Care leavers’ narratives of their past and future selves

Ahead of their CRFR seminar on 13 October and National Care Leavers Week 2015 (22-31 October), Lisa Whittaker (University of Glasgow) and Emma Davidson (University of Edinburgh) reflect on their research project Young People and their Future Selves.

This project arose after a chance meeting at the Journal of Youth Studies conference in Glasgow 2013. Lisa was working for a Scottish youth charity (who we will call the Green Project) and Emma had recently finished her PhD. Lisa had always felt that the video diaries filmed by young people at the end of the Green Project’s residential programme were a potentially fascinating resource. In these videos young people reflect on, and talk to, their ‘future self’. We were fortunate to be awarded funding from The University of Edinburgh’s Challenge Investment Fund for a pilot study to analyse a sample of video diaries combined with interviews with young people who had recorded them. We hoped this would give us an insight into the social worlds of vulnerable young people that research often overlooks.

Over the past 18 months we have interviewed 20 young people, some had not grown up in care but most of our sample had. Young people had different motivations for participating. Many wanted to give ‘something back’ following a positive experience at the Green Project but several were still experiencing challenges in their lives and saw the interview as an opportunity to re-engage with support. The interviews themselves were powerful and often very emotional. While we did hear positive stories about care, unfortunately many more were negative.

Our findings highlight the importance of relationships for young people in care, specifically the role of care, love and consistent unconditional support within professional/corporate relationships. Many of the relationships young people experienced were shaped by bureaucratic boundaries and regulations. There were many examples of positive, supportive professional relationships ending abruptly and without warning, and young people’s own ‘natural’ transitions into adulthood often did not match those impressed upon them by the care system. Young care leavers articulated goals and aspirations in their video diaries and interviews, but all too often structural processes denied them the opportunities to realise their aspirations and were left in precarious situations.

Our findings add further evidence to the research and debate about young people’s experiences of care. In particular we see parallels with IRISS’s exciting project Relationships Matter, the work of CELCIS and Who Cares? Scotland. We have shared our findings at several national and international conferences and will shortly submit several papers to leading journals. However, we would like to look beyond measuring success on the completion of academic outcomes. By working collaboratively with practitioners we can share information, clarify our understandings and inform their practice. Following the CRFR seminar, we have more knowledge exchange activities planned (including a podcast for IRISS:FM) which we hope will help build a network between the University, practitioners, policy-makers and young people.

Please note: our CRFR seminar is now fully booked. If you are interested in finding out more we would really like to hear from you. Please contact Emma Davidson e.c.davidson@ed.ac.uk and Lisa Whittaker lisa.whittaker@glasgow.ac.uk and follow us on twitter via @lisawhittaker02 @emz_davidson

Being valued - workshop update - Part 1

Today is workshop 4 - the last in the series of “Getting It Right for Looked after Disabled Children and Young People”. http://www.scottishinsight.ac.uk/Programmes/Programmes20122013/Lookedafterdisabledchildren.aspx

Mike Stein, University of York, presented “Care Less Lives” in England about the history of the young people’s rights movement in care. The chronological rights movements show the changes in how young people’s experiences have been included. Leeds Ad-lib group (1973), “Who cares?” (1975-1978), The National Association of Young People in Care (1979-1994), “Black and in Care” (1984-1985), “A National Voice” (1999-today) explore different campaign and strategies of looked after children.  While there has been change, certain themes continue to reoccur. There is an ongoing issue in disabled young people’s inclusion in these movements.

Jan Siska, Charles University in Prague, conducted research “Children’s Rights for All” to analyse implementation of the UNCRC in EU Member States from the perspective of children with intellectual disabilities during 2009 to 2011. The project includes national experts in 22 countries. The study focuses on statistical data, education, protection against violence and abuse, healthcare, encouraging participation and combatting discrimination, and family support and living in the community. The result shows that health is the best implemented right within the themes, education comes the second, followed by family support and living in the community. Abuse is the least recognised in implementation from the research finding.  Protection against violence and abuse shows the absence of policy or strategy. There is little information available about the forms of abuse suffered, and the assumption that preventive and reporting measures in case of abuse apply equally to all children  www.childrights4all.eu

After the speakers’ presentation, there was group discussion about approaches to valuing looked after children’s experience, opinions of the development the of rights movement and insight from international perspectives. Participants suggested the importance of listening to children’s life stories and their opinions of education. The strategies and policies in different countries change from time to time as people’s recognition of the issue may change overtime. Nonetheless, children’s opinions should always be the core of considering any issues related to them.


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Being valued - is the fourth and last in a series workshops looking at ‘Getting it right for looked after disabled children and young people’ (read about the 1st,  2nd and 3rd workshops on the blog.)

