Changing the Narrative. Refusing the Script

Abstract

ABSTRACT Rarely do we hear a narrative written in the first person, written from the perspective of a child who grew up in the foster care system. This paper provides a window into the interior world of a child who experienced traumatic loss and abandonment. This child–born to emigrant Jamaican parents–grew up in the foster care system in the UK from the early 1970ʹs through the late 1980ʹs. This first-person account is written from the perspective of a child, but also from the perspective of a licensed social worker, a clinician with 26+ years of experience working with foster care youth and families. The writer is a graduate of The New School for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, where he received training in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy. This narrative is just one perspective of a personal journey, and in no way aims to speak for all children who grow up in the foster care system. Given some of the emotionally charged content in this paper, a few details are written in a deliberately vague way to protect the privacy of all persons involved.