Woman carrying garbage bag to raise awareness of childrens' plight in foster care

Many women like to make a fashion statement with their handbag, but one woman is carrying a garbage bag instead of a purse to make a point about the impermanence of living in the foster-care system.

Violet-Rose Pharaoh has been carrying a garbage bag for nearly a year as part of her Garbage Bag Challenge.

Pharaoh, 37, spent 15 years in foster care and had moved between eight and 10 times by the time she turned 18.

Despite the fact that children in care are often shuttled multiple times between foster homes, they aren't provided with suitcases for these moves, and often pack their few belongings into garbage bags, she said.

"For me that's just not a really great way to start what already is something almost traumatic, having to uproot your life and being able to find yourself in another home environment and lacking stability," the Vancouver woman told CBC's Metro Morning on Friday.

Many people who see Pharaoh with her garbage bag don't speak up.

"I have a lot of people that stare and look at me really strangely," she said.

But people who do ask wonder if it's really true that children have to carry their belongings around in a garbage bag.

"Our system is so complex and there are so many different parts of it that are encompassed in making sure that a child's safety is the priority," Pharaoh said.

"But somehow we've forgotten about the essential fact that they have belongings and each time that a child moves, they're not always able to take a lot of their belongings with them. So I think it's really important that we respect the belongings that they do have and create a different message, a message that they're valued and that they're important."

Pharaoh recalled how she grew tired of having to move a lot, and when she and a caseworker arrived at one of her foster homes, she refused to get out of the car.

"I wanted a home. And I can remember this family, they were the nicest people, it was a lovely house. But when we pulled up in the driveway I refused to get out of the social worker's car," she said.

She was "terrified" of having to get used to yet another home.

"How did I know that this was going to be a place where I would be able to settle in and be able to have some sense of normalcy and just be a kid just like every other kid that I'd had interactions with in my life?" she said.

She advocates for "permanency" for children and youth in the foster system, and says just talking about some of these issues will go a long way to addressing the stigma they face not only during their time in care, but as they are "aging out of the system, as well.

"It's such an intense time. You have all these supports in place and then all of a sudden your support's cut off and then you're trying to figure out how to function in the world and who you are in it."

The only province that currently gives suitcases to children in care for their moves is Prince Edward Island, she said. She is hoping that such a program can be expanded across the country. She would also like to see changes to the foster care system so children have more input.

"I think the biggest part is we need to start engaging the children and youth in conversations about what they want their experience in care to look like."