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How can we use timelines to help children and young people explore their past? Social worker and trainer, Polly Baynes, shares a case example based on her work with multiple children. The example below includes references to non-accidental injuries inflicted on a child.
On Monday 30 June 2025, Polly will lead a Live Classroom on using timelines to explore past, present and future – find out more here.
Timelines have multiple uses – from long term therapeutic life story work to shorter pieces of work preparing a child to move or, as in the hypothetical example that follows, answering a young person’s specific questions.
When I meet 14 year old Arlo, he is very settled with his foster carer Dave but does not understand why he can’t live with his Mum. He angrily rejects the social worker’s explanation of repeated non-accidental injury in her care. Arlo’s memories of life at home are of running wild, climbing on the kitchen workshops and hitting his little sister. His Mum says he had ADHD and a lot of accidents. Arlo gets into fights at school sometimes and so he thinks this might be true. Perhaps it was all his fault.
Before I start work, I spend time reading the file and making sense of this story, wondering what I would want to know if it was about me. I talk to Dave who is initially reluctant to join our sessions. It is painful for him to think about what happened to Arlo and Dave doesn’t want to spoil a good relationship with Arlo’s Mum. He worries about saying the wrong thing and making Arlo feel more guilty. We talk about fight or flight responses and Dave reflects back on how he helped Arlo to feel calm and safe when he first arrived and the firm, kind boundaries he needed.
I negotiate time and place (and snacks) for my six visits, helping Arlo plan what to do afterwards. For our first session, I bring a list of possible topics and Arlo selects ‘did my Mum hurt me?’ and ‘why am I in care?’ Arlo needs to determine the direction of this work, his love and loyalty for his Mum accepted so he is not pushed into defensiveness. My role is that of detective, helping find information, wondering what happened alongside him.
The following week, I bring a simple timeline, showing Arlo’s birthdays and Christmases and the houses he has lived in and the people in his life. We add things that Arlo and Dave know about his Mum – she is kind and funny, makes good cakes, is scared of spiders, used to shout a lot.
With Arlo’s agreement, I add information from social services before my next visit, with three ambulances for his hospital admissions. Arlo writes some more things he remembers – hurting his brother and breaking things. He draws little Arlo with a sad face and a rainy sky.
So next time, we talk about how little children need adults to help them learn to behave and keep an eye on them, like Dave did when Arlo arrived, aged six and threw his dinner across the room. Arlo notices how he has only been to hospital once since then – when he broke his arm playing football.
On week four, we go back to the injuries. I draw speech bubbles to show what doctors said. We all try to figure out what happened – how could a baby get a bite on his ear? How did a toddler get a spiral fracture? Arlo comes to his own conclusions, angry that the social workers sent him home to get hurt again. I say I am sorry, they got it wrong.
Next time we think more about Arlo’s Mum, how Arlo’s Dad left her all alone and she had no other family, about what Arlo might want to say next time they meet. We talk a bit about how getting hurt activates your threat response, giving Arlo new ways to think about his own behaviour. Our final meeting brings us back to talking about Arlo now and his plans for the future, sharing some cake to say goodbye.
Drawing and writing on paper gave distance to Arlo’s painful story, allowing us to talk about ‘baby Arlo’ not ‘me’.
We could roll up the wallpaper and put it all away at the end.
Using a timeline helped make new meanings from his fragmented past and confirmed his place in the future.
Joan Didion said ‘we tell stories in order to live’. For children like Arlo, this need is urgent.
Polly Baynes will lead an online Live Classroom on using timelines to explore past, present and future, on Monday 30 June 2025. Find out more and book your place here>>
Polly has been involved with life story work with children for 36 years in a variety of roles, including as a residential social worker, local authority social worker, children’s guardian, independent social worker, clinical supervisor and independent trainer. She is the author of the Research in Practice Life Story Work Practice Guide and developed and delivered Research in Practice’s 2022 national training programme in life story work. In 2017, Polly was awarded a Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship to Australia to learn more about their approach to life story work, contact and kinship care. She is currently studying for a Phd, looking at how social work understands its own story and makes sense of this in working with families.
