The Secure Start® Podcast

#31 Truth First: Caring Beyond The System, with Louise Allen

• Colby Pearce • Season 1 • Episode 31

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Some conversations burn slowly and then glow for days. Sitting down with Louise Allen, we trace a line from a childhood rewritten by others to a life spent restoring names, dignity, and futures. Louise grew up in care, became a long‑term foster carer, and now writes bestsellers that refuse to look away. She talks candidly about forced adoption, the quiet children who go unseen, and the neighbour who saved her by offering what the system couldn’t: warmth without conditions and a place to just be a kid.

We get practical, not theoretical. Louise shows how to keep a child’s dignity intact in a world of notes and meetings: put their photo on the table, say the answer instead of asking the painful question again, and write logs to the child because they will read them. We explore why dogs often do what adults can’t, acting as co‑regulators and night watch when self‑harm risks rise. And we challenge the culture of “minimum standards,” arguing for training, support, and respect that match the complexity of foster care. Warm welcomes, eye contact, a kitchen that smells like biscuits—these are not small things. They are the work.

Louise also opens the door to Spark Sisterhood, the charity she founded after visiting girls who’d fallen off the cliff edge of care. We unpack how inconsistent allowances, isolation, and learned dependencies collide at 18, and how Spark’s Care‑to‑Career program builds life skills, confidence, and pathways into real jobs in construction, engineering, and tech. It’s a blueprint for post‑care support that trades pity for agency and short‑term fixes for paid futures. Along the way, we touch on her Thrown Away Children books, the power of telling the truth with humour, and the new Foster Care Uncovered podcast she co‑hosts with Sarah Anderson.

If you care about children’s mental health, foster care, trauma‑informed practice, or the transition from care to independence, this one will stay with you. Listen, share with a colleague, and leave a review to help more people find these stories—and the hope inside them.

Louise’s Bio:

Louise is the award-winning author behind the bestselling Thrown Away Children series. Her stories draw from the lived experiences of being part of a foster family. Her brand-new series, Slave Girls, continues her mission to share the real, often unheard stories of children and young people—with courage, honesty, and hope.
 
 Through Spark Sisterhood, Louise is building a community where girls from care are met with friendship and essential life and employment skills, and where they are encouraged to believe in themselves and their futures. One of the charity’s most exciting projects is Care to Career, a two-week programme that offers girls jobs, apprenticeships and work experience by working with employers. The programme supports young women aged 18–25. It’s about more than just finding a job, which they do, it’s about creating space for young women to thrive.
 
 At the heart of everything Louise does is a belief in the power of real-life stories. Through the marketing agency, Louise, she helps founders, charities, and mission-led companies connect more deeply with their audiences through branding, content, and campaigns that are built with empathy and purpose. Whether it’s supporting a small charity or reshaping how we talk about foster care, Louise brings clarity, heart, and strategy to every project.
 
 Having grown up in care and now fostering children herself, Louise understands the care system from the inside out; she has a unique 360˚ understanding. She is a respected and leading voice. Her work is now focused on changing the conversation around fostering in the UK by challenging the fear-led culture, the lac

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Colby:

Hello, and welcome to the Secure Start podcast.

Louise:

And I began to use creativity as a way of thinking and a way of working. And sometimes you get drawn to these things because you just can't live with the injustices that go on. And if you see it and you know it, you can't walk past it. That man saved my life. So again, the other thing I would say is things aren't always what you think they are. The people on paper who were meant to be really good and kind and the puppy were not. The people next door who were poor, who uh were a bit rough on the edges, I guess, were the kindest people I met. I have to absolutely believe it. If we put the children leave, genuinely, genuinely hot fellow, actually with a bit green, fellows, will all the green, and the children. I wanted to be very happy on a dream. Somebody who smiled with the simple gonna eat me. But just someone who's a child. It's all in the face. That's all I wanted. It wasn't about money, it wasn't about material things, it was about that feeling that you were with an adult that looked at you with kindness in their eyes because it was in the heart. And children read that instantly. So I think most of the work we do could be helped if we worked on ourselves first minimum. Why aren't they maximally? No one ever tells the truth in this world. It's layers of eyes. The parents don't tell the truth because they're in a position of failure and threat from the children's social care. The children don't tell the truth because they're loyalties to their parents. Uh, and they say a lot of what they think people want to hear because they're used to it. Foster carers don't tell the truth because they're terrified of obligation. Social workers don't tell the truth because they fear that they might lose the foster carer. Yet no one is telling the truth. So I thought, wouldn't it be fun just to tell the truth?

Colby:

Hello and welcome to the Secure Start podcast. I'm Colby Pierce, and joining me for this episode is an inspirational UK-based foster carer, author, artist, and champion of post-care support for young women. Before we begin, I'd just like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands that I come to you from, the Ghana people of the Adelaide Plains, and acknowledge the continuing connection the living Ghana people feel to land, waters, culture, and community. I'd also like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. My guest this episode is Louise Allen. Louise is the award-winning author behind the best-selling thrown away children series. Her stories draw from the lived experiences of being part of a foster family. Her brand new series, Slave Girls, continues her mission to share the real, often unheard stories of children and young people with courage, honesty, and hope. Through Spark Sisterhood, Louise is building a community where girls from care are met with friendship, an essential life and employment skills, and where they are encouraged to believe in themselves and in their futures. One of the charity's most exciting projects is Care to Career, a two-week program that offers girls jobs, apprenticeships, and work experience by working with employers. The program supports young women aged 18 to 25. It is about more than just finding a job, which they do. It's about creating a space for young women to thrive. At the heart of everything Louise does is a belief in the power of real life stories. Through the marketing agency Louise, she helps founders, charities, and mission-led companies connect more deeply with their audiences through branding, content, and campaigns that are built with empathy and purpose. Whether it's supporting a small charity or reshaping how we talk about foster care, Louise brings clarity, heart, and strategy to every project. Having grown up in care and now fostering children herself, Louise understands the care system from the inside out. She has a unique 360-degree understanding. She is a respected and leading voice. Her work is now focused on changing the conversation around fostering in the UK by challenging the fear-led culture, the lack of collaboration between agencies, and the reliance on legislation to drive change. Instead, she's advocating for honest dialogue, practical solutions, and a shared commitment to putting children and carers first. Welcome, Louise.

Louise:

Hello, Kobe. Thank you so much. That was was that me you were talking about?

