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Aaron attended Siblings Together summer camps in 2008. Now 19, he’s a web developer and responsible for the Siblings Together website. We asked him what he’d learned from his experiences in care. |
Siblings apart...‘I’ve got a twin and three younger brothers and sisters, but before we went to Siblings Together camps I only saw them about once a year and we rarely talked. The younger ones are still in care – my twin lives at the other end of the country so we still don’t get to see each other that much. I moved placement nine or ten times in 10 years. You don’t always know why you’re being moved on – if you get 28 days notice, then you know it’s the foster carer, other times it might be the social worker. But if you’re placed in foster care and it’s you who doesn’t like the placement, you’re very unlikely to be able to move. Often people just lash out in this situation. Some foster carers are just in it for the money and I do think that’s wrong. I couldn’t really talk to the people who fostered me until the last one – she’d been in care herself. How to get through the care system...If I was giving advice to someone in care now, I’d say “get to know the people who are looking after you”. Often they can be organising your life and you won’t ever have met them. The other advice I’d give is go your own way – don’t just copy everyone else. Sometimes the people you have to worry about most are other children in care – they can be very unhappy, just lash out and get into trouble. I was like that myself for a while until I got help dealing with the anger I felt. I do think there’s a real prejudice about children in care – ‘carism’ has all the same components as racism or sexism. I was at a conference earlier in the year and hearing about foster carers being unwelcome when they moved house – the other residents were convinced that they’d spoil the neighbourhood or bring down house prices. And if children in care get into trouble, the police are always getting involved. Children in care don’t need mollycoddling, but they also don’t need to live in an atmosphere where they are automatically criminals. I think it’s really important that people who are working in the care system are people who know what it’s like. I’m planning to be self-employed and continue with web development, but I also want to keep working to improve the care system. This year I’m going back to the Siblings Together camp, but as a mentor.’ |
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jemma says: