We are 2 care experienced young people, Emily and Rhianna.
Together we want to utilise our individual experiences of the UK care system to provide useful resources and information that we wish we had when we went into local authority care.
We want to provide our experience with the hope that it may just provide comfort or information to other young people.
Hey, my name is Rhianna.
When I first went into care, I was confused, frightened and very lonely. I sort of knew that I could find more out about the situation from my social worker, but I didn’t feel much like talking to anybody, especially not a ‘professional’ that I barely knew. In my opinion, it would have been useful for me to be able to find on the internet, all in one place, some answers to questions I had about when I might get to see my family again and the sort of placement I was in, written by somebody who had been in my position. I also feel I would have felt less alone if I could have read about the experiences other young people had had, and this would also have reassured me and eased my fears. Throughout my time in the care system I had a lot of questions, wanted to know certain things, and felt so many confusing emotions. Often, my social worker didn’t have the answers I was looking for and couldn’t relate to what I was feeling. I hope that what we post on Not Your Average Care Kids will be able to provide other Care experienced young people with the answers I was looking for in an understandable way, and also provide comfort, reinforcing the idea that you are never alone and there is always somebody that can understand what you are going through, by documenting my personal experiences.
Hi, my name is Emily.
Throughout my childhood I had a lot of involvement from Social Services, and went into the care system as a teenager. For me, the process of going into local authority care was a very emotional one, and that is partly the reason why I have joined forces with a friend, and fellow care experienced young person, to create this blog.
Looking back, I remember experiencing a lot of conflicting emotions, anger, emptiness, sadness and isolation, and all I had to comfort me was what the professionals were telling me. I really wish I had someone who had had similar lived experiences of the care system to relate to, because I think we all know that Tracey Beaker isn’t always 100% accurate. I wanted something to read, or someone to talk about what might happen next, what do I expect now? I was overwhelmed with reviews, PEP’s and medicals that I didn’t really have time to process what I had just experienced.
So now I want to talk about my experiences, things that I have learnt from and things that have helped me grow into the person I am today.
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