Colby:

Well, of course it was. And I know that that uh from our uh conversations already, that's only part of the story, and maybe we'll we'll get into that um a little bit more as as we go through the podcast. And uh thankfully, it being late in the day and me tripping over my tongue, I can edit those bits out um in the in the final product. Um, but I just wanted perhaps just to kick us off, Louise. Is there anything that you would add to that um that bio?

Louise:

Um the only thing I would kind of not add but uh highlight because I think it's important uh to explain why someone like me would become so committed to the work I do. And and I do feel like it's sometimes it's accidental. It wasn't I was quite happy working in fashion and art, floating around, wafting, having a lovely time, but um it felt incredibly um trivial and sometimes uh not very important when in the back of my mind, my own experiences of the care system, because I was in care from before I was born, um it kind of didn't halt my creative career, it kind of changed it. And I began to use creativity as a way of thinking and a way of working, and sometimes you get drawn to these things because you just can't live with the injustices that go on, and if you see it and you know it, you can't walk past it. You just can't. So when I found out about my own understanding of myself, I because you you you don't know your own past until you gather all your evidence and lay it out in front of you, and even then there are holes. Is that um, if I can briefly say from the pro, because I always find this a bit of a shocker, not to me, but people to understand my father was a man in his 30s who was on his second marriage with children. My mother was 12 years old when she met him, or he met her. My father was a serial paedophile, and I found out as I got older. Now that changes the way you think about things because when I say to people my father was a paedophile, they think that it was me that he was having sex with, it wasn't, it was my mother. So I have a kind of I talk about child abuse a bit like I'm having a cup of tea and a piece of cake because it's my world that I live in. So that's the only thing I'd like to say is a kind of disclaimer to why you know I do I bother so much and I care so much.

Colby:

Yeah, you you've touched a bit on that and and your motivation. Um, is there anything else that you would say about where this motive motivation comes from and what continues to motivate you in the the various endeavors that you are engaged in?

Louise:

I think the motivation, I think you you're kind of born with it. I I kind of came into the world fighting for the underdog, um, not even realizing I was also one of the underdogs. Um, and I think I saw a lot of pain. I heard a lot of stories. I had a an adoptive mother and foster mothers that always overshared. So I was kind of burdened with their uh knowledge uh about the world. And I you kind of when you're a child and you get that level of you know, your optics are like that, and you know those stories, you have a huge sense of responsibility, and sometimes it felt too much, but I I'm I'm creative, so I would turn that into something that would work with me. But I've always been very aware of how other people feel, and I think that's my motivation. I can't, I don't like people around me being sad or lost or hurt, it bothers me dearly.

Colby:

So, in some ways, the relief of suffering is is has been a prime motivator for you.

Louise:

Absolutely, Colby. I'm gonna have to stop one of my dogs is howling. I'm gonna go and shut the door.

Colby:

We have a shared interest in dogs. You shared a story about how dogs have been uh lifelong friends and companions for you.

Louise:

Dogs to me are are um to me, they're the most uh beautiful creatures I can think of. I absolutely love their souls and find them so forgiving for what we do to them. And when I was uh a child, in in my first well, in every single book, I it occurred to me that I was writing as much about my dogs as I was about me. So wherever when when I was in care and when I was at places or at new foster places, or wherever I was, I would find a dog and I would sit with the dog and befriend the dog. And and and at my most saddest times in my life, I found I'm sitting next to a dog, and it was uh I I I just love them dearly. I had a dog that um my adoptive mother got rid of because she got jealous of the devotion I had to the dog, and I came home from school and she just had it put down. And that kind of of all the things she had done to me, and she'd done some pretty horrendous things, that hardened me to the point where I could not, I I knew it was just a matter of time till I left. But she did some horrendous things, but she got my dog killed because she didn't like the fact I was up ever six o'clock every morning walking it around a university parks in Oxford, and I love my dog's company, and I still do.

Colby:

I've got two, and I was actually looking at a uh dog rescue last night, just sort of trying to convince my husband that we can have another one, and of course, we're having this conversation because we just had to have a temporary interlude while you went in um and and did something for one of your dogs, yeah. Who's having a very uh unnatural experience at the moment?

Louise:

Yeah, she's having a fancy pregnancy and she surrounded herself with uh the children's shoes thinking they're puppies.

Colby:

Oh dear, poor thing. Yeah, you yeah, so um you you mentioned your adoptive uh parent and you you you indicated that you um you had foster foster mums as well. Um so I guess from um from my perspective and probably from the perspective of our listeners, they would be really keen to hear about what you think um i i is important for foster carers to know and do in that role in consideration of your your experience of having been um cared for by them and and being a foster parent themselves uh yourself now.

Louise:

