Care Leavers Access

There are at least 300,000 former care adults in the UK, and more than 4,000 of these seek to access their child care files each year. Yet, all too often, their quests end in frustration and disappointment.

Below are some examples Community Care came across while writing a feature about former care adults’ access to their files, plus the full results of the Care Leavers’ Association survey of local authorities’ “highly variable” performance in this area.

Patricia’s story:

Patricia* is a child protection social worker and mother-of-four who spent much of her childhood in care. Aged 42, she decided she wanted to know more about her past.

“I qualified as a child protection social work in 1996, I’ve got four children, I was expecting my first grandchild, and I had got to that point in my life when I decided I was going to do something about trying to access my records.

“I had known from doing my social work placements that people access their files. So I made a request to the council where I grew up. That went really smoothly. I just filled in some paperwork and they said they would see what they could do.

“At that time, the Data Protection Act wasn’t in force. Although they initially agreed to my request, they later backed down. I don’t know why.

“Eventually, in 1998 they said ‘come back in 2001 and we will think again’. At that time, it was their choice whether they allowed people access. It was completely discretionary.

“I got academics to write to the council, backing my case and explaining that most councils were allowing access, but they wouldn’t budge. I don’t know if they were saying no to everyone or just to me.

“In 2001, I tried again. I got a letter back in the May thanking me for my request and promising to get back to me within 40 days, in accordance with the Data Protection Act, which was in by then.

“By August, I still hadn’t heard anything, so my solicitor wrote to the council asking what the problem was. They started saying that I would have to come from the other side of the country to collect my files in person so they could explain things to me. Then they offered to come to me. But I’m a social worker. I don’t need anyone to explain it to me. They were just stalling me. This went on and on and on and on until they were threatened with the ombudsman.

“Finally, I got my files at the end of October 2001 – hundreds of days later, not 40. Reading my files I felt angry and confused; it was a strange time. I had had 16 different placements that I remembered, which I had been running over and over in my head trying to remember properly for years. I thought I went into care when I was five. But it turned out I was one the first time.

“My mum had five bastard children – a lot of it was about her being an outcast from her own middle class family. I was the only one subject to a full care order. There were lots of receptions into care between one and 10. At 10, I was put under a ‘place of safety’ order, and then I was in care fully.

“In that file, there was 10 years of correspondence to social services from my mother, challenging the authority and saying the care I was getting wasn’t good enough. If only I had known what had been going on behind the scenes. I thought she had abandoned me. It was too late by the time I found out – she was dead by then.

“There was also a report about a social worker being disciplined for hitting me. He admitted he had broken the rules and apologised to my mother. But he never apologised to me. I had reported that he had hit me around the face, but nobody had ever apologised to me. So all my life, I grew up thinking no-one would ever believe me.

“These are those crucial things that give you a better understanding about where you are now. The truth can be painful. But it can be helpful too. That’s why people are reluctant to give out files – they are kind people who don’t want to cause pain. But that is no way to grow.

“I got 990 pages in total. But out of that, at least 100 were completely blank, and at least another 100 were completely unreadable where they were covered in black ink from the photocopier. Another 150 pages had huge areas blacked out. The law says that, when you redact a file, you have to give an indication of what’s missing. But there were no notes.

“To get this far, it had taken five long years, three solicitors and two professionals from Liberty. And I was exhausted. All along, I had been thinking ‘if you make trouble your file will disappear’. And I was really grateful for what I had got – even though it didn’t make sense because of all the blanks. But those gaps are about sequences of events. Why did I move? What happened?

“So, here we are in 2007. I am a member of the Care Leavers’ Association. I don’t feel like the only care person anymore. I am able to talk with my grandchildren about my past more freely; I don’t have to stay in the closet.

“I started to take bits of my file to read out at conferences when I am talking about the importance of good record-keeping, and obviously they make little sense because so much is blacked out. At a conference in January, I was standing up reading from my file and was approached by someone in the audience who said he was in charge of data control at the council where I used to be in care. He said he was ashamed to hear my story, and promised me proper access to my files. He said I should never have received pages in that state.

