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5 Being given high expectations
What adults believe about looked after children, what they say, and how they behave, gives powerful messages which shape children's attitudes and beliefs about themselves. Many of the participants in the study talked about the impact on them of the expectations of others. Where important adults had high expectations of the participant, this appeared to have contributed to their success.
Matthew was 22 at the time of the study. He had become looked after and accommodated with foster parents when he was three. His mother had died and although family members initially tried to provide care for him, he had to be moved to foster care. Matthew remained with these foster carers, who supported him through school then higher education. When we met him, Matthew had recently returned to his home town and was living with his foster carers again. He told us that his foster carers, social worker and throughcare and aftercare worker all had high expectations of him:
Through school my teacher was like, "you should try" … so I did my highers and things ... then I was accepted … then at the end of the year I got a first class honours degree … that was my success - going through uni and getting that final mark.
Matthew also talked about the influence and support he had from a range of professionals, rather than just one. This was common to a number of our participants. Natalie also told us how helpful she found a multidisciplinary team that had provided support when she began living independently:
Every problem I've had, they've helped me sort it out. There's more than one worker and you can go to somebody else if you need it so they're good at doing different things and they work together and there's someone there if you need it. And six heads are better then one!
Setting expectations
One of the criticisms that has been levelled at the looked after system is that appropriate goals, aspirations and expectations have not been set for children. Concern about the low expectations and outcomes for looked after children were reported in Learning with Care ( HM Inspectors of Schools and SWSI 2001). Jackson and Sachdev (2001) suggest that setting low expectations is a real barrier to achievement. Expectations need to be rooted in an individual child's abilities and circumstances. They need to take into account the child's current achievements, potential for success, and what steps are needed to support success.
Ian was 15 years old when we spoke to him as part of the study. He had first become looked after and accommodated in foster care at the age of 13. He had returned home for a short period, but had returned to a second foster care placement when he was excluded from school and was involved in offending. Ian was moved from mainstream education to an alternative off site unit, but this was unsuccessful. He then began a course at college in an area of special interest to him. Ian's worker at a support project he attended told us that he believed and expected that Ian could do much more. He thought that achieving in one area would affect how Ian saw himself and the perceptions of others. Ian agreed with his worker and told us that:
I've just got my John Muir Trust award. I didn't think I was going to stick it. I was just trying to prove a point to myself that I could actually do it. I was totally chuffed when I got it. With my mum - she was like "Oh! Well done." She was as proud as anything of me.
Ian's story demonstrates the impact of others' expectations on children and young people. These expectations influenced what he was actually able to achieve, and how he himself felt about that achievement.
Some participants, however, told us about their experience of others' low expectations of them. Theresa talked about her experience of going from achieving well at school, despite living in a very difficult home situation, to then refusing to attend at the age of 13 after moving to a residential unit. We asked Theresa about what encouragement she had to attend school:
No, there wasn't any encouragement plus the fact that it was convenient to blame the kids in care 'cos they didn't have parents advocating on their behalf, it was only care staff.
Theresa now works with young people leaving care. She feels very strongly that professional staff need to give young people a clear message that they value education, that it is critical to their future success, and that they will do all they can to support them to achieve:
There has never been an understanding of the importance of education in children's homes. The staff hide behind the child's emotional state. They say 'they're not ready for school'. That's rubbish.
Planning to meet expectations
Many participants talked about the impact of planning in achieving their expectations and goals. For example, Luke told us:
It was very much in the care plan that I would go to university.
Thomas (2005) suggests that a plan should include several key elements. These are:
- the child's needs and how they are to be met
- the aims and timescale
- the proposed placement
- other services to be provided
- support in the placement and contingency plans
- arrangements for contact and reunification
- arrangements for health care and education
The plan should also specify:
- roles and responsibilities
- how far the plan takes account of the child's wishes and feelings
- arrangements for changes to the plan, disagreements and future decision-making
In other words, the plan should identify where children, families, carers and workers want to get to and the steps needed to get there. The plan should also try to answer the question, how will we know when we get to our goal? Thomas also draws on the research by Grimshaw and Sinclair (1997) to suggest that a dynamic planning process is needed that continues to feed in relevant information.
Although Scottish Executive guidance is clear that each looked after child should have a plan, what should be included is not listed in detail (Social Work Services Group, Scottish Office 1997). The Looked After Children ( LAC) materials currently used by some local authorities provides a framework for planning (The Scottish office, 1999). The Scottish Executive is now developing an Integrated Assessment, Planning and Recording Framework, for all children (Scottish Executive 2005). It is the intention that this system will be based on a child-centred, ecological model of assessment. Such a system may make an important contribution to reframing the assessment of goals and expectations for looked after children, especially as it urges that plans should encourage ambition for children and their families. The proposed assessment framework will also call for an action plan to be made which should identify short-term and long-term outcomes, along with timescales for achievement.
How participants thought about their past experiences
Looked after children have often had early experiences of adversity. Our participants were no different in this respect, with experience of parental drug and alcohol misuse, deprivation and abuse. Knowing that children have had poor early experiences, knowing that children's behaviour has led to them being looked after and accommodated, or knowing that children have experienced emotionally and psychologically damaging experiences, can all impact on adults' expectations of individual children. This in turn, can affect children's perceptions of themselves.
It is important to challenge this way of thinking if we are to maximise the opportunities of looked after children. The shifting of adults' expectations may also help looked after children in coming to terms with their pasts and raising their expectations of themselves. Furman (1998) found in his work on how people with difficult childhoods had become successful adults, that their thinking about the past was very important in how their present and future developed. He wrote:
It's natural to think that our past has an effect on how our future will turn out, but we rarely look at it the other way round. The future - that is what we think it will bring - determines what the past looks like (Furman 1998 p.81).
Most participants in our study felt they had come a long way in coming to terms with their past traumas and negative experiences. Some participants talked about the understanding they had developed of their own parents failings, and where responsibility lay. With this acceptance, they had been able to shift their expectations of themselves. An example of this was Ross, 17, who spoke of feeling relieved of the burden of thinking that he was somehow to blame for his mother's drinking and depression:
Also, they (social workers) have helped me by explaining what's happened when I was younger like saying this is what happened and why. I mean, you have to understand why you're in this situation, also backing up that it is not your fault, and that gives you a sense of security, and that there's nothing you could have done and that maybe this is the best thing that could have happened to you.
There were many examples of participants reassessing their past from the perspective they had gained as they grew older:
In my first year at college I started to assess my life a wee bit and I sort of looked back on it and thought 'well actually, this is all right.' Despite everything, I've got this far so I reckon I can go the rest of the way. (Fraser)
Participants were proud of their achievements, given their earlier adversities and difficulties, and many saw their ability to overcome adversity and difficulty as a strength that supported them in their lives. Support from others, and their own reflections on their experiences helped them to come to such positive conclusions.
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