What is family?
The question is one that isn’t easy to answer.
One which is made more complex if you have care experience.
One thing I have learnt as I get older, and am more involved in networking, and working with other care lavers is the importance of my ‘Care Family’. A family that includes people I have never met, but share the knowledge and the feelings involved in having a care experience and isn't limited in its numbers.
Its a connection that passes through country lines, through the class systems, through any system which would usually be a barrier to communication.
That moment that someone discloses that they have care experience, you look into their eyes and you know, that they know, that you know. - A connection.
Those little things that made me feel like I was standing behind a wall when I tried communicating and connecting with my friends growing up, suddenly became an open door full of kindness, compassion and understanding.
One thing I have found is a distinct creative trait within the Care family I have become a part of. Which makes sense, Brené Brown is very clear in her research that vulnerability is the birth place of creativity and innovation.. and we hear over and over that we are the most vulnerable in society, which surely mean that we also have the ability to be the most creative and innovative as we move through life?
There is nothing ‘perfect’ about our lives and experiences, apart from maybe perfect disasters, which somehow we came through, bashed and bruised at times, but still here, still alive.
In fact, when I see ‘perfection’ as it is seen in societies eyes, my warning lights start to flash, and I know someone is holding up a very big mask, that something is simmering underneath.. .wanting, fighting to come out. I know it, because I spent my teenage years and my early 20s with the same mask on, perceiving out that everything was ‘perfect’, now I don't know how well I wore this mask, but considering I conned myself and a lot of other people that everything was ‘okay’, when really I was breaking inside for a good amount of years.. I think I wore that mask very well indeed.
I know I do not need that mask with my peers, I can just be. We can be open about out cuts and scars, but we don’t need to explain why we have them, there is no need for words. Going through the complexities of explaining, why I like certain things, why I act certain way, how I can just look at you and 90% of the time read exactly what is going on with you in that moment, what happened to me to get me where I am now, the pain I have gone through, the healing at the other end.
I recently started talking to a care leaver peer I met through our online community, within half an hour we realised, how alike we were, and we knew that we would continue to have that connection through the rest of our lives. Within in a week we met in person, spent a day just talking and connecting… healing.
I have these peers around the world, different ages, different experiences, some I have never met in person, but I know if I reach out, they are there.
Which is what a family is right? Where ever they are in the world, when you need them, they are there.
There are ways to reconnect with your peers, social media help with this a lot. Then there are different pathway, such as the Care Leavers Connect site, where you can join, find the groups and places you grew up in and reconnect with the peers you once knew there.
The Care Leavers Association its self is ‘an ever growing network of care leavers’, a place where your voice and experience can help change the future of the care system for the better, for you to have a safe connection, non judgemental, caring unconditionally, what ever age you are.