Uh yeah, and I thank you for that. That's a really important question. And and and probably the the the work I find myself doing, uh consciously or unconsciously, is trying to to unravel that to spare the pain um of the the foster carers, the doctors, and mostly the children and the communities around them, because we don't do this on our own. We have family and we have neighbors and we have friends that all buy into what our affections are. So my my experience of being in care before I was born um was because of my mother's age, because she was at school. I was then a forced adoption. Um in England there was a prolific amount of us being adopted. Now I I have often wondered whether that's connected to the late 60s, to to whether the it was a misuse or no use of the pill and the the kind of culture going on in the background of free love and sex and all the rest of it and misunderstanding. In our case, in my mother's case, sheer exploitation by a man that was clearly a predator. Um and so you you you there's a dishonesty, I think, that uh uh underpins uh what what we are because when you are adopted or fostered, the first thing you that happens to you is your identity is changed and you lose your identity. Now, my birth mother, even though I had spoken to her throughout my life, I only found out two years ago that she's Italian. I had no idea why I was olive. I was told I might be Greek, and you realize that that people, the most important thing is to get the facts right, and if you don't have the absolute correct facts about identity, about family, and don't say them, don't guess, leave the gaps because we can fill them in later. And with the digital world now, we can access stuff on ancestry and so on quite quickly. I think me, I was called manufactured. Um, I was adopted by um a woman on my in my paperwork, which I have in a cupboard over there, uh, should never have adopted children, but she had adopted another child child before me and was under the spotlight for um serious child abuse, but then she was allowed to adopt me two years later. I was originally fostered. Because I think um of the prejudice at the time, I think they knew who my father was. Um he was quite he was uh I met him, he was not a nice person at all. Um and I think they uh my birth plan, not my birth plan, my care plan, the first thing on it was this child must be baptized. So I think the fact I was illegitimate, I was the result of uh uh uh uh because it paedophilia, they would have then I would imagine they would have blamed a girl for her uh behaviour. Um I I would imagine that I was very olive. Well, I faded a bit now, but when I was a child I was uh very dark. Um and I think I had the the the the all the the red flags for sort of devout deep prejudice and racism. So I kind of um was I was I was sort of binned off quite early, and I think I had a sense of that, and then I was um I don't, you know, you end up becoming when you are a foster child or an adopted child, and you know that you are living with someone else's family, the the hardest thing is trying to understand your own identity. Then you get to a stage which I got to when I discovered punk when I was a teenager, where you just think, well, I'll create my own identity, and my identity at that point was angry, creative, and sort of a bit wild. But when I was a child, I remember always feeling that there were conversations and whispers that I was not party to that were about me. When my um uh uh I was introduced to my birth mother because my adopted mother was trying to bin me off quite quickly because she'd had enough of us, and I was an incredibly quiet child. And I think the first thing that we need to understand when we uh work with children from trauma, or we're giving it to them on a daily basis, is that please watch out for the quiet ones, the shy ones, the quiet ones. We go unnoticed, and so my uh other adopted brother was taken away from me. We used to cling to each other, it was just I came downstairs and he was gone. I just saw a car leaving and he was put into residential care. So I'd lost my ally. I had a uh an Irish navy, and if you don't know what a navy is, they were they were brought over as cheap labor to build the roads and the railways, and he lived in the caravan in the orchard next door with some um evacuees from World War II, so Polish people. Um, and I used to sneak over there into the caravan for food and company, and I ended up becoming my greatest friend was an Irishman from County Court who lived in a caravan, drank Guinness, and used to protect me. If you read that back, small child in a caravan alone with an Irishman in his 60s and 70s, you would you would be alive. That man saved my life. So, again, the other thing I would say is things aren't always what you think they are. The people on paper who were meant to be really good and kind and and look after me were not. The people next door who were poor, who uh were a bit rough round the edges, I guess, were the kindest people I met. And learned and and kept he knew what was going on, but he he he kind of created created a magical space for me where I could be a child, and he taught and he had that wonderful Irish humour. So he taught me to laugh as well. So I'm grateful. So what would I say? I'd say you know, things aren't always what you think they are, and people definitely aren't always who they seem, and when it comes to trying to do life story work, it's never the truth, it will never be the truth until we decide it's the truth and the truth that we can live with. So it's um, and you learn so many bad things, you know, and and people are embarrassed of us. My adopted mum would introduce me if I'd done well at something, oh, this is my adopted daughter, then then literally blow on her nails and and brush her lapel like it was all her work. You know, you kind of you you you you're you're uh you you're appeasing a lot of people if you're quiet and shy. And then if you were like my adopted brother, he went through it like a bull in a china shop because he didn't know what to do with all his emotions. Either way, you're punished, either way it's a struggle. But now I'm a foster carer and I have long-term placement, so that's like you know, a bit like adoption, but much more social work intervention. I'd say that um the most important thing is the truth, and the truth will always do because we find out later. And I've and I've been, and if someone like me approaches a relative, a birth relative, or somebody from the past, it's not like the TV shows. We don't throw our arms around each other and go, Oh my god, you'll just look at your nose, it's just like mine. You don't do that. What you do is you you get a sense that they're looking at you thinking, What do you want? And people have met relatives who have said to me, I haven't got any money. But it's you you're always seen as the other, you know. If you look, we very rarely get put in wills, and and you know, we we're not financially taken care of. So I would ask anyone who does it to have a real think about what they why they're doing it. Is is it to replace something they've lost, a child they've lost, or a child they've never had, because you're just about to adopt or foster a unique universe that has the whole energy, and your job is to find it and to help them accept their own energy because they're fighting, children are constantly exhausted, and I see it with my children. I think I'm quite good at what I do, but I can see it in them that they're trying to bend and twist and to try and second guess how they can keep you happy to give them space to to do what they need to do. And I just think that we gotta do this better.

Colby:

So there's three, I guess three main things that I I took from that, Louise. And if there's some that I missed that you think are important to to also mention, do so. One the the remo the probably the latter one was the importance of understanding the children in your care. Understanding the depth to which they feel is you you use the word outsiders, um you you I know your books, you talk about throwing away children, you use the language of being binned. Um but that understand the depth to of lack or loss of of a feeling of belonging to everyone. And and the other thing that I think you said in there that was I thought really poignant, and um as it happens, I'm I I was writing questions for uh for upcoming podcast guests about the input the who we with whom I'm gonna I plan to be talking about other adults, you know, adults outside of the foster placement or the residential placement or the kinship placement. And um yeah, so you mentioned the the neighbour who the role of that he played in your life was so significant that you you he said you described him as having saved you. And um yeah, it puts me in mind, this is a theme that comes up quite regularly on our podcast about and and in my professional life as well, just about the vital role that um you know having at least one one good adult in your life who sees you, listens to you, and is there for you, particularly when times are tough. And um we know incidentally from um the study I'm most familiar with was a large-scale Irish study that was completed a bit more than a little bit more than 10 years ago now, but of um 12 to 25 year olds that showed that um and quite a lot, and it was quite a large sample size, but it showed that the children um or the the adults who were able to um report that they'd had someone in their life who saw them, who understood them, who was there for them. The difference for that population in terms of mental health and well-being, physical health and well-being, and and problematic behaviours is significant, yeah, whether you have that or you don't have that. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know if I missed any of those significant points in there, but there was getting to know the children, being aware of belonging and the and and how significant that is for young people, and and being aware of how the the the role of just being one good adult, at least one good adult. We of course we want more.

