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It explains why care-experienced people face stigma and discrimination, highlights legal rights to personal files, and shows how delays and refusals can force individuals to spend decades trying to learn their history. 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The article emphasizes that helping people access their files is a starting point for change.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What barriers can prevent care-experienced people from getting their records?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"Requests may be denied or delayed due to concerns, lack of resources, inertia, or attempts to hide unpalatable truths. The text cites long timelines and repeated applications as examples.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What policy or mindset changes does the article argue for?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"It calls for care experience to be treated as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 and supports a broader shift in how society talks about care. It also links reforms to reducing illegal, unregistered care home use.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},320210,1790644136,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":34,"category_name":35,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":39,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145},1374391974564,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/14000253aa45c000a9e?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1779874745381141002","•• From £[1.15 for subscribers](1.15 for subscribers Sunday 20 September 2026 | www.observer.co.uk | No 12)[ Sunday 20 September 2026 | www.observer.co.uk](1.15 for subscribers Sunday 20 September 2026 | www.observer.co.uk | No 12)[ |](1.15 for subscribers Sunday 20 September 2026 | www.observer.co.uk | No 12)[ No 12](1.15 for subscribers Sunday 20 September 2026 | www.observer.co.uk | No 12),250 | £5.00 (IR €5.50)  \n\n|  |\n| --- |\n| \u003Cbr>Exclusive offers for autumn adventures\u003Cbr>20% off stays at remarkable Landmark Trust properties\u003Cbr>Seepage 52 for details\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>25% offa year of English Heritage membership\u003Cbr>|\n| \u003Cbr>Established 1791 |\n| \u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>Careless The state stopped me learning the story of my childhood Nkechi Simms, the Top Boy actor, on her quest to retrieve her care files–and what she finally uncovered\u003Cbr>Page 8\u003Cbr>‘There’san institutional fear of being proved wrong’\u003Cbr>LemnSissay, writer and care-leaver |\n|  |\n\nCravings! Angela Hartnett’s easy weekend pasta + Nigel Slater’s baked figs with whipped ricotta  \n•  \n\n| | [observer.co.uk](observer.co.uk)\u003Cbr>20.09.26 | 3 |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| ‘The enemy of nonsense’ – George Orwell, The Observer |  |  |\n| Take more care\u003Cbr>The most vulnerable children in society deserve more support trying to make sense of their lives\u003Cbr>|  |  |\n| \u003Cbr>child in care, the poet Lemn Sissay says, is “living, walking proof that things can fall apart”. Being taken into care can be traumatic. To live in care is to be vulnerable, and the experience of care can have a lifelong impact. When\u003Cbr>the system works it can save children from abuse, neglect and worse. Too often, it leaves scars of its own, a stigma that eats away at self-respect and dignity.\u003Cbr>People who have lived in care feel society asking: “What did you do wrong?”, Sissay says. But it’sthe question that is wrong. He and others want to change the conversation about care and its impact, and the starting point is to help those who have experienced it to get access to their records.\u003Cbr>More than 14,000 18-year-olds left full-time care last year. They have a legal right to access their files, which can stretch to thousands of pages of documents. That right is often not upheld, whether because of inertia and lack of resources or a wish to hide unpalatable truths. Whatever the reason, none justifies keeping care-experienced people in the dark about their own lives.\u003Cbr>Nkechi Simms, now known as an actor in the Netflix series Top Boy, grew up in care and first tried to access her records when she was 20. Camden Council in north London denied her request, citing unspecified “concerns”. When she tried again nearly six years later, it took almost eight months to gain access to an initial, limited batch of records. Requesting more meant reap-\u003Cbr>plying at intervals of 90 days – a process that led Sissay to conclude that the council was hoping Simms would give up.\u003Cbr>When Sissay, who was taken into care in Wigan, became the first person there to request his records under the 1987 Access to Personal Files Act, it took him nearly 30 years to see them. Only then could he learn the full story of his birth mother, who he had been told did not want him but who had written to the council a few months after he was born, pleading to have him back.\u003Cbr>People with experience of care deserve to be heard and seen. Just as they have been denied the experience of authentic family life, or even what Sissay calls the “PR” version (“the car, the kids, the holiday, the sofa”), so society at large has little understanding of what it is like to grow up with only“corporate” parents – carers paid to take notes on children’s progress but often\u003Cbr>unable to give the emotional support they need, let alone a love they can only imagine.\u003Cbr>Care-experienced people are seven times more likely than average to die before the age of 25, according to the Nuffield Trust. Aperception lingers that children’s homes are for “naughty children”, Sissay told a Channel 4\u003Cbr>audience ","cbCaifBbNPSUzRVd","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaifBbNPSUzRVd","pdf",75594515,176,"English","# Take more care\n## Access to personal files and legal rights\n## Stigma, trauma, and long-term impacts\n## Protecting care experience and accountability","[{\"question\":\"Why is access to care records important for people who grew up in care?\",\"answer\":\"Because records contain the full story of someone’s life in care, and being kept in the dark can deepen stigma and self-doubt. The article emphasizes that helping people access their files is a starting point for change.\"},{\"question\":\"What barriers can prevent care-experienced people from getting their records?\",\"answer\":\"Requests may be denied or delayed due to concerns, lack of resources, inertia, or attempts to hide unpalatable truths. The text cites long timelines and repeated applications as examples.\"},{\"question\":\"What policy or mindset changes does the article argue for?\",\"answer\":\"It calls for care experience to be treated as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 and supports a broader shift in how society talks about care. It also links reforms to reducing illegal, unregistered care home use.\"}]","Careless - Take more care - care files and support | PDF",1789949421,444]