Why we keep failing our children

This morning, I received a call from a dear friend. An accomplished black single mother. Who like most of us worked hard to be where she is in her life right now. She has always fought for what was right and important for her and that is children. She grew to be the voice of children in our society, fighting for their right to live in a healthy and loving conditions.

Today though, she was crying. Crying to the injustice that she was experiencing with once again a system, an institution that is supposed to protect children and yet fail them and fail their families each time. Why I am saying that, is because for the past 18 months, I have seen my dear friend fighting for the wellbeing of a seven years old mixed heritage black child who happens to be in the care system because his white maternal family are unable to care for him. Yet, his black father and paternal family have consistently jumped through hoops to prove their commitment. Sadly, despite a positive parenting assessment of father and a rehabilitation plan, following a change of staff, the story changed.

Only between October 2019 and February 2020, this beautiful seven years old has moved approximately eight times from one foster placement to another. Yet, when you look at his photo, he is such a beautiful soul who just wants to be loved and accepted.  

Now that the paternal family have applied to the courts, the social system is now using it position of power to fit a new toxic narrative to cover their backs and tick the boxes. Using the same principles that are meant to serve the people, to suffocate not just the child, but the family. Nothing seems to be making sense.

Is it possible to get to know a people or a group when your perceptions of them is toxic and you sit in a position of power and make judgments from a distance? When you are simply not interested in getting to know them or have a conversation? Is it possible to help the vulnerable people you seek to serve without being transparent? By excluding them from critical decision-making processes about their lives and not give them the chance to speak? 

The wellbeing of the child in care does not seem to be a priority anymore, rather the need for the professionals to further strangle the paternal family to protect themselves from failings that are glaringly obvious. No doubt they have put their walls down against my friend because she has the knowledge and expertise to see the cracks and has been pointing it out. No doubt all those associated to the case are resigning from their jobs. But how? Just how does a lay person fight a system? Just how do you advocate for a child and family when the institution designed to serve them bring down their metal gates because they see you as defective and inferior because you look different? 

 My dear friend is also knowledgeable, experienced and grounded in the system. She founded and runs a reputable organisation that advocates for children and families of all ethnicity, working in partnership with families as well as the courts and Local Authorities the country, for over a decade. She is also a psychotherapist who runs a private practice and has a great heart to serve. Yet, once again she finds herself feeling powerless, hopeless, and helpless about her experience of the very system she upholds to serve the people.

 As she shares her sentiment, I found myself connecting to her sense of hopelessness and helplessness. I found myself feeling angry at the thought of people not caring for the wellbeing of this young boy's life. He is only a seven years old and for the past 2 years and half, for no fault of his, he finds himself tossed between foster families till someone can claim him, yet they defend against his father and family claiming him, because he might only be fit for a care or mental home, given all the carers keep rejecting him.

Yes, I am using the word ‘claim’ here because I get a sense that this child is simply seen as an object, a baggage, rather than a person. We all know that when children experience unconditional love and acceptance for those who care for them, they gradually settle. When they do not, their body just knows it, their nervous system alerts them and they become unsettled, and they throw tantrums. Yet, for this child, since being in care from age from five years old, if he throws a tantrum, he is labelled as violent, aggressive because he is different. Why, how comes these double standards?

This young child is a loving child and yet now with all the trauma he has being through in such young age, he is now displaying acts of anger and detachment and dissociation. Again, this is a child who is victim of a system that is supposed to care for him. Our institutions are failing us, as we continue to fail ourselves. We cannot keep on seeing these injustices carried out and stay still. We need to raise up, we need to speak up, we need to voice and more importantly we need to Act.

Systems are made to serve people, however when the people become slave and at the mercy of the system the balance has shifted and it’s no longer of service.