By Iain Wilson, Independent Living Fund Lead for Coming Home, at ILF Scotland
Care Experienced Week is an opportunity to bring focus to an often forgotten and marginalised group. There has long been a stigma attached to care experience, with the perception that care was for “bad children”. Being placed in care was used as a threat by parents when I was a child and, unfortunately, that attitude still exists today.
Care Experienced Week gives the community an opportunity to change that narrative. From my own experience, I am very aware that this old-fashioned view is both out of date and has always been a complete fallacy. Any of us could have become care experienced due to circumstances beyond our control.
Young people who have been through the care system and gone on to lead successful lives deserve our admiration and support. Care Experienced Week gives us the opportunity to celebrate their success and resilience.
My fostering journey
I think my wife, Anita, and I had only been together a few months when we first talked about fostering. At the time, I was managing a residential unit for adults with learning disabilities. One person in particular made me think that if only they had received the right support earlier in life, they might have been better equipped to live independently with support.
This sowed a seed in both of us and, by 1999, we were married with a four-year-old daughter and at a stage in our lives where we could consider fostering. We decided to specialise in working with children with disabilities. Our first placement was meant to last four weeks, but D stayed with us for eight years.
That became a pattern. Young people would come to us in an emergency and stay much longer than planned. Over 26 years, we have cared for eight young people and are now nearing the end of our journey as foster carers. There is a saying in foster care that all placements are short term until they are long term.
Over those years, we have experienced success, pride, heartache and tragedy. Would I change anything? Absolutely not. Fostering has been our greatest joy. We have been able to give young people the care, support and love they needed to build stable and independent lives. Many remain part of our extended family.
I have been with ILF Scotland for almost 10 years, and its support has been vital in helping me balance work and family life.
At the beginning of the year, our 11-year-old foster daughter, B, who had a life-limiting condition, was deemed to be at end of life. The flexibility at ILF Scotland allowed me to spend quality time with her and the rest of my family. When she passed away in April, the support and love that I received from my ILF family was both wonderful and humbling. ILF Scotland really does care about the whole person.
Supporting independence through the Transition Fund
My foster son, M, received a Transition Fund grant a number of years ago. It helped him learn to drive and buy a laptop for his college work. The grant made a real difference, not just practically. It helped him feel worthy and showed him that his success mattered to people who didn’t even know him. That feeling of self-worth and purpose was extremely important to him at that time. Today, he is thriving and has recently become a first-time homeowner.
Supporting care experienced young people is incredibly important. Very few come through the care system without being affected by their experiences. Many have faced trauma, loss, anxiety or other challenges that can make life more difficult. A Transition Fund grant is one small step to help care experienced young people make their way in the world.
