What the kids say about care

We often listen to Child and Youth Care workers in these pages – but we wondered whether children in care had anything to say to our readers. We invited eight of them around to dinner and talked ...

Collect eight children in a room and you get a gripe session, right? Wrong. Our visitors were a randomly picked group, aged twelve to nineteen, from four children's homes. They had been in care for between three months and five years, and the initial uncertainty and politeness soon mellowed into some straight talk. There was no doubt about their contentment with their respective children's homes. For each one, as they frankly shared the circumstances which led to their placement, the children's home had been experienced as a helpful and valued solution.

Preoccupations
One almost expected to hear such a group complaining about the food, the curfews, the stigma, or the staff. But there was none of this. Uppermost in the minds of all eight of our visitors were their very strong concerns and hurts about what had happened to their families and homes. For all of them, there had been bereavements, rejections or separations which left them with a degree of pain which which they still struggle.

On relating to others at school
"Many are actually jealous of us. They wish they could stay in a home." “Some look down on us: 'You have no parents?!' They throw your background in your face." “I was at first ashamed at being in a home. I expected others to make fun of me. But when I did tell them, they really understood and were interested. It was OK"

The natural exhuberance of a group of youngsters was subdued as they listened to each other with obvious recognition for each other's experiences and feelings. One thing was clear: these young people no doubt continue to work each day at their on-going life routines and school tasks, but they carry with them a serious burden of loss and residual feeling over what has happened to them. Is there anything, they were asked, that they would like their child care workers to be better at? “To help us more," they replied, “with this pain."

Programmes and systems
All children's homes work out ways of compensating for the obvious shortcomings of group living compared with ordinary family life. How do we ensure that there are enough adults to go around? How do we cover all the bases for each child and avoid missing some of them out? How do we manage all of the household demands without getting too institutional? What rules and systems do we implement to balance between safety and order on the one hand, and individuality and room to grow on the other?

All of the children in this group had a good grasp of the arrangements which governed their lives, and they appeared to have 'bought into' the various systems.

"We have a weekend planning programme for those who cannot go home."
"We are allowed to take Saturday morning jobs to earn money."
"We have a keyworker system so that child care workers have a small group for which they are responsible."
"We have a foster care plan for children who will probably never go home again."
"We have a life-skills programme to help us with that."
"We have a senior system whereby we help with the younger kids."
"We have a security system at our gate when it's unsafe in the local township."
"We're allowed to visit friends in the neighbourhood after school".

Behind all of this there was a strong sense of caring and protective adults who are actively concerned about them and who take trouble for them. There was clearly also much talking between child care workers and children which helped them make sense of what happened in their lives, which explained things, which encouraged. For example, child care workers helped to reconstrue failures as learning, helped youngsters to see disappointments as common human experiences and opportunities to try something new. What about helping out with the chores?

"Well obviously we do that, help with cleaning, feeding the dog."
"Often we older ones are asked to help with younger kids – and we're expected to set an example to them."
"When you are asked to help with other children, it makes you feel special, because when things come out right, you feel more self-confident yourself."

Three issues
When the purpose of the group was explained, we suggested that it could be an opportunity for young people in care to say something which they thought was important to child care workers generally. Was there anything which they would like child care workers to know more about, to read more about, to be better at? There are, it seems, some constructive criticisms which child care workers might take to heart.

1. Home visits
There was a discussion about the way in which social workers or departmental authorities approved arrangements for home leave. It was fully accepted that adults wanted to ensure that overnight or holiday placements would be safe and pleasant, and this was appreciated. However sometimes enquiries were insensitive and bureaucratic.

"We like to keep to ourselves the private fact that we have had family problems."
"My grandmother was embarrassed and hurt that a social worker had to go sniffing around her flat just because she had offered to have me for the weekend. She felt judged and that there was something unsatisfactory about her."
"Friends in our street knew that people had come checking up on my home."

2. Future plans
When young people are admitted to care there is often confusion in their minds as to what, exactly, is happening to them. Adults may use words which the children do not understand, and the motives behind the removal and placement are not always clear – “is this a positive move or am I being punished?"

"This is not a time for people to pretend that nothing serious is happening."
"I would like to know the truth. Are they hiding things from me? I need to know if things are going on behind my back."

It seems that children need to see a reasonable stretch of the road ahead, for only in this way can they relax their watchfulness and get on with their lives. “Somebody said I would be in care just for a couple of weeks, and a few months later I am still here and nobody is telling me what is going to happen." This young person is not going to 'unpack his suitcase', for every day he is expecting another move. Give honest information about your plans for children.

3. Fairness
There is a certain ambivalence about the children's home situation: is it more like a (family) home or more like a school? Into this question comes the matter of 'fairness'. In a (family) home, children are treated as individuals and the treatment (for example, punishments and rewards) may therefore be different for each child. In a school, life is more formalised and regimented, and it is more important for children to be seen to be treated the same. Young people in care clearly have different ideas about where their children's home fits into this. For some, “different strokes for different blokes" is quite acceptable and there should be individual consequences for misdemeanours like coming home too late at night. But others feel that all punishments should be scrupulously fair and consistent. There is no easy answer to this. It can have to do with the shape of the buildings and the programme, for example, does everybody tend to know what everybody else is doing? It can have to do with the developmental status of the youngsters themselves, for example, who still needs external sanctions and who is more accepting of personal responsibility? Enough for child care workers to know that this is an issue, and to ensure that they know how everybody feels about the sanctions they apply in their unit.

On freedom
"I thought it was going to be like a jail, but it's really very nice." “My own mother never let me go out, but the children's home is more realistic." “Of course you have to earn the freedom: you have to be old enough, you have to be trusted. If there's a party or something, the child care workers will check up to see that an adult will be in charge." “At home if I broke a trust they would keep on at me about it. The child care staff will get over that and want to give me another chance." “They won't let me go out by myself." (The youngest)

"I was lucky ... “
Despite two or three areas of criticism, the attitudes of this group of eight children in care were overwhelmingly positive. The adults were seen as warm and welcoming, and all of them appeared to have cast their child care workers into roles with which they felt comfortable. “I take the child care worker as my parent. He is a male, he looks after us, he plays soccer with us. He loves us, and we love him." Another: “No staff member could take the place of my mother. I don't really look for a mother or father in the child care workers. My mother is my mother – but I don't live with her, and the child care workers are there to help me with that."

One said: “My father died and my mother left us at that time, leaving only my sister and me alone. One morning I went to play and when I came back my sister was also gone – I don't know where – and I was all alone. But I was lucky. My father's manager came to find out what happened to me, he took me to the welfare people and so I came to the children's home. Now, I have a family."