Transcript for
Prioritising the wellbeing of children in care: A lived experience perspective

Narrator (00:02): 

Welcome to the Emerging Minds podcast. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (00:05): 

Hi, you’re with Nicole Rollbusch, and you’re listening to an Emerging Minds podcast. We would like to pay respect to the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. We also pay respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their ancestors, and elders past, present, and emerging from the different First Nations across Australia. On today’s episode, I’m pleased to be joined by Melanie Renwick. As a child, Mel lived on and off in both foster and residential care placements. Today, Mel works as a family liaison officer with the Satellite Foundation, advocating for and working with families to empower them to make informed choices over their own lives. Mel shares with us her experience of being in care and some of the things that practitioners might be able to do or to consider to support the mental health of children living in out-of-home care. Welcome, Mel, and thanks so much for joining me today. I wanted to start by asking you if you could share a little bit about your experience of being in out-of-home care. 

Melanie Renwick – Guest (01:07): 

Sure. So I was put into residential care and private foster cares since an early age, when I was little. My mum has extensive mental health challenges and my brother and I were victims of domestic and family violence, so it wasn’t really safe for my brother and I to be living at home still. And so when mum was unwell and needing to have hospital visits or when she just wasn’t coping very well with her parenting, we were placed into foster care. And then as we got older, the private foster cares weren’t readily available for us, and so then we spent stints in residential care. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (01:50): 

And how long did you spend in each of your placements? 

Melanie Renwick – Guest (01:53): 

So it really did vary. Some of them would’ve been one or two weeks. Our longest stint though was for six months, and then we went, after that placement, into kind of a residential unit for families where the whole family was supported and kind of like a reconciliation attempt to bring all the family together. But yeah, it really did vary, and it was… I stopped going to residential cares or being placed into private foster cares from 14. Other than that, I then spent some time in kingship care. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (02:34): 

So you had quite a varied experience. Yeah. With our focus on child mental health here at Emerging Minds, I was really keen to jump in and hear about maybe some of the things that you felt impacted your mental health as a child the most. 

Melanie Renwick – Guest (02:49): 

The pre-warning that things were going to happen, that I was going to go spending some time in care, not understanding the reasoning behind why I was going into care. And I know that a lot of that had to do with my age, but I still really believe that there is a level of information that we do need to give to our young people when going into care just so that they’re able to make sense of such a hectic world that they’re about to be dragged into. So being at school and having people come that I didn’t know to my school to pick me up was really impactful as well. Not being able to bring any of my belongings with me, not being able to have anything that I used as my self-identity or helped me my self-identity, feeling just so uncertain and so unsafe. 

(03:45): 

I had built up a relationship where I didn’t trust a lot of men, so walking into a situation where I didn’t know if there were going to be men that were going to be AKA caring for me or if it was going to be another place where I was going to be hurt or not feel safe. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (04:06): 

I’m curious to learn a bit more about what you just said there about being worried about not feeling safe. Children in care are removed because it’s often been deemed unsafe for them to be at home, but the experience of being removed and not knowing where you’re going, you’re saying, felt unsafe too. Can you talk a little bit more about that feeling? 

Melanie Renwick – Guest (04:28): 

It was kind of a conflicting feeling though, because I wasn’t safe at home. So it wasn’t that… I didn’t know whether or not things could get worse, or I had this level of base security of I knew how to please my dad, or I knew how to act to make sure that my mum was handling things or I was behaving for my mum and behaving for my dad. And I knew how to ensure that my brother was behaving the same, so was able to help him navigate that level of safety as well. But being then placed into another foster care or into residential care, I didn’t know what I was walking into. So I was always fight or flight, always. I never had that moment of gradually learning about a space. I didn’t have that… You don’t get the chance to meet your carers. You don’t get the chance to learn about the environment. You’re just sort of dumped in there. 

(05:36): 

And we don’t dump anything. You don’t dump animals. There’s so much support out there. When animals are needing to be rehomed, there is the same level of love and compassion that goes into rehoming an animal. I didn’t feel that as a young person needing to spend some time in residential care or in private foster cares. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (05:59): 

That would’ve had such a huge impact on your mental health, feeling like you weren’t supported in that experience. And I wanted to go back to what you were saying about no one really talking to you about why you were going into care and what was happening. Do you remember what the adults around you said at the time, or was it your experience that they just didn’t tell you anything? 

Melanie Renwick – Guest (06:23): 

It obviously has been a very long time since I’ve been in care. I’m now very much a mature adult, but I do recall not being really told about why. I remember asking and showing. I was quite a rebellious young person, often doing risk-taking behaviours. And I really think that my behaviour was a language used to ask to make sense of what was happening, but I didn’t really get any answers to any of my questions until about grade six. 

(07:01): 

So I would’ve been 11 or so. And it was a private foster care provider, or my foster mum, I guess, who took the time to actually explain to me that mum was in hospital again and that mum was being cared of. And it wasn’t due to my brother or I being too hard or being too challenging, that it was a time that she was going to be supported to get better for herself and that we were using this as a chance for us to be taken care of and so that we could still continue to go to school and that we were just going to be taken care of. And that was helpful. It was. I wish I had heard that all the other years, and I wish I heard it at every single placement. And I wish that they repeated it 50 million times until I actually believed it and I didn’t have to feel the little puzzle pieces myself with thoughts that I created myself. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (08:06): 

And what were some of those puzzle pieces that you put together yourself as a child? 

Melanie Renwick – Guest (08:12): 

That I was the problem, that or my brother and I were the problem, that my dad was a huge problem as well. I did have realisation of that. But when I looked at other people or other kids at school and I heard their stories, that their lives were totally different to mine. And so that what did I do to cause what was happening? Was I too bad? Was I not good enough? I would often get told by my dad that I would never amount to anything. So that constant replay of that negative language that I was hearing at home to then be placed into care and still have those feeling or those… It’s not that the carers were saying those words to me, but the feelings behind the way they were acting were still making me feel that. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (09:11): 

Yeah, so important to be aware of the messages that can be sent to a child, even if they’re not intended. If you were giving advice to, say workers in the child protection system, or perhaps thinking about the ones who came to pick you up from school that day and take you into care, what advice would you give them about what they should be saying to children and young people in those situations? 

Melanie Renwick – Guest (09:36): 

So making it clear that it’s not my fault or that it’s not a young person’s fault, that I wasn’t bad, that my behaviours and the things that I was demonstrating were a language. It was a language that I didn’t understand, and it was sadly a language that the workers and the carers didn’t understand either, that I needed help, that I deserved the help, and I deserved the support, and that there were people out there that were wanting truly to help and to support me. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (10:12): 

All such important messages for any child to hear, but especially in these circumstances. I wanted to ask you about children’s voices, actually, because I know a lot of children in care can report feeling like they don’t have a voice while they’re in care. Did you feel like you had a voice during your time in care? And if not, what would’ve you liked the adults around you to do to support you to have a say and have a voice? 

Melanie Renwick – Guest (10:39): 

I believe I did have voice. I had a little bit of autonomy over meals as in choice over what meals that we had. I got to be part of shopping trips where we were able to buy the food and simple things like that. Did I feel like I could have had more? Totally. A young person that has been taken from their home unknowingly, not knowing whether or not they’re going to a safer place, needs to feel as if they’ve got control over lots of different elements of their life. And food just sort of doesn’t cover it all. Autonomy over clothing, over showering times, over TV times, over the rules of the house, anything that’s going to make them feel a little bit more secure, safe, and feel as if they’ve got a home, that they’re wanted and that they’re cared for. Anything that you can give a young person choice over, it’s such a small little change that workers can do that means a huge thing for young people. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (11:46): 

And just on what you said about rules, when you come into a space like residential care, do you get the opportunity to contribute to those sorts of things, or are they just sort of already set and they don’t get changed or updated? 

