Meet Oly and Leasa

Kinship carers Leasa, 56, and husband Oly, 57, from London have been raising their two nephews Jake, 11, who is autistic and Luke, 9, in their two-bedroom housing association flat since June 2020.

Their 19-year-old son has their bedroom which means Oly and Leasa have been sleeping on the sofa-bed for five years. Leasa has back and hip pain as a result.

Leasa and Oly said: “Out of the blue we received a call from social services asking us if we would take in our nephews then aged just 11 months and 3 years old, otherwise they would go into local authority care. It felt like we had to make an immediate decision.

“We made the snap decision on that call to take them, not knowing how long it would be for, or if we’d receive any support. It was instinctive. You just think, we need to stop these kids going into care, to strangers. We need to keep them in the family.

“We live in a two-bedroom housing association flat on the first floor. It’s tiny. The boys came to us a couple of months later after we had secured a Special Guardianship Order.

“Becoming kinship carers hugely impacted our lives. Oly had to give up his shifts at the Royal Mail sorting office for a while to be with the children when I went to work. Social services said I would have to give up my nannying job, but I said ‘no’ and said that I could make it work.

“We had to change our flat around. Oly and I had to give up our bedroom so that our nephews and our son had a room of their own. We weren’t made aware that if we’d asked, we would probably have been entitled to a bigger property.

“As it was, we had to fight for everything, including a cot for the baby, storage, shelves. It’s meant a lot of disruption and little sleep, as the baby screamed through the nights to begin with.

“During the first year I (Leasa) thought I would crack. It hadn’t been in our life plan to parent again at our age in our small home. But I felt fearful that if I’d gone to the doctor to say how I was feeling they might take the kids away, so we just pushed through.

“It’s meant that for the last five years we’ve been sleeping on a sofa-bed in the lounge, which also doubles as a place where our nephews do their schoolwork and arts and crafts. It’s so uncomfortable and I get a lot of pain in my hips. We’re all on top of each other. We’re sleeping, eating, watching TV, everything, in the family area.

“When Oly comes back home from working a night shift he has to sleep in the boys’ bunk beds as we’re all in the only other room in the flat, the lounge, which also doubles as our bedroom and the boys’ playroom. He probably gets about four hours sleep.

“If I want any personal space I go to the bathroom and shut the door. That lack of privacy and space can put a strain on your relationship, but we deal with it.

“Oly and I are like ships that pass in the night. We hand the caring baton to each other. As hard as it can be we still have joy in our lives and do nice things as a family. We save for family holidays so we can make special experiences for the boys and create happy memories for them. We want them to see and experience the world.

“It’s great to see them happy and stable and we love them very much. We have a world globe we all love to look at and that symbolises many things, including what they mean to us.

“The reality is that kinship carers don’t know what they’re stepping into when they take on the care of their kinship children. You’re given hardly any information or practical support to help you.

“It would have massively helped us all to have a bigger, more stable home, so our living arrangements could be better, and we could have space to just breathe. Some days are tougher than others, but we find a way to get through the day.”