Louise:

It's well it I I could do my own little uh uh example is that I myself and uh the adopted other adopted brother who is a bit older than me, we live next door to together next to this orchard, but he didn't have I I'm always curious and always, you know, and and and there were cats and dogs around, you know, so yeah, it was a given for me. I was gonna get close to those animals. And he didn't have the he didn't make the effort, I guess, as a child to crawl through the fence and go and introduce himself. I made the effort several times a week um to crawl for the fence and to smile at people and to and I'm a natural smiler, and I I don't know whether I became a natural smiler for people to like me so I'd be rescued, or I don't know, we just did it differently, and I think it's all down to personality. My adopted brother struggles in life hugely, um, whereas I don't, and I think that connection I had with Sean, the Irishman, was he didn't say, How are you? How are you feeling? None of that. It was far more come over here and let's let's don't dig this garden, you know. Let's let's you know, let's do it. He used to let me um he had a comb over, he had a bold head and a comb. He used to wear braces and vests, you know, proper old school. And he would sit there reading the local paper, drinking in his name, plat his comb over and put makeup on it. He was completely at ease with himself, but he was very aware, I found out later, what was going on, and I respect him more now than ever, knowing that he knew and he placated her and he protected me. He didn't involve me in that discussion or in that world, he didn't get involved, he protected me, and I appreciate that because I got to have a childhood, I got to, you know, I and I love a gardening because of him, you know. So I'm grateful, and I'm grateful for people that don't keep saying, Are you alright? What's going on with you right now? You don't want you get sick of it as a child.

Colby:

I look and in my professional life, I I say to people, if you find yourself about to ask a child a question and you think you know what the answer would be, should they give it, don't ask the question. Say the answer. Say the answer. Because children our children, every time my experience is is when we ask them questions, their experience is what you know, another dumb adult that doesn't can't it can't see, can't hear, isn't looking, doesn't know. But when we when we say the answer, their experience is what finally, someone who who sees me and gets me.

Louise:

It's so important that is such a really inspiring and hopeful thing for me to hear because I live with children now who um you know I only we were doing some work the other day, they're in residential care for three years, and we were uh we we totted up um all the people that this child has had to tell her story to over the last five years, and it was 360 people, 70 care workers, five social workers, managers. Every time she went to AE, it was at least five doctors, nurses, because they never they always go, I want to hear it for myself. It's like, no, trust, trust the child, therapists, counsellors, teachers, whatever, uh other people. So we came up with the idea that we're going to make a recording.

Colby:

Yeah, it's a good idea.

Kouise:

Because she I just cannot say it one more time, and then when she refuses to engage and sits at her phone and scrolls and doesn't engage, they say they get angry with her.

Colby:

Yeah, yeah. I've never insisted that I mean, I've been doing working therapeutically. I had a primarily assessment role for the first seven years. Years of my career, and then I gradually did more and more therapy, although I had therapy, psychotherapy clients from the beginning, but 30 years. I've never expected a child, I've never asked a child to tell their story. Um I think that that's um re-traumatising. I think I think that children um get more out of a therapeutic encounter from warmth, from understanding, um, from feeling like they're a person of worth, that they're good enough, yeah, than yeah, raking over the coals of you know of what's happened in their life.

Louise:

And I just think it's a continuation of abuse when you because to what end are you asking? Because you haven't read the notes. We got her file, there was just one part of a file, which is 360 pages. This is just for one year of her life, you know, with the rest are coming because she's soon to be 18. And um, then she asked for another load. Um, and you you when you look at the paperwork that uh uh this is a bit I didn't say is that as a foster carer and a doctor, you are only ever as good from the beginning as what you have been told and what you know about the child. So when those notes are written, and I I I sat there trying to fight the tears off when I was going through her paperwork just the other evening, because it's careless, it's it they don't even get her name right, they don't, you know, it is so and they she said, but that didn't happen, they got that wrong, and you know, so they're building an identity, a picture of a child that isn't accurate, which is why I say the truth will always do. If you can't be the truth and there's less of it, then hallelujah! Just don't put stuff in that you're not sure about and you cannot uh hold to account because they uh it so we're only ever as good as what we know, and then what what I learned as a foster carer is those referrals, the redactions are you know what is not there is conspicuously loud, and you have to second guess.

Colby:

Yeah, I think um the word that was coming to me, and I've just noticed that I've got a nice shadow on my face because the sun is uh uh reflecting off the neighbor's roof. But um what I um the word that came to me was dignity. Like where is where's the dignity in for the child in the notes in the the records? I you had me in mind of a young person who complains that every aspect of her life, she's in a residential placement, but every aspect of her life is documented. Every every what time she got up, what she did for breakfast, rahdy rah. And yeah, and it's excuse me, Louise, I'm just gonna shut it off. There we go.

Louise:

There we are. And and that is so important because I when I, you know, was in care, I felt when I ran away at 15 because I just legged it from Oxford to Portsmouth, I got on a train after a horrendous incident of abuse, and I dragged myself three miles to the train station. I got on a train and I was gone. I felt like I'd broken out of prison. And it was liberating, and I worked very hard to make sure that I could earn money not to be anywhere near a social services or a social worker, because by then my trust had gone. So the fact that I'm back in this world much later working with children's social care, and I see some inspiring social workers, but I read those and I see a lot that I don't really want to see again. But I see I read the notes with great with great interest. I read I've got my own file, and most of it is redactions, and those redactions are not to protect me, they're to protect themselves, and you diminish more and more and more that you know you you kind of and and and in my um uh file all the way through, I'm hardly mentioned. There's even a note about you know, a particular thing happened where my adopted mother beaten me so badly, and they went, Oh, I suppose someone better go around and check on Louise, but it's Friday, I've got to go. Can you do it? It was all handwritten before my uh adoption because I was fostered first, because uh so many social workers said, Don't do it, don't do it. She must not, this woman must not adopt this child. There are all these handwritten notes saying, please don't do this from the Guardian Litem from the social workers. And I was still adopted, and I think it was because when you adopt you you you're one financial burden less for the local authority. And it's it, and I think what it made me very aware, angry originally, that we matter so little, we matter so little, and you you you see this in decision making now, and and I I am that foster care. I because I do I have this absolute belief that if we put the children's needs genuinely, genuinely heartfelt, matching with a bit of brain, first, we'll all agree, and the child will get what they need, but you get all these weird other things going on, careers, politics, you know. Why are children politicized? So you a lot of the the the words around children are lazy, um rude. Uh, I mean, just some of the stuff, and and then you get foster carers, and we have to write logs every week or two weeks. I do two weeks, I do two weeks for any foster carers who are listening. If you write them every week, you're gonna write about the minutiae. They go up, they clean their teeth, they they who cares? If you write them every three weeks, you forget. So every two weeks for me works out to be about the right, you get you get the right stuff in there, and I always write my logs to my child because it keeps me focused, it keeps me focused on that. I'm not recording their daily activity or then anything negative. What I am doing is I am on the journey with them as long as I can until they read this, and I want them to read that I said, Well, uh, it's not the child's name, but say, Sarah, you know, you had a really good day today, and uh, we we got through that bit, you know, with that bit, and I write it in a funny voice, and I use my voice, and I never talk about the the the the whoopsies and the disasters and the and if they abscond, I'll say, Well, we got your back, that's great. But I never because they will read it, we never want to be continually reminded of our failures, the failures that were put on us by other people, and I think that that how we write about children is essential. Everybody, doctors, therapists, counselors, you know, teachers, you know, we don't need to hear the negative, we're living that negative stuff. I remember it, and I see the children I look after. We you're living that daily, you don't need to be reminded, you just need to know that people know that you can you can get through this, and you'll be great.

