An Analysis Informed by Lived Experience in the 1980s and 1990s

Introduction

Entering foster care as a mixed race child meant entering a system already structured by racialised assumptions about vulnerability, behaviour, and credibility. From the outset, I was placed in environments where racist language was normalised by peers and minimised by adults. Teachers framed racist bullying as “chip on my shoulder,” and foster carer’s failed to intervene. These early experiences reflect how institutions position children of colour as other, less vulnerable, and less entitled to protection.

In social-science terms, this process is known as racialisation — the assignment of meaning, value, and risk based on perceived race (Omi & Winant, 2015). For children in care during the late twentish century, racialisation shaped every interaction with professionals and systems.

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Adultification and the Erosion of Childhood Innocence

Adultification bias describes the tendency to perceive Black and biracial children as older, more knowledgeable, and less innocent than their white peers (Epstein, Blake & González, 2017). Research has shown that Black children are often viewed as more culpable and less deserving of protection, even at very young ages.

In my case, this bias was evident by the age of nine, when my behaviour had become sexualised — an indicator that should have triggered safeguarding intervention. Instead, professionals interpreted my behaviour through a racialised lens that minimised vulnerability and reframed abuse indicators as signs of agency. As a result, I was increasingly perceived as the problem, while the abuser remained freely present within a frequently rotated short-term placement environment.

When I used slang such as “baby mum,” language absorbed from older children I was placed with, it was recorded in files as evidence of adult sexual knowledge. The critical safeguarding question — “Does this child understand consent?” — was never asked. At that time, I did not know what consent meant. I had come to see abuse as something that happened to women and girls – something I was expected to accept. If I resisted or spoke about it, I believed I would be seen as the problem – which had happened when I disclosed at age 10.

This internalisation was itself a consequence of adultification. My attempts to make sense of what was happening to me were interpreted as evidence of maturity rather than indicators of harm.

In later years, these same interpretations were used to undermine my credibility and to diminish empathy for the fact that the institution itself later admitted indictors of harm were present, but failed to act under its safeguarding duties.

Adultification bias therefore functioned as a barrier to protection. Indicators of abuse were reframed as indicators of maturity or culpability, allowing the system to shift attention away from the perpetrator and onto the child.

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Placement Practices and the Construction of Risk

Children of colour in care are disproportionately placed in environments with older or more vulnerable young people. This reflects institutional assumptions that they are more resilient or “streetwise,” and therefore less in need of protective placement.

These placements expose younger children to sexualised behaviour, grooming, violence, and coercion. In my own experience, the language and behaviours I absorbed from older children were later interpreted as intrinsic to me, rather than as a consequence of the environment into which I had been placed.

This illustrates how systemic decisions create the very risks later attributed to the child.

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Case Files as Instruments of Racialised Narrative Construction

Professional records in social care are often treated as objective truth, yet they are often shaped by the biases, assumptions, and omissions of those who write them. For children of colour, files frequently contain:

• racialised interpretations of behaviour
• adult sexual themes applied to children
• character judgements rather than contextual analysis
• omissions of racism, abuse, or neglect.

These narratives become institutional memory. They influence how police, social workers, teachers, and legal professionals interpret the child’s credibility and vulnerability for years.

In my case, the local authority later upheld findings that they knew I was being abused and failed to act over a period of years. Yet the files written about me contained racialised interpretations that obscured the harm and reinforced a narrative of agency rather than victimisation.

Institutional records therefore function not only as documentation, but as mechanisms through which institutional narratives are constructed and reproduced (Smith, 2005).

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Selective Safeguarding and Differential Responses to Risk

A striking example of bias in my own history is that although I was identified as being at risk, I was not interviewed. The other child involved — who was from a different cultural background — was prioritised. My welfare was not considered central to the investigation taking place at the time.

This reflects a broader pattern in which children of colour are:

• less likely to be believed
• less likely to be interviewed
• less likely to receive therapeutic support
• more likely to be blamed or problematised.

This pattern has been documented across safeguarding systems, where racialised assumptions influence professional assessments of risk and credibility (Bernard & Gupta, 2008).

This is not an individual failure; it is a structural one. It demonstrates how institutional responses are stratified by race, determining who is seen as a victim and who is not.

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Structural Racism Across the Safeguarding and Justice Continuum

Racism in care is not limited to interpersonal prejudice. It is embedded in the structures and routines of the system. It manifests in:

• placement decisions
• risk assessments
• professional language
• investigative priorities
• access to therapeutic support
• police responses
• legal representation.

When professionals across multiple agencies hold implicit or explicit biases, the cumulative effect is a system that consistently provides lower levels of protection to children of colour.

This continues into adulthood. When survivors report abuse, the same biases reappear: police rely on racialised files, investigators minimise disclosures, legal professionals assess cases through a cost-risk lens that disadvantages victims of colour, and institutions prioritise reputational protection over accountability.

The result is a justice gap in which victims of colour are the least likely to receive proportionate redress.

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Generational Impacts and the Long-Term Consequences of Systemic Failure

The consequences of these systemic failures do not end with the individual child. When institutions consistently fail to protect children of colour, the effects become intergenerational.

This occurs through:

• disrupted educational and developmental pathways
• trauma responses affecting relationships and stability
• reduced access to justice and reparative support
• structural gatekeeping that limits social mobility
• cumulative disadvantage that compounds across generations.

These impacts are often invisible in policy discussions because they do not appear as single events; they accumulate over time.

When children of colour are believed less, protected less, and offered fewer pathways to recovery, the result is a form of systemic hindrance that restricts progress within families and communities.

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The Role of Testimony in Challenging Institutional Narratives

My testimony is not an alternative to official records; it is a necessary addition to them – filling in gaps.

Lived experience provides insight into mechanisms that institutions fail to record or actively obscure. Survivor testimony:

• exposes systemic patterns
• contextualises behaviours misinterpreted by professionals
• challenges narratives
• contributes qualitative data for research and advocacy.

By documenting these mechanisms, testimony contributes to a broader understanding of how race interacts with care systems and how institutional responses can perpetuate harm rather than prevent it.

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References

Bernard, C., & Gupta, A. (2008). Black African children and the child protection system. Child Abuse Review, 17(6), 476-489.

Epstein, R., Blake, J., & González, T. (2017). Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood. Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality.

Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., et al. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258.

Omi, M., & Winant, H. (2015). Racial Formation in the United States. Routledge.

Smith, D. E. (2005). Institutional Ethnography: A Sociology for People. AltaMira Press.