The reason why I posed it first is because I have a lot to say on this topic, and you may get bored and click off! The video gives a concise and very comprehensible presentation of the emotional issues looked after children AND care leavers face well into adulthood, how they are sometimes misunderstood and I daresay mistreated, whether it be by their teachers, friends, family, social workers and even foster carers. I will go further and talk about how I feel these issues affect looked after children (LACs) and care leavers (CLs) in terms of relationships, socialising, education, and trying to find their way in the World. Credit for the video goes to Scott King, a Care Leaver and founder of the Puppet Project. The Project's intriguing website can be found here http://www.thepuppetproject.net and Scott at https://twitter.com/ScottKing_
Uncertainty. Instability. Insecurity
These three words characterise the lives of many of LACs. For most 'normal' people growing up, there is little uncertainty about their parents, where they are going to live, what their future is going to be like, who is going to look after them....Are they going to be loved? And the list goes on. But these are common for LACs, so common in fact I'd wager all of them have at least at one point (and some certainly many more times than that) thought about some, or all of these things. And they would have had profound emotional effects.
Relationships.
How a child is nurtured as they grow up in early childhood builds the foundations for who/how they will be in later life. Poor nurturing overwhelmingly equates to poor foundations. A loved, nurtured child should develop well, and quite importantly, feel loved and accepted. Missing out on this, as many LACs do can have significant consequences later on in life. It is extremely important for children to have significant, constant attachments to a person - and this is often undermined by foster placement hopping, regularly changing social workers and a lack of understanding from the adult. This instead leads to broken attachments, and I assure you personally, each one is increasingly traumatic, and attempting to form a new one is increasingly hard. A deep fear of many LACs is that they are unlovable, or not accepted, and many don't accept themselves. This can lead to defensiveness, self loathing, a lack of trust in people, and what would be a withdrawn, or anti social person. It can also lead to, for want of a better, much less negative description, attention seeking behaviour, as LACs seek to be accepted, and wanted. These behaviours can manifest with friends, family, carers, and strangers. And these perceived negative behaviours are met with negative reactions, which just reinforce them. When I was younger, I remember on many occasions when playing up, and despite the best of intentions, being told to stop attention seeking, or that I was an attention seeker by my own carer. This makes me feel angry, because A, I didn't understand what attention seeking was, except that it was a negative criticism which upset me greatly, B, it made me feel very insecure and lowered my self esteem as I overwhelmingly felt that I needed to change something within myself, but absolutely had no clue as to what, as I could never be aware of the causal thoughts and feelings, and C, what on Earth is the point of saying that to a young person punitively? Instead, I found myself repressing such behaviours in order to avoid the negative reactions. What should have happened was that my carer delved deeper and looked at not what I was doing, but why, and then work to rectify the feelings of insecurity by making me feel secure, the feelings of being unlovable with love and care, and trying to understand what in my past caused me to feel that way. A far more beneficial and logical approach towards the emotional development of a young person than bigoted criticism. Common sense dictates that you do not criticise a young, emotionally damaged person for behaviours they are displaying as a result of that damage, you nurture and attempt to repair it. In my own personal experiences, I was not the only one treated this way, and no doubt other LACs feel the same way too, and a change of tack is needed from their 'corporate parents'.
