{"id":498818,"date":"2026-05-23T09:01:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T09:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/498818\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T09:01:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T09:01:26","slug":"growing-up-in-care-i-remember-a-lot-of-people-not-being-allowed-to-be-friends-with-me-in-school-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/498818\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing up in care: \u2018I remember a lot of people not being allowed to be friends with me in school\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are about 6,000 children and teenagers in the care system in Ireland. Some are in foster homes and some in residential care. Epic [Empowering People in Care]<\/a> is a voluntary organisation that represents them. In their offices in Smithfield, Dublin, I meet four members of Epic\u2019s Youth Council who have spent time in care: clever, funny and caring young adults who want to tell me about their lives. They\u2019re all in a good place, but too many young people who go through the care system experience homelessness<\/a> and poverty and they want to advocate for them.<\/p>\n

Nineteen-year-old Anisa Abuukar is playing with a cuddly puppet to make the others laugh. She came to Ireland from Somalia<\/a> as an unaccompanied minor when she was 14. \u201cMy mam got married when she was 13, an arranged marriage. He brought her into the countryside … Then he left us. My mam doesn\u2019t want what happened to her happening to me, an arranged marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man who escorted her here left her at the airport. She was terrified and didn\u2019t have much English. She experienced both foster homes<\/a> and residential care. In her first residential placement she didn\u2019t engage with anyone. She was moved to a foster home but it didn\u2019t work out. \u201cI was a child who woke up at 2am and cried. The social workers brought me to a residential house.\u201d<\/p>\n

She missed her mother. \u201cWhen I got my period the first time, I didn\u2019t know how to manage. I was hiding in my bed all day. I said, \u2018I want to go to my GP.\u2019 I said to the GP, \u2018I want you to stop this blood please.\u2019 Every month I couldn\u2019t manage. They [some staff members] were always angry. \u2018You have to change your bedsheets. You\u2019re old enough.\u2019 … I hated having a period.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"'I‘I got a lot of stigma. You hide that you\u2019re in care,’ says Anisa Abuukar (19). Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien <\/p>\n

She ended up in a psychiatric hospital for a while. \u201cMy weight was so low … I had a lot of placements. People couldn\u2019t understand me very well … They\u2019d report it if I got angry. They\u2019d call my social worker if something happened. They\u2019d call me crazy if my mental state<\/a> wasn\u2019t good and I broke something.\u201d Anisa says they should have been asking: \u201cWhy is this young person crying? What do they need? What service do they need?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is such a crisis-led approach being used,\u201d chips in 23-year-old Andrea Reilly. \u201cThey\u2019ll wait till the situation gets really, really bad before they step in to give you the right supports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anisa\u2019s last placement, in Tallaght, was by far her best. The staff there were more experienced, she says, and they were very kind to her and really helped her with her mental health. They brought her to Jigsaw<\/a>, the youth mental health service, and she ended up getting an autism<\/a> diagnosis. \u201cI got the help I needed … It took me three to four years to understand things [here]. I feel like Ireland is my country now … I want to help people.\u201d <\/p>\n

Andrea is from Nenagh, Co Tipperary, and was in foster care from birth. She\u2019s studying youth and community work in University College Cork (UCC) and already talks with the passionate fluidity of an activist. She paces as she talks. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was placed into care because my mother had issues with addiction. I have a disability called foetal alcohol spectrum disorder … Luckily, I was in a placement that had very good awareness of stuff like that, but I think that there was lack of understanding from [some] social workers and professionals … I\u2019m still very close with my former foster family.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AndreaAndrea Reilly (23), who was in foster care since birth, is now studying youth and community work in University College Cork. Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien<\/p>\n

Living in a small town meant everyone knew she was fostered. \u201cI got a lot of stigma. A lot of people think when children are in care, it\u2019s their fault … I remember a lot of people not being allowed to be friends with me in school.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou hide that you\u2019re in care,\u201d says Anisa.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people when I tell them I grew up in residential care, they think that it\u2019s like a detention centre and that I did something to deserve to be there,\u201d says 26-year-old Kai Brosnan. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople can be very narrow-minded,\u201d says 22-year-old Princess Esezobor. \u201cPeople whose parents do everything for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Princess lives in Galway, where she formerly studied medicinal chemistry at the University of Galway. She is about to start a job as a chemistry quality control analyst. <\/p>\n

She\u2019s wearing a black denim jacket festooned with patches of her favourite musicians: The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tupac, Muse, Chappell Roan, Jimi Hendrix. She plays bass. \u201cI\u2019m learning scales,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m not confident yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PrincessPrincess Esezobor (22) went into care at 16. Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien <\/p>\n

She first went into the care system at the age of 16. She doesn\u2019t want to go into detail about the reasons why \u2013 she has a good relationship with her family now \u2013 \u201cbut I was struggling a bit\u201d.<\/p>\n

She ended up in six different placements. Her first foster family were lovely, she says. But other placements were not so successful. Some of the people she was placed with, she says, \u201cweren\u2019t well-informed … And some of them were not racially informed either … It was all crazy stuff. They asked, \u2018Oh how come we [white people] can\u2019t say the N-word?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Twenty years, 15 children fostered: \u2018Hearing them laugh is a great feeling\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Princess says she responded to stress by running with her music blaring. \u201cThe band that really got me started with music was Muse.\u201d She smiles. \u201cI remember when I first heard Supermassive Black Hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cork man Kai has a tattoo of a wolf on one arm and an intricate mandala on the other. On his inside arm are the words \u201cthis too shall pass\u201d. He works as a social care worker in a residential unit like the ones in which he spent his teenage years. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy family wasn\u2019t a healthy place for me to be,\u201d he says. \u201cI was in hospital for a short period of time. My social worker come into the hospital one day and said I was being put into residential care … I sat in the hospital bed googling \u2018residential care\u2019 and all that came up was old folks\u2019 homes. I genuinely thought I was going to the old folks\u2019 home.\u201d<\/p>\n