Melanie Renwick – Guest (12:00): 

They were just set for me. I didn’t have any autonomy or choice. The main residential house that I and my brother went into was already really well established, so we were the last parts of the puzzle that were making that house full. And so once again, this was a very long time, but the main residential care that I stayed for over six months varied in age ranges. So my brother and I were the youngest. My brother’s three and a half years younger than me, so I would’ve been eight or nine at the time. And I had 17 and 18 year olds in my house. I had other sibling couples, but it was very well established. So the rules were already set. The feel was already set. There was no booklet or sit down where I would work with a worker to learn those rules. It was trial and error just like it is in a real home. 

(13:02): 

You test the boundaries to find out just how far you can push somebody, and then learn the expectations of what’s going to happen when those limits are pushed. Do I wish that I had input in the rules? For sure. Do I wish that someone have asked me how those rules made me feel? For sure. It is also really helpful and beneficial to have input into those house rules, to be able to explain why decisions are being made, not just to keep me safe, but to keep others in the home safe as well, but to have input on maybe what I need furthermore to be safe in the home and to be able to have a space where I could rebuttal those rules and explain why I didn’t feel those rules were justified. Those rebuttals are things that naturally happen in a home. You ask your parents, why can’t I do this or why can’t I do that? 

(14:01): 

And a good parent always explains to you why you can’t do that. You could hurt yourself, or our values and morals don’t align with that. We believe in this, or… There’s always a little bit of hand holding and support and reasoning so that a young person can make sense of the world around you. In residential care and in private foster care, there was none of that. The rules were already defined for me, so I obviously became defiant. I didn’t want to follow the rules. I had no input in the rules. They made no sense and had no value to me. And I wanted to make you work, I wanted to make you angry, and I wanted you to go away because I was trying to make sense of something that I had no control over, but I did control over making you really unhappy in your role. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (14:54): 

Yeah, so those behaviours were a way of gaining that sense of control. So going back to some of those things you were talking about before, identity and self-worth, can you speak a little more about your experience and how it impacted your sense of self-worth and identity? 

Melanie Renwick – Guest (15:12): 

My self-identity still affects me till today. It’s not something that just ended when you become a young adult or when you leave care. That is part of your self-identity. It’s part of my story, it’s a part of my journey, and it’s something that I carry every single day. It’s not something that you just get over. It becomes ingrained in who you are. It’s ingrained in how you see the world, how you perceive other people. It affects relationships moving forward. It affects lifestyle choices. It affects all those domains, and not just in one area. It affected me socially in the fact of my risk-taking behaviours that I developed at such an early age. Developmentally, we all know that teenagers go through a stage where their risk-taking behaviours are a little bit more and they’re not able to have that foresight in what the results of that will be. 

(16:16): 

But for me, that was at like eight or nine. Socially, I found it really challenging as well. As all my peers were forming really great connections with each other, but I wasn’t comfortable in being in the skin that I was. I was constantly lying, pretending to be somebody that I wasn’t. I was being so fictitious in my story making to want to really make people want to be my friends. I was proving to them that I had wealth and that I was worthy of being their friends when really inside, I didn’t believe that at all. The shame and the guilt that I felt when friendships ended or started at the pressure I put on myself to continue those friendships to people please. I had so many people come in and out of my childhood that when I had a friend, I would hold on for dear life and I would try to do anything to please them, to change my interest, to change my likes, to even go to the point of changing my values and morals so that they would then meet that of not just friends, but also workers. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (17:33): 

And based on these experiences, what advice would you give to practitioners who are working in this space that would support them to build up a child’s sense of self-worth and identity? 

Melanie Renwick – Guest (17:45): 

To work with young people in out-of-home care or foster care is to celebrate their identity, to help give word and language to what matters most to them, to be able to give them the confidence that they’re amazing young people and that they don’t need to change to fit into any friendship circle, or they don’t need to morph their behaviours to fit certain adults or into certain situations, that they can be their whole self, be honest with themselves, and that there’s going to be people there that will take care of them, respect them, and love them, in a professional way, for them being vulnerable and being themselves. It takes so much energy to pretend to be somebody that you are not. That constant masking and that constant trying to prove that you’re worthy takes so much emotional energy. 

