Role model of resilience

Luke Rodgers used to hate being shouted at, but during our interview he requests it. A perforated eardrum sustained while scuba diving in a lake the weekend prior to our meeting has temporarily affected his hearing.

It is not a serious injury, but the very fact he was taking part in such an active pursuit at all is an illustration of how far the young care leaver has come. At the age of 16, after spending several years in and out of care, he admits he was struggling with cannabis use and had been in trouble with the police a number of times.

His account of the circumstances and incidents of a childhood that led him to that point is heart-rending and one that will be familiar to both children in care and the professionals that come into contact with them.

Several years on, now aged 21, he appears happy and confident. But his experiences highlight the importance of ongoing reforms to the care system, set in progress by last year’s review by Professor Eileen Munro.

Munro’s assertion that the system must be more child-centred, clearly resonates with Rodgers – it was something he felt was largely lacking during his time in care. In part, he puts his progression to his current position down to foster parents who offered him vital support and encouragement.

Seminal moment

Two years ago, after getting back on track and studying A-levels at college, he was invited to speak to children in care at a National Fostering Agency (NFA) event, through a contact of his foster mother. He was asked to talk about the importance of eating fruit and vegetables, and although his audience was nonplussed by what he had to say about nutrition, what followed proved to be a seminal moment for Rodgers.

“They weren’t interested in the talk,” he says. “But one of the kids asked me to talk about my experiences of care. I spoke about it for 20 minutes and got a massive reaction. The chief executive Iain Anderson said: ‘Can you do that at our national conference?’”

Since then, Rodgers has been speaking about his experiences, giving sessions on child development, good practice and resilience, to service managers, social workers, students and children in care. He is also a part-time young people’s ambassador for NFA. Much of his work focuses on improving the connection between young people in care and those around them.

“Young people value a good relationship with their social worker, but according to the Munro report, 70 per cent of children don’t feel their relationship is adequate,” he says.

“Munro speaks about making the system less regulated by rules so that social workers can spend more quality time with children and really listen to their voice. Nearly all children say that a good relationship with a social worker would have improved their experiences in care. I see myself as a bridge between adults and children. I can see where adults are coming from, but I also understand where children are coming from.”

In Rodgers’ experience social workers and foster carers have become “desensitised” to children in care. He believes that negative perceptions held by professionals can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, with children in care playing up to stereotypes.

To illustrate the work he does, he gives an example of a placement where a child had been with a family for eight years, but had become “really challenging and difficult to deal with”.

“The young person had been under 24-hour supervision and the foster parents suddenly told him he was free. In that situation anyone is going to go out and do what they can, and he did. I spoke to the foster parents for some time about how to deal with their emotions. My experience can help them understand it. It helped to save the placement.”

In addition to working with those already in contact with children, Rodgers is carrying out work with universities to speak to the next generation of social workers. He says that while the students “know all the theory”, they sometimes struggle to apply it to real life situations. “I try to help give them a perspective on how children may be feeling in certain situations,” he says.

Bigger picture

He also has an eye on the bigger picture, stressing the importance of professionals being backed by the right support services to prevent young people going into care and caseloads rising. He says Munro’s emphasis on early intervention is vital.

“It is so important,” he says. “If we spend more time with the families to resolve issues that we are able to, it could improve outcomes for young people and even prevent them going into care.”

Rodgers is enthusiastic about the government’s troubled families agenda, with the idea that problems can be addressed before a “crisis point” is reached.

“I’m a big believer that living with family is the biggest part of a child’s life,” he says. “If problems can be resolved, the government should put money into it.”
In particular, he wants more attention paid to the issue of domestic violence, and calls for agencies to act earlier to work with families where it may be an issue.
“If we can tackle this earlier and educate people about domestic violence it will make a big difference in the number of children going into care,” he says.

“Domestic violence is one of the biggest, most traumatic things a young person can go through and we need to spot it earlier. We should be working with families before children go into care to help everybody involved, not just taking children away from the family and allowing them to get lost in the system.