Claire

It’s called [youth] Council, so obviously like floods of  young people in foster care or from children’s homes and stuff, and we all come together like once a fortnight and sort of discuss what is working well, and what’s not working well, to change things that aren’t working well. For example, like one of the things that we’ve recently worked on was the Change the Language campaign, so obviously when we’re looking back at when you get your records when you’re 18, a lot of the people didn’t like the way certain words and stuff were used, like ‘placement’ instead of ‘home’, and it was very like... it’s too professional and it’s not like personal to you. So obviously we did a whole Change the Language campaign, and we got social workers then want to change the way that they’d speak. And it’s gradually going across country now, like it is slowly going across country, but yeah, so obviously that was like one of the main things that were done, which obviously did massively help.

Yeah, so I think like... I’d had an amazing relationship with my foster carer, I’d been with her since I was 11, I think, 11/12, yeah.

A long time.

So obviously it was like a good like seven/eight years, and we had an amazing relationship. Like I called her Mam; we’re very, very close. Obviously, my Mam had passed when I was like a young... when I was young anyways, so she was like a really, really good maternal role model. And then as soon as I hit 18, I think everything just totally changed. So obviously I was in like a new relationship as well just after I’d turned 18, so I don’t know whether it was me staying out a lot more, ’cause obviously I’d... and I don’t think I realised that I did stay out quite a lot, but in my head, it was helping her because she didn’t have to worry about me, ’cause obviously I was out of the house, she could focus on the kids that she had in the house as well. So obviously in my head I wasn’t doing anything wrong that would trouble her, and obviously she never mentioned anything that was troubling her, and I think just gradually we just got worse and worse and worse at communicating. And then the argument that we had, it was just over a bag of pasta, like it was something so stupid, but it was just horrible words was shared on both parts and it was just a very, very brutal situation. And I’m the type of person, like if I know I’m not wanted, I will not stay in that environment, ’cause obviously I’ve had a very toxic-like upbringing, so obviously I think I’ve grown now enough to say like: “If I’m not wanted, I’ll leave,” So obviously that’s what I did. Like I... we had the argument on the Saturday and then on the Monday I’d rang my PA, and then by three weeks’ time I was in my own home living there; it was very, very... very sudden, very stressful.

Uh-huh. Which I think that’s what, like, it was surprising because I didn’t realise it was that bad, ... like how much the build-up. Obviously, I don’t know whether it was just ...’cause one of the only main things I can think of was obviously when you are a foster carer and the child you’re looking after turns 18, you get paid a lot, like a significant amount less.

Which obviously I understand, but obviously like we had that plan in place that I would move out, I think it was before I was 19 and a half, and in a few months, so I didn’t think that that money issue was gonna be an issue, ’cause obviously I was still paying the rent, gas, electric, food, and stuff like that.

So, I think it was like, obviously, and I knew how to do washing, cooking, cleaning and stuff like that, I knew how that was since I was a very, very young child, like eight/nine, obviously with us having a very, very neglectful upbringing, so obviously I had to learn all that myself. But my foster carer she does it with all the young people who she has, at 16 you do your own cooking, your own cleaning, a lot of chore based and stuff as well. I mean obviously she’ll still cook for the family and do it as a collective, but obviously she tries to encourage your own individual cooking and teaching and stuff. Obviously washing and stuff you do it all yourself. So obviously a lot of independence that way as well, which was good, yeah.

Yeah, uh-huh, like  ’cause obviously I knew I’d always wanted to move out, so obviously we’d spoke about it for years leading up to it, so obviously I’d like learnt about all of  the Leaving Care Grants, all of the support and all of the help of like the housing agencies and stuff.

Can I just ask:—

Uh-huh.

—where did you get that information from?

My PA, but... So, I do a lot of work with [service for children], which is [county] Social Services, and I’ve been volunteering with them for about eight year now, so obviously we do a lot of the care packages for leaving care to start off with as well, so I think all of  my work with them had helped gain more information than what I would have got just off my PA alone. 

