Primary school teacher shares his experience of living in care

Nation.Cymru Team

A primary school teacher and TikTok startles about his childhood experiences in foster care, sharing the challenges he faced as a child and the support that helped shape his future.

At the age of three, Sam Gardner ate every meal as fast as he could. He had just been placed with his first foster family, after a turbulent start to life with his birth parents.

Up until that point, he said he was “raised on biscuits and sweets.”

He said: “It took months for me to realise and understand that food would come again.”

What Sam went through in those early years, was, in his own words, “akin to a Netflix documentary.” He lived with his parents and three other siblings in a household with domestic violence, crime and drugs.

Reflecting on his early years, Sam said: “I recently accessed my care files. […] in the files, it says that my hair was quite thin because I hadn’t been washed properly, I was dirty, I had flea bites all over my legs. I had diarrhoea because I had never eaten fruit and vegetables before, I hadn’t had proper fibre in my diet. I was aggressive, angry, I used to swear all the time.”

But Sam says his life changed when he was placed with his first local authority foster family. It was the first moment he can recall feeling truly loved.

He said: “The foster parents I was with, they put in structure, routine, slowly exposed me to normality. I started doing well in school, they noticed my potential, my reading improved.

“They saw progress to a crazy level because I was in the right environment. And that is one of the key messages I want to say to a foster parent, you can provide an environment that we can grow in, that we couldn’t grow in before.”

Life now

Sam, now 33, lived with several foster carers until he went to university at the age of 18. He went on to become a primary school teacher, and like many adults with experience of the foster care system, he has spent the last few years confronting and overcoming
the trauma he experienced as a child.

He now shares his experience of care with thousands of followers on his TikTok account, @lessonsfromcare, connecting with other care experienced adults, children currently in the system, foster carers and social workers.

Sam, who now lives in Swansea but grew up in the Vale of Glamorgan, hopes that by sharing his story he can help others who have been through and are going through similar situations.

Sam has partnered with Foster Wales – a national network of local authority fostering teams across Wales – for Foster Care Fortnight, The Fostering Network’s annual campaign to raise the profile of fostering and show how foster care transforms lives.

This year’s theme is: This is Fostering. The two-week event from May 11 to May 24, is designed to showcase the realities of fostering in Wales, including the highs and the lows.

Sam is sharing his story to show just how much those small moments matter to children in foster care.

He said: “Foster carers don’t have to be superheroes, they don’t have to be these magical beings, they don’t have to be perfect. They just need to provide safety, emotional safety, but also physical safety.”

Inspiring future foster carers 

Sam wants his story to inspire future foster carers to come forward and work with Foster Wales. He wants more people to know that if they have any doubts about fostering, the right training, support and community of local authority foster carers can help empower them to make a difference in a child’s or young person’s life.

Reflecting on his relationship with his birth parents, Sam described the contact as “sporadic”, before they both passed away. Sam’s care files describe how his mother experienced a slipped disk in her back, which meant she was dealing with a lot of pain. She became reliant on painkillers and sleeping tablets, before harder drugs were introduced.

His care files describe how his mum was a known shoplifter, both to fund her habit and to provide for the children. The files also describe how Sam was sent to nursery without appropriate clothing, dirty from not being washed properly.

His mum died when Sam was 25. “I think my mum loved me; she just couldn’t meet my needs. I have so much love and compassion for her,” he said.

Sam’s father died when he was 16, around the same time as Sam moved to a new foster carer. He recalls this as one of the hardest years of his life, however, it motivated him to knuckle down in school and pursue his dream of being a teacher.

He said: “I thought, I’ve lost my dad, he’s not coming to save me. What have I got control of? My education. I had teachers who were phenomenal, there were social workers who were phenomenal, and my next foster carer was phenomenal. They were the pinnacle really, in pushing me to get to university because I was in an awful place [emotionally]. I was a very deep, overthinking child that just needed a bit of encouragement.”

He described his final foster family, as “legends”. Sam said: “The first thing he [foster dad] said to me was ‘You treat this house like it’s your house.’ Obviously, there were boundaries, but I was treated my age, given a little bit of freedom. I was treated like a normal 17-year-old.

“They got me my first job in a local pub; they gave me a place to be and focus on my A-Levels and get to university. I always wanted to be a teacher, and I worked hard for it.”

Sam has stayed in touch with this family and went to visit them in their new home in Spain a few years after leaving their care. In total, he was cared for by roughly 15 foster families through his time in the care system, staying with five foster carers for a few
years or more.

‘Change the trajectory of someone’s life’

Sam is urging anyone who is considering fostering to come forward. He stressed that if an individual is nervous about the process, that is a good thing.

He said: “The best foster carers are the ones who are a little bit nervous, self-critical, self-reflective, worried that they’re going to get it wrong, because they are the ones who genuinely care and it shows you understand the responsibility of becoming a foster carer. It’s a huge privilege but it’s also a huge responsibility.

“The second thing I would say is what a difference you can make. And that’s in my story, where I go from the environment with my mum, to my foster parents, I saw real progress. That’s what you can provide to a child. You literally change the trajectory of
someone’s life.”

If you are inspired by Sam’s story and want to find out more about fostering with your local authority, visit fosterwales.gov.wales