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Teaching life blogging skills to children in care

Five Rivers Child Care partners with more than 135 local authorities, focusing on five key areas: foster care, residential care, education, assessment and therapy and crisis intervention. RLF Fellow Shelley Silas recently worked with a group of young people from Five Rivers foster care settings on a blog writing project, to encourage them to write about their lives. Shelley, who previously worked with young people on the edge of school exclusion, embraced the project, as did the children she was working with. Here, she takes the time to reflect on her experience:

Some of the young people I was working with had been moved from family to family and from school to school, interrupting emotional, physical and geographical continuity, time and time again. Through this project, I could provide continuity of a different kind; showing up every week to work on their stories of being in foster care and with an end goal – publication on specific websites with Amazon vouchers as their fee. 

Our first meeting was in person. The cohort had travelled to London from all over England with their support workers, gathering for the day to talk with various practitioners including myself. It was a full day, with talk of blog writing and exercises, safety online and not revealing too much that might make them known to a reader.

As sessions continued, trust was formed and confidence maintained. Their ages ranged as did their interests, but the core group returned, engaging with their tasks with humour and enthusiasm and those Amazon vouchers in the not too distant future. Planning was vital. I had to create fun and productive exercises to excite the group and find a way to ease their ideas onto the page. We discussed what they thought a blog was, if they had read any, what had excited them and what made them continue to read. Brevity is important (in my opinion), as is writing from the heart. I wanted them to write about what they knew and what they cared about.  But where to start?

A couple of the young people were very shy, so it took a few sessions to open up and  be comfortable enough to share ideas. I had great support from Livy, who works for Five Rivers Child Care. She is a brilliant co-facilitator who has worked in foster care for many years.

We discussed the young people’s ideas, either in the group, or in breakout rooms if subjects were too personal. Between sessions, I received the beginnings of blogs; a paragraph, a few sentences. I always wanted to know more, but knew it was up to the author to tell their story, not the story I wanted them to tell. My way to encourage fuller blogs was to ask questions around their drafts, encouraging the authors to look deeper into what they wanted to communicate, to broaden their topic. I talked about rich description and our senses; I discussed being specific so that the reader is given a clearer picture and can build a more solid image. For example, “A red car drove fast,” says more than “a car drove fast,” and “a red, convertible Mini Cooper” says even more! They took to that easily, creating second drafts that were substantially longer and full of story and lived experience. Reading these blogs was moving, funny, full of things I had no idea about. The group really blossomed over the months.

To open up possibilities and help them see me as just a person who happens to, among other things, write, I told them I left my Secondary Modern school with 3 O levels, completed a B.A. and M.A. in my 30s and graduated with my second M.A. in 2024. I was out about being gay. Authenticity was important to me, because it allowed LGBTQ+ members of the group to share their sexuality and gender identity if they wanted to. Racism was one topic covered, neurodiversity another, and all of it in relation to being in foster care. 

I return to the group in September 2024 after their summer break and I cannot wait to see what they have been up to and read their new blogs.

By Shelley Silas

You can read some of the blogs below on the Five Rivers website. The Life Bloggers series was created by care-experienced young people following the 2024 London sessions with the RLF and VoiceBox.

Rugby has taken over so much of my life, which is a good thing because playing rugby is really enjoyable, I have met new people and they are like a family to me. We go down together and we stay standing together.

Read ‘Cruise Star’s story about how their love of rugby built resilience and shaped their future.

I believe if I work hard and stay focused, I can achieve anything, and so can anyone else.

Read ‘Fifi‘s story about how music shaped their childhood and teenage years and impacted the career path.

I was relieved that my teachers supported me and kept me from harm.

Read Blending Balloons, when ‘Quiet Mouse’s birth parents turn up at their birthday party.

You’re probably wondering what a hate crime is, well basically, it is an act that someone does to someone just because they hate that person, or it could be just that the person could be a part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Read ‘Harry’ and their explanation of what hate crime is to them.

95% of young black people have heard and witnessed the use of racist language at school.

Read ‘What racism means to me’ by ‘Fifi’.

The RLF’s Writing for Life programmes allows our writers to share their skills in workplaces and with NHS groups, trade unions, and a wide range of voluntary and community sector organisations.

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