"You can get really worked up" – Moray care leaver shines light on shared struggles
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STIGMA, difficulties within education and managing the challenging transition to independent living are among the biggest problems faced by care leavers.
That is the view of Isla MacDougall, who offered a window into her own experiences during a care leaver awareness event last Friday (October 27).
Isla is a member of the Moray Champion’s Board, which brings together care experienced young people to make positive changes for themselves and those in similar situations.
She said she was negatively affected by the stigma around care in education, by disruption caused by frequent school moves, and a steep drop-off in support after leaving care.
Isla said that, throughout her time at school, the stigma around being in the care system made it difficult to communicate with her peers at school.
She regularly had to miss school to attend “really stressful” meetings and appointments, she said, and seemingly-innocuous questions from classmates put her in a tough situation.
“When you are care experienced, you quite often end up leaving school for a couple of hours,” she said.
“And you might be coming back with a McDonalds and people start to ask: 'Why are you coming back with that?'
“But how do you say: ‘I got it on my way back from a meeting, a really stressful appointment’?
“You can get really worked up.”
She added: “People don’t realise that you had to be somewhere else, and even though you got McDonald’s for lunch, you usually feel worse afterwards than you did before.
“How do you then go back to school and answer those questions?
“But it's not the other children's fault, because you're coming back and they can't help but ask: 'Why have you got this stuff?'”
Isla added that, for her, frequent school moves impacted her academic progress.
Making an extra effort to catch up with lessons, she said, resulted in stress – while a lack of coordination meant lessons were often repeated and caused frustration.
“For example, I moved school a lot,” she said.
“My maths in particular has really struggled.
“More complex things were okay because, later on, I could sit down and learn for a couple of years.
“But, up to late primary school, I never had the stability to learn things like times tables, and it meant I was missing out and having to repeat some information.
“Even if you don't move around a lot, if your parent is less than ideal, life can be an issue as well.
“And that’s not even going into mental health."
She also said care leavers are often faced with a stark transition when they move to living independently.
“With leaving care and things that come afterwards, sometimes you didn't have a lot of support,” she said.
“And now you are just living by yourself."
Pamela Davidson, project lead for The Promise at Moray Council, said: “When you leave care, you don’t have the same support round about you.
“That's where you can really struggle sometimes.
“They need to be able to build up their own skills and that is why we have invited some of the agencies that are here displaying today and thanking them for their hard work.”
Shannon Macpherson (17) said it was sometimes difficult to relate to non-care experienced young people after leaving care.
But being part of the Moray Champion's Board gave her an opportunity to come together with those who understood her better.
The board allows her to: “Make a change for the community," she said.
“And it’s nice to talk about the changes that are going on in our lives.”