“Even as a 52-year-old, there’s a little bit of me that thinks I’m not quite as good as everyone else. When that man stood up and said that the way I had been treated was wrong, that was a life-changing moment.

“I have a half brother who is in his 60s. We had always said our dream in life was to go back and find our children’s homes. So we started planning. But then, two weeks after the conference in January, I hadn’t heard anything. So I contacted the council again. A woman phoned back and said she was very sorry but they couldn’t find my files.

“I have a letter from 1997 describing my file – its says how it’s three box files. How can you lose that? Another week passed and I phoned back and asked if my four siblings’ files were available. It would appear all trace of my family has disappeared.

“I have a legal right up until I’m 75 to get that document; and now it’s gone. Never again do I have a chance to make sense of my life. And not just mine, but my whole family’s. I wonder how is it gone – how did something that large go missing? Surely it was signed in and out of a strong room. It was in a building. It was photocopied. It’s no longer there. I’m not talking about four or five pieces of paper. We can make a guess that there were 1,500 bits of paper. Files have to be treated with respect.

“There is just so much stuff I think I would like an explanation for. I would like to know what did I look like as a child. Was I ugly? There is one reference in my notes to me having slitty eyes, and another to my problems being linked to my size. Was I fat? I would like to have just one photo.

“I’m in the process of a complaint. I want to know how it happened, and what systems are in place to stop it from happening again. I want to know how many other people it’s happened to. I don’t want to complain – I want closure. But I don’t feel I have got that now. I don’t want to be bitter, but I do want people to see how important these files are.

“I still read my photocopied pages again and again. They make me feel sad. But I get pleasure from them too. My brother and I are still going back in September to try and trace our past. We will just have to do our best and work around the gaps.”

*Not her real name

Jane’s story:

Jane*, 32, from Bedfordshire, left care when she was 16. She found out about her right to access her file from the CLA website.

“I had thought about knowing more, but thought it wasn’t something I wanted to do for fear of reading something that interfered with my life now. But I read on the forum other people’s experiences of accessing files and it got me thinking about what was held and what was left. I started thinking maybe I was interested after all.

“I debated about it for some time before I did anything about it. I didn’t want to contact social services so I contacted the records system. They said ‘we can’t take a request from you – we have to have it from a social worker’. I got in an email debate about it with them. I said I was an adult, so why did I need their permission.

“Eventually I spoke to someone from social services. They gave me the details of someone in children’s services, who then emailed me back and said they were prepared to action my request.

“Then I got a few emaiils from the records clerk. It was her job to get the information, but she said a lot of it was on microfesh, so it could take a while. I didn’t hear anything else for another six weeks, so I emailed again and she said there was a delay due to sickness.

“Finally, they said I could come in and read my files with someone present if I wanted, or I could have a copy. I received a letter and three files through the post.

“Most of the stuff that was in it was financial stuff – who pays for what, authorisation for funds, money being transferred, and so on. That was quite interesting as it had some dates that tallied in my mind with me moving from here to there. There were a few memos about a monthly clothing allowance.

“Case conference reports were in there. They were very useful memory joggers. Some of it was stuff that was really important to me. There was a copy of a letter I had written to the director of social services at the time, when I was about 13 or 14, about what I was finding good, and what I wasn’t finding good.

“But the stuff that was missing that I would have liked to have had was the daily log sheets. All children’s homes wrote everything down – they write a log on a daily basis. You could read it if you wanted. There was a ring-binder for each child and a member of staff would make a comment about each child during each shift. If anyone kicked off, there would be a lot to say. If not, it would be just ‘ate a lot’ or ‘quiet’. But all the daily log sheets were gone – there was nothing like that left.

