by Paris Bartholomew
'My Care Story’ is a new series dedicated to amplifying the stories of care-experienced individuals and providing social workers with vital insights to improve the support they offer.As a speaker and a trainer who advocates to raise awareness and dispel myths about the care experience, my care journey is vivid and alive in my mind.
I became the subject of a care order in 1979, at the age of six, when a teacher noticed the marks and bruising on my body. Subsequent hospital tests confirmed horrific injuries dating back years. With no medical notes to explain them, my mum was arrested and later sentenced to prison for abuse and neglect.
The first children’s home I was placed in housed around 65 children and was reminiscent of a prison, with its barbed wired fencing above. I recall feeling scared, lonely, confused and embarrassed as I wet myself for the first time in years upon finding my bedroom door locked at night.
The staff had little awareness of how to care for a black child and my afro hair had to be shaved after one washed it with a bar of soap, creating tangles that were unable to be combed without excruciating pain. I later found out that was due to some of the scarring on my scalp.
The ‘Pindown experience’
At seven, I moved to a large beautiful children’s home in Essex with dormitory style rooms.Over 10 years later, some of its staff members were part of a large public inquiry into ‘The Pindown Experience’. This involved “pinning down” children’s behaviour through solitary confinement, removal of personal possessions and other harmful punishments. I was 17 when the news broke. I recall feeling a mixture of embarrassment and disgust, as I came to realise that, once again, my ‘normal’ was not normal at all.
But I also have memories of Barnardo’s funded trips to holiday camps, toys and games at Christmas and birthdays, and pocket money every week that we could spend on anything we wanted. I was also one of the lucky ones; I never changed schools despite moving out of my local borough.
‘My voice was silenced’
However, I often suffered in silence. My voice was constantly silenced, whether by authority figures, social workers, children’s home staff or foster parents. I really wanted to be seen and heard.
At seven, I was matched with a family where I was bullied incessantly by one of their children. I was too frightened to tell my social worker. She had really liked the family and was newly assigned to me, so we didn’t have the trust in place that I had slowly developed with my previous one.
However, due to my horrific traumatic experiences with my mum, I couldn’t navigate more physical and emotional hurt. Sixteen months in, when the family made plans to move back to the Caribbean, I was asked if I wanted to go, and I said an emphatic, "NO".
My social worker seemed confused with my decision and did her best to persuade me to go, stating that this was a rare opportunity for a child in care. My distrust of her meant that I couldn’t share my reasons for not wanting to go. I was angry at my foster sister who was bullying me, and bewildered at not having anyone to protect me.
Short-term exchanges with social workers
It was the subsequent meet-ups with my social worker, often away from the foster family’s home, that really helped me build trust. Eventually, I felt as if I mattered to her.Unfortunately, that relationship did not last long.
When I was placed in Kent, despite the changes I was experiencing, I didn’t see her. I was unfamiliar with the posh and extremely white culture of the area. There were no other people of colour and no access to black hair and skin care products.
I had to get used to foods which tasted different, people who hadn’t seen a black child before and those who took an instant dislike to me because I sounded, looked and appeared so different. The racism was so awful I began to wish I was white myself. I became confused about my identity and felt like I had to hide aspects of myself.
It was probably the time I needed to see my social worker the most. Later, I found out she had left, quite suddenly and without a goodbye. It was some time before I got a replacement.
A first black social worker
I was then assigned to my first ever black social worker. J introduced me to the Black and In Care conference in Manchester, the first major conference in the 1980s to be focused on the care experience of black youth.For the first time in my young life, I felt a new emerging sense of identity as I listened to black and brown people talk about their lives in foster care and children’s homes. Here was my tribe!
And although my social worker did not agree with me not wanting to join another family, what felt comforting to me was that she took the time to explain why and listen, allowing me to talk about how I felt and what was important to me. She was supportive, something I had not experienced or felt before.
Preferring children’s homes over families
The next family broke down and the subsequent placements became more challenging. I had become institutionalised, used to the routines of the care homes.I came to prefer the group homes - the staff who worked in them understood our traumatic experiences. Foster families often expected me to slot into their way of living immediately, without any bumps along the way. I sometimes requested a move from a placement due to extreme religious views and cultural norms which I could not relate to or understand.
By the time I left care, I had moved 14 times, including into semi-independent living projects and a hostel – an experience that is unfortunately still commonplace today.
The multiple placement breakdowns and unexplained transitions led me to be distrustful, feeling unwanted and unloved. Layers of anger and resentment formed over years of bad placements.
‘Social workers should recognise black children’s needs’
I wish social workers had recognised my needs as a black child, my hair and skin. My lack of cultural awareness was often a source of humour in the black families I lived in and a target for racism in the white ones.I needed them to see that I had no sense of identity, self-esteem or self-worth, and to celebrate my talents, achievements and accomplishments, no matter how small they were.
If could give three small pieces of advice to social workers, it would be, firstly, to actively listen to the children you support and show direct interest in their hopes, dreams and aspirations, their words, and, especially, what they disclose.
Secondly, words matter. Focus your notes on what happened to create that behaviour, as opposed to what’s wrong with this child. And finally, please give us the opportunity to meet with you in person and in less clinical environments, away from carers’ homes, where we can feel comfortable and relaxed.
I wish I could say ‘care’ gave me a sense of love and support. But it did create an empathy and compassion for others. It made me into who I am today. I’m grateful for the resilience, courage and capacity that I have built up so I can continue working to make a change in systems that are broken.
Paris Bartholomew is a care-experienced writer, advocate, psychologist and trainer. She has dedicated her personal and professional life to mentoring and regularly meets with social work teams to raise awareness about supporting children who have endured trauma.
