UK
Former teen tearaway helps home that saved him
A campaigner for children’s rights has paid tribute to a care home that helped turn him from a tearaway and into an entrepreneur. Matthew Huggins, founder of the Care Matters Partnership, was just 10 years old when he was taken in by the Caldecott Foundation at Smeeth, near Ashford, which cares for neglected and abused children.
Having been through a string of homes after suffering at the hands of an abusive stepfather, he was determined to break out of the system. “Before I moved to Caldecott I smashed every window in the children’s home I was in,” he said. “They were talking about sending me to a youth offenders’ institute, but Caldecott took me on. My behaviour was all over the place, I was determined to leave, but the staff refused to give up on me, even though I would hit out at them and run away.”
But after six months, Mr Huggins, who is now 29, began to adapt to life at the home. “There was a strong sense of community spirit, I began to experience things I had never seen before and the staff were very positive,” he said. “I attended the on-site school and made friends and heard the horrendous things some of them had been through, which put things in perspective.
“When I was 11, headteacher John Stanley gave me £50 and an office to set up my own newspaper. I have always been a driven person, but I needed someone to bring this out in me, otherwise I would’ve turned to crime.”
But Mr Huggins admitted his problems were not completely eradicated. “The home was the seed to my success, but there were things that needed to be changed. It was easy to become institutionalised. I was there four years when really I should have been moved into a family environment. I ended up going to a mainstream school, but when you turn up in the Variety Bus the other children know you’re in care and it’s difficult to integrate.”
But Mr Huggins said a lot has changed since he was there. “Caldecott is expanding its fostering service so children are moved into a family environment sooner,” he said. “The good things have been expanded and other things have been improved.”
Mr Huggins recently accepted an invitation to join the foundation’s board of trustees. “I want to be able to give something back – I’d go so far as to say they saved my life,” he said.
When he was 15, however, Mr Huggins rebelled again, breaking the wipers on a police car and leaving Caldecott. But despite leaving school with no GCSEs, he worked his way from jobs in burger outlets to charities and sales, and on to become a youth worker, travelling to Jamaica and South Africa.
He also became Britain’s youngest elected councillor aged 21, when he won a seat for Labour on Barking and Dagenham council. "Unfortunately, my past came out in the newspapers so I left the Labour group even though I’d done nothing wrong,” he said.
Despite his success working with charities, Mr Huggins suffered a breakdown at 26 and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. “I started drinking and taking cannabis. I was still very angry at what had happened to me in the past,” he said. But making the decision to turn things around he cleaned himself up and in 2008 set up the Care Matters Partnership, which provides advice on children’s matters to Government, local authorities, private companies and the voluntary sector.
He also finished his book, I’ll Love You If*, shortly after his breakdown, which tells the story of his life and looks at the problems of Britain’s care system. “I’m very lucky with how my life has turned out,” he said. “There are others who were in my situation who have taken very different paths. One friend died of an overdose, another is homeless and a third is in prison.”
27February 2010
* I’ll Love You If by Matthew Huggins is in our bookstore
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