“I haven’t chased it up, although I have thought about it. I got my files about seven months ago. I did think about going back and seeing if there was anything else. But I believed the woman – I don’t think she was holding anything back.

“I am glad I have done it. I didn’t think I would be. I am not wondering now what there is anymore. Now I have just put it away somewhere and, if I want to look at it, I will.

“I would support any change to make it easier for care leavers to access their records. But I would also urge a little bit of caution. Accessing these files might reopen certain memories. Sometimes it’s better to leave these things behind.

“Publicising the availability of this help is important. The initial process of accessing the right person was a bit ropey. There should be a better system. I don’t think it would take local authorities much to publicise that.

“Support services should be available as a matter of course, not on an ad hoc basis or something that depends who you get on the day. They should be rolled out across the country, not be different in every council. There should be a national way of working.”

*Not her real name

Barbara’s story:

Barbara O’Grady, 58, was in the care of Kent Council from the age of one.

“I feel there should be a procedure and protocol in place before you are access your records. When I accessed mine in the 1980s, I had no support at all. I was just told to get on with it. The things I found within the file were so distressing that I felt I needed something more than just people handing me a file and saying to get on with it.

“People think ‘they are my files, I just want to get on with it’. They don’t want authority figures involved. But when I accessed my files, the information was so horrendous and shocking. There should be a preparation course or counselling; someone asking why you want access, what you would do if you found upsetting information, and seeing how prepared you are. A lot of these people are vulnerable people accessing things that are very emotive.

“I found things people hadn’t told me about, and things I had obliterated from my life. I was suddenly faced with them all. You don’t know what triggers you have. I think everyone should have a sort of assessment. It doesn’t have to be standardised; just a quick interview with the person to weigh them up. An assessment must be made as to their vulnerability before they access potentially shocking information. There must be an infrastructure in place that supports the vulnerable person who is accessing their file. You can’t just give them their file then tell them to get on with it.

“I think I should have been forewarned or had an infrastructure around me that could have supported me.”

Care Leaver Association access to files survey results:

In April 2007, the Care Leavers’ Association wrote to 100 local authorities requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act regarding what they have been doing to help adult care leavers access their files. Here are the full results:

 

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Local Authority

Data collected since…

Total – if not by year

Number of file requests

Whole files

Part files

Lost files

Access refused

Files

destroyed

 

‘03

 

‘04

 

‘05

 

‘06

Barnsley

2005

10

x

x

x

x

10

0

0

0

0

Bath & NE Somerset

2002

 

1

5

6

8

10

3

 

 

1 (plus 7 cases of requests not pursued or files illegible)

Birmingham

 

25

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blackburn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blackpool

2004

 

x

4

7

2

5

1

1

2

2

Bournemouth

2003

 

1

6

5

6

17

1

0

x

0

Buckinghamshire

2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bury

2005

 

x

x

0

2

2

0

0

0

0

Caernarfan

2003

3

x

x

x

x

3

x

Na

x

Na

Calderdale

2004

 

 

1

4

9

12

 

2

 

 

Cornwall

2005

 

 

 

12

14

12

14

0

x

0

Coventry

2004

 

 

30

62

61

53

4

7

x

2

Darlington

2005

 

 

 

2

5

3

4

X

x

X

Denbighshire

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Derby

 

60

x

x

x

x

34

5

Nc

x

5 part-destroyed

Devon

2005

 

x

x

66

45

na

na

Na

na

Na

Doncaster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dorset

2005

 

x

X

19

23

 

30

6

6

Nc

East Riding

2003

 

0

1

9

5

9

2

2

x

2

Essex

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gateshead

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gwynedd

2004

3

 

 

 

 

3

0

0

0

0

Gloucestershire

 

32

No other data available – they are devising a system to improve data analysis

Herefordshire

2005

 

 

 

34

24

30

0

0

0

0 (plus 28 cases of requests not pursued)

Hull

 

 

68

83

109

109

348

0

20

1

x

Kirklees

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kingston

2005