The workshops bring together academics, policy makers, service practitioners, third sector organisations, service user organisations to discuss and debate the key issues with the aim of generating an impetus for research, policy and practice that will ultimately improve the lives of looked after disabled children and young people.

“Being Heard” Seminar is near!!

'Getting it right for looked after disabled children' consists of series of workshops.

The podcast is now available for the first seminar, on 'Being Counted'.

The 2nd workshop of this series – “Being Heard” -- is being held on Wednesday 5th December.

This workshop will focus around a forum theatre exploring what matters to looked after disabled children. A great chance to engage with issues about children and young people identify as being important to them.  Looking forward to seeing all the participants and to having an illuminating discussion.

A blog and podcast will follow!

Afternoon highlights – The Challenge of counting and defining disabled looked after children

The afternoon part of the seminar was equally stimulating to the morning (see post below), with an emphasis on action - what can be done to improve data and information for disabled looked after children?

Dr Berni Kelly & Dr Sandra Dowling, from Queen’s University Belfast, presented on-going research about the lives of disabled children who are looked after in Northern Ireland.  A core challenge in collecting prevalence data is the variations across 5 Health and Social Care Trusts in recording and service provision for disabled children.

Charlie Hogg and Sharon Glen, from the Scottish Government, explored national statistics for disabled looked after children in Scotland. Scotland is the only part of the UK to include information on disabled looked after children in annual national statistics. The speakers suggested at least five challenges for these statistics: the large number of ‘not known’ returns from local authorities, in regards to whether or not a child has a disability; whether the children returned as having disabilities in fact are assessed by a ‘qualified professional’ as required for the statistics; matching up the classification of disabilities with adult services’ classifications; how multiple disabilities are recorded; and how changes in individual children’s  circumstances (e.g. impairments become evident, or a diagnosis is made) are recorded within local authorities, and thus included within the annual returns. 

Both presentations pointed out the data regarding disabled looked after children are problematic. Longer-term planning, continuous and consistent data collection should be promoted and monitored.

Following intensive discussions, the seminar concluded with suggested action points. For example, a standardised definition of disability should be negotiated across services and jurisdictions. Governments and non-governmental organisations should co-operate to improve information of disabled looked after children on their presentation situation – as well as their placements and other outcomes – to assist in substantially improved planning.

Further information

View the presentations and podcast for the first seminar.

The first workshop “Being Counted”, on October 24th in Glasgow, started off the four-part series “Getting it Right for Looked After Disabled Children and Young People”. The series is organised through the Scottish Universities Insight Institute, by the programme team from Action for Children, CELCIS and the University of Strathclyde, CRFR, and the Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research. 

Morning session - The Challenge of counting and defining disabled looked after children

The first workshop “Being Counted”, on October 24th in Glasgow, started off the four-part series “Getting it Right for Looked After Disabled Children and Young People”. The series is organised through the Scottish Universities Insight Institute, by the programme team from Action for Children, CELCIS and the University of Strathclyde, CRFR, and the Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research. 

Being Counted focused on the challenge of counting and defining disabled looked after children and understanding how looked after disabled children are theoretically constructed across disciplines.

The morning session started with the warm welcome from Dr Graham Connelly, CELSIS, University of Strathclyde. Dr Claire Baker, Senior Policy Manager, Catch 22’ National Care Advisory Service, presented her insights on the challenge of counting and defining disabled looked after children. In her presentation, she demonstrated the lack of standardised statistics – let alone any statistics – on disabled looked after children across the UK. Her research showed that disabled looked after children are less likely to be adopted, but more likely to be placed in residential care or stay in foster care. [for further information about her research, see http://www.iriss.org.uk/resources/permanence-and-stability-disabled-looked-after-children]

Professor Nicholas Watson, Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research, University of Glasgow, presented on “Theorising Disability and its implications for Looked After Children”.  Disabled looked after children can face at least three ‘problems’ in terms of claiming services: they are children, they are disabled and they are looked after. He discussed how disability theories encourage attention to ‘barriers to doing’ and ‘barriers to being’, which can be very salient for disabled looked after children. He reflected how research that does include disabled looked after children often fails to include their views, presents the children as passive and ‘vulnerable’, focuses on service provision and their future outcomes. 
 
Both speakers raised questions on definitions of disability: the variability of definitions, the problems of defining and identifying disability, and the differing use of such definitions by different stakeholders (professionals, parents/carers, children and young people). Participants joined groups to discuss in-depth their agencies’ approaches to these issues, the dilemmas and the potential solutions. 

More on the afternoon session to follow … 

Over the next few weeks, more information will be available from the seminar – podcasts, powerpoints, publications – and we will highlight these over the blog.