Cathy Glass - Another Forgotten Child

Laura stood and went over to select a game while Aimee remained on the sofa, studying its fabric as though she’d never seen anything like it before. Then she began struggling out of her jacket. ‘It’s bleeding hot in ’ere,’ she said. ‘I’m gonna take me coat off.’

‘Good choice,’ I said, throwing her a smile.

Kristen took some papers from her briefcase and as we left the room we heard Laura suggest to Aimee they do a jigsaw together and Aimee ask what a jigsaw was.

‘Aimee is eight,’ I said quietly to Kristen in the hall. ‘And she doesn’t know what a jigsaw is?’

‘It doesn’t surprise me,’ Kristen said. ‘She’s been so neglected. There were never any toys at her mother’s flat, so Aimee watched television all day and night. Susan said the toys were at Aimee’s father’s flat but he wouldn’t let me in, so I could never substantiate that. I doubt there were toys there, though. All their money went on drugs.’

Once we were in the front room with the door closed Kristen confided that Aimee’s was one of the worse cases of neglect she’d ever come across, and repeated that she couldn’t understand why she hadn’t been removed from home sooner. Then she said again that Aimee had very bad head lice, so my family and I should be careful not to catch them.

‘I’ll treat her hair tonight,’ I said. ‘I have a bottle of lotion.’

‘Good,’ Kristen said. ‘She needs a bath as well. She smells something awful.’

I nodded, for I had noticed as she’d walked in. ‘I’ll do that as well before she goes to bed.’

‘You know Aimee used to kick and bite her mother when she tried to wash her?’ Kristen reminded me.

‘Yes, I know. I read it in the referral.’

‘There’s a high level of contact with her mother,’ Kristen said, moving on. ‘Face-to-face contact will be supervised at the family centre and it will take place after school on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. There will be telephone contact every night they don’t see each other, including weekends. Can you monitor the phone contact, please, on speakerphone?’

‘Yes,’ I said. This was something I was often asked to do. ‘So is the care plan eventually to return Aimee home?’ I asked. That was the most likely explanation for the very high level of contact – so that the bond between Aimee and her mother would be maintained for when Aimee was eventually rehabilitated at home.

‘Good grief! No!’ Kristen exclaimed, shocked. ‘There’s no chance of Aimee being returned home. Her mother has been given enough chances to sort herself out in the past. The care plan is to try to find Aimee an adoptive home or, failing that, a long-term foster placement.’

‘So why is there so much contact?’ I asked, puzzled. ‘It seems cruel if there’s no chance of her going home.’

‘Susan’s barrister pushed for it in court and there was a good chance that if we hadn’t agreed the judge wouldn’t have granted us the care order.’

‘What?’ I asked, amazed. ‘With this level of neglect?’

‘I know, it’s ludicrous.’ Kristen sighed. ‘But the threshold for granting care orders is so high now that children are being left at home for longer than they should.’

Not for the first time I thought how badly the whole child protection and care system needed reviewing and revising. While no one wants to see a family split, early intervention can give a child another chance at life. By the age of eight most of the damage is done and it is very difficult to undo.

‘As mentioned in the referral,’ Kristen continued, checking the essential information forms she’d taken from her briefcase, ‘Aimee wets the bed.’

‘I’ve put a protective cover on the mattress,’ I said. ‘It’s not a problem.’

‘Good. It was at home. The mattress Aimee and her mother slept on in the lounge stank of urine. It was disgusting and you could smell it as soon as you walked into the flat. Now, as you know, Aimee needs firm boundaries and routine,’ Kristen continued. ‘There were none at home. And as I mentioned on the phone Susan is very good at making allegations and complaints against foster carers, so be careful. She seems to think that if she gets her children moved enough times they will eventually be returned to her, but of course it doesn’t work like that.’

‘Susan has contact with her other children?’ I asked.

‘Some. A lot of it is informal. Once kids become teenagers you can’t stop them getting on a bus and going to see their natural parents, and many of them seem to gravitate home.’ Kristen sighed again, and then, turning to the back page of the set of forms, said: ‘Can you sign this, please, and then we’ll show Aimee her room and I’ll be off.’

We both signed the relevant form which gave me the legal right to look after Aimee, and then we returned to the sitting room. Laura and Aimee were on the floor poring over a large-piece jigsaw. It was obvious Aimee hadn’t got a clue what to do and had been relying on Laura to do the puzzle for her – a puzzle for pre-school children aged two to four years.

‘Aimee,’ Kristen said brightly, ‘Cathy is going to show us your room now. Won’t that be nice?’

Aimee seemed to agree that it would be nice and hauled herself to her feet. I noticed she hadn’t got Jodie’s hyperactivity; if anything Aimee’s movements were very slow, lumbering almost. Laura stood and I led the way out of the sitting room, down the hall and upstairs. As we passed the bedrooms I said, ‘This is my daughter Paula’s bedroom. She’s seventeen. You’ll meet her later. And this is Lucy’s. She’s at work now.’

‘That’ll be nice, won’t it, Aimee?’ Lauren enthused. ‘Two grown-up girls to play with.’ I wondered if Paula had overhead this comment and what she thought of it!

Aimee didn’t say anything until we got to her room, when her face lit up. ‘Cor, this is nice. Is it all for me?’ she said with touching sincerity.

‘Yes. This is your room. Just for you,’ I said.

‘Can me mum come and stay with me? She’d like it ’ere,’ Aimee said, running her hands over the duvet on the bed.

‘No,’ Kristen said. ‘You’ll see your mum at the family centre. She won’t be able to come here.’

‘I know that,’ Aimee snapped. ‘You told me already. I ain’t thick.’

Kristen let it go but I could see how easily Aimee could change from being polite and engaging to confrontational and aggressive.

‘This is where you keep your clothes,’ I said, opening the wardrobe door, and then the drawers, to show her.

‘I won’t be needing all that,’ Aimee said. ‘I ain’t got many clothes.’

‘I’ll be buying you some,’ I said positively, with a smile.

‘No you won’t,’ Aimee said sharply. ‘That’s me mother’s job.’

‘Aimee,’ Laura said evenly, ‘while you are living here with Cathy she will buy your clothes and cook your meals, like your mother did at your house.’

‘But she didn’t,’ Aimee said, quick as a flash. ‘That why I’m in bleeding foster care. She didn’t buy me clothes. They were given to us. She didn’t take me to school, and she didn’t give me any boundaries, whatever they are. And she gave me too many biscuits, so me teeth got bad. That’s why I’m in foster care and not wiv me mum. You know that!’

I turned to stifle a smile as Aimee finished her lecture. Clearly Aimee didn’t miss much and she had such a quaint way of putting things – a mixture of child-like honesty and middle-aged weariness. I didn’t know if Aimee’s explanation of why she was in care was something that had been said to her, possibly by a social worker, or if it was a deduction Aimee had made, but it was accurate. Laura and Kristen were smiling too.