Listen to thisMy name is Kathleen and I am 16 years old. I had quite a few brothers and sisters but I can’t remember their names. They were all put into care. I don’t know where any of them are – or my real parents. I am going to find them when I am old enough.
I was put in care at just a few months old because my real parents physically battered me and my other brothers and sisters. After a few months I went back home but my real mum put me in care again because she couldn’t cope. When I was about 13 months old I went to foster parents who then adopted me when I was 7. They adopted a baby soon after: he’s 9 this year.
A year before they adopted me, I started to run away because my adoptive mum used to abuse me physically. I was very unhappy at home. At 9 I was in hospital because my adoptive mum battered me that much, I was covered with bruises. While I was in hospital I was put on the At Risk Register but I went back home. My brother used to get physically abused as well: I wanted to tell someone but I was scared.
Then I was put in care aged 10 by my adoptive mum but I kept running away. I went into a place called the Admission Unit and was in it for a year. Then my adoptive mum signed me out of care, because I was only in “voluntary care”. The physical abuse still carried on and I just kept running away. I felt I couldn’t talk to anyone about what was happening at home.
Running and running
I never used to return to the Assessment Centre after school each day: I
just ran away. Then I took an overdose, because I was very depressed and
couldn’t talk to anyone. I just wanted to give up living. I was in
hospital overnight and then it was back to the Assessment Centre.
I left just before Christmas and went to a children's home, still attending the same day-school. I was very unhappy at the children's home and kept running away. Then I was moved out of Liverpool to another Assessment Centre. It took me a long time to settle there because it was out of Liverpool. But when I got used to it, I loved it. We used to go out to the shops or swimming. You had your own bedroom: it was very strict there though.
I was there about four months before going to a Community School, where you live in. It’s for girls who have emotional, family and school problems and keep running away. I had all those problems.
I still had quite a bit of contact with my adoptive parents. I visited them once and phoned them up quite a few times, but things never worked out, I became very distressed and started to cut myself up because I was getting disturbed about the things that had happened to me at home.
A key to unlock the door
I still couldn’t talk to anyone. I ran away twice; the second time, I
took an overdose. I was taken to the Royal Liverpool Hospital. I stayed
there overnight on the observation ward. The staff came to take me to a
Secure Unit (where you’re locked in). I was shocked. I went to court
next day and got a month’s Secure Order. It didn’t take me long to
settle in because I knew most of the staff in the Unit. After a month I
got another three month’s Secure Order.
I started to trust staff and I talked to them about my problems, but at the end of the three months, I still wasn’t ready to go back up to the main school; I was cutting my arms and becoming distressed. I was still at risk of running away because there were a lot of things in my head that I just couldn’t talk about.
So when I went back to court, I got another three month’s Order. I was in the unit for Christmas: it was a nice Christmas. I missed my adoptive parents. I hadn’t seen them for a long time because they didn’t want anything to do with me.
I am still in the Secure Unit but I am going back to the main school soon when my Secure Order runs out. I am ready to leave now and I am going to make a go of it. I am 17 this year and I want to have a flat, get a good job and settle down to a normal life I am finding it very hard to accept that I cannot go home, but I will just have to put it behind me and start again.
From Who Cares? the UK journal for young people in care
