‘There needs to be a will to listen to children’ Heather says. ‘What we’re lacking is investment’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Heather suffered years of sadistic psychological and physical cruelty, and sexual abuse at the hands of members of her foster family.
She now works in child protection, and expresses her despair at the lack of investment in services.
Heather grew up in the 1970s. She explains ‘I was fostered immediately at birth, and I understand I went straight from the hospital to a children’s home’. A year later she was fostered by a couple who already had two adopted boys. But they did not adopt Heather.
She suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of her foster family. She says ‘I remember being told that my mother did not want me and that she was a prostitute and her husband was in prison, that no one wanted me and no one loved me’.
Heather says of her foster mother, ‘She didn’t want me I guess … she said I was hard to love’.
Heather was repeatedly told by her foster mother that she wanted ‘a proper little girl’. She threatened to send Heather back to the children’s home. ‘She often did this at Christmas, and said “I don’t want you here messing up my Christmas”’ Heather recalls.
The foster mother would make Heather stand still with her head down in places around the house, and punish her if she did not comply. Heather was frequently left outside the house in bad weather, and if she moved, her foster mother would get angry. ‘People would walk past, but they’d put their head down, or say “What have you been up to this time?” Sometimes I could be out there for hours and hours.’
Another of Heather’s earliest memories is being taken to primary school when she was about four years old and being shouted at by her foster mum and told ‘to keep my mouth shut’. She remembers this being very confusing for her at school – ‘I didn’t know what I could or couldn’t say’.
She also recalls being told to get ready for school in the middle of the night by her foster mum, who would then laugh at her and tell her how stupid she was.
Heather continues ‘When the social workers came, things were very different’. The house would be tidied, and her foster mother would sit Heather on her knee. ‘Which she never normally did’ Heather says.
She recalls conversations about her behaviour at school, where she was seen as disruptive. The social worker made comments like ‘You’re lucky you’ve got a family that has taken you in’.
One social worker did ask Heather questions directly. ‘She asked me how I felt about school and what I liked doing.’ But her foster mother pinched her skin and she was scared to answer. ‘She told me she would come back, and I remember Mum was really angry with me’ Heather relates. ‘That social worker never did come back.’
Sometimes a family would visit their house every week, and the husband would take Heather to another room and ask her for a cuddle. She would try to avoid this but he insisted, and would lift up her skirt and move his hand around. ‘I was in primary school. I didn’t really get what was happening but I didn’t like it.’ She remembers him making noises she didn’t understand.
This man also sexually abused Heather in his home when the foster family visited.
When Heather’s foster mum went to work, Heather was left in the care of her foster brother, who was about five years older. When she was about six or seven, he started showing her pornographic magazines, and would tell her to copy what the people were doing in the pictures. She says that he did things to her, and made her do things to him. ‘They were really horrible, horrible things.’
The abuse by her foster brother continued until Heather was about 12. It happened whenever she was alone with him.
The other brother was three years older than Heather and he physically, verbally and sexually abused her.
Heather says her foster mother knew what was going on but did nothing to stop it. She adds that she had to share a bedroom with the two boys until she was about 11 years old, when her social worker said she should be given her own room. ‘I remember a lot of things happening in that room’ she says. She adds that the brother who was three years older was aggressive and liked to hurt her when he was sexually abusing her.
Sometimes the foster mother came into the bedroom and found Heather’s foster brother in bed with Heather, but her only response was to scream at Heather and call her dirty, and other abusive names.
‘Even when I got my own bedroom it made it worse, because he would come in and close the door’ she says. This sexual abuse continued until Heather was a teenager, when he got a girlfriend.
Once, Heather took some tablets from a cupboard and took them to school. Some children told a teacher, who called Heather’s social worker.
Heather relates ‘I tried to say that things at home were difficult, and things were happening, and she said I didn’t realise how lucky I was having a home, and who else did I think would take me in?’
Heather also remembers being taken for medical examinations and that she suffered from several urinary tract infections, but the GP did not question why. She comments ‘Now I get why I had so many infections as a kid’.
Heather feels that she never had a voice. She had to cope on her own and never asked for help. She says she hated herself, always felt unworthy and thought of suicide.
When she grew up, Heather had her own family and built a successful career. Following an unexpected and tragic bereavement, her traumatic memories and feelings of worthlessness came flooding back.
Heather has tried to access her records from social care, health and education services but has been told nothing is available apart from a few minor details. ‘It’s like I don’t exist’ she says. She has made a complaint about the loss of her records.
Heather describes the lasting impacts of the abuse she suffered as a child. She has self-harmed and attempted suicide. She finds relationships difficult and never wants to ask anyone for help. ‘The only thing I had was my head ... the way I coped was to disengage … I will cope on my own.’
For most of her life she has felt guilt, self-hatred and disgust with herself.
She saw a psychologist for several years and says this was excellent support. ‘For the first time now I feel it’s not my fault and I don’t hate the person I am.’
Heather works in safeguarding. She feels strongly that children need to be listened to and that adults working with children should be trained to see things from the child’s perspective. She comments ‘Sometimes people get angry with children for not talking, but if you’re being threatened … we need far better training to understand this’.
She emphasises the need for more resources to protect children. ‘Not investing in children only costs more money down the line’ she says.
Heather adds ‘I often wonder – what could my life have been like, if that social worker had come back, or the teachers had said something? What sort of person could I have been?’