Colby:

Yeah, yeah. And I have a I have a saying that when you get a group of adults in a room, often the first voice that is lost is the child's voice. And it's it's just remarkable how that happens and observing that happening. And I think in our pre-meet, you told me that about putting the photo of the child on the table. Yes, I did it on the table. Yeah.

Louise:

Yeah, I I and I, you know, you have to be a stage in your life where you really couldn't give a hoot about what other people think about you. I really don't care. I generally like I got what I want, got what I need. I don't need your your validation. But while we were in this meeting, we were it was an online one and they were talking not about the child, they were talking about the child, but not talking about the child and about all the problems it was causing them and the logistics. I just got her photograph and I just whacked it on the screen on camera and went, This is who we're talking about, and I'm gonna every time you don't talk about her, I'm gonna put her face up. Yeah, and it and it, you know, and then they were like a little bit shocked, and then they kind of and I said, How can you not? She's not even here. We're talking about her, and she's not here. Do you understand how that feels for her? She knows we're here, she's not in the room virtually or the least I can do is remind you who she is, and they and it did change the whole mood of the meeting because suddenly they lightened up. It stopped being about their commissioning and about the the egos and the wars, and I want to further my career because I've managed to save 500 pounds this month or whatever, and aren't I wonderful? Because I really generally don't care about the adults, I care about the children, and you have when you go in with that attitude at first, it's like what Gandhi said, didn't it? When you have when you want something big to happen, when you want to create a change, first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they get angry with you, then you win. And I keep that in my head because I know they go, God, it's yeah, then they get a bit, you can feel the pursed lips and the and but that's all about them, not me or the child. All I am doing is reminding them that this human being, this vulnerable, only vulnerable because we have bureaucratically made that child vulnerable on the fact that they were physically and emotionally vulnerable before. So the corporate parent continues the vulnerability, and then they go, and then they get you know, then you get to the conversation with 16 or 18, and you go, right, and off you go then.

Colby:

Bye. I want to get to you and talk to you a little bit about the Sparte Sisterhood in a in a in a bit, but there's a couple of other things that uh just something that I want to cover off about what you've said so far. There was an e there was a um I refer I refer to this study in my in my writing and um it was published in the mid-1950s under the article titled The Nature of Love. Um and uh Harry Harlow was his name, and he and and he published his study in a very esteemed psychology journal. I think it was in the American Psychologist in 1955, and it was and this is the you may have heard of it, but this is the experiments where they separated infant rhesus monkeys from their mothers um shortly after birth. And what they were they were testing is you know how how important is it to the infant um that they get fed? Um they had mother surrogate, so they have would have a mother surrogate that uh would feed them, but was wrapped in wire, was not warm, was not cuddly, they couldn't cut it cuddle into it, and it could feed them. But then they they also had a mother surrogate who was wrapped in terry towel and had a a like load behind it, so and it was roughly shaped so that the infant could cling onto it, and it was it was warm, it was soft, and um and and I won't, I'll spare you some of the details, but the the long and the short of of it all is how much because they were looking at what are the primary needs of a child, and the primary needs turned out to be as concluded from those studies, were warmth contact to comfort. Whether they feed you or you know, and and I was reflecting on your experience growing, you know, you you I'm sure you were well you may not have been well fed, but but your adoptive.

Louise:

Well there was a case I had to eat.

Colby:

Yeah. But um but the kid, yeah, it was that was game changing really for um uh for for thought thinking at that time, that in fact it's not the fact that the parent feeds and uh the child that is is a primary uh driver for the child orienting to the parent. It's that they it is that they provide warmth and comfort. And in actual fact, when they frighten these baby monkeys and they had a choice of either going to the mother surrogate that fed them but was just made of wire, or the one that was soft and warm but didn't feed them, the babies would always go to the soft and warm um uh mother surrogate. So Jessica, you know, I I think about that in terms of the warmth that you undoubtedly experienced with Sean from Sean and um yeah, and and you know, like it's not it's not that sophisticated in a way, you know, the the raising and the care of children, it is that um we do provide them with love and comfort and warmth. Yeah, yeah.

Louise:

And it's so interesting because every child I've looked after, which is over 30 now, um, and and some stay for years and years, is that when they go somewhere else or when they report about back on their residentials or their previous foster carers or whatever. If I can couple that with when when I began fostering and my memories of my own childhood, because I didn't want to, it was my husband's idea. I was the most reluctant area you'd find. But you know, I I I absolutely do I love it? I don't know. You just do it and you don't think about do I love it or not, because it's not that kind of uh work. But I wanted to be for my own children, I have two birth children, my stepdaughters when they were young, and all the students because I used to teach in a university. I wanted to be consciously or subconsciously, the the the the very adult that I dreamed I'd had. And what that was was somebody who smiled when they saw me. That simple. Not looked like they were gonna eat me or beat me, but just someone who with warmth, because a child will tell you it's all in the face, it's in a split second, and when my children go somewhere, my foster children go somewhere and they refuse to go back, and then the social workers, we've spent this money on that, and you have to go, and they'll say they didn't make me feel welcome. So it's all with the initial greet, and every time that you know, and I made sure I worked really hard, and this is why foster care gets mixed up with domestic women's work, is that even though you know I'm not the greatest and finest baker in the world, but I would half-kill myself to do all my work to make sure that when the children came back from school, the kitchen smelt of of biscuits, and uh the biscuits were warm, and I was there smiling, and just for 10 minutes I'd go, you had a good day, and if they didn't want to talk, we didn't, but it was I was always smiling, not like a lunatic, but with utter warmth because I knew that's what I never that's all I wanted. It wasn't about money, it wasn't about material things, it was about that feeling that you were with an adult that looked at you with kindness in their eyes because it was in their heart, and children read that instantly, you know. And I meet a lot of professionals, and I wouldn't I wouldn't want to be left alone with them.