But it was just like horrible words was shared on both parts and it was just a very, very brutal situation. And I’m the type of person, like, if I know I’m not wanted, I will not stay in that environment, ’cause obviously I’ve had a very toxic-like upbringing, so obviously I think I’ve grown now enough to say like: “If I’m not wanted, I’ll leave,” so obviously that’s what I did. Like, we had the argument on the Saturday and then on the Monday I’d rang my PA, and then by three weeks’ time I was in my own home living there; it was very, very sudden, very stressful.

So , in those three weeks in between, were you staying in that foster care until you got your new home, or...?

Half and half: so, I’d stayed at my partner’s who I was with Monday to Friday, and then obviously he had his two children on the weekends, so obviously I couldn’t stay ’cause there was no room, there was no more room, so I’d went back to my foster carer’s on the weekends, but I was out all of the day, like, I would literally just stay there for sleeping and then go out. Whether it would be like organising to move, getting things sorted, doing a bit of window-shopping type thing, and planning and stuff, but yeah, like I rarely stayed, huh.

So, your day-to-day life: you’ve got your dog; what kind of dog do you have?

Lurcher.

Oh, nice.

Yeah.

So would you like to say a little bit about your day-to-day life and where you do the dog walking?—

Yeah, oh, I know. Well to be honest, not as much as you would think, he’s very, very lazy to be honest with you, but I think ’cause we’ve got the garden, he’ll just like do his little zoomies in the garden. But I’ll either... ’cause I read a lot as well, I’ve only just started that and recently in the last year, so I think if I’m not reading, I’m doing like uni work, or I’m down [city], ’cause obviously my partner lives down [city].

So, obviously I turned 18 in the March, and then by the October, me and my foster carer had a really bad falling out, lots of arguments and lots of stress, and it was just... it was clear that I just wasn’t wanted in the home anymore. So, I’d rang my PA and said like: “I want... I want to move like ASAP I’m not staying in this house anymore.” And then I think within like three weeks I’d like applied for [association] housing and viewed a house and then got the keys and moved in. So, it was very, very quick, and very stressful.

Ooh, about 14/15ish, yeah. And it’s called [youth] Council, so obviously like floods of young people in foster care or from like children’s homes and stuff, and we all come together once a fortnight and sort of discuss what is working well and what’s not working well, to change things that aren’t working well. For example, like one of the things that we’ve recently worked on was the Change the Language campaign, so obviously when we’re looking back at like when you get your records when you’re 18, a lot of the people didn’t like the way certain words and stuff were used, like ‘placement’ instead of ‘home’, and it was very like... it’s too professional and it’s not like personal to you. So obviously we did like a whole Change the Language campaign and we got social workers then want to change the way that they’d speak. And it’s gradually going across country now, like it is slowly going across country, but yeah, so obviously that was like one of the main things that were done, which obviously did massively help. But yeah,a lot of the stuff that I learnt from like for my plan to move was obviously either [youth] Council or my PA, or me just researching all the bits and bobs, yeah.

So, my placement module for next year, for uni, my PA is helping us connect with the manager at the youth offending team for [county], so that’s massively helpful, and obviously I know he’s helping us move all of like my belongings and stuff down.

In terms of the support you got at that really difficult time, what was your PA like in terms of the support they gave you?

Good, but I think that I was very, very stubborn, so I just wanted to do everything on my own; I just wanted to like just plan everything on my own. I was... I’d try not to ask for help because I was trying to prove to myself that I would do it on my own, rather than like getting their help; I’m a very, very stubborn person to start off with, so I think like—

Not stubborn, independent.

Yeah, uh-huh, so I think like a high emotion—

Yeah…language… yeah.

—situation, plus my stubborn and independenceness, it was just a bit of a crazy situation, yeah.

I think once I turned 18 though, and obviously I was like... ’cause I had to sign onto Universal Credit to get the housing benefit to pay her rent, I think obviously I’d learnt to budget more then, but obviously it was very, very... not necessarily out of the blue, but I felt like... I felt a little bit more like underprepared. I got a bursary, which was helpful, but obviously like... I think it was like 70 percent of it went straight on a bus fare and a bus pass, so obviously not much.

