Meeting with a Social Worker: a Radical Change of Life

My name is Beckie Louise Walker. I am the youngest out of three of us, there is my oldest brother Aaron Walker who at the moment I am having a hard time dealing with and then there is my twin sister who is older than me by eleven minutes. She never lets me forget it. The three of us were born to Fiona and Paul Walker. My whole life has been hard. I thought that I would have been happy as a child and looking at me now no one would ever assume that I went through a hard life.

To begin with, when I was four I was hurt by my own father and I never knew what was happening back then I mean I was too young. I was split from my brother who lived with my father (well if you could call him that). I and my sister were lucky enough to live with our mum but still, then that wasn’t any better. I mean don’t get me wrong I love my mum but she went through a hard time. So I don’t blame her for anything that she has ever done. I know that she still loved me. After a while, my mum got back the custody of my brother and the four of us lived together. It was always harder for me because I have only ever been to one place of education where I have been through the whole school. When I was five, we moved from Scarborough to Stockton. We were starting a new life. I always remembered how scared I was to start somewhere new. But however, it was not long after we moved that my whole life was changed for the worst.

One day when I was at school, I thought that everything was going fine. I had just had a great day at school and had spent my day with my friends well until home time. As soon as the home time came my mum never came to pick me up. Instead, it was a social worker. At this point, I didn’t know what was going on. I always thought that they would take us back to our mum but I remember being in school for over an hour as they finished sorting things out. That night we were whisked away to foster carers. Now remembering that I was five, I still did not know what was going on but that night changed my life. I always thought that we would always be with our mum. But the social worker said that she wasn’t fit to look after us.

So after we left the school they took us to our new home. But when we got there we found out that I and my sister were staying with one foster carer and they were splitting us from our brother again. He was always my rock when I was younger, he used to look after the pair of us but we were told that we will see each other at school and that was that. But I always found it harder for us. I mean we had just been taken from our mum and then he was taken away from us. The carer that I and my sister were with we didn’t like. She had another foster child with her and when she was angry she use to throw things at me and my sister and that was when we realized that we were living in hell. I hated every minute of it.

I remember waking up the next day and thinking to myself that it was all a bad dream and that my mum would walk through the bedroom door to wake me up but just my luck. It wasn’t.

I remember having to go in a taxi to the school the next morning. Apparently, that was how we were to get to and from school every day from now on. When we got to school I remember being asked by my friends why didn’t my mum drop me off. I use to always walk with them to school and back with our mum. So I dreaded telling them what was going on. Well until someone who I knew would use it against me found out. He use to make fun of me and tell me that my mum never loved me anymore and more than once I was bullied throughout school. I couldn’t see my brother because he was somewhere else in the school and now that I think about it I think it was the foster carers’ idea in keeping the three of us apart. The school would never let us see him and he could never see us.

It was a few weeks after that, that another woman came to pick the three of us up and told us she was taking us to see our mum for contact. Then we had to have supervised contact with our mum. I hated it that we were only ever allowed to see her for an hour every two weeks after school. I remember the first time it happened and I have to admit I cried when she left us. I and my sister were crying so much that when we got back to the foster carer where we were staying she sent us to our room without food. Said that we weren’t allowed to cry over our own mum leaving us. This happened every two weeks and then it started to happen on a Thursday. The two foster carers of my sister and my brothers all came together and then asked social services about us seeing our brother so they scheduled every Thursday after school that our brother's foster carers would pick me and my sister up from school and then we would go to there's for tea.

When we got there the first time I was quiet my brother had tried to push me out of my shell and it took me a few weeks before I would speak to the carers. I enjoyed the contact with him. It always made me look forward to it. Of course, we were still seeing our mum on supervised visits every Wednesday but being with my brother always made me happier. I always thought that we wouldn’t get to see him like this well it only happened because he moved on from the school we were first in. I remember feeling to myself that he seems happier without me or my sister there. But then yet again I know he still missed us. We were separated for two years and then told that we were allowed to live with him again. At that point, I was so happy over it. I know that I was looking forward to going to live with him.

The day came and we moved into the house that he was in and I and my sister had to share a bedroom but neither of us cared. We were both grateful we finally could spend time with our brother. Through the time we lived with them I could feel myself being happier and happier with each passing day. But it was three weeks when everything started to go downhill. Our brother kicked off more and the more the shouting started with the carers then locking him and keeping him in his room. I don’t even know why they were doing that at that point I will still be young to understand any of it.

After a few more weeks of being in contact with our mum, they then changed it so we could see her only on a Saturday. At the time I hated the idea we went from seeing her from every Wednesday. But sure even on a Wednesday, we were only allowed to see her from three till five, and then on Saturdays, it went from twelve till four. I use to always hate waiting just to see my mum. Being at the school wasn’t any easier since I was bullied a lot of being in care and since I felt like I could never live up to a certain expectations.

I remember one holiday when I first went to Haggerston Castle which my brother wasn’t allowed to go to. Only because he was being misbehaved even though I can tell you right now he wasn’t. I never blamed him for anything he did I always blame the foster brothers who were there. They were the sons of the adults who were looking after us who always started the fights and at times I think they were doing it on purpose since they knew that if they got a rise out of him it would have been my brother who was told off for speaking out of term or speaking his mind.

