Another Forgotten Child. Cathy Glass
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Certain details in this story, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect the family’s privacy.
HarperElement
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published by HarperElement 2012
FIRST EDITION
© Cathy Glass 2012
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
Cathy Glass asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN 9780007486779
Ebook Edition © September 2012 ISBN: 9780007486786
Version 2017-01-17
Contents
Copyright
Chapter One: The Child from Hell
Chapter Two: Awaiting Aimee
Chapter Three: A Challenge
Chapter Four: ‘I Want Biscuits’
Chapter Five: Severe Neglect
Chapter Six: ‘I’ll Tell Me Mum!’
Chapter Seven: Should Have Done More
Chapter Eight: Meeting Susan
Chapter Nine: ‘He’s Horrible’
Chapter Ten: Poor Role Models
Chapter Eleven: The Phone Call
Chapter Twelve: Craig
Chapter Thirteen: More Trouble
Chapter Fourteen: Keep Asking
Chapter Fifteen: Quiet and Withdrawn
Chapter Sixteen: Serious Allegation
Chapter Seventeen: Problem Family
Chapter Eighteen: Flashback
Chapter Nineteen: Hatchet
Chapter Twenty: ‘Father Christmas Didn’t Come to My House’
Chapter Twenty-One: Going for Gold
Chapter Twenty-Two: Perfect Christmas
Chapter Twenty-Three: A New Year
Chapter Twenty-Four: Jason
Chapter Twenty-Five: A Winner Now
Chapter Twenty-Six: Progress
Chapter Twenty-Seven: A Chance Meeting
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Peter Rabbit
Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Visit
Chapter Thirty: An Incredible Family
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Exclusive sample chapter
Aimee is aggressive. She kicks, bites, screams in her mother’s face, and pulls out her mother’s hair. Her mother states she is afraid of Aimee and has to lock herself in the bathroom or run to neighbours for protection when Aimee attacks her. Her mother states that Aimee killed the kittens their cat had by strangling them.
‘What!’ I gasped, glancing up from reading the referral.
Jill nodded sombrely. ‘Read on. It doesn’t get any better.’ Jill was my support social worker (also known as a link worker) from Homefinders, the agency I fostered for. We were in my sitting room and Jill was watching me carefully as I read the details of the eight-year-old girl the social services were bringing into care and looking for a foster home for.
I continued to read:
Aimee’s parents live apart and Aimee lives mainly with her mother. The flat is always dirty and freezing cold, and there is never any food in the cupboards. Aimee and her mother sleep on a stained mattress on the floor in the living room, as the one bedroom is too damp to use. Aimee is often unkempt, grubby, and has head lice. She refuses to go to school. Her mother is unable to cope with Aimee and often leaves her with other adults, many of them men and registered drug users. Susan (Aimee’s mother) is unable to set boundaries or routines for Aimee and states that Aimee becomes violent if she is not allowed to do what she wants. A family support worker was put in to try and help, but Susan was unable to stand up to her daughter. Aimee’s mother and father have been intravenous drug users. It is likely they still use. Both parents have served prison sentences for drug dealing.
I turned the page and under the heading ‘Family members and other related persons’ I read that Aimee had five older half-brothers and -sisters, all of whom had different fathers and all of whom had been taken into care as young children. The eldest of the siblings was now twenty-seven and the family had been known to the social services since he was born – twenty-seven years ago!
‘So why didn’t the social services bring Aimee into care sooner?’ I asked, looking up at Jill. ‘With the mother’s history of drug abuse and being unable to care for her children, why leave Aimee at home for eight years?’
‘It looks as if Aimee fell through the net,’ Jill said. ‘She was on the child protection register at birth.’
‘At birth! All that time – eight years – and no one intervened?’
‘I know,’ Jill sighed.
I leant back in my chair and stared at the referral in my hand. In the twenty-five years I’d been fostering I’d looked after children before who’d ‘fallen through the net’, which meant they had been overlooked or simply forgotten by the social services and society generally. How many more children were going to be left unprotected before sweeping changes were made to our social services system? A child is placed on the child protection (CP) register, also known as the ‘at risk’ register, when there are serious concerns for his or her safety. Such a measure is supposed to be a short-term one