Yeah, so originally I was offered a one bedroom bungalow, but I’d... I wanted a two bed, mainly ’cause I don’t like moving, and like I’ve moved a lot when I was a child, so I don’t like the stress of moving. So, I’d gotten a two bed semidetached with stairs. So obviously I got like an extra added railing put in off [housing association], and I got a shower put in off [housing association] as well, and I got lots of extra added... oh, do you know like the grippy thing, like if you’re picking things up off the floor and you can’t bend over? I can’t...

Like... a bit like a litter picker?

Yeah, yeah, kind of like that.

Yeah.

Uh-huh. So, I got... I got sort of like a bundle. I don’t know whether it was off someone from [county] Social Services, or it was from the... off like a team from [housing association], I can’t remember which one it was, but I got like a litter picker thing to like help us pick things up.

Yeah, I mean they were aware and they were very, very like accommodating for like exams and stuff. And obviously, some things I could do like in the house, but the majority of things I had to go in for because like the system at uni is we have a Canvas page where all of our lessons, lectures and seminars, they get uploaded on there, so obviously if aren’t in, you can just look on there and catch up. But then, our sixth form, we didn’t have anything like that, so it was like paperwork handed to you. We had like obviously our lectures, but nothing was recorded, so we couldn’t catch up unless you... you had like a friend to catch you up type of thing, so I kinda had to go in, which made it really difficult,’cause obviously I’d moved in my house in the... I think it was like November, and in the winter when it gets really cold, my back seizes up really, really badly. So sometimes I can’t even get out of bed, like even now, so I’d missed quite a lot leading up to my exams in like April/May/June time. But for exams themselves, I have like a room by myself with extra added time, and stuff like that, which was very, very helpful.

I was still recovering from a spinal surgery that I’d had just before my 18^th birthday, so obviously I was still like learning to walk again and I couldn’t move, and it was just... it was a really, really hectic time, yeah. I was still struggling with like walking and stuff as well, so I couldn’t walk like... like long distance, ’cause I had like two discs taken out of my spine and then... and two nerves severed in my spine, and then my bones fused back together, so I was still like learning how to walk again properly. And obviously where I live, like I’m in the... I’m in the same house now that I got when I was 18, and it’s on a very steep bank, so like getting... like even just to and from the bus stop was like really, really hard, like even now, so I think that put like a lot of extra added stress. And I think that’s necessarily my fault because I just picked the house available; I did, I’m not gonna lie, I just picked the first house available ’cause I just wanted to get out.

I think sort of like preplanning, but understanding that plans don’t always work out, is a massive like thing. Like I think you can’t go into something totally blind, you have to have some form of plan, whether that be just like a simple, like an end goal or like a step-by-step process on how you want to do it. But I think always making sure you have some form of backup plan and take the help that is available. You may not like it, you may not want to, but take the darn help. [chuckles] Like regardless of how stubborn you are – take it – because obviously when it’s not there and you need it, it is a massive difference. So obviously taking while like you half need it, but don’t want it, you sort of like know what to do with it, but obviously when it’s gone, you’re kind of on your own. 

And I think like the step from being in foster care, and being in a children’s home, to getting your own place, is so drastic. I don’t think there’s... and like there’s not a lot that prepare you for it, and I think especially if you don’t have a good support system, or like family, friends and stuff like that, it’s very isolating and it’s very lonely, and I think just preparing for that. I know a lot of these things are very, very negative things, but I think sometimes you’ve got to prepare, like I’ve always said you prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

I got a Leaving Care Grant, which I think was like... I think it was £2,000 I think, or £1,500, but obviously that goes for all of like your white goods, your beds, and like washer, fridge, drier, stuff like that. But you only get that once, which obviously is the really, really hard thing. So obviously now I’m moving across country I’m not gonna get that again, and obviously if I paid for a van to get all of my like white goods moved down, it would cost the exact same as them buying us the... buying them brand new, like, while I’m there, so.