Another moment I remembered was the nights that I got to be on the phone with my mum which started out fine I enjoyed talking to her and when she was calling. I got to talk to her about school and how I was doing and how much I missed her. Which was a lot. Another moment I remember was on the contact day that my mum had brought my step-dad with her. I really enjoyed that day but only found out later that the carers we were living with kept coming out of the house to watch our mum walk us down the road. Why they did that I still don’t know to this day. I swear they thought that we were going to say something bad about them to our mum or tell our mum that we wanted to move back in with her because every night we got back we were always told the same thing about how we will never be back in with our mum and that she never loved us since she was going through a hard time. I remember being scared of my step-dad the first time I met him I think it might have had to do with the scar on his face and that he jokingly growled at me when I first met him. I remember my sister and brother both arguing about who got to sit next to him on the bus and all I did was stay quiet and just sat next to my mum. I still remember the chills I got that day when I met him.

After a few months of all of that happening and my brother getting told off the carers agreed that they couldn’t look after her so they sent him off every month to another family so they could just spend time with me and my sister and when we asked them why they kept sending him off their answer was that they couldn’t handle him even though their kids were just as bad. I guess it’s easier to send someone who you never found as a family member away from your own kids. Every time that he was sent away they took me and my sister away and well it wasn’t the same. I always thought that if you go away then you will take the whole family. It started to just every month we went away and went on coach trips and things like that.

Then they went away and left me, my sister, and brother, and well we were all split again to different foster carers. My brother went to the family that was looking after him every month and me and my sister to another family. We were supposed to be starting secondary school for the first time and our carers were away after they told us they would be there for it. I still remember my first day and how scared I was to start. It didn’t help that the first day we went there we were late all because our carer didn’t tell the taxi driver where we were going to be. So we ended up at the school after lunch and well we still got made to go. The carers we were staying with at the time kept ringing up our social worker and theirs and in the end managed to get us there. As soon as the taxi got there and by the time we got to school we were more branded the weird sisters since we were in care which our whole class found out before we had the chance to tell them that we weren’t living with our mum. We were also branded as the weird sisters by the carers I think there were only two carers that I and my sister stayed with that never treat us any differently than their own kids.

We were put with one twice only because we asked social services if we could go back and our brother was allowed to come and see us whenever we wanted to see him and then we were told we were allowed to call or our mum ring us whenever she wanted and there was no set date to her ringing us. I was really excited about that so during the two weeks we stayed with the family then she ended up ringing us four times instead of twice a week. I remember the foster carers so vibrantly because they took us out the minute our original carers left to get us the food we wanted since they never knew what we like and the two twins and baby they had every night we stayed with them they asked me and my sister to read to them. It was usually their dad who read to them but they had gotten a connection between us and when the kids had settled down for bed me and my sister spent time together. The first day we were there however we stayed in our room because we thought we had to since we were made to at our other carers and the woman came into the room and told us we were allowed downstairs.

It wasn’t till a few months when my life changed again. This time I don’t know if it was for the better or the worst. I guess it would have been better for my brother since he was allowed to go to start seeing our mum more than me and my sister in Scarborough. He was allowed to stay over because we never knew what was going on. Then the dreadful day came to me. The day that I found out that my brother was moving back in with our mum. I and my sister were only told in the morning that he was going and I couldn’t feel myself breathe when I was told I remember being told and how I envied him at the time. As soon as he left he moved in the morning and then we started to strip his bedroom since my sister was supposed to be moving into it.

Once my brother moved everything changed again. My brother moved back in with my mum so I got to talk to him when my mum phoned along with my step-dad who I had gotten so used to speaking to and everything but I couldn’t help but feel upset. I always wanted to live back with my mum and my brother got that. He got to wake up every day to talk to them and hug her. He got to be with her every day and have the life he never had as a kid. I know that he got to have a life with her like me and my sister did when he lived with our dad but I was more upset that I wasn’t there to be there with him. With my mum.

After he moved everything changed. The weekly phone calls got fewer and fewer. We were thrown into a different activity club every night and we had no time to ourselves. I hated it. Then contact changed again. We went to see our mum once a fortnight on a Thursday we went to our granddads and met her there. That happened fortnightly until the visits came to a standstill from our mum. I have not long found out the reason why. I and my sister were allowed to go see our granddad but when we were at school our carer was ringing our mum and told her not to bother coming through because we were too busy when in reality we were still allowed to go see our granddad. Since the Thursdays weren’t working me and my sister spoke to our social and said that we wanted to start to sleep with our mum so it went to see her once a month and then the carers got wind of how much fun we were having. They use to pick us up on a Sunday and I remember telling my mum and step-dad that I and my sister didn’t want to go back. We wanted to stay with them. Our mum uses to pick us up on Saturday at our granddad's and then take us through to Scarborough. Where we’d spend the best days with them and come back on the Sunday after being picked up from the carers. But then it changed again the whole contact to only in the school holidays and well there weren’t many of them so we could only see our mum five times a year and then it was only allowed to be for a day.