Hope

Yeah. I just think when you… as a society we need to be much more compassionate in how we treat people generally and I think that’s important, just like compassion and just being nice to people. Like yeah… just try and understand where a behaviour stems from, rather than punishing the behaviour. I’m recently reading this book on… relates to the essay I am doing on transformative justice, and honestly like I can really resonate with this. It’s such an interesting concept. I think a lot of this applies to the justice system because obviously that’s so many care leavers that end up on the receiving end of the justice system. So, I think a lot of these problems require radical system… systematic change. I’d like to be in the position to be able to make that change and I’m not unfortunately.

Maybe by then you will be? One day, you will be part of that with others, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, so I just think we need to be definitely empowering people, care leavers to do what they want to do and listen to them, and if they… and also empower them to influence policy and to make a change. ‘Cos they are above all the people who know best, right? So, I think that would also be a good idea giving them a route into like government policy. [Laughs]. I dunno if that's a crazy idea, but it's like giving them more of a voice. So, I suppose this is the whole point of these interviews that to do that, yeah.

I left on my terms. I wasn’t supposed to leave because I was supposed to be in care until I was 18 and my foster carers had put provisions in place for me to go to a new school and… so it was becoming more permanent. But I kind of… I should start off by saying that I was, I was only really supposed to be in care for a short time. But for some reason when I was in care my foster carers, they just seemed really keen on making my placement with them permanent and that really freaked me out because when I went in care, I was never really supposed to be in care for a long time. And so, I just, I went downstairs one day. I was supposed to go to school and I just… I told my foster carer that I wanted to go home. I just said that I really missing my home, and that I don’t want to be here anymore and she was really supportive of that and she gave me the money for the bus and that’s how it ended really.

Like initially it was only supposed to be for one night and because obviously something bad happened, and then I was there for months and there wasn’t really a lot of like transparency about what was happening. Like, they didn’t really inform me, they didn’t keep me informed about that, really. It… yeah, it just seemed that I was there for longer and longer and longer and I feel like a lot was going on behind the scenes, but then it just wasn’t really reaching me, and it was through my foster care-,it seemed that my foster carer was just making that all these decisions and… [intake of breath] like to change my school and it made me feel really uncomfortable because I… yeah, I was not really kept in the loop with a lot of this that was happening.

I didn’t really, I didn’t receive it. I didn’t really know of my rights at all. I was very much confused to most of that.

What do you think would be the best way for them to receive information about  what they’re entitled to? What their rights are? What their options are?

I would just say  to ask, and to yeah, to not be afraid to ask what their rights are. What they are entitled to and also to critically challenge if they feel like they’re not receiving what they should be receiving, and would there be resources where they could access to know of their rights. Like  would they be able  to research into their rights, or are they very much like kind of dependent on somebody telling them that what is the situation with that?

It was when I was living in [county], that’s when things started looking up a little bit, because I managed to get my life in control, and ‘cause when, when I was in sixth form, I didn’t get good grades like I, yeah… I didn’t really have good grades, and, I knew I wanted to go back to uni but I didn’t have the qualifications to be able to go to like a good uni like [City]. I knew I wanted to come here, ‘cause like it was during my travels, I travelled to [City] and I met somebody who lives here, and I fell in love with the place and always said to myself, if ever I could come to this uni, I would love to do that. And so, that’s why I went back to college to get the grades to come here. And that’s sort of when things got better because I had, I gave myself that structure and I had that motivation and ambition, and that I was able to, like, find a place to go.

Well, my day-to-day life at the moment is very much plagued by assignments unfortunately and job applications. But, in a way, that kind of… it… do you know that… I kind of do thrive from the stress. Like I thrive from having lots to do. It feels like, at the moment I am on the cusp of like a really exciting change in my life, beyond July, yeah, I will be… I, I’ll be in the real world and hopefully I will have a good job. So, so yeah, my day-to-day life is just like I’m just trying to utilise every minute of every day just to try and get a good job, really. But I really want to… I’m trying to secure a place on one these grad schemes which is just [laughs]… they are very difficult to get onto.

I just, I want a job that will pay enough to give me financial security because it’s something I’ve never had, because obviously growing up in my conditions I… yeah, I’ve never had that security. So that’s something I crave. It’s not so much the money, it is just… I just wanna be secure, like financially secure. I feel like you just need that, you need that foundation to really then build upon. Because I’m very much at this stage in my life now… I am [age] like I’m… you know, I’m looking for love,  find the person to spend the rest of my life with. But, it’s almost like I can’t do any of that until I have a, a foundation like financial security. So, that’s really my next step. That I just want a job that’ll give me that, really, because it’s something that I worry about a lot, because so much of our wealth is passed down through family. But I’m not gonna inherit a house, or anything. So, it’s really up to me to give myself that security. But that’s not easy, because it’s like you need a job that will enable you to save money for a deposit, and then, yeah. And with the job market at the moment, that’s just not easy at all. It’s really competitive.

So, I did [course name] which I think dropped out just after my first year. So, I was living on student finance that was supporting me for the best part of like a year. But I didn’t attend. I don’t think I even went to one lecture in an entire year. I just, I very much, I kind of just went for the purposes of, like, I had to go somewhere, and I needed money and so I just kind of, yeah. I had that support in place, but I wasn’t present, like I was not present at all. I was just… I was festering in my room for a long time. I was going out, I was eating, but then I was just like… I was not studying, I was not socialising, I was just… I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t particularly enjoy the course. I didn’t even… The thing is, when I was in sixth form there was a pressure for everyone to go to uni, and I just saw it as a way to get out of my circumstances, and I didn’t really know what I wanted to study. So, I just thought, ‘I like reading,’ ‘I like books,’ I would just go and do [course name] and that would suit me. But, I wasn’t really, I didn’t really want to go to uni. I just wanted to get away from my situation. So, I just went... I moved. But I think that’s when everything caught up with me, because then when I moved… when I was living in [UK country], I just kind of like shut down, really, emotionally like I just stopped being able to function and I was surviving on my student finance. But, like I said, I was not coping very well, and then I dropped off the course, and then I found myself unemployed. I never… I kind of… I was… I just… I moved to the [region in England] to work. I did these live-in jobs where I would kind of work and they’d provide accommodation, because I didn't have anywhere to go. Like I was… my tenancy had come to an end, and I dropped off the course.

