April 2021 marks Care Experience History Month. A month to celebrate, learn and big up the people of the past, present and future who have influenced the foster care community. If you’ve been following my blog for some time, you’ll know that I grew up in the foster care system so this month is a month very close to my heart. But do I really know about the history of the care system? Not really! I know my history, and maybe that’s the most important, but surely it would be good to learn more about where the foster care system came from.
The official website for Care Experience History Month (https://www.careexperiencedhistorymonth.org/) says that the conversation about how the state has looked after care experienced people has been going on for 4000 years! That’s longer than when Jesus was alive (again, if you know me – you’ll know I believe in Jesus). The people behind this month want the world to come together to tell the story of care experienced people throughout history. I think that’s totally awesome!
We want to understand why care, around the world, is the way it is and how the systems we have in place today came to be, by understanding the history of care.
The little bit of history that I do know comes from my work with the oldest children’s charity in England – Coram. Thomas Coram founded the Foundling Hospital in London in October 1839 for children who were born out of wedlock or into poverty. Children in care can be traced back to the times of the workhouses – even fictional characters such as Oliver Twist grew up in the care of the state.
In the present day, I wanted to find out what the care experienced community thought of the care system and those in it. I created two different word clouds – one positive and one negative. Let me share them with you.
Firstly, why are there more negative words than positive words? Are we really unwanted, misunderstood, forgotten and alone?
As we’ve grown up, people have said these positive words about us. We are warriors, we are strong, we are resilient and survivors.
We survived the care system.
Is it something that should be survived?
The care system is meant to look after us and protect us, however, in 2005 it was claimed that children and young people in care experienced more abuse than they did out of it. How is this protecting us?
Another point I’d like to make is that there are more children and young people who are growing up in unsafe situations, yet there aren’t enough foster carers or residential placements. There are other 96,000 children and young people in care today – yet that number is growing. How can we stop this?
I know I’m asking a lot of questions and not really offered a lot of answers – sorry! Maybe you’ll have some. I’d also like to know what words you would use to describe the foster care system and those in it. I’d like to know what you want to learn from Care Experience History Month. Take a look at the website and see how you can get involved!
Louise Hughes 