My house growing up was a residential care unit. Anyone familiar with them could spot it while playing “pick the resi unit”. Light brown bricks, a worker smoking out the front and mirrored smash proof windows with tiny openings at the bottom. The windows could let air in and out if unlocked, but the reinforced metal fly screen wouldn’t even let a finger through, let alone a teenager hoping to use the window as an escape route.
Entering the building, you would immediately notice how dark the corridors were. Your eyes would take a moment to adjust before you could take in the thick, heavy doors that surround you, every one of them hosting expensive security locks. The kids who lived here needed to ask a staff member to unlock each door before they could gain access to that part of the house. Imagine having to ask a busy worker in the middle of writing case notes to unlock the bathroom every time you needed it.
I battled my way through the odds and statistics that say that just because I was in care I was more likely to end up homeless or incarcerated than in tertiary education.
Sound echoed off the walls and floors because there were no decorations or carpet to soak it up. Off-white walls, speckled blue green linoleum lining the floors, the only distinguishing features were the small dents and holes in the walls and ceiling from things being thrown but not making holes big enough to justify the cost of a repair guy coming in to patch them.
When a teenager is placed in a house where there’s nothing to do all day and every single aspect of their life is controlled by someone else, you can imagine how quickly the level of frustration would build. Throw in histories of experiencing trauma and neglect and you can start to wonder how it would be possible for kids not to take their frustrations out on their surrounding environments.
Between 9am and 3pm, all the doors were locked. The kids who lived here needed to be in day programs or school, so the policy was to kick them out of their rooms and not let them back in until the end of the school day. We quickly learned to pack a bag with everything we might need for the day, because once that bedroom door lock clicked shut behind you, the staff weren’t going to unlock it again. Just in case it was a ruse for us to get back into our rooms and refuse to leave. With all the bedroom doors locked, the lounge room locked to stop the kids from watching TV, and nothing to do, the choice was either ‘abscond’ and leave the house for the day without permission to try to find something to do or stay home and sit in a dark corridor until 3pm.
I was eventually surrounded by workers who understood the consequences of trauma, and who believed in my ability to overcome my experiences and go on to build the life I wanted.
Kids end up in the care system for many different reasons, but it usually boils down to their parents not being able to care for them. Younger children are more likely to be placed with a family; as the kids age they are more often placed in residential care units with other older kids. Residential care units are usually purpose-built houses that are staffed 24 hours a day with up to four teenagers living there at a time.
Due to housing shortages and needing to put kids into homes in emergencies, younger kids can often be placed in 'resi' homes with older kids, or kids who have been in the care system longer. To fit in and stay safe in the volatile environments of the residential care units and experiencing emotional turmoil because of the reasons they ended up in care in the first place, the younger kids can quickly pick up on the behaviour of the older ones. These behaviours can include running away, using drugs and alcohol, damaging property, getting involved in criminal activities, or being introduced to dangerous adults who prey on vulnerable children.
When we step back from the behaviour these kids can sometimes display on the outside and take the time to think about what might be going on for them internally or in their home life, we can begin to make more sense of why these kids might be acting the way they are and approach them with a little more compassion and understanding.
I grew up in out-of-home care, and spent the first eighteen years of my life moving from one placement to another. I lived in foster care, residential care, permanent care and all sorts of contingency units which are houses that are set up in emergencies for short term stays when there is just nowhere else for a child to live. I battled my way through the odds and statistics that say that just because I was in care I was more likely to end up homeless or incarcerated than in tertiary education.
I grew up in out-of-home care, and spent the first eighteen years of my life moving from one placement to another.
Kids in care face so much stigma: at school, when other kids find out we are in the care system their parents tell them not to hang around with us; at home, case workers use dehumanising language calling us ‘clients’, our homes ‘placements’ and teach us how to navigate policy instead of basic living skills like cooking and cleaning.
At 13 I should have been learning how to cook basic meals, not learning to calculate how far in advance I needed to start asking for my $200 half yearly clothing allowance, so that by the time my case worker got to my request I still had clothes to wear to school.
I was one of those stigmatised children. I was considered a trouble-maker through no fault of my own, because of the prejudice held towards children in the out-of-home care system. Luckily for me, I was eventually surrounded by workers who understood the consequences of trauma, and who believed in my ability to overcome my experiences and go on to build the life I wanted.
Leaving the care system, I faced a few years of housing instability while I found my feet in a world I had never experienced before. I gradually learned the skills I needed to navigate building a life I couldn’t even dream of while I was growing up. Simple things, like sitting in the warm sunshine, taking photos in my local forest and sharing excess vegetables with my neighbors, as well as more complex skills, like working on my advocacy to improve the care system, learning to build resilience, and persisting in forming experiences that I missed out on while growing up in the system.
My story shouldn’t be an anomaly. All children in out-of-home care deserve the best chance to build a life for themselves, as any other child does. We can raise the odds for the most vulnerable kids in our community by lifting the stigma they face. Let’s help build their hope that they can create happy and successful lives for themselves.
National Child Protection Week is from September 2 to September 8.
