Care leavers’ transitions to independence

I was put in a foster family for like two weeks. I was an asylum seeker at the time, and I didn’t really have documents proving my identity or my age. So, the [City 1] Council, the local council decided that since I did not have anything to prove my age, I was not a child, so they got me a ticket to [City 2] from [City 1] and said, “You need to go to [City 2], go to the Home Office and seek asylum from there, not from here,” so I had to leave. I was on my own and I was new to the country, that was like... and that was... yeah... So, I ended up going to the Home Office to seek asylum and it was a whole process. They had to do a lot of things, like get in touch with the [City 1] Council asking them: it’s not been proved what her age is, it’s all we’ve got is what she says, but you’ve sent her here alone, ’cause that’s not right.  The [City 1] Council didn’t really care about it much. So that was a really horrifying experience. But yeah, once I got to [City 2], I decided to seek asylum from there. I was put in a hotel with an adult for eight months, so I stayed in [City 2] for eight months. I got a solicitor in the meantime and he was dealing with my age dispute,  like getting in contact with [City 1] Council, and stuff, and after eight months, they finally managed to get my birth certificate from back home, and yeah, that’s how they proved I was indeed a child and decided to take me back to [City 1].

I had a bit of difficulty because when I was at uni, I worked in a residential children’s home, and one of the young people made an allegation against me. The allegation was proven to be false,  but by the time it had been proven to be false, they had... the company had written to DBS, so DBS were wanting to put me on the barred list,  and they wrote to me and said, “Why shouldn’t you be on this list?” So, I wrote back, I gave my evidence and they said to me that they’d give me a reply within 10 days: 10 days turned into just under two years. So, there wasn’t anything that... because every time I was applying for stuff, it was flagged, and then I’d have to explain, and then once I’d explained they were just like, “Oh, well, we don’t really want to risk it.”

Oh, OK, so that put you in a limbo.

So that... yeah. So, I spent a year and a half to two years not being able to do much.

I think ’cause it... again, it was a unique situation, ’cause not often you get that with foster families – usually they fall out – it ends ’cause of like arguments, or something, whereas this was just like, ‘we need to get you out of there.’ PA was not supportive in that placement, which is why I knew he was biased with the carer thing because he was like no... and like not supportive at all, if not made it worse by shouting at me sometimes and stuff like that.  So, I don’t know if... I had pathway planning meetings, but it all kind of happened so quick. So, like they knew he’d been convicted before I was told, but... and that was an issue that they... they didn’t tell me straightaway that he’d been convicted of being a paedophile, which they should have, ’cause that’s safeguarding. Like if I’d have known, I’d have been able to protect myself, but they were like... and the only reason they told me is ’cause it came out in the news.

And they should have told me because I was supposed to have no contact with him, and one time I needed to go the hospital, and in the hospital car park, the foster woman was like, “Shall we just ring my... my son up,” ’cause he was a health professional, “and he can tell you what’s wrong?” And this was when I was meant to have no contact with him.

And it was like if we’re in A&E car park, you do not need to ring your son. And it’s like ever since... like he got convicted, she brought him into the conversation more, and stuff like that, ’cause she tried to make it as normal as possible ’cause she loved him, and I’m like, “You shouldn’t even be fostering me ’cause like, what... what the fuck?” so... yeah.

This placement was one of their block purchases, so it was only [placing authority], mostly [borough] young people that would be placed there. But what they don’t seem to understand when it comes to block purchase places is that a lot of the young people know each other because we’ve been in care together, or because of how small the borough is. We all knew each other before we even went into care, so a lot of our families knew each other, and that can create very interesting dynamics, but social services don’t really factor that in a lot of the time. So, at one point there was someone living there who I had grown up with and knew their family, so when their family would come round, I sometimes found it triggering being around their family, and that it was the social who didn’t really understand how to handle that a lot of the time because it is a very delicate situation, but they don’t seem to understand that. I think their response to it was just to try and stop everyone making friends, because they didn’t want people like, you know, tag teaming up against staff, or whatever, but you’re not gonna be able to stop people making friends when they’ve grown up with each other and already been friends most our lives.

Like when I moved in, there was someone living there that I’d known for years, and at one point there was about two or three people living there that I’d known way before I even came into care. But also the young people living there when I first moved there, all of them, from what I can remember, were dealing with some level of drug issues, and I’ve never been involved with drugs. So, I was the only one in the house who wasn’t on drugs, which can be a very interesting predicament to be in. Especially because at the time I was on co-dydramol for my hypermobility, so I was in a difficult position because the young people knew, a couple of them knew, that I was on pain medication, and had been in my room, so had seen that I was on co-dydramol. So, I actually had young people asking me to sell them my co-dydramol – never did – but they would ask me. And it made me feel really unsafe because then I was like, I needed to make sure that my room was always locked, and that I didn’t ever accidently leave my medication in the kitchen, or something.