the same time ensuring that 16+ yr olds
are monitored and supported.

Which is it to be?

Mark May 24, 2013 at 15:16

Care, but not loving care. Big difference..

Fat Steve May 24, 2013 at 13:09

Gosh Anna I have never read anyone but ANYONE that manages to capture the
issues —the really important issues —–not the banal administrative matters
that the state so carefully attends to at such cost of time and money—– that
surround childhood and young adulthood as well as you do. Being forced to go
it alone too young without back up has more potential for bad consequences
than many can imagine and the huge sadness is that with just a little care so
much of it is preventable. There is a really good novel somewhere in you and
it will be a loss if you don’t write it.

Frank Limadere
May 24, 2013 at 12:35

What happens to 16 year old children who want to carry on their education?
Are they left to their own devices on their 16th birthday? When I was in care
in the 60s I left school and left the children’s home at the end of the school
year after taking my GCE ‘O’ levels. It was about 4 months after my 16th
birthday. I don’t know what would have happened if I’d wanted to go on to the
6th form., it was never discussed. In fact, the only careers advice I got was
“Would you like to be a male nurse?” I said no and that was it. I remember
wondering what other kind of nurse I could be.

Michael May 24, 2013 at 21:02

What happens when they want to buy cutlery? You can’t buy plastic spoons
from Tesco unless you’re 18.

Melanie May 25, 2013 at 20:53

I was at Duncroft in the mid 70s and when I was reaching the age of 16
Maggie Jones fought to try and keep me at Duncroft and continue my Education
at college, Social Services would have had to pay for this as my care order
lasted until I was 18 years old, MJ thought that my returning home was a bad
idea, sadly she was right . It would have been possible though, so the fact
that so many 16 year old care leavers end up totally on their own with no
prospect of college or maybe even Uni is so so wrong. ( I didn’t know any of
this until I applied for my notes recently)

Elena
‘andcart May 25, 2013 at 21:42

Well, there you go. A lot of us didn’t get any sort of opportunity to
go on to further education. And Yes, I do mind that I didn’t. But I
managed anyway. I just had to clean a lot of lavatories in the process of
putting my children through Public School.

m.barnes May 24, 2013 at 12:28

Fantastic post Anna.
It has always struck me as crazy for the State to
just throw kids out the front door on their 16th birthday. Crazy, cruel and
heartless. I remember what I was like at 16 and am not sure I would have
bobbed to the surface of that swimming pool if I’d been in care. There is a
flavour of care-ism in this: if you are a ‘care-kid’ then you should be tough
enough to look after yourself and so it’s your choice to be exploited. No-one
listened to these girls because they didn’t value them, what they said was
untrustworthy because they had been in care. It’s shaming. And it’s
bigotry.

Maybe if as much effort went into ensuring the exploitation business didn’t
have such a ready supply of fresh meat, there wouldn’t be so many
prosecutions.

Anna
Raccoon May 24, 2013 at 12:53

“Maybe if as much effort went into ensuring the exploitation business
didn’t have such a ready supply of fresh meat, there wouldn’t be so many
prosecutions.”

My point precisely. Prosecutions only protect the next victim. A
worthwhile and laudable aim, but shouldn’t we be looking to protect the
first victim?

Demelza May 24, 2013 at 12:05

I spent 14 years as a local councillor from the late ’80s to the early
’00s, and for much of the time was on the Housing Committee, spending a couple
of years as vice chairman.
One of the sources of vexation was the “urgent”
requests for housing that we’d get from the county’s Social Services
department for children about to come out of care. Time and again our
allocations teams would go back to them saying “please give us more notice,
someone’s 16th birthday shouldn’t take you by surprise a week before it
happens”. But it seemed to be beyond their ability to predict the passage of
time.
We were legally required to house them, but the faux urgency was a
constant source of annoyance.