Colby:

I mean a lot of people in the sector, yeah. The same. I wouldn't have wouldn't want my children to to spend time with them.

Louise:

No, no, so you know, we we don't, you know, the efficacy that the sense, you know, we don't pay enough attention as adults to adults, we don't tell them, you know, when we employ people or when we train people, we don't say, can you work on your body language, please? Can you work on what your voice sounds like? Can you stop sounding so depressed? Can you can you not make them feel so uncomfortable? Because you will hold a child's attention, it's like teachers as well, you know. If you I I have a child with me now that just won't go to school. Luckily enough, I work from home mostly, so that's that's okay. And I never say you've got to go to school, because why would you want to go somewhere every day where people treat you badly when you've come from a childhood where you were treated badly, and and people don't understand if they stood there at the door and greeted the young people and said, Hi, so lovely to see you, hi five or whatever. Come on in, it doesn't matter if you're two minutes late, rather than you've got detention, you're late, you're late. Who wants that? So the whole kind of abuse of power, you know. I see it again and again in these stern faces, and children are not stupid by any means. So I think most of the work we do could be helped if we worked on ourselves first.

Colby:

I I agree, I think that's a that's a really fantastic point, and there is a lot of thinking about how we manage the relationship that we bring to the table, how how we manage ourselves when um when we interact with the children. Um look, Louise, there's lots more that I could talk to you about. But I also I want to cover a couple of other of other things in the time that we have available. I do wonder though, uh, you do you you seem to stick your neck out a little bit on behalf of the children. Who who's got your back?

Louise:

Um I've got my back. I've earned the coverage of my back through through putting my neck out, sticking my neck on, and finding other people that also stick their neck out. And through the years, we have independently and collectively challenged this the the system, the the the the the behaviors, the policies, because unless you you you do create a little bit of disruption and and agitate, nothing will change. And and um I have my back very beautifully covered by uh a number of people. One of them is Sarah Anderson, who uh, for anyone in fostering in the UK or anywhere actually, because I think her her work is pretty global from foster uh foster wiki, which is basically everything you need to know about fostering from law to to minimum standards. Minimum. Why aren't they maximum standards? Um to quality standards, yeah, quality standards. Why minimum? Why the bare minimum?

Colby:

Um I'm sure that's not what min not what Winnicott meant when he talked about good enough parenting.

Louise:

No, no, exactly. Well, there's a conversation, isn't it? You know, oh my goodness. Um, I think I also have my own back because one thing you learn through the care system is resilience, and I've learned to to know what to worry about and what not to worry about, and I'm at a stage in life where I'm still standing and I'm still here and I'm still laughing. So I think with age and experience, I I'm more discerning about what I offer my emotional time to. So yeah, a number of things.

Colby:

Yeah. Um moving on, I just wanted uh you this the books that you've written, um I I think people will be very interested to hear more about uh what inspired you to write them and perhaps even a little bit about what what they cover.

Louise:

Yeah, the thrown away I wrote my own book for thrown away child. That wasn't my title when you write these books, it was for Simon Schuster. So you write them and then you kind of, you know, things PR and marketing get put in, and they want a nitty-nitty title. And then after I wrote my first book, I was like, I liked writing, but I I wasn't a writer, and then I had a big gap, and I was thinking, what do I do with my life now? I've written a book. So then I started to write about what I know and what I know as a fostering family. Um, and when you are, you know, no one sees your family. It's a really weird work because you're kind of divided up and you we hardly see each other as foster carers. Uh, and when we do gather up, we're always surrounded by social workers who are very keen to keep us on track and not talk about them. So we we we kind of have these fake conversations. But I I wanted to write the books because mainly for my fellow foster carers, because we live in this mad world and we are treated like babysitters, and foster care is intense work. You you have to enjoy learning, you have to be prepared to spend a lot of your time gathering information to tailor it to every child in your home, because there's no generalization possible for what we do, and I think um I wrote it because we we are treated badly. Uh I think because that some the the the governments all level see what we do as tradition as gendered work, as women's work, uh, therefore in a lot of people's minds, including some uh females in in management and so on, we are lesser, we have a lower value. And what amazes me about being a foster carer is that even though I'd worked as an academic, I have lived experience, and I'm reasonably sharp. Um, I'd set up businesses, I've already looked after my children, my stepchildren, they're all alive, you know, it's all good. I did all that. When you become a foster carer, you doesn't matter what you bring with you, all your life experience, we're all treated like we're just it's like a processing. You you just get treated like you now, you've got to wear a beige cardigan and you don't have a voice, and now you're just seen as a domestic person. It's really weird. And I think when I was uh teaching, I was in a trade union rep because I wanted to know why there was so much bullying going on in my university with academia, full stop, and so I brought with it this kind of uh awareness of uh you know rights, um human rights, workplace rights, you know, whatever. I I brought all that with me, and so that made me really unpopular straight away because I started going, well, what are we then? We're foster carers, so we you know, we don't have a contract, we have an agreement, we don't we don't get sick pay or pensions, but we're meant to work like robots 24-7, not not complain. If we do say we're tired, then you tell us we've got compassion fatigue and we're useless. So you you I really was startled actually when I became a foster carer, I was a bit freaked out, and then I started looking at all my other foster carers, and we come from the most diverse backgrounds, you'll never meet a more broad demographic than foster carers, but we're all glued together. Some foster carers naively think that if they you know, if they uh try and impress and befriend the management, they'd be like the favourite child, and we we sit there going, Oh, they're gonna throw you under the bus, and they do. Um, so I wrote it for foster carers, I wrote it for education because we don't get very good training. You have a little bit of skills to foster at the start, and then you're chucked in looking after these little universes with all their issues and all their problems, and all that you don't know what you're dealing with because no one ever really tells you what's going on, and you have to wait for the bureaucracy and all the rest of it. So I wrote it to to share the the more extreme experiences, but the fun as well, you know. And and in my first book, I wasn't allowed to be funny because it was misery memoir. And I thought that's not me. I do like a laugh, thank you, Sean. My lovely Irishman, and taught me to laugh. And most things are funny if you look for it. So I started writing the books about our our life. So my husband, my sons, the dogs always in there, um, and the children that come into our lives, into our home, and and all that goes with it, that their families, you know, how they ended up in care, because they don't just appear from from space and land in care. There's a whole backstory, there's intergenerational trauma, there's poverty, there's uh all sorts of issues that bring children into care, and and and then the external world that doesn't know about the care system thinks they're naughty children. So you kind I uh I wrote it, I never thought I'd get published. I'm on my 20th now. Um, and it's uh they they go down, but they they're uh I I I I seem to a lot of Australian people seem to read my books. Thank you very much. But it's a bit of a it's just a real story to la isn't it? It's love. I I I tell about all the naughty stuff, you know, like when the social workers are coming, we hide all the wine. Oh dear, yeah, and all that stuff because we're real people, and like sometimes on a Friday after a big week with the children, a bottle of wine will do nicely, thank you very much. But you can't, you know, you see you live this old, you know, no one ever tells the truth in this world, it's layers of lies. The parents don't tell the truth because they're they're in the position of failure and threat from children's social care. The children don't tell the truth because they're loyalties to their parents, uh, and they say a lot of what they think people want to hear because they're used to it. Foster carers don't tell the truth because they're terrified of allegation, the social workers don't tell the truth because they fear that they might lose the foster carer. Yeah, no one is telling the truth. So I thought, wouldn't it be fun just to tell the truth?