(18:45): 

Giving me choice and autonomy, allowing me to make mistakes, but know that I’m going to be supported when those mistakes happen, that it’s okay to make mistakes and that I don’t need to be perfect, that’s still something that today, I still struggle in the fact that I have unrealistic expectations set upon myself, not just in my personal life, but then in my professional life as well. And it’s such a heavy weight to carry. It’s not just a heavy weight for me, but it affects the relationships then that I have with my co-workers, and it affects the relationships that I have with my own young family now and with my partner. Giving me opportunities to lead, being able to be celebrated for my strengths and have that acknowledged and shared amongst everybody, but everybody having that moment of the warm and fuzzies, to know that somebody sees them for more than just behaviour or sees them more than just a nine-to-five job, I wished that people had been able to give me a lot more positive touch in resi care and in private foster care. 

(20:01): 

I honestly, reflecting back, I didn’t receive a lot of positive touch at home with my mum, and then definitely never with my dad. But then going into private foster cares or going into residential cares, I got even less. There was no warm hugs when I was feeling sad. There was no comfy moments on the couch watching Simpsons episodes. It’s not to say that my piece of paper would’ve been crinkled free, but it would’ve helped to really iron out some of those crinkles and to know that I was worthy of touch, which then also would’ve meant that maybe I wouldn’t have been so full-on in my risk-taking and I wouldn’t have been seeking that positive touch from others out in the real world. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (20:53): 

And throughout all of your placements, did you have one where you did feel understood or perhaps a sense of belonging? And if so, what was it about those placements that made you feel that way? 

Melanie Renwick – Guest (21:06): 

There was one placement that I really did feel a sense of home and trust and love, and it was the same placement that I had when I was in grade six. Sadly, I don’t remember her name, but she was an older lady. She had an older daughter who would’ve been probably going to uni when I and my brother were there, and it was one of the first placements in private foster care where my brother and I were actually kept together, so that could have also played a significant role in why it was a more pleasant experience. But the lady that took care of us, just I felt like she was my nan. She cooked home cooked meals that were beautiful and would let me sit on the bench and watch her cook those home cooked meals. She gave me deodorant. I hadn’t had any talk with anybody about self-care or puberty or any of that sort of conversation as of yet. And so going into her… 

(22:12): 

I was grade six, and so obviously the body was changing. And I had always been such a small framed young person because my control was eating, so I wouldn’t eat. And so going to that house, I was actually allowed to eat. I felt comfortable to eat. And so she helped in so many… She took me shopping and I got to buy clothes not from the Salvation Army store. And I believe it was only Target or it was Big W. It wasn’t anything fancy, but I got to pick out a top that I wanted and some pants that I wanted. I got to buy shoes that didn’t match, that were black with little bow, like a bow tie. They were hideous, but I loved them, and she let me pick them. I got to wear any clothes that I wanted to wear, even if they weren’t mine. I was able to use her daughter’s clothing that she was throwing out, and just being able to have someone explain to me about personal hygiene, about why we need to brush our teeth, why we need to put on deodorant. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (23:29): 

Yeah. And lots of those things, we can so often take for granted. I wanted to jump now to ask you about some of the negative attitudes or myths you might’ve heard or even come across yourself about children who live in out-of-home care. 

Melanie Renwick – Guest (23:44): 

It’s not just about what I thought about myself or what my workers think thought about me. It is the society of a whole. Children in foster care or in out-of-home sector are a scene, but not often in a bright light. They’re kind of the forgotten children, or the children that only are represented and only mentioned when negative things happened, which the media has a huge role to play in that, being able to shift thoughts for the society that kids in out-of-home care are not weak, that they’re strong, and that they’re resilient, that they will not amount to anything with the right support, with the right healing, the right environment, and limited-less, that they can succeed. I’m succeeding. I’m not failing in anything. I’m able to have strong, healthy relationships with peers. I’m able to hold down a full-time job. I’m able to be a great mum. Do I lack certain parenting techniques because I wasn’t showing that? Of course, but I’m no different to any other parent that is parenting children. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (25:05): 

Absolutely. And I just wanted to extend on this point a bit. When things do get challenging, what can practitioners do to show the child and young person that even when conflict has occurred, that they don’t see them as a bad person or in any of those ways? You just spoke about? 

