When I was growing up, the hallway outside my bedroom at my dad’s house was dominated by a massive poster of Patrick McGoohan as Number 6 in The Prisoner with the adage in half-foot-high letters: “I am not a number, I am a free man.”
The worst thing about being in any institution is the loss of identity. Even in the best homes and hospitals for children, the necessary time taken to feed, clothe and nappy change many means that each can miss out on the love and stimulation that it would get in a family home.
Our kids, as we think of them, have everything when it comes to home comforts – donated clothes are often designer, huge cupboards full of toys, medical equipment and the highest standard of care – but they have nothing of their own. No battered and beloved teddies or security blankets. (A 9-year old boy who has been in the centre all his life has got round this by carrying around a well-worn tennis ball at all times.) No favourite T-shirt or dress – all the clothes are shared by many. The children don’t even celebrate their birthdays.
Like poor Mr McGoohan, the kids also have numbers allocated to them but these are just used for organising tooth-brushing time. We would never dream of referring to the kids by a number and the wall chart with their pictures on it has their names as well as numbers – helpful for learning names.
One of the volunteers who were here when I started didn’t know many of their names and just called them ‘that one’ and ‘this one’. I was privately appalled by this – surely there’s no more way to make a child suffer from being in an institution than stripping them of an identity? – and redoubled my efforts to learn the names as quickly as I could.
Having never worked in an institution before, I was surprised, given the uniform treatment (for the most part) that they are given, how differently the kids respond to their life in the centre. Some develop coping behaviours, rocking themselves back and forth in their cots for comfort. Others find ways to manipulate the situation: begging for attention by screaming constantly, climbing out of cots, throwing up their dinner.
But these are occasional behaviours. For the most part they seem happy, and the cuddling and play provided by an endless stream of volunteers hopefully helps a little to make them feel a little more like kids, and individuals, rather than just prisoners.
