Since February 1977 foster care in the Netherlands has ‘My life
book’. It is a mix of a diary, scrap book, photo album and file
on the child. There is room for all sorts of information about the
child and his or her life history. This can be photographs and family
information, but also anecdotes, a survey of places of residence or
a copy of a swimming certificate.
The life of children who are placed in care is often a very ‘adventurous’
existence, with at least one and often more fault lines. At such a
fault line everything changes: the family, the school, the friends,
the rules and ideas about morals and morality. Prior to all those
changes is a phase in the child’s life which nobody likes to
think back to. For children it is often too painful, for adults too
difficult to talk about. This way whole periods of a child’s
life can be forgotten. When children at a later age want to know the
puzzle of their life, it often proves to be difficult or impossible
to find out what happened. What’s more, people also cannot remember
how they experienced the changes at the time. In short: the past,
or part thereof becomes a blind spot.
The emphasis of the title lies on the word ‘my’, because
the life book is meant to be the child’s possession. The child
determines what goes in and what does not, how the events are told,
whether other people are allowed to read it or look into it. The child
is the owner.
My life book is a folder with different sheets and consists of four
parts:
