Just finished watching Part 1 of 'Care Home Kids'(Beeb 4). It focussed mainly on Neil Morrissey wanting to find out why he and his brother ended up in care but as his investigations unravelled, he met up with several other people who had been either in the same care home as he had or the one his brother had been sent to.
He seems to have got off quite lightly, and that sounds almost like he shouldn't have...what I mean is thankfully, he didn't go through what many other children had to because, it is clear from what other people in the programme were saying, that the levels of abuse (both physically and mentally) were off the scale. I can never get my head round why the most uncaring and brutal of people seem to be in positions of great power over children..and how that is allowed to continue. Certainly back in the 70's and 80's abuse seems to have been rife in childrens' care homes in the UK.
Hmmm...got so many (bad) feelings running around me now is hard to keep any focus on this but what seems to be the biggest concern for Neil Morrissy is finding out if his brother (no longer alive)suffered the horrors that other children in that specific care home (think it was called 'Riverside') did. He says his bother never mentioned anything like that on the rare visits home, they both shared. However, I think that is more a testament to the 'closetted' environment he was kept in and maybe an early understanding he got that children in care homes were not valued in by anyone (including councils, governments, the media and society at large).
In the second programme (same time, same channel..next week) he, Neil, will be looking at modern care homes to see what has changed, if anything, for the better and what happens when the obligatory stay at care homes ends and teenagers are no longer the responsibility of the care home. As in what help, if any, is there and where they go from care.
I think this programme warranted a higher priority than it was given. I am not poo-pooing Beeb 4 but this is such a serious issue...it is so important within modern society and for people who have been, or are still in care homes, that it should be shown on BBC 1. We need to keep this out of the closet and keep making it main stream!!!
Just checked....the next showing is 31 March, Beeb 2, 9.00 pm
Howdy ;). Your point here
ReplyDelete"I can never get my head round why the most uncaring and brutal of people seem to be in positions of great power over children..and how that is allowed to continue"
is very salient in view of the theme of the fall of empathy. As I'm sure you know, caring jobs attract abusers like wasps to mouldy fruit. Any profession where people are placed in charge of the vulnerable has a high frequency of bullying; the two jobs that accounted for most calls to the workplace bullying helpline were teaching and nursing.
Until compassion is recognised and promoted throughout our society, anyone anywhere near the bottom of the social pile will continue to suffer, as abuse is simply not understood, recognised or condemned on any level. Ideas such as teaching emotional intelligence in schools have been floated, but why would the Government get behind that when it could sabotage all their usual power-grabbing tactics?
Great blog.