I still don't understand it properly. It's just like mental health in
that sense.
I remembered someone from my childhood. I first met him when I started
secondary school. I went to a very posh school. It was one of the top 5
in the UK.
This lad was either there on a fully assisted place or a scholarship. He
came from a very poor background. He was one of only 2 black people out
of 250 people in my year. The other black person was very Westernised
whereas this guy wasn't.
He was there for about 2 terms. I think he felt out of place and
alienated by the other children and the school itself. We all had to
wear uniforms and carry briefcases. Most of the rest were people from
wealthy backgrounds with parents who could afford the £6000-£9000 a year
fees. He was the child of a single mother.
He was very, very talented. He excelled in art. He didn't do so well in
other subjects however I think he still had a high aptitude for other
subjects. The school used entrance exams and there was no art component
of these. Just english and maths exams and other aptitude tests.
The next time I met him was about 4 years later when I got thrown into a
children's home. He was there too. It was complete luck. He'd been in
the system fora while. No idea if he'd ever had mental health support or
not.
I think he was a "Child Looked After" which is the children's social
services term for his legal status. His carers or family were the
council in legal terms. I was a "Child in Need" which is a lesser category.
Is my old firned disabled? Yes. Would he need a mental health diagnosis
to show he was disabled? More importantly I wonder if society's illness
was to blame for his disability.
This is the issue of cultures and systems which contribute to the
disability. When he was at school he felt alienated. I was one of his
very few friends because we got the same coach together (yes...we took
coaches to school) and I think because I was a bit of an outsider too.
I also wonder what the level of disability is (applying the science of
measurement of disability used by psychiatry) associated simply with the
two labels of Child Looked After and Child in Need. I think the terms
may have changed since I worked in children's social services. The
concepts probably haven't. A child who is looked after by the state
temporarily or permanently.
Irrespective of mental health diagnosis I wonder just how high the level
of disability would be? at a guess I would say very, very high. At a
guess I would say, on average, it is higher than schizophrenia.
Those kids do so much worse in life. Some of them suffer significant
trauma and that affects a person for life. One of the cases I heard
about has a baby being hit by their father so hard it flew across the
room. I imagine a psychologist ould better explain how such a painful
early childhood event could scar for life. And yes, there are some parts
of humanity which...make me very unhappy.
Most of those kids will do far, far worse in life than I did. I was one
of those rare exceptions who made it to university. Many don't get 5
good GCSE grades let alone good enough grades to go to a top 5
university. Many may become mentally ill or already suffer from it.
Regardless though, I think the disability would be very high across the
board.
Consider the biopyschosocial model of cause and being becoming
and...well...it seems obvious that the trauma, the totoally different
environement - one where the local council is effectively a child's
parents. Fuck...then add the lack of positive childhood moments these
kids experience. Add whatever traumas happened to bring them into care.
Of course exclusion, for example from school or social groups, can also
happen. Imagine haning out with friends then going back toa children's
home when you were a child.
Put all that together and it seems that there's lots of reasons these
children should be considerd as disabled or perhaps another category.
but they are disabled and the label "ever experienced children's social
care" is sufficient in my opinion to reliably detect people who are
going to do less well in life.
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