a monthly column from members of
SIRCC
This
month’s column is from
Pauline Boyce
Pauline
Boyce is
National Advocacy Manager (Training and Consultancy)
Who Cares? Scotland
Another Year Older!
How
old are you? How did you celebrate your last birthday? For me,
my last birthday was a milestone year, one of those ones where
you acknowledge you’ve clocked up another decade.
When
you think back, are there key milestones and celebrations which
stick in your mind? For most people I think the answer has to
be “Yes”. Whether it was as a child finally feeling
you were grown up, becoming a teenager, celebrating your sweet
sixteenth, having that first legal drink at eighteen, getting
the keys at twenty-one, or the passing of the significant decades
thirty, forty….I won’t go on.
The
importance of birthdays, of connecting to memories, of celebrations
cannot be underestimated, yet for some young people in care in
Scotland this is not a reality.
Research
(1) recently undertaken by SIRCC
and Who Cares? Scotland to assess the satisfaction of a group
of young people with the residential care service they currently
receive found that 68% of the sample felt their special events
were not celebrated.
The
National Care Standards, Care Homes for Children and Young
People, clearly state Daily Life: Standard 15, point 3, “Staff
help you celebrate birthdays and mark other events and festivals
that are important to you.”(2)
It is therefore not good enough that young people in care do not
feel this is the case. Why should this be? A disparity in the
resourcing of birthday allowances may partially explain the situation.
Information
recently collated by Who Cares? Scotland shows that the celebration
of key moments in the lives of young people in care can be dependent
upon where they happen to live, a postcode lottery indeed. Focusing
on the milestone age of sixteen, a crucial time for many young
people, burgeoning into adulthood, a time which may mark their
leaving school, starting work and for young people in care, it
may mark the last time their birthday will be celebrated with
the people they live with, the people who have cared for them.
How do you think it should be marked?
Let’s
stop and think about it. Imagine it is your son or daughter’s
sixteenth birthday. How are you going to mark it? What are you
going to do? How much can you spend? What gift should you buy
them? What about a party?
OK,
so most teenagers can be awkward to buy for. They may want the
latest designer label or expensive trainers, but that’s
not within everyone’s means. But back to your child, you’d
still like to get them something special to mark the occasion,
then there’s the basics - the card, the cake, the gift wrap…How
much have you allocated?
I’m
sure it is more than £10, more than £15, more than
£30, more than £40. These are figures allocated by
different Scottish Local Authorities to the sixteenth birthday
of young people in residential care in their area. Other Local
Authorities fund at a higher level - that of £70 or £80.
Yet other Local Authorities fund at an even higher level of £130,
£150 or £200 to enable the purchase of something special
for the young person. Why should it be that the birthday of a
young person in one area is treated so very differently form the
birthday of another living a few miles away?
Some
people may respond that given some of the resource difficulties
faced by Local Authorities, birthday money is a relatively minor
issue. I would disagree. For individual young people key moments,
such as birthdays, are landmarks. They should be happy memories
of a life celebrated, valued and cared for. What message is given
to young people whose birthdays cannot be celebrated due to a
lack of funds?
Yes
but, you say….residential workers do a caring job because
they care and few would see a young person’s birthday pass
without celebration. This may be true, but it is not OK. Residential
workers do a hard job, they are not well paid, yet many regularly
expect to be out of pocket to fund key parts of the lives of the
young people they care for. This is not part of their job.
Whilst
some Local Authorities acknowledge that their birthday monies
are not well resourced, not all have acted to rectify the situation.
It is unacceptable that through their employer’s inaction
workers are put in a position which amounts to emotional blackmail.
Staff deserve better and young people deserve better, before they
are another year older.
(1) Boyce, P and Stevens,
I. (2004) Raising the Standards: Capturing the views of young
people who use residential care home services. SIRCC
(2) Scottish Executive. (2002). National
Care Standards: Care Homes for Children And Young People. Edinburgh:
The Stationery Office