Colby:

It's uh it it sounds inspirational.

Louise:

Um, and a lot of reggae going on as well, because I I'm always listening to reggae in my studio, so that's quite funny as well.

Colby:

Yeah, and you're an artist as well. Yeah, you're an artist, and uh you obviously paint regularly. I see I see uh some of your offerings on LinkedIn. Yeah, sponsor me LinkedIn. Uh but yes, there is that, and you know, you you mentioned dogs, the dogs again there, and what I the other thing I really wanted to say when I was telling that ghastly story earlier about Harley, Harla, Harlow and his monkeys. So it's it's just about how their preference for warmth and contact comfort rather than food or um you know whoever feeds them, and that's something that dogs are very good at. They're very good at, and uh, we don't have a dog at the moment. My dog died a couple of years ago, my most recent dog. Yeah, and you you feel that lack.

Louise:

Um, it's horrible. It's you know, you start throwing bits of food on the floor, don't you? And you think, well, why am I doing that? Because there's no dog not that we should feed dogs at the table, but the um the dogs uh are essential for the work that I do at home. Without the dogs, I could not be uh anywhere near, and I don't think they get praised enough. You know, they know when to go and sit on a lap and they don't say anything. They got your back. I've got your back.

Colby:

Yeah.

Louise:

And I had a child who was a prolific, prolific self-harmer, and I used to leave one of my dogs in their room. Because you have to sleep, you know, sleep is the most valuable thing a foster care can have. And the dog used to come in and wake me up when when they were cutting. When it got too bad, when they were getting close to an archery or something. And I used to to go in and my dog would would all they would cry. If a child cries, the dog will let me know and come and get me. And I find the um it sometimes they make me just cry because they're just so beautiful, the dogs, and they um they reach children in ways that you know I've got one at the moment, I've got a small dog who's a Jack Russell Chihuahua, and this particular child carries. I was gonna get them a kind of uh papoose because they carry the dog around, and the dog the the the front legs on their shoulders and they just stare at each other all the time. I think and that it the dog is giving the love but taking away the pain, and you can see this beautiful cycle. So I could not do the work without dogs. No, I want more dogs.

Colby:

I wondered if I'd like dogs again, but um, yeah, at the moment my children are working on that.

Louise:

One of them has yeah, they're campaign campaigning.

Colby:

Yeah, well, one of them's got his own dog, so yeah, and we're we're grandparents to the dogysitting rights. Um you tell tell us a little bit about Spark Sisterhood. Because I think um I think you you and I are both completely on the same page as uh you know Aberdeen um people in this sector about just just the the awful circumstances that can befall young people post-care.

Louise:

