4. Seeing Children’s Potential without Judgement

As previously mentioned, children and young people in the care system often face stigma due to negative associations with the label ‘care experienced’. Three of the OHOV board members gave a presentation to a university class of fourth year teaching students. Before the presentation began, they used interactive software to ask the students the question ‘what comes to mind when you hear the term Care Experienced?’ This is how the students answered:

As you can see, some of the most common answers were ‘trauma’, ‘vulnerable’, ‘foster care’ and ‘looked after’. The OHOV board members then skilfully delivered their presentation about what support care experienced children needed from their educators. The three young people spoke with clarity, humour, intelligence and insight. After the presentation, the same question was posed to the audience of students, and the results are shown below: 

After spending just twenty minutes listening to the three young people from OHOV, the students’ perception of them had changed significantly. The language this time round was more strengths-based: strong, brave, resilient, and powerful. 

The exercise served to underline the low expectations that society can have of care experienced children and young people. Many of the young people we spoke to in our research said that the adults in their lives often underestimated their potential, sometimes even actively discouraging them from pushing themselves to succeed:

“Care experienced people are individuals. We’re more than a statistic. If your expectations of us are low, it can become a self-fulfilling prophesy, and we are more likely to perform poorly. Teachers may have heard statistics before that have shaped their expectations of us, also society’s expectations of us. Like, in Scotland, 8% of looked after young people go straight from school to Higher Education compared with 41% of their peers. We want to remind professionals that care experienced people are individuals. We’re more than a statistic. If teachers’ expectations of us are low, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, and we are likely to perform poorly.” – Andrew, OHOV

“I had a maths teacher saying to me, ‘you’ll never achieve a B’, and I ended up with an A. She told other people they could achieve it, but not me. She said even if I tried my hardest it wouldn’t matter, I’d never manage it.” – Young person from Falkirk Champs

“Don’t be judgemental. Don’t disregard a young persons’ intelligence due to their circumstances.” – Abbie G, OHOV

“I told my careers advisor I wanted to be a nurse and she said my biology results weren’t good enough. She crushed my dreams. She blocked me, she could have asked if there was anything else I wanted to do.” – Alix, Quarriers

“We are often told we are going to amount to nothing and that we aren’t going to get anywhere in life. I’d rather them tell me I’m going to do good in life…but actually I also don’t know if I’d want that, as them saying I wasn’t going to get anywhere drove me to do good in life.” – Alesha, OHOV

“Don’t just expect children in care to not have many qualities. They might need your help to find their qualities.” – Lisa, OHOV

 
Paige from the National Leadership Network spoke about how it felt when a worker from an employability programme took the time to help identify her qualities:

“It was like this employability thing, you write CV’s and stuff. I think I was, like, 17 and he was amazing. And in that job for the right reasons…you could see that he just loved working with young people and getting to know them and identifying strengths.”

It’s important to get the balance right. As previously discussed, having low expectations of care experienced children’s potential can discourage or even prevent them from succeeding. However, ignoring the trauma and difficulties a care experienced child or young person might have faced, and still be struggling with, can place pressure on them to succeed; particularly if an assumption is made that support isn’t required. OHOV board member Jamie talked about some negative experiences at school with some teachers, which included a lack of understanding of her family circumstances and how that impacted on her life, friendships and learning. At times teachers also put her on a pillar and had too high expectations about achievement based on how she presented, which felt uncomfortable and unsupportive. 

Some young people said that when they’ve ‘succeeded’, in spite of adults’ low expectations of them, the way adults have responded to them has felt patronising and praise has been given to them in a way that belittles other care experienced young people who haven’t achieved the same type of ‘success’. For instance, OHOV board member Poppy felt patronised when a Panel Member praised her for getting into university, saying ‘well done, most care-experienced young people your age are out kicking the police.’ We would ask adults to consider how they celebrate the achievements of some care experienced young people without simultaneously putting down others:

“We would like to be recognised for our achievements and for the positive parts of our lives, but not in a way that suggests adults are surprised we’ve achieved something in spite of our circumstances, and not at the expense of our peers.” – Andrew, OHOV

“Don’t use stereotypes or compare me to other people typical of my age group. I find it very degrading.” – Poppy, OHOV

“Offer the same opportunities to everyone. Even if you’ve got one child who is like amazing at public speaking, you could have another young person who’s brilliant at public speaking but has had less opportunity to show it. Keep options open for everyone.” – Lisa, OHOV

“Don’t tell us we are ‘resilient’ or ‘success stories’ – in many ways that invalidates the journey we have had to get here. A main point to remember is that you don’t know what we would have been like without our trauma and that many of us would give everything we have to not have our trauma and past.” – Ash, OHOV

“Many of the young people on the OHOV board have chosen to go on to further education. We’re proud of what we’ve achieved, but we don’t like hearing things like, ‘oh he’s doing really well, in spite of what he’s been through.” – Andrew, OHOV

Children and young people urge adults to get to know the children they’re supporting and suspend judgement. Remember to consider all behaviour as communication and avoid labelling the children themselves, which can add to the stigma care experienced children and young people face. See beyond harmful stereotypes and see children’s potential, rather than having low expectations about what they can achieve. Celebrate their achievements with them without patronising them or comparing them to their peers. Avoid putting pressure on children and young people to succeed based on how they present. They may still need your support. 

To read more, see the ‘Support’ section of this guide.