Sharing Our Stories
This Blog was first written and published in August 2024. With the swift change of times and a shift in our way of thinking on this subject, this Blog was edited and updated December 2025.
With Care Experienced people being asked to share our Stories or/and Care Experienced people feeling the urge to share their Stories, we thought it would be helpful to share a few tips on what to do and how to proceed.
Please Note: At The Transformed You we define Care Experienced as Children, Young People and Adults with experience of being placed in Children’s Social Care, in either Foster Care or a Residential Children’s Home.
Under 25? Access Not Granted, Access Denied
As a Care Experienced founded and led organisation, we advise that Children and Young People who are still in Care, do not share their stories publicly. For example on the News, on Social Media, on TV Shows (any platform that places them in the public eye).
Please Note: Here we refer to Children and Young People who are aged up to 25 years old AND still in the Care System being supported by their Social Worker or their Leaving Care Advisor.
Why?
When placed in the care of Children’s Social Care, you are placed on a Child Protection Plan (in England) or a Child Protection Register (in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland).
The Child Protection Register is a confidential list of all children in a local area who are identified as being at risk of significant harm.
The Child Protection Plan is a formal document created by Social Services when they have concerns that a child maybe at risk of significant harm, such as abuse and neglect.
A key factor of Child Protection is to safeguard the children and ensure their wellbeing.
Now if the Protection Plan/Register is seen as confidential and is designed to protect us from the risk of significant harm, being placed or positioned in the public eye as ‘care experienced and still in care’ defeats the object, because the placing/positioning gives way to the risks that the Register/Plan were designed to prevent, the placing/positioning opens the door to stigma and possible exploitation, and the placing/positioning grants access to an audience who should be denied access.
Over 25
Now if you are over 25 (no longer being supported by your Leaving Care Adviser) and are thinking about sharing your Care Experience in the public domain, here are a few tips that may help you with your decision making.
Tip #1 ‘Check In With Yourself’ by asking yourself these questions:
Why do I want to share my Story? Do I want to share because I’ve seen other Care Experienced people sharing their Story and I think I should too?
Am I sharing to seek validation or attention?
Am I sharing to air what I’ve been through (a trauma response)?
Have I had therapeutic support (or any other kind of support) to help me understand and make peace with why I was placed in Care?
Have I had therapeutic support (or any other kind of support) to heal from the traumatic experiences I went through before being placed in Care and/or any traumatic experiences whilst in Care?
Do I want to share because I want to make a difference?
Using these questions to check in with yourself, will help you to clearly see if you are ready to be open and transparent about your Care Experience Journey, in a healthy, productive and positive way, with the intention of inspiring hope in those who are placed in Children’s Social Care, and providing solutions to those who work in the Sector.
Note that sharing from a place of pain or sharing from a place of healing both carry a distinct sound that will have an impact on your listening audience.
Tip #2 How To Share (Tell) Your Story
Share your Story in this order
Talk about what you went through (what you experienced)
Talk about the lessons you’ve learnt from what you have been through and how you have moved on with the next Chapters of your life
From the lessons you’ve learnt, what advice would you give to help the audience? What is your message and what is your call to action?
As you share, be your authentic self and not a replication of someone else. As you share be truthful and factual about your experience, in way that is not performative or exaggerated and don’t overshare for Likes, Comments, Shares or Bookings, because if you do, you’ll do more harm than good to yourself and your audience.
Be mindful to note that sharing your story in the public domain, is not the place to unpack your painful and traumatic experiences, in order to be healed and heard.
And know that every part of your Story doesn’t need to be posted and every detail of your Story doesn’t need to be published because, who knows, you may not get the chance to take it back.
Tip #3 Positioning Yourself on Social Media, The Virtual World
If you decide to share your Story through your personal social media accounts, know that comments may come from people who ‘get it’ and from people ‘who don’t’.
Know that the ‘virtual likes’ may not always equate to ‘real life genuine support’.
And be vigilant about who you entertain in your DMs.
Tip #4 If You Are Asked to Share Your Story
If you are asked to share your story, make sure you know exactly who is asking you to share your Story, for what purpose and in what format.
Here are a few examples:
Who is asking? A TV Channel
The Purpose? They are covering a story on the Care Experience to shine a light on certain aspects of the Care System.
What format? A ‘live’ Interview for the TV Channel
Who is asking? A Researcher
The Purpose? They want to gain an understanding of whether Children’s Social Care System have had a negative or positive impact on our lives.
What format? A Questionnaire (Survey)
Who is asking? Your Local Authority (Corporate Parent)
The Purpose? They want to see how they can make the overall Care Experience better, for the next generation.
What format? In person feedback
You may also be asked by another Care Experienced Person, a Charity, a Journalist, an Author or a Film Maker; and so whoever is doing the asking, remember to make sure that you are clear on what they are asking you to share and why, as this will help you to see if your Story (or aspects of your Story) relate to the desired purpose.
Sophia Alexandra Hall who is a Journalist and care experienced person, has created a Toolkit filled with advice for journalists on how they can positively empower and engage care experienced interviewees in the UK. It also includes advice for care experienced people, on how to protect themselves and their life stories when working with the media. The Toolkit is free and available to download here.
Tip #5 Will this be a Paid opportunity?
Consider this, your Story will be adding value in the form of insight and expertise, to ultimately help those in the Children’s Social Care Sector improve their Systems, Service and Practice. Your Story will help to raise awareness of the Care System and your Story will resonate and bring hope to generations of people with Care Experience. With that in mind, an offer of payment in the form of an agreed sum of money or royalties (if you share your Story as Co-Author in a Book) or an offer of a tangible incentive, will also add value to you and help you.
Now there will be times when you may want to share your Story without receiving any form of payment, and if that is the case please don’t let those times stop you from plucking up the courage to ask for payment at other times.
Tip #6 Therapeutic Support
If you have positioned yourself to share aspects of your Story on Social Media or you have been asked to share, it’s important that you have therapy in place to support you through this process.
This is key, because as you share your Story, you will be remembering and reliving your experiences, which may trigger and open up painful experiences you have tried to forget, which may then go on to impact your emotional wellbeing and/or your mental health, during and after you have shared.
This is also key because the responses and questions from your virtual or real live audience, may trigger and open up the wounds of your past traumatic experiences.
Do You Share? Yes or No
In the light of these Tips, please know that it’s ok to step away from the idea of sharing your Story on Social Media or saying ‘No’ and positively declining to engage in sharing your Story when asked, as this may be as a result of how you felt after you ‘Checked In With Yourself’ or because you intuitively sensed that the opportunity was not right for you.
With that said, if you sense the need to share your Story, share in a way that helps to make a difference. Share to inspire hope in the next generation and share to inspire hope of Change that is Possible. Don’t get stuck in the cycle of repeating, retelling, repeating, retelling the past painful parts of your Story because it will feel like picking and repicking a wound; and please don’t fall into the trap of comparing your Story or yourself with other Care Experienced People and their Story, because irrespective of how many Foster Carers or Social Workers we did or didn’t have, or how many Children’s Homes we lived in, or how many Schools we attended, and irrespective of how and why we entered the Care System, we ALL have a Care Experienced Chapter in our lives, that counts and is of value.
And finally, (as our CEO always reminds us) know that your Care Experience is a Chapter in your life’s Story, it is not the end. So heal, forgive, move forward and make an active decision to live in the next Chapters of Your Story because in your future anything is possible, because in your future Change Is Possible.
Have you found this Blog helpful? Is there anything else you would add? Let us know in the comments below or send us an email.
