This week the Jersey care home inquiry into the sexual and physical abuse of hundreds of children drew conclusions that sounded all too familiar. The report found that young people felt they had no outlet to raise their concerns: “They told us that they are not being listened to.”
Some of the grave problems that were found with Haut de la Garenne and Jersey’s other children’s homes are specific to those institutions. However, there is a danger that by focusing on extreme cases like Jersey, we risk missing a much wider problem – the routine and continuing low-level mistreatment and neglect of society’s most vulnerable children.
I lived in children’s homes and foster placements from the age of 13 to 18. Neither I nor any of the children I grew up with felt we were being listened to. We felt helpless victims of injustice.
In just one relatively minor case, a child who had been misbehaving in the home’s laundry room was grabbed by one of the carers and removed by force, leaving a friction burn on the child’s arm. When we went to the office to complain we were told to stop causing trouble. The carer, who said that the child had burned themselves on an iron, was defended by the office staff. The impact of small incidents like this, repeated over time, escalates the feelings of helplessness.
Most of the problems in the children’s homes I grew up in were a result of neglect. In one of the homes, we weren’t encouraged to attend school, wash or even get out of bed.
This neglect also had more serious implications. A lot of the girls I grew up with were allowed to get into cars with 30-plus year-old men, and nothing was really done about it. Some of these girls would become pregnant, but due to their age their babies would be taken from them.
In another care home I lived in, children would regularly be restrained by the staff if they were seen as posing a danger to themselves or others, which often meant for relatively innocuous indiscretions like mouthing off or attempting to leave the premises.
One technique the staff favoured during these restraints was to arrange three chairs next to each other. They would place the child in the middle, and two carers would take a seat either side, locking the child’s arms to their waist with one hand and pushing the child’s head into his or her lap with their other.
One day I was locked in this position, and felt so enraged and helpless that I spat on to the floor in frustration. Another carer who was in the room took my spit from the carpet and wiped it on my face.
The thought of complaining after this incident didn’t even cross my mind – I even felt I might have deserved it. I had seen far worse things happen to other children with no action taken as a consequence. This is why, if we’re to end in-care abuse, there needs to be much more than a bureaucratic complaints procedure which children seldom use or even understand.
During all my time in children’s homes and foster placements, I cannot recall being visited a single time by someone independent of the home or social services to ask us how we were doing, or what we thought about the staff and how we were being treated.
The fact is, children in care are not being listened to – and being ignored filters into a child’s psyche. “Why would anyone listen to me?” is a question I have carried with me well into my adult life.
Since leaving care I have run into many of the kids I grew up with. Almost all of them have experienced hardship, whether it be through drugs and alcohol addiction, imprisonment or homelessness; and many of the girls I know had babies before their 18th birthday. But none of them have even considered looking back at the treatment and lack of support they received in the care system; they still don’t realise they were owed so much more.
The abuse and neglect occurring in children’s homes is not ancient history, it’s endemic throughout a bankrupt system in desperate need of investment and reform. Addressing the serious abuse of children should not rely upon a scandal like the one in Jersey but, now this has come to the fore, those responsible for the care of children must take action.
As a society, we say we have a duty of care towards vulnerable children who are estranged from their family. It’s about time we lived up to that commitment.
