Welsh actor Michael Sheen broke down in an emotional piece to camera over the heartbreaking and frustrating situations that children face in the care system. In the BBC documentary, 'Michael Sheen: Lifting the lid on the care system’, we hear about the lives of Hope, Niall and Gemma who felt alone, lost and unwanted growing up in the system. We learn of the dangerous situations care children continue to face and how they felt their lives depended on the luck of the dice.
The Hollywood star said: “It’s heartbreaking and frustrating that we, as a society, are allowing this to happen. Some of the stories I'm about to tell you are shocking, but more than that, are shameful - and boy do we need to do something about it.”
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The first story we hear is Hope, who was taken off her mum and went to live with her grandparents. As a young teenager, she fell in with the wrong crowd. She felt that she was in a group that finally accepted her, but, instead, they exploited her into carrying drugs. After police found her drunk on the roof of a community centre, she found herself being a child of the state.
“I didn't know where I was going, didn’t know who I was going to see, and I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I never saw my friends ever again, never got to say goodbye. I was here and then I was gone,” said Hope. At 13, she found what she thought would be an amazing foster carer, until another child was moved in. After drug trouble, she was given back to Wrexham Council to find another place for her to stay. So, Hope decided to run away.
“I was a child in a tent, with an adult who was over the age of 18, sleeping rough, nobody knew where I was, I was technically a child of the state, so it wasn’t okay. I was at risk,” said Hope. I was scared, I felt like this was the only option I had.”
We then hear from Niall, from Caerphilly, who unlike Hope, asked to go into the care system at 14 years old. Growing up Niall had a passion for football, which was encouraged from his foster carers and even played for Wales and Scotland. But everything in his life changed when he got into trouble and was excluded from school. He bounced around homes and schools growing up. He describes to Michael that he was made to feel like a burden to the council.
At 17, he was moved from a Premier Inn to a local B&B, which he was sharing with people out of jail who carried knives, and continuously stole his things. He said: “I would rather have lived on the streets.”
Michael has previously campaigned for care children not to be placed in hotels or B&Bs. But across Wales dozens of teenagers are still being placed in unsafe environments. Children as young as 11 years old are staying in temporary accommodations, with council staff, as there’s nowhere else for them to go.
The final story we hear is Gemma’s, which was told by an actor. Gemma explains how she was failed by the system, as social workers knew she was being sexually exploited as a young teenager. She was given heroin and cocaine at 14 years old and staying in places known for drugs and prostitution. She was later taken into care for her protection, but she believed the system had already failed her, and by the age of 15, she had already moved house 12 times.
“It’s like nobody cares, because it’s only me,” said Gemma. “I’ve never fully unpacked anywhere - no-one keeps me very long anyway.” After moving away to England and getting clean, she asked to be moved back to Wales when she was 16 years old. She had been clean for nine months, but the council placed her in a hostel where someone was selling drugs, and in less than a week, she was back using.
Emotional from the conversation, Michael does a piece to camera. He said: “There shouldn’t be children that go through this, no child should go through it. But children who from the beginning, through no choice of their own, find themselves in circumstances that already makes things harder for them than it does for anyone else. That those are the children who are most likely to end up homeless, have mental heath issues, drug and alcohol dependencies, being sexually abused.”
With tears in his eyes, he says: “There’s a lot of unfairness in that world, but that is the most unfair. The point of this isn't to blame local people or villainise councils, but someone needs to explain how we’re going to fix this.”
‘Michael Sheen: Lifting the lid on the care system’ is on BBC iPlayer now and on BBC One Wales at 9pm tonight.
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