It was when I was living in [County], that’s when things started looking up a little bit, because I managed to get my life in control, and ‘cos when, when I was in sixth form, I didn’t get good grades like I, I was, I, yeah… I didn’t really have good grades, and, I knew I wanted to go back to uni but I didn’t have the qualifications to be able to go to like a good uni like [City]. I knew I wanted to come here, ‘cos like it was during my travels, I travelled to [City] and I met somebody who lives here, and I fell in love with the place and always said to myself, if ever I could come to this uni, I would love to do that, and so, that’s why I went back to college to get the grades to come here. And that’s sort of when things got better because I had, I gave myself like that structure and I had that motivation and ambition, and that I was able to find a place to go.

It was when I was living in [county], that’s when things started looking up a little bit, because I managed to get my life in control, and ‘cos when I was in sixth form, I didn’t get good grades like I, I was, I, yeah… I didn’t really have good grades, and, I knew I wanted to go back to uni but I didn’t have the qualifications to be able to go to a good uni like [City]. I knew I wanted to come here, ‘cos like it was during my travels, I, I travelled to [City] and I, I met somebody who lives here, and I fell in love with the place and always said to myself, if ever I could come to this uni, I would love to do that, and so, that’s why I went… I went back to college to get the grades to come here and that’s sort of when things got better because I had, I gave myself like that structure and I had that motivation and ambition, and that I was able to find a place to go.

So, it was when I was in [County], that’s when I got my life under control and I went and did this access course, and then from there, from [City], I came here and then that’s when things started getting better, and I love it here… That I’m… this is the happiest I’ve ever been. I’m really happy.

I was no longer in receipt of student finance and I tried working, but I didn’t last very long in a job because I wasn’t really like emotionally stable, and so, I just moved to like the most remote part of the country I could find. Like, it was in a valley. I just moved to this random valley in the [region in England]. I just thought, if I can move to a valley and be away from society it will fix everything. But it didn’t. They kind of just like… I got like I actually got fired from that job because I got into an argument with somebody. And so, then I moved to [County]. I just kept on moving to like these really remote places in the UK. But then I’d last a few weeks in these jobs. I’d kind of keep moving because I just couldn’t cope.

I, even to this day, like, I still have not received any emotional support. All that support’s come from myself. Like, I’m very much… have been my own support system, and, I, you know, I just… I do think I’m an incredibly resilient person like I’ve, yeah… I just think I can, I can bounce back from things. I do, yeah.

The care… there was a care transition support team at [city] University, and actually they got involved even before I came here because I received a contextual offer because of my care… well, they’re aware that I’m wasn’t… didn’t quite meet the criteria for that support. But, they spoke to [city] University and they said that I’m eligible anyway, and, ‘cos I only, I was only just off meeting the illegibility criteria by a few days, and so they just let me, they let me have the support anyway. And I do, I haven’t really liked taking advantage of the support as much as I could have. But, there definitely is that support system in place, because they do email me a lot about, for example, there are like these events you can go to and that will facilitate meeting other care leavers, like social events on campus, and, there are also… you also get like first choice of accommodation, and, you get a bursary, a care leavers’ bursary, two grand a year and that’s really good. Yeah, there is a lot of support actually available. So, care transitions team and… so they help you… they just help you like transition into uni life, really. And I had this… yeah, yeah, I just… I haven’t really made the most of the support. But it’s definitely there if I want it.

So, maybe, there could be like support systems in place to give them an advantage with like applying for apprenticeships or even kind of… I don’t know if it’s in place now, but I think there should be more… I think there should almost be like somebody who facilitates some relationship between employers and social workers, or something. I know the universities have a lot in place to support that transition. But, maybe if somebody wants to go directly into employment, like for example, engineering, or to do a career apprenticeship, maybe they can be put in contact with the employer, like have an interview rather than having to go through the erratic, you know, bureaucracy of applications. Especially because I think it’s really important to help people to overcome perceived barriers.   

As a care leaver you might think that going to uni or getting a job, like, that’s not for you. You might just think that’s just what everybody else does. There can be support to really combat those perceived barriers. So I think they are really, yeah… they can be really powerful, your mind is powerful, like for you kind of thinking that you can’t do something then you probably won’t end up doing that. If somebody can empower you to do what you want to do. I think that’s the best thing to empower people to do what they want to do, and, just to make sure that the support is tailored to what people actually want from life, and not just like a standard kind of one size fits all approach.  

One thing I learned about life generally, is that life doesn’t stop for you. It doesn’t matter what you are going through, life continues. I think sometimes even just being able to slow down for somebody. So, say if they can, they can almost like transition to an in between space where they can go somewhere and not feel the pressure of needing to get a job or going to uni, but they have time to really reflect. They have the safe space to reflect on what they want to do in life and to recover emotionally. Like, that could look like a house… like a shared accommodation where they get a year’s worth of funding to be able to think about what they want, and without feeling the pressure of like going intothe real world, like just that kind of supported living to help emotionally transition. I think that is in place, actually. It is probably a thing.