Sharing pride in who you are

As a single parent in her late thirties, Debbie wanted to have another child, but without all the “physical thing of pregnancy”! She wasn’t quite sure how to go about it when, two years ago, she noticed an open day organised by PACT (Parents And Children Together, an adoption and fostering agency). She went along, thinking they would reject her for being single and living in a council house, but was delighted to be told she could be considered.

Debbie went home and discussed the possibility of welcoming another child into the family with her birth daughter, Mica, then aged 10. Mica had often asked Debbie if she was going to have a baby, and was eager to have a new sister. Debbie started the process, and all along the way involved her daughter: “It’s really the two of us together who are in this,” she says. “After all, she’s just as much a part of it. It’s about bringing a child into her home!”

A social worker came to visit the family, and later the home study started. Debbie says: “It was very hard. There are some things you do when you are 15 that you want to forget when you are 35... But it was very positive for me, as I felt, Wow! Look at where I am today. Those things have made me into the person I am today.”

Debbie was pleased that her social worker was black like herself, although from a completely different ethnic and cultural background, as it made it easier for the social worker to understand where she was coming from. “I was brought up in a very strict West Indian home in the 70s,” she says, “and if you didn’t do what was asked, you’d get it! But my social worker understood I didn’t want to follow that route. With my daughter, we sit and talk a lot, and work things out.”

Next came the adoption and fostering panel, whose role was to consider whether Debbie was a suitable person to provide a permanent foster home. “All the members of the panel were white,” she remembers, “and I was a bit taken aback by that, but I also felt my social worker knew me in depth and I was aware that she had written a good report.” She adds: “The panel may have been taken aback too, as considering a black foster carer was a first for PACT, but in the end, they only asked me a few small questions, and I was approved!”

Surprisingly, what has taken longest is finding the right child. “I don’t know why it’s taking so long,” says Debbie. “Maybe the children’s agencies find the fostering fees too high. It’s quite disheartening. You have opened up your whole life during the home study, and then you can’t find a child.” Debbie has looked at the profiles of a number of children sent by agencies, and was surprised that some contained out-of-date information and many featured children who had been sexually abused or had mental health issues, although she had made it clear she felt such children wouldn’t fit into her family. “Why don’t agencies take more care and co-ordinate better?” she asks. “Also, I feel very strongly that it’s not because I’m black that any black child will fit in with my family.”

Debbie is from Barbados and would like to foster an African-Caribbean girl born in the UK from West Indian parents, aged between five and nine. In her opinion, black children do best in black families as: “It seems that black children who are cared for in white families tend to lose a lot of their own identity and become confused as to who they are. I’m West Indian and I can pass on some of that to a child. I’m also very open to direct contact between the child and her birth family, as this is one way in which they can have knowledge of who they are.”

Debbie and Mica live in a multi-cultural neighbourhood where, she says, “the race issue is not a problem”. There are Asian and African people in their street and the school is very mixed. In her life, Debbie has encountered very little actual prejudice, although as she works with elderly people, they do sometimes say things like: “Your English is good, where are you from?” To which she replies: “I was born and bred here!” Occasionally they swear at her or say: “It was one of you lot that did it”, and she deliberately misunderstands, saying: “Oh, you mean one of my colleagues...” Debbie feels that with these elderly people, it’s often a matter of ignorance and that they don’t fully realise what they are saying: “I find it best usually not to take heed. I have the confidence to do that. I’m proud of who I am and, just as I have helped my daughter, I would help my new child be proud of who she is and of her colour.”

“Mica knows a lot about her background,” Debbie explains. “We have ‘black’ books in the home. She loves all kinds of food, including West Indian food like rice and peas, but she loves roast dinners too. And, as a black person, I know about black hair and skin. I go to the salon, my daughter goes to the salon, and I know how to plait hair the African-Caribbean way.

We also visit Barbados a lot.” While waiting for the new child, Debbie and Mica are busy with their preparations. They have already changed their daily routines. For example, because of the home study, they no longer sit on the sofa, eating and watching television, but have dinner together at the table Debbie bought especially, and talk about their day. They also no longer walk naked from bathroom to bedroom, although both felt very comfortable with this, but have understood why it would not be appropriate with a foster child in the house.

Once the child is placed with them, the main bedroom will be divided into two, so each child has their own room. “We’ll not be doing the decorating until then, so she can choose what colours and what bed she wants. We’ll do it together, and this should help her feel more at home. I’m proud of who I am and, just as I have helped my daughter, I would help my new child be proud of who she is and of her colour.”

Helping the child settle into her family means a lot to Debbie. She had thought of short-term fostering, but felt she was not strong enough to keep going through the upset of children leaving. Also, with permanent fostering, the child can say, this is home, this is my family. Adoption could have been another option, but as a single parent, she felt it was not financially feasible. Debbie works part time in a hospital and also does some caring in the community. Her priorities are clear: “I love going to Barbados; my mum lives there and Mica is very attached to her. I work hard and I want to be able to afford all the airfares. I want as good a quality of life for this child as for my daughter, but I don’t want to work full time. I’m a mum. I want to be home when the children come back from school.”

As the first foster carer to be approved by PACT through their new project to encourage mixed-ethnicity, black and Asian, Muslim families to consider adoption and fostering, Debbie has raised the organisation’s profile by talking on regional radio and television. “The more people hear about it the better!” she says.

For more information, contact: Sonnia Mogg, PACT Black Families, 7 Southern Court, South Street, Reading RG1 4QS Telephone: 0118 938 7600 Email: sonniam@pactcharity.org

Originally published in the Be My Parent newspaper in July 2004.

This article is published with the kind permission of the people involved. You may download it for your own reference but if you wish to use it for any other purpose, please contact Be My Parent for authorisation: Be My Parent, BAAF, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Telephone: 020 7421 2666/5/4.

Last updated: 10 September 07

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