I once watched a documentary on BBC one a few years called Kids in Care, and I was disappointed with the treatment, which I've personally experienced, of the LAC Connor by his social worker. Connor had wanted unsupervised contact, and the assessment of his parents and conditions indicated that this was safe. However Connor was very unhappy as he was owed three contacts, wanted contact soon, and wasn't happy with the arrangements. In the build up to this Connor was anxious about contact arrangements, missed his family deeply, and didn't understand the restrictions which from my analysis and personal experience, are relatively easy to explain. His Social Worker's reaction was to tell him that was the way it was going to be, giving no insight to Connor of why so, which could have perhaps eased his frustration. Instead he was made to feel powerless, mistreated, and vented that frustration through abuse - of which I am sure was not the first time judging by the Social Worker's comments. Secondly, the Social Worker himself was very dismissive of Connor, criticising him for 'pushing the goalposts' and telling him he'd got what he wanted (so should back off). Seriously I would love nothing more to...Well never mind, but that Social Worker certainly reflects the what I like to call 'God complex' attitude that I have seen in some Social workers. Anybody with reason would understand that of course, an LAC is going to be impatient, eager and defensive when it comes to eagerly desired contact with whom they perceive as their only true family, and any bad news would be felt as a threat to that outcome. Was it not too much then for this social worker to take a compassionate, understanding approach towards Connor? Rather than meet Connor's desires with dismissal and criticism. I was extremely angry when he said 'you get one bit, then you want more and more and more, it doesn't work like that'. It is not for any young person to play to the system and somehow abide it without understanding it, if he want's to see his family, and doesn't understand the bureaucratic, but often necessary processes that the Local Authority have to go through, then a simple 'your not getting it' or 'it doesn't work like that' does not suffice whatsoever. This may be a case, in my opinion on the more extreme side of the spectrum, but nonetheless it happens, a Link Worker once tried it with me, disregarding my desires completely, and trying to move me across the city whilst my carer had to go away to India for 9 days, during a time when I had an exam and he'd arranged for his aunt to look after me, at my home. But boy did she get a surprise when I bit back (and got what I wanted in the end!)
You can find Connor's case here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vCwdKz-XsI - Forward to 5th minute. And the last several minutes here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vCwdKz-XsI
**** These videos have been removed due to copyright infringement, have tried to find replacements but is proving difficult - best I can do for now is here ****
Education.
Confidence, self esteem and emotional stability go hand in hand with being able to achieve. I speak from personal experience. You see, low self belief leads to fear, which leads to anxiety (and even depression) which leads to procrastination, which leads to underachievement, which leads to feelings of failure, and then low self belief again. This vicious cycle repeats. This can be especially prevalent in LACs that have not had encouragement, positivity, nor to a degree discipline and the resulting development of good skills and time structure that many young people have developed through good parenting. Often in fact, LACs have faced abuse, discouragement, and negativity in their growing lives, and psychologically they develop into as I was many a times described with great bigotry, 'weak minded' or 'lazy' individuals. Of course comments such as that destroy self-esteem further, and neither descriptions are accurate, especially when emotionally, there is a great deal going on that is more important and distracting than attempting to develop a cognitive process that supports achievement. You end up feeling increasingly self critical, as if there is something wrong with yourself, and it just reinforces the above vicious cycle. When you fear doing something, you do your best to avoid doing it. Unless you are able to overcome and challenge that through positivity, self encouragement and ambition. However for most LACs I surmise this is a nigh on impossible thing to do without help, and since this is not forthcoming, especially from those who misunderstand them, they get stuck like this, the cycle becoming ever increasingly embedded into their psyche, and when old enough to attempt to take command of their cognitive processes, this becomes a very difficult task, which many cannot achieve.
Of course, one could argue that with good carers out there, and good, supportive teachers, this can be rectified. However, from personal experience I can tell you that often neither parties understand, failure is rewarded with criticism rather than comprehension, labels of laziness, disinterest, misbehavior are all too common. The 95% percent of LACs that do not achieve at least 5Cs at GCSE level cannot all be lazy or weak minded. Most of our behaviours are a symptom of underlying emotions or thoughts, many of which, especially young LACs, are not even aware of. All responsible adults, and corporate parents would do well to delve further into their LAC charges' behaviours and their causes. Even constructive criticism is not enough. To tell an LAC that to do better they need to 'stop being lazy' or 'work harder' or 'put more time into it' or 'structure their day' does in absolutely no way address the unhealthy underlying, causal issues such as low self esteem, lack of positivity and confidence, which require the identification and changing of the negative cognitions, false self beliefs and unhelpful thoughts that are at the root, before any real overall change can be achieved. I personally would like to see foster carers, social workers and teachers all receive some kind of counselling and child psychology training. Because their approaches to LACs are really lacking in this department, most often they criticize, punish and worst of all, eventually just give up and leave alone.
So now you've made it to the end...Sorry It was so long winded but I wanted to pay attention to detail, and even then I had to cut it down. Perhaps I should have advised a strong cup of coffee beforehand but never mind. I hope any Social Workers, Teachers, Foster Carers, other Corporate Parents that read this, take away something. Don't look at what. Look at why. That is where you have to start.
