folio

There is supposed to be additional and targeted support available for adopted and fostered children.

Raising children who have been through the care system is supposed to be a shared societal responsibility.

The role of the adoptive or foster parents is key, but they cannot operate alone or in a vacuum.

However, mostly we do. Mostly, we’re completely alone and unsupported.

The education system has little to no understanding of the particular needs of young people whose early years were affected by trauma, neglect, separation, or the developmental delays that those factors may have caused.

Schools may receive additional funding intended to provide targeted support to Looked After Children, but rarely does it materialise.

Quite the contrary: many such children are simply labelled the problem kid, and often end up being excluded as a result of their troubling behaviour.

Where do their carers turn for support? At this point, many of us feel we have failed the children we were tasked with “giving a better chance.”

Maybe we should have “fought tooth and nail” to get our children scholarships for the best public schools in the country, as our friends demanded we do.

Maybe we should have invested every last penny in one-to-one tuition, music lessons, and sports coaching.

Maybe we should have designed a packed programme of extracurricular activities, just like our siblings did.

But instead, we’re struggling. Struggling with a failing post-covid education system that does not understand the specific needs of adopted or fostered children at all.

Still struggling with the consequences of those early years experiences, which have and will continue to have an impact throughout their youth and beyond.

Struggling with the expectations of everyone around us that we will raise confident young people who will obtain a good degree and enter a respectable profession.

Struggling, really, because we feel we’re going it alone, completely unsupported.  There is no societal or communal burden here. You’re on your own.