This article is 4 pages long, just over 2,000 words. It appeared in the Weekend Section of Birmingham Post on December 15th 2007
Rejected Young Mothers Taken in From the Cold
I am waiting outside Trentham House, a hostel for homeless young mothers, when a tall, confident girl with long hair walks up the path behind me. She is smartly dressed in black, has immaculate make-up, and throws me a warm smile.
I explain I have come to interview some of the residents. She says she knows – “They said you were coming” – and welcomes me inside. Here I am greeted by Michelle Doyle, the hostel’s resettlement worker. The lady in black disappears down a corridor, no doubt heading to her office.
Half-an-hour later, I am sitting in a communal lounge, waiting to talk to one of the hostel’s mums-to-be. I’ve been told she is five months’ pregnant and is willing to talk about her life, which, as I later learn, has become a domestic nightmare.
And in she walks – the lady in black.
“I saw you earlier at the door,” I bluster. “I thought you worked here. I didn’t know you were, well….”
What I don’t tell Emma, but what I am thinking is this: “You can’t be homeless. You look too smart. You’re polite and attractive. You don’t strike me as the sort of girl who could get mixed up with an unplanned pregnancy.”
And so there it is: the first misconception of the day shattered.
Emma, now 22, has 11 GCSEs, with A to C Grades. Until recently, she was working as a nurse in the private sector. She lost her job when her employers found out she was pregnant.
Rejection is a familiar theme. Emma was turned out of the family home when her father, who is white and Catholic, discovered she was expecting a child with an Asian Muslim. It was bad enough she was dating the man in the first place; the pregnancy was the final straw.
“He won’t let me in the house or speak to my mother,” says Emma, which is not her real name.
Her boyfriend’s parents do not know of her existence, let alone that she is bearing their grandchild. She suspects they will have a major problem that their son is dating a white Catholic.
Emma, who has striking blue eyes, says: “If my boyfriend doesn’t tell his family, I can’t do much about it. I hope he’ll tell them. Until he does I don’t think we can make any specific plans. He seems to think that when the baby is born it will be easier to tell them.”
The expectant mum is one of the newest arrivals at Trentham House, an established mother and baby unit in south Birmingham. The hostel is run by St Basils, one of the largest organisations in the UK working with young people to prevent homelessness, and help those who have already found themselves ‘rough sleeping’ or ‘sofa-surfing,’ crashing down in the living rooms of friends, acquaintances and characters of dubious moral motivation.
Emma arrived at the hostel a couple of weeks ago and is one of the 17 young women, either pregnant or with babies, who live here (effectively two big terrace properties knocked into one) at any time.
The UK has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Europe, and there are never any empty beds here. When I visit, Trentham House is home to two pregnant women and 15 mothers, whose children are aged from one week to two years. Residents should leave the hostel when their children are 18 months old, but the pressure on suitable accommodation means there is flexibility over the upper age limit.
The women are aged 16 to 25, but girls as young as 15 have been housed in the past. The current intake, I am told, is unusual because it includes ten women in their 20s, representing an older age profile than in previous years.
Michelle Doyle, who has worked at Trentham House since 2003, says: “When I first started here it was mainly 16, 17 and 18-year-olds. The rate of teenage pregnancy hasn’t gone down, so it can’t be to do with that.”
Michelle and Sylvia Allen, a housing support worker, agree that family breakdowns account for a large proportion of the young women that come here.
“A lot of the young people we see come through the care system. The care system has not worked for them. A lot of the girls are looking for love in the wrong places.”
Michelle adds: “They are looking for attention, and it is often the wrong sort of attention they get.”
Both the workers agree that it is important that staff do not get emotionally involved with their young charges – their role, they say, is to “befriend” not be friends with the residents.
“We have had babies and children removed [by social services]. We have shed many tears here, but we all love our jobs. Sometimes things go wrong and you have to remain professional. But you also have to have some bond.”
Most of the young women find somewhere to go on Christmas Day, but even on this day of the year Trentham House remains the only port in the storm for some girls on the periphery of society.
Michelle says: “I have worked on Christmas Day. I just cried in the afternoon. There were two girls here. They had nowhere else to go.”
Trentham House encourages independent living in a supported environment. The doors close at 11pm and residents shop and cook for themselves. It is the first time many of the women have ever prepared a meal.
The project is staffed 24 hours a day. A manager/midwife is on duty throughout the week and is on call at night and over the weekends. A health professional and a family planning advisor are regular visitors.
But if the disintegration of the family unit is one reason why some of Birmingham’s most vulnerable young mothers find themselves homeless, it is by no means the only explanation.
Afzana Afzal currently holds the title of its longest-serving resident, having stayed here for 15 months. She moved in two weeks after the birth of her son, Armaan Qadir.
With her photogenic features and charming manner, it is difficult to think of a more doting, loving mother. Armaan is a delight – when he isn’t trying to chew his mother’s legs, that is – and he doesn’t want for what parenting “experts” would call behavioural stimulation.