Melanie Renwick – Guest (25:24): 

Unconditional positive regard for a young person is so important. Every day is a new day. A young person knows and is keeping, kind of unconsciously, track of their behaviours in care. And so for them, they know what they did yesterday. The repair of the behaviour that they displayed hasn’t happened yet. And so they know that if you come back the next day and there’s still going to be that hostility, so then they’ve got another guard up in the way that they’re going to perceive you. So if you then don’t come back, you’ve proven my fact. You’ve proven that I’m naughty. You’ve proven the fact that I’m violent. You’ve proven the fact that I’m disrespectful and that the only language I know how to use is hateful language aimed at you personally. But if you come back to your next shift and show me unconditional positive regard, you show me that yesterday was yesterday, that the feelings and the behaviours that I did to you, I made you feel yesterday didn’t wreck or didn’t rip our relationship, then you are helping me build a better inner dialogue for myself because I’m like, I’m worthy. 

(26:43): 

I’m trying so hard to push your away, but you keep coming back. You’re showing me that I’m worthy of something. So then maybe I would have a bit more of a time to actually build that love, that trust, and then I could let my walls down a little bit and be able to be comfortable with who I am. I would put on such a strong persona that I was untouchable, but really inside, I was this softest marshmallow that I just… I wanted a hug. I just wanted reassurance that I was safe, but I didn’t want to be told I was safe. I wanted adults to prove to me that I was safe. I wanted their actions to replicate what their words were saying. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (27:34): 

Yeah, absolutely. And you are really passionate about talking about the role of lived experience in supporting children in out-of-home care. Can you talk a little bit more about that? 

Melanie Renwick – Guest (27:44): 

You can’t be what you can’t see. So I would love to have more workers in out-of-home care with lived experience and that be celebrated, to have policies and procedures, and then the support for those lived experience workers to be able to share their lived experience to help guide and walk alongside a young person in out-of-home care, to give them hope. Everybody needs hope. And to be able to hear somebody’s lived experience of things or strategies that they’ve used to overcome difficult situations, how they wish they had have been seen or had been heard when they were going through their stay would give a young person so much stronger inner dialogue about themselves, would be able to help break down some of those walls that we put up so high and so strong because we are worried about letting other people in to be able to get rid of that hierarchy or that power struggle that young people feel so often even in the real world, but it’s magnified in out of out-of-home care. 

(28:53): 

So to be able to help bring down that power struggle, to be only able to share lived, that’s going to help a young person to make better choices for themselves, but to celebrate that. A young person in out-of-Home Care often hasn’t been celebrated. No one goes, “Woo-hoo. You spent another birthday in residential care.” It’s not something to be proud of. So having a mentor or having somebody that they can actually look up to that is walking alongside them, really advocating, and being more of a friend, that’s what I needed. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (29:31): 

So we’re coming to the end of our time together, but I wanted to ask you if you had one final message that you wanted to share today. 

Melanie Renwick – Guest (29:38): 

I think practitioners and foster families could really benefit from hearing and being reminded of the power… A young child is so moldable, and that it’s just a journey, and that, yes, it stays with you forever, but there’s lots of positive factors come from spending some time with another family. And that reassurance that although it’s not instant gratification for them, it’s just like parenting. You are parenting. You may not get that sense of praise or that tingly feeling that you get when you see a young person succeed, but the hope is that as they become an adult, if only we could all stay connected, and that they could see just how far you’ve come and that they’ve played a positive part in that young person’s life. 

Nicole Rollbusch (Host) (30:38): 

That’s such a beautiful message for us to end on today. Thank you, Mel. And thanks so much for speaking with me and for sharing your experience. It’s been a real pleasure speaking with you. And thank you to our listeners for joining us as well. If you’d like to access further resources about supporting the wellbeing of children in out-of-home care, we have a number now available on our website. This includes two online courses, Walking alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Out-of-Home Care, and Supporting the Mental Health of Children in Out-of-Home Care. We hope you’ll join us again soon. Bye for now. 

Narrator (31:13): 

Visit our website at emergingminds.com.au to access a range of resources to assist your practise, brought to you by the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health. Led by Emerging Minds, the centre is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care under the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health, Program.