They all say that often professionals in the system don\u2019t explain things properly, forgetting that they\u2019re talking to children and teenagers. <\/p>\n

\"SocialSocial care worker Kai Brosnan (26): ‘My family wasn\u2019t a healthy place for me to be.’ Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien<\/p>\n

Residential units are strange places to live, says Kai. \u201cYour life becomes very professionalised very early on, because you have all of these meetings. They\u2019re having team meetings in your sittingroom when you want to be watching TV. They tend to forget that it\u2019s your home.\u201d<\/p>\n

For some time he felt \u201cunless I was an easy case, people didn\u2019t want to work with me. It forces you to be this happy-go-lucky person when you actually have the weight of the world on your shoulders. You feel you have to make the professionals\u2019 job easier by being easy and happy and not telling them all the difficulties that are going on in your head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrea can relate: \u201cIf [a social worker is] saying, \u2018How is everything?\u2019 You just automatically want to say, \u2018I\u2019m good.\u2019 Because if you say, \u2018Actually, I just want to follow up with you on this or you can help me with this application.\u2019 You can really hear them panic … <\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody that I know that\u2019s grown up in care are very articulate, because a lot of us have had to learn to advocate for ourselves from a very young age, and we\u2019ve had a lot of professionals in our lives from a young age, with a lot of adult language: \u2018access visits\u2019, \u2018review meetings\u2019, \u2018respite\u2019 … We\u2019re very resilient. If I\u2019m having a bad day, I\u2019m like, \u2018Well, I\u2019ve come this far.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know a lot of people that are care-experienced and a lot of time feel like they have to earn love, because we didn\u2019t have that unconditional love,\u201d says Kai. \u201cIt\u2019s something that, at 26, I\u2019m still working on.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0A \u2018broken\u2019 system: Many children taken into care face more harm, ombudsman\u2019s office saysOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Kai\u2019s final placement was \u201csuperb\u201d, he says. \u201cWhen I got out of my social worker\u2019s car in Dublin, I met with the manager, and she showed me to my room and it was as much me as they could make it. When they read my file, they didn\u2019t just read the challenges that I had, they focused on what was important to me. I am really into horses. They had these horse plushies. They had art stuff. As many things as possible that were important to me. And I remember them saying, \u2018Tomorrow, when you wake up, we\u2019ll bring you around the area. And we can also go shopping. If you don\u2019t like the bedclothes we can get new bedclothes.\u2019 They wanted to make it mine from as soon as I stepped in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The housing crisis affects everyone, but we don\u2019t have a mam and dad we can go back to<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Kai Brosnan<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve all been let down in different ways, but there\u2019s also some incredible people within the system. They are overworked and the resources aren\u2019t there, but there are absolutely amazing people going above and beyond for the young people they work with.\u201d<\/p>\n

All four of them want to highlight the shortcomings in the system \u2013 the high turnover of staff, the high caseloads for existing staff and the high number of broken placements some children experience. <\/p>\n

They also discuss the anxiety young people feel when they are ageing out of the system. While some aftercare services are available until they are 21 (extended to 23 for those in training or education), the aftercare allowance is only available after 18 for those accessing education. It puts huge pressure on young people who might already be coping with significant trauma. Some young people whose lives are a bit more chaotic do not have the wherewithal to manage life after care. Epic wants aftercare services to be both stronger and more flexible and wants the upper age limit extended to 23 for all care-leavers (not just those in education), with an extension to 26 \u201con a needs basis\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like taking the blocks from underneath the Jenga tower,\u201d says Andrea. \u201cIt\u2019s going to fall down. I\u2019ve seen people who are trying to study for their Leaving Cert and they\u2019re in emergency accommodation, not knowing where they\u2019re going to be moved to next.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe housing crisis affects everyone, but we don\u2019t have a mam and dad we can go back to,\u201d says Kai. \u201cI was bouncing between places, and then I ended up in homeless services. I only got my own apartment a year-and-a-half ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Abuse and neglect allegations against Dublin foster carers not always properly recordedOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

They want to represent other young people in the care system and those who have left it. Kai and Andrea recently spoke to social studies students in Trinity College Dublin and they\u2019re part of a UCC social care board. They also consult other professionals, says Kai, \u201ctalking about what works well and what doesn\u2019t\u201d.<\/p>\n

And they want to show that care-leavers can have good lives. Kai and Princess have degrees and Andrea is working towards achieving hers. Anisa is studying at the National Learning Network. They have a level of maturity and self-reliance that is unusual for people their age. Kai was once a school dropout, believing, based on what he had been told in the past, he would \u201cnever amount to anything\u201d. \u201cBut on my first day on the Epic Youth Council eight years ago, I sat across from someone who was doing her PhD. To the side of me was someone who had a loving partner with a kid on the way. Care-experienced people can be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

All children who come through the care system should be in a position to do well, he says. \u201cI think when the State takes a child into their care, they have a responsibility for that child that doesn\u2019t end when they turn 18. So many young people are let down.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are about 6,000 children and teenagers in the care system in Ireland. Some are in foster homes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[11357,9,10,18573,18,13,14,6,24081,19,17,11,12,15,16,167,5,117444,7,8,63,3274,2212],"class_list":["post-498818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-autism","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-dublin-7","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-homeless-crisis","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-mental-health","tag-news","tag-somalia","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-trinity-college-dublin-tcd","tag-university-college-cork-ucc","tag-weekendreview"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116623080537545468","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}