It was a privilege to be one of the panel members for the 2023 Black Care Experience Conference London organised by CEO, The Transformed You and Founder of the Black Care Experience, Judith Denton. Theme of the event: The Culturally Competent Workforce. It was an inspiring authentic and deeply reflective event with discussions that drew some emotions… It was inspiring to hear from the care-experienced themselves on how they successfully navigated the care system and are now using their experiences to educate others. Their commitment to ensuring that their voices are heard towards improving the experiences of other children coming into care is simply incredible.
What are Black care-experienced young people and adults telling us about how to make the experiences of vulnerable looked-after children in care better? How can Local authorities, social workers and foster carers, etc. keep Black children in care connected to their heritage, culture, and identity? It seems straightforward, but not always so.
Learning for Professionals and Local Authorities:
✅ Show Cultural Curiosity. Ask questions and hear the voice of the child both the spoken and unspoken words. Put yourself in the shoes of the child.
✅ Mandatory training for social workers, foster carers on culture, identity and cultural sensitivity to give knowledge and confidence around what to say, how to say it and when to say it.
✅ Equip Black children to deal with bullying, microaggressions, racism, conscious and unconscious bias, etc.
✅ Allow the child/children / young people themselves to lead cultural competence discussions.
✅ The whole foster family must be culturally competent, not just the primary foster carer.
✅ Cultural competence is not a destination but a continuous journey.
Relinquish the need to be right and learn.
✅ Do not categorise children, do not presuppose what children would like or not like. Ask them!
✅ Promote each child’s separate identity. Show them warmth and love. Children can often feel and see your love for them.
✅ Social workers should intentionally give extra support to Black children placed in different intercultural placements.
✅ Suppressing or ignoring the voices of Black children and young people in care is not helpful. Their voices come out in other ways. The outcome might be over-representation in the criminal justice system, poor mental health, and inability to thrive.
Do you agree? What do you think is important for keeping Black children in care connected to their culture, identity, and heritage?