How do we define care? Bridging cultural gaps in developing a universal definition of care experience
The aim of the Scottish Government’s consultation seeking views on developing a universal definition of care experience was to provide an update to the pre-existing language used to understand the experience of care in Scotland and provide a collective term that everyone understands. This could potentially benefit people who are care experienced by helping them to have a cultural understanding that makes sense of their experience. It could also ensure that the eligibility of, and right to, existing supports for care experienced people in Scotland is equitable through the creation of a universal definition. The intention to develop guidance to set a national and consistent direction for the language used in and around the care system is now part of the Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill that is currently before the Scottish Parliament.
This call to redefine care experience and collectively understand the impact of how we define care is an appropriate time to take an intersectional approach to how we understand the experience of care more generally. With many care experienced people in Scotland having been raised in countries and cultures in the Global South, we should look beyond the Scottish frameworks for defining care experience and consider care from a global perspective.
Considering diverse experiences in a definition of care
In Scotland, care experience is broadly defined as a term used to make sense of being involved in the ‘care system’ at any stage of a child or young person’s life, for any duration. The term is created to be inclusive of the diversity of experiences of people in Scotland. With inclusivity in mind, as we consider creating a universal definition of care experience, it is important to acknowledge that different services available to care experienced people often support people who have not been born or raised in Scotland or the Global North. Many of these people may not identify or be ‘defined’ as care experienced in their home country but are considered so within a Scottish context.
There isn’t an exhaustive list of how care experience is defined across the world, but there is a lack of interaction with the unique system of care in the Global South that may provide frameworks in Scotland with an enhanced perspective of care. The main differences that must be considered between Scotland and countries that make up the Global South are the types of care we experience, the stigma (or lack thereof) as well as the differences in evidencing care beyond institutionalisation that may influence whether someone can be identified as care experienced. Much of the research that exists about children in care systems in the Global South is based on research gathered about residential schools. As we know in Scotland, residential care is one of, but not the only, form of care a child or young person may experience. Defining the lived experience of care in the Global South can also be challenging because existing research is limited, with many of the researchers who have explored this based in countries from the Global North. The research itself is typically not undertaken by people with the lived experience of those systems, or who have a cultural understanding of the experience and stigma that comes with care experience in the Global South. In this sense, the data we need to inform a universal definition of care experience which acknowledges experiences in the Global South can be limited.
This challenge should not be a deterrent to exploring how we incorporate this data and understanding into future developments of defining care experience in Scotland. In some local authorities, children who are refugees or who travelled to Scotland unaccompanied to seek asylum may be considered care experienced or are supported by the same services as people from Scotland who are care experienced. This is an example of one of many unique experiences that a child who comes from a country from the Global South may encounter in Scotland, where there is a lack of consistency in definition between here and their home country. At the bare minimum, having a shared understanding of care beyond the care system in Scotland would create more accurate data that captures these different and varied experiences of care.
Integrating alternative understandings of care
A further point that highlights some of the issues that could arise is considering how we integrate alternative understandings of care into the existing frameworks of defining care experience in Scotland. An example of this is ‘informal’ kinship care, where there is no compulsory supervision order attached to a child’s care. Children and young people who are cared for informally by kinship carers may not be entitled to all the support they may need due to the informality and lack of social work involvement in their care. With this in mind, it becomes increasingly challenging for people from the Global South who have experience of ‘informal’ kinship care that took place out with Scotland – firstly, when it comes to evidencing that form of care, and secondly, because the idea of who is ‘kin’ is very subjective and based on a cultural understanding of the traditional nuclear family.
Kinship care in Scotland includes anyone who is cared for by people who are not part of their immediate family, namely, their biological parents. They could instead be cared for by their grandparents, aunts, uncles or close family friends. This definition of care is based on the idea of a nuclear family in the Global North, where each family typically lives in a separate household. However, for many countries in the Global South there is a diversity of what the family structure looks like in one single home. Whether due to polygamy or shared communities, a child may be cared for by people who are not part of their immediate family and for many this is a normalised cultural practice. They may have experience kinship care within a Global North context but not identify with this or experience the trauma or stigma that can be associated with kinship care in Scotland. Would people with these experiences still be viewed as care experienced by the existing definition of care experience in Scotland?
There are growing entanglements with the diversity of care experience from people from the Global South who now live in Scotland. This is another symptom of globalisation and the increasing impact of forced migration from people from the Global South who seek asylum in Western countries. How people in the Global South experience care, the systems in place to provide care, the perception of stigma and trauma around these experiences are unique and still under researched. To create a universal definition of care experience that is truly inclusive, that may potentially be enshrined into Scots law, policy and practice should embrace expanding how we in Scotland view care globally. This is not just to capture more accurate data, but as a timely opportunity to embrace the nuances of care experience beyond the institutional definitions of care that is perpetuated in our service delivery. So, this week, as we celebrate all the children, young people and adults with experience of care, we should be striving towards understanding how these nuances could include and provide support to the many people with experience of care who find themselves outside the current bounds of how we define care experience in Scotland.
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