When people think about Special Guardianship Orders (SGOs), they often focus on the court process itself.

What many don’t realise is that once the Special Guardianship Order is granted, the support you’ve relied on throughout the assessment process can suddenly disappear.

That was certainly our experience.

It’s when family or friends step in and essentially stop a child from going into the care system with strangers.

Kinship care means familiarity, love, connection and so much more. It is about keeping a child within their family network, with people they already know, trust and feel safe with.

In simple terms, a kinship carer is someone who cares for a child when their birth parents are unable to, and instead of the child entering foster care, they remain within their extended family or close relationships.

There was a point where everything felt like it was slipping.

Not in a dramatic, obvious way. It was quieter than that. A slow build of pressure, behaviours escalating, school becoming harder, and home starting to feel less like a place of safety and more like a place of constant firefighting.

We had our Special Guardianship Order. On paper, we had permanence. We had done everything we were supposed to do.

But in reality, we were struggling.

When the passport finally arrived, I remember holding it in my hands and feeling something close to relief. Not excitement exactly. Relief mixed with exhaustion. If you have ever applied for a passport for a child under a Special Guardianship Order, you will understand why. It is not a simple tick box exercise. It is paperwork layered on top of court orders, parental responsibility, consent, uncertainty, and the constant fear of getting something wrong.

For a brief moment, I thought we were done. Passport sorted. Box ticked. Job finished.

But the truth is, the passport is only the beginning.

Let’s get rid of two dangerous myths that harm children far more than they help: the idea that love alone can erase trauma, and the belief that because a child is young, they will naturally grow out of it or are too young to remember. Neither of these is true. They are trauma myths adults tell themselves to feel hopeful and reassured, but they are not rooted in reality. In our case, these beliefs were reinforced by professionals, resulting in systemic gaslighting. I know this because I once believed them myself,

I wish someone had told me what life as a kinship carer really looked like before I stepped into it. They don’t. They prepare you with forms, court dates, meetings with social workers, and endless advice about what the law says you can and cannot do. What they don’t tell you is what it feels like in the quiet moments, in the chaos, in the grey areas between love and fear.

I remember the moment the phrase Special Guardianship Order was first said to me. It was like someone had handed me a book in a language I’d never learned but was suddenly expected to speak fluently. I had lived through court hearings, adoption chats, kinship care referrals, late‑night Googling, endless forms, and the very real fear of choosing the wrong path for a child I loved with every fibre of my being. At that time, it felt like every instinct I had was whispering and screaming at the same time.