Lee is 21 and about to become a dad. Lee doesn’t remember much about his early life and was taken into the care of the local authority as a very young child. Some things he remembers, but others he has tried hard to forget. He remembers feelings, the smell of a flat somewhere, the sound of doors slamming. Lee knows his mum and dad are out there somewhere, and wonders about family members from both sides; but that’s all he can do is wonder, are they still alive, does he maybe even have siblings? Does he look more like his dad, or his mum? He often wonders what they might be doing now, do they think of him or is he a distant memory. He might have passed them in the street, and he wouldn’t know it. Lee has a lot of unanswered questions about his childhood, even though he knows full well there are piles of social work reports and assessments and case notes about him – “a life on file” he says.

Lee doesn’t have any contact with his mum or dad; he never really did, but he doesn’t fully understand why. He was told his mum’s mental health was too unstable, she was often in hospital, and they told him it wasn’t fair on him to keep getting let down. There is a box somewhere, with his ‘life story’ in it – Lee remembers sitting with one of his social workers as a kid, maybe 6 or 7, and looking at stuff. He swears there was a birthday card in there, from his mum, and a postcard from Auntie Jean. Lee couldn’t tell you now, who Auntie Jean was, but it’s another question no one seems to be able to put him straight on. They told him his dad had never been involved. Involved enough though wasn’t he, Lee thought. He did have a picture of his dad for a while, but it got lost along the way. So, Lee grew up in local authority care, with “his corporate mum and dad”, but life was full of challenges. He was placed in foster care initially, and what Lee does remember most about that, is the moves. He had at least four foster placements and they all ended up going wrong. It wasn’t all bad, and Lee tried hard to find ways to feel at home, and like he was part of something, but it just never worked out. Lee’s social worker told him he was good at getting on with people, and in a way, making relationships has been something he’d always had to do. But for Lee, this wasn’t the same as having a ‘proper’ family, who’d always be there. Lee remembers seeing other children being picked up by their mums and dads, or grannies, or grandads – and he envied them. He would always be the one going in a taxi, to foster homes, or, later to the unit. Lee was hardly ever invited to other kids’ birthday parties and there was always that feeling of being a bit on the edge. Lee’s world was full of reports, and risk assessments, and meetings – either with him or about him – and decisions made by people, who said they were acting in his best interests, but Lee didn’t always agree.

That feeling of being different, and all those unanswered questions, got him into trouble as he grew older. After the breakdown of his third foster placement things really went downhill. It had started well, and Lee had been determined and full of hope that this time he could settle. As usual everyone said they were there to support him, and that ‘strategies’ would be in place to help him, and that had to let people in and give them a chance. Lee tried to do what he was asked and do what he did best, which was getting on with people, but it still didn’t work. He tried harder but the pressure just built up and Lee struggled to know how to manage all the emotions that even the smallest thing seemed to bring up. He wanted to be part of a family, but then, at the same time, the rules and the expectations did his head in, and then he just wanted to be on his own. He’d go off to the woods or down to the river, to try and get some peace. In a way he didn’t blame his foster parents; they did try hard too, but in the end, after yet another massive fight, they were the ones who told the social worker that it wasn’t working out. On the outside, Lee was furious and on the inside Lee was devastated.

As he moved through his teens, Lee’s need to fit in and be seen as a “normal” kid got stronger, but the obstacles to that seemed even greater. After that last foster placement breakdown, Lee went to live in a residential children’s home. He did form a couple of decent relationships with staff there; with his keyworker, Alan, in particular, who used to take Lee fishing sometimes. But at school, things got worse. He couldn’t deal with the other kids, couldn’t find a way to keep his head down, and at 17 he was excluded. Lee knew he was on the brink of becoming every cliche he hated about kids in care; he was smoking weed, getting in trouble with the Police, picking up a low-level offending record, casting around for something or someone to steady him.

And then he met Stacey. He and Stacey were the same age, she’d grown up in care too, and they just clicked. They met at group for young care leavers; Lee only went because Alan persuaded him and promised him a MacDonalds on the way back. Meeting Stacey changed a lot of things for Lee, for both of them. Lee began to allow himself to make plans, to imagine a way into the future. He wants to train in some kind of trade, make some money, get his own place. Then, after 18 months together, they find out that Stacey is pregnant. It wasn’t totally planned but it’s what they want, and what they’d talked about many times. Of course, they knew it wouldn’t be easy, and that they’d have to prove themselves. As care leavers, there’s a process waiting for them, and a child protection plan made for their unborn baby. “How does that work”, Lee said to his social worker “the system that raised me, now says I’m not fit to be a parent?” Lee was vulnerable once, but now he’s a risk. Lee and Stacey are determined to do whatever it takes. They’ll do all the assessments, have the meetings – Stacey has an auntie, who’s saying she’ll be there to help out, so that’s got to count for something. So here they are, aged 21, young adults with their pathway plans and a baby on the way; they are going to call her Hope, “because everybody needs hope, right?” Stacey and Lee have agreed to go into a parent and baby unit to be assessed once she is born. Lee has never been surer of anything in his life. The social worker says she backs him, so did Alan. For once, there is a label Lee feels proud to wear; he is going to be ‘Dad’.