V °Iing Writer Awards: Schools winner In care

Noeleen Gorman

Doubtless the quality of child care in ,Great Britain is high. Everyone

for of the excellent facilities available tor children in need of care and of the

committed people who administer that Care. There is, however, a difference be- Veen academic ideas of what is best for a "lid and what is effective concern. Some- times there is not enough sensitivity to what is going on in a child's mind. I was taken into care early — not so early that I did not what was going on. The Welfare services had been alerted to my disastrous home by my primary school Principal. Not that I was entirely aware that it was a disaster — how could I know, having nothing to compare it with? Perhaps this is one of the basic problems of Child care: the child in question is not quite sure if it is his fault, his parents' fault or the authority's fault. With my father in prison and my mother drinking continually, I became responsible for the household. I even had to steal (Toney from my mother when she was runic to buy food for my sister and me. When things got really bad I would take

,MY sister to sleep at my grandparents' 'louse.

Anyone can see that we were in need of care — but looking back, I feel that the welfare services, once alerted, dealt with our case insensitively. We all appeared in court. I was made to stand in front of the Judge, my parents on one side of me and MY.grandparents on the other. I was asked Which I would prefer to live with. Can you imagine what it feels like to be asked to reject publicly two of the people with whom you have strong emotional ties? It

was a piece of unnecessary cruelty and extra stress. In the event, I chose my grandparents, but I still cannot shake off the guilt that I turned my back on my parents, especially my father. It was, of course, sensible, but no child should be put in such a situation.

My grandparents gave us their love and care but they were elderly and frail. Even- tually, five and a half years later, my grandmother fell ill and we went to a children's home. We were assured it would be a short-term stay and I'm sure it was from kindness that our social worker did not tell us the whole truth. But children are far more able to cope with difficult things than people believe. If we had been faced with the whole truth of our position we would have come to terms with it. Most children in care have learnt to survive hardship and distress. It insults them when people try to cushion them from reality and they worry about what they think is kept back. To hear the worst then is a relief. Perhaps the psychologists recommend the softly-softly method: perhaps the experts are sometimes too involved in their exper- tise to take a good long look at the human being they are trying to serve.

Actually, my grandmother had cancer, and they didn't tell me that she was dead until the day afterwards. They thought they had broken it all very gently and that I had accepted the loss. Instead, I felt cheated: I should have been told im- mediately. I also felt guilty: the responsi- bility of my sister and myself had made her ill: if I had given her more help and consideration she would have lived longer.

I ran away from the home — went missing for eight hours, came back, was punished and forgiven. Then I was moved with my sister to a long-term children's home.

Life in a children's home presents many problems of adjustment and some of them don't go away. There is the problem of bullying. When I arrived, there were quite a few children older than me and one in particular made my life miserable. The adults would have noticed physical bullying but psychological nastiness can be missed. There is also the problem'of privacy, or the lack of it. It's bad enough being thrust into unfamiliar surroundings but it's hard to five' so closely with people you have never met before. Then there was the problem of work. I was in the first years of grammar school and the other children really seemed not to understand about home- work and I had little peace to work.

This has to be the worst time of my life: it seems even more traumatic on reflection, when I realise it was all self-inflicted.

Because of the insidious bullying I attemp- ted to slash my wrists. When that failed, I took an overdose of sleeping tablets. Need- less to say, I escaped relatively unscathed but feeling guilty at what I had done. It was all probably my attempt to gain attention.

The ambition of every social worker is to get a child out of the children's home and placed with foster parents. It is the best thing, next best to having a real home with one's own parents. In the short term, however, fostering is difficult. All the parties are apprehensive, anxious to be seen in the best light and excessively polite.

Once again one moves in with strangers and although great care is taken to orga- nise numbers of meetings before finalising the arrangements, neither the parent nor the child really knows the other properly. All kinds of conflict arise and in our foster home we have our share. All in all, my sister and I are happy and our foster parents are kind and loving. But what a pity we were not given a look at a few natural families! I know from my school- friends that many live in conflict with parents they love. If we had realised it was inevitable that we would go through these sorts of times, and that they occurred in the best-adjusted families, we would not have taken our storms so seriously.

In a short time I shall be 18 and out of care. I am grateful to those who have looked after me and know they are gifted people. If I had to go through it all again I'd prefer that people would concentrate more on the person I am than on what they think is good for me.

My grandfather, though ill, is still alive: my father and mother live together again, and my mother is expecting a baby. I do not want to return to them, for being in care has made me into a different person. Anyway life is on the brink of change again: in June I take three A Levels and these will be my signal to take 'care' of myself. It remains to be seen whether I will do better or worse than those who have cared for me so far!