Having dropped a cuddly toy lion he was playing with, Armaan darts under the frame of a high-chair and peers out at his observers.
“Where are you, Armaan? What do you want to say?” asks his mother in an excited voice.
The child, dressed in clean, blue dungarees and a white T-shirt, babbles away, trills like an exotic bird, and says: “Itch.”
“I keep thinking he’s saying, ‘Bitch,’ but he can’t be,” says Afzana, laughing, but slightly embarrassed. “I never swear around him.”
I don’t doubt it. Afzana, who is 20, is impeccably polite and has a supportive family. In fact, she is married.
Her parents, who were born in Pakistan, no longer live together but are in touch with her regularly. Afzana explains that she reluctantly had to leave her mother’s home in Birmingham. Her brother, she says, suffered from mental illness and social services expressed concerns for the safety of her soon-to-be-born baby.
Afzana gave birth at City Hospital – Armaan was a featherweight 4lbs – and moved from a ward to Trentham House after the boy started to gain weight two weeks later.
She married Armaan’s father, Abdul Qadir, two years ago, but there was not enough room for them to live together at his parents’ house. (Afzana’s father lives in Peterborough.)
Qadir, who works for an internet company, sees Afzana and his son every day. “We see him as soon as he finishes work,” she says. “At weekends, we have full days together.”
She hopes to get a property with Qadir in the New Year, through the local authority or a housing association, and cannot wait. “It will be starting a new life. It will be the first proper home I have taken Armaan to.”
Afzana says the regime at Trentham House, which balances independent living with practical and emotional support, has been hugely beneficial for her son: “If St Basils hadn’t helped me we would have ended up in rented accommodation. This has been a lot better for Armaan. It is single-sex here. It is clean and quiet.”
Afzana dropped out of school at 13. She regrets missing her education and hopes to make up for it by studying at college. First, though, she wants to pass her driving test. “I want to drive because I want to be independent,” she adds.
With her personal circumstances, outlook and attitude, Afzana is an antidote to the stereotypical picture of the feckless young mother. Talking to her instils a spirit of hope, rather than the resigned desperation I had expected to encounter.
Alison Steventon, too, defies expectations. She fell pregnant at 17 to Tom, her childhood sweetheart. It wasn’t planned, but Alison, who has learned the hard way not to shun personal responsibility, adds: “We knew what we were doing.”
At the time, her relationship with her mother, who lives in Northfield, is best described as poisonous. Alison, now 18, says: “The ethos in the house was really, really bad. It was better to be away from there rather than together with my mother. It would have just got worse, rather than better, if I had stayed.”
Alison became homeless. She was living in another St Basils project when she discovered she was pregnant. She says she and Tom, who is Chinese, never considered an abortion. “I was scared and worried about what people thought. But I also thought, ‘I have got myself into this situation.”
Alison moved here four months before her daughter, Isabelle-Mei was born. This period was used to teach her child-rearing skills and she gave birth to her 7lb 13oz girl after a hellish 28-hour labour at Birmingham Women’s Hospital.
Today, Isabelle-Mei, who is seven months old, has the most stunning, biggest, darkest brown (they’re almost black) eyes I have ever seen. Dressed in a pretty pink babygro, she sits on her mother’s knee, smiles and sucks her dribbly hand.
She is teething, so Alison hasn’t had much sleep. But the mother ruffles her daughter’s brown hair, kisses her frequently, plays and laughs. Life Afzana, she is clearly besotted.
Trentham House allows partners to stay three nights a week to encourage them to bond with the babies and take part in the child-care duties.
Tom, says Alison, was a godsend when Isabelle-Mei was first born, helping with the night feeds: “He loves her. I don’t exist when Isabelle-Mei is around. She is a Daddy’s girl.”
Tom mucks in with feeding, changing and bathing his daughter when he clocks off from his building job each day.
Alison’s relationship with her mother is now back on track and she and Isabelle-Mei stay with her every Tuesday night. She hopes to move back to Northfield in the New Year with the help of the St Basils resettlement programme.
Alison says: “Although I got kicked out of home, in a strange way I am thankful for it because I have more independence now. If it hadn’t happened, I would not have been as forward or active as I am with Isabelle.”
Tellingly, she adds: “I would not have coped without the help I received here. St Basils has been a lifeline for me and Isabelle-Mei.”
If further proof were needed of the work carried out at Trentham House, look no further than Alison’s little girl.
“She’s a bag of beans,” says Alison. “She rolls over, tries to walk, she tries to crawl. She is so happy.”
Then it is lunch-time. I ask Alison what her baby will have to eat; I expect it will be a jar.
“She’s having mashed potato, broccoli and cauliflower,” says Alison. “I make her fresh food everyday. She doesn’t like jars.”
Another misconception explodes.
Some things, however, don’t change. If you thought the problem of homelessness was contained, consider this: at any one time, including this Christmas, St Basils cares for 340 young people who have nowhere to go.
They include girls who came into the world at Trentham House, and now find themselves back there with their own babies.