Yeah, it's the cliff edge, isn't it? It really is. Um the last thing I needed to do three years ago was set up a charity. But I'd been into a residential home the year before uh as a guest to do some art and do some uh work with the as uh as someone from the care system. And I, you know, I was talking to a group of girls and they're all about 15, and I'd say, what and I was quite naive, you know, even though I think I I I get it covered, and then I realize I still don't know how this system works. And I'd be saying, What are you gonna do? Are you going to college? Are you going to this? Are you going to that? They get a little shrug, you know, that teenage shrug. And I go, Oh, okay. And then, you know, life goes on and whatever. And then one by one, after a few months, they were contacting me on social media. And it'd be, hello Louise, how are you? And I go, hi, darling. But my mum bit would go, What's going on for you? Where are you? And then I found out that there was about eight girls that had been not bonded, but bonded by circumstance and environment, uh, in residential for a few years, who were now all completely separated. And they were living in uh independent living accommodation, which varied from a tent to luxurious, to being in an unregulated home, looked felt very much like it was run by county lines. And if if you haven't got county lines in Australia, what it is, it's criminal, criminal gangs trafficking girls and boys using mainly uh uh children to move drugs and it's slave labor, which is what my books are about. Um, and it's all it worked through phone lines, so it's not train lines as my hairdresser thought, it's uh phone lines, and it's a sheer exploitation of children and and our uh we haven't got the the government and the police services do not have the support uh the resources, thank you, previous governments, to to deal with it, so it's sheer blatant exploitation, and so I was listening to them, and then you know, you do that thing like oh god's sake. So I remembered that they all liked red velvet cake because I used to take it in, so I got all their postcodes, I put them in my sat nav, and I went to the shop and I got a carrier bag of food and feminine supplies. I just assumed they need them, and on top of each bag I put a uh a red velvet cake, and I drove round to see them all, and it was one of the most heartbreaking things I've done because you know, for whatever you say about children in care, they have they have dignity when they need it, and that dignity presents itself as politeness, and that politeness is um a kind of it scares me because it means that they have no, they don't feel that they have any agency or autonomy, they just silent. And these girls I went to see uh put on uh an insane amount of weight. That was the first thing I noticed, but obviously never said, and I then I'd get to the bottom, they're too scared to leave their accommodation, they didn't know how to get on buses because they had been driven everywhere in residential. They were heartbroken because in care, it doesn't matter how many carers they had, they were told that they were loved, and then when they left, that love disappeared. So now they'd recognize that that love to be paid love for them to say it and totally hollow, and it left them re-traumatized because they'd left they had the rejection of their own families and leaving and having to go into care, and then they so big things that no one thinks about the none of them had really been kept in contact with, they were in isolation, they'd been split up, and this is interesting. Each local authority gave them a different allowance, so some are on £50 a week, which would you know, buy maybe a lunch out for two, and some are on £70 a week. So there's complete inconsistency. Whilst they were in care, in residential care, they were having their hair done, their nails done, they had clothes allowances, they were going on holidays, you know, everything was blissfully lovely, and then it all stopped. So they didn't know what to do, but they had developed vape and smoking habits, which were funded by the local uh by the residential home just to keep them quiet, but no one actually so they had developed addictions, so their money went on fags, cigarettes, and vapes before they got fed. And the food they bought was so cheap and nasty that that that's why they'd put on the weight and they weren't getting any exercise because they were terrified to go anywhere, they were terrified of the people in the next room. So it was awful. So then I started the charity because I felt that they weren't going into education. I'd say, why you why are you not going to college? And then when you look at a college timetable, it's erratic. It's like, you know, you go in 10 on a Monday, nine on a Tuesday, two on a Wednesday. What they were craving was consistency, what they were craving was routine, what they were craving was validation that they're okay, not a reminder that they were different. So they couldn't make friends at college because they had no, they weren't going to bring them back to their weird accommodation, they didn't have the money to join in and go to the cinema and go bowling and go out to the pub and do all the normal stuff. They just didn't know how to do that, and they were probably also being exploited because they, you know, they are so vulnerable because the exploiters of gangs and so on see them and then know they need money and friendship, and they offer another version of family, which is totally corrupt and dangerous. So I set the charity up because of them, and I set it up, and uh first of all, it was a mentorship, and then I and I backed away from that completely because the women that are in business that were quite powerful and I thought could help them were terrifying, and and they would have no relationship. And I knew that they would the girls would turn up because they thought they were awful, and you know, it's all about those skills that we talked about earlier about welcoming, about non-judgment, and about you know, it's an art, and not many people have it. So I set up a charity, and I've been doing um uh proof of concepts and pilots for nearly uh 18 months now, where we test projects to get the girls' uh life skills, like teaching them first aid. Uh, we get image consultants in top chefs teaching them about cheap, wonderful food, how to cook. Um, we get uh I've got martial arts experts coming in to help them protect themselves both physically, verbally, emotionally. Um, and then we link them up with industry. I'm my main uh drive is to get as many girls into construction, engineering, and tech. That's where the money is. Because the option, the career options of girls from care are hairdressing, manicurists, care workers for the elderly, or care workers for infants. Now I'm a bit cautious about the care work because they're still so close to their own trauma, and the others will never get them out of poverty, none of those careers will get them out of the cycle of poverty, and some of them are third generation poverty of unemployment, so it's working, and I set up a CIC as well to for boys. We have here NEETS, which is not in education, employment, or training, and we've got over a million, and it's not acceptable, it's not acceptable, and we have uh post-Brexit, we have a lot of really good businesses desperate for workers in the hotel and catering industries in agriculture, and so I'm kind of matching them up, but I have to get the girls and now the boys as well through another project ready to work because you can't expect employers to lean and bend all the way to meet them and then go into the workplace and disrupt or not know what to do. So we're teaching them about employment law, we're teaching them about efficacy, we're teaching literally how to shake a hand, how to stand straight. We're doing all the stuff that should have been done if you have a parent that is paying attention. So that's a charity, it's growing and growing. I'm just having a round table in London, hopefully with some big, big names, to see how we can do motivational work with them and attract more funding. But yeah, it was an accident like everything I do, Colby. I I don't mean to, I just end up doing it.

Colby:

I fall into it, yeah.

Louise:

I fall into it.

Colby:

That's actually been quite a common theme on this podcast. Um generally speaking, the best the best way it's been put was the the wonderful Peter Wilson, you know, 85 or 86-year-old um uh child and adolescent psychotherapist saying life is a a sequence of serendipities, yeah.

Louise:

Where you just fall into the right, you're in the right place at the right time to do and uh because it's so good to hear that because I don't I always say I don't have a career, I've just been careering around.

Colby:

I don't know how you get time to do it all, Louise. Where does the time come from? You want a different time scale to the rest of us?

Louise:

I think I've to be honest with you, I've been working paid work since I was nine, ten. I've always had side hustles, I've always been pretty focused because I I wanted to get out of poverty, I wanted to get out of care, I wanted to be financially independent because I remember Jermaine Greer, I remember listening on Woman's hour at the age of like 13. I just caught it saying, Women, to have independence, you must have your own money and that, you know. So it's like property, what was it, property uh jewelry and something else. I remember thinking I've got to get all that because I don't want to be owned by anyone, I don't want to ask permission to buy shoes. So I was very determined, and and you can't make any of this happen from sitting around.

Colby:

Fair enough.

Louise:

No, I knew it was gonna be hard work. Now, if I don't do anything, I just sleep.

Colby:

Well, maybe that's the only time you're not doing something is when you are asleep. Yeah, yeah. Well, look, it's been wonderful to have you on. It's been a I think hopefully a really inspiring chat um for and and just a a reminder um to people to remember the humanity of our least fortunate um yeah, uh our least fortunate members of the community. You you and Sarah Anderson have a podcast. Um I I just thought I'd mention that. Um you can you can just as a plug, you can uh say the name of it.

Louise:

Thank you so much. Yes, Sarah Anderson and I are probably the the the most uh uh seasoned campaigners for for foster children and foster carers. You know, we got your backs, and we've just launched a podcast called Foster Care Uncovered, the truth from the front line. And we're getting, you know, some prolific people on there, social work, academics, child uh child psychologists, everything you need about fostering, because without foster carers, there is no fostering, and we want to recruit and look after them.

Colby:

Wonderful. Well, thanks again, Louise, and uh I hope to that we can have another conversation another time, keep in touch.

Louise:

Yeah, and maybe by then you'd have got a dog.

Colby:

Well, uh maybe maybe one of my sons has got um, yeah. Well, maybe maybe we've got three dogs, but they they live with my son, so probably more likely to be a company if you think the body is.

Louise:

Thank you so much to have me on Kobe, it's been a delight. Thank you.

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Colby Pearce

Host