Podcast Season 3: Episode 10 – What is a foster carer’s role in life story work?

Please note that this transcript is auto-generated and therefore will contain some errors and natural pauses in conversation.

[00:00:00] DAWN: Welcome to the Creative Life Story Work podcast, where we explore how to make life story work better for all care experienced children and young people. Creative Life Story Work is an approach which can improve children and young people’s lives, their relationships with others at home. It’s based on the Rose model of therapeutic life story work.

[00:00:33] Every month we’ll explore a different aspect of creative life story work and we’ll give insights into how you can use this approach to help care experienced children and young people make sense of their past and build a brighter future. Today we are focusing on the vital role that foster carers play in the delivery of life story work.

[00:00:58] And for this episode, I’m delighted to say that we’ve managed to meet in person whilst we’re out and about in Newcastle. I’m delighted to be having a conversation with with Joanne Stoddart and Jenny Young. Joanne Stoddart is a local authority specialist working with Blue Cabin. She also holds a role in a regional adoption agency.

[00:01:21] She’s an experienced children’s social worker and manager working With 25 years experience working in local authorities, Joanne has been involved in Blue Cabin’s Creative Life Story work project over the past four years and has worked closely and collaboratively with Blue Cabin throughout. Jenny is director of Blue Cabin, which she founded in 2007.

[00:01:44] And she cites this as being one of her greatest achievements. Jenny has 20 years of experience working in both local authority and cultural sectors with extensive knowledge and interest in care experienced communities. Welcome Jenny and Joanne this morning. Hello, good morning. Joanne. Well, Joanne and Jenny.

[00:02:08] I thought, I would set a scenario for you where I am a foster carer and I’ve just heard that I will be welcoming a new child into my home. I wondered if you could give us a brief overview of what training might I have had to prepare me for this and What information might I have received about the child who’s about to walk into, walk through my front door?

[00:02:38] JOANNE: Right, shall I do this one, Jenny? Yeah, go for it. So, as a, as a foster carer, whether you’ve been a foster carer for a number of years or you’re a newly, registered foster carer, you will have engaged in fostering preparation training, which is extremely in depth, usually over about a four day period, covering absolutely everything fostering related.

[00:03:01] You also will have a supervising social worker who will be your social worker, your allocated social worker for you as a foster carer. That’s not the child social worker, that’s the foster carer’s social worker. And as part of maintaining your fostering registration, you need to engage in various social work.

[00:03:20] training throughout each year. so that would be on offer from your, fostering agency, whether that was a local authority or an independent fostering agency. so you would have a lot of preparation there to, you know, in order to understand how to welcome a child into your home. In terms of information that you would probably receive, that would vary depending upon, the scenario in which the child was, was coming to live with you.

[00:03:50] Sadly, there are times when an emergency placement has to be found and that might very well be in the middle of the night and the amount of information you receive. I be very, very minimal, at that point. Other children are planned, are moved into a foster home in a planned way, and there will be a significant amount of information provided.

[00:04:09] Ultimately, what you need to be aware of is, what does this child need? What medical issues might there be? you know, key, key matters, what foods do they like, for example, and that information should be provided over time. You need the critical information immediately, but over time you will start being, made aware of other information regarding the child’s background, what they’ve experienced, their family, and, and where they are and what they actually need for that moment in time while they’re, while they’re with you.

[00:04:44] DAWN: So, very consistent. approach needed to what information is shared with the potential, with the, with the foster carer.

[00:04:55] JOANNE: The more the better is, is, is the ethos. sadly there are times, and I still hear it now, where you have foster carers saying they weren’t given information, they weren’t given enough information.

[00:05:06] So, so the, the message is social workers to give as much information as possible to the foster carers who ultimately are going to be looking after this particular child 24 7 in their own home.

[00:05:20] DAWN: So, yeah. Thank you. And Jenny, from Blue Cabin’s perspective, is that, a consistent approach across the country?

[00:05:28] What have we noticed from working with different local authorities?

[00:05:32] JENNY: I think, from a foster care point of view, we’ve had the pleasure and, we feel really privileged to have been in spaces in real life and online with foster carers from across the northeast of England. and I suppose what is consistent on the whole, I think, is their real want to support Children and young people in their home to understand their past and to think about the now and to be able to move forward and process that information.

[00:06:05] I think it would probably be fair to say anecdotally we hear that sometimes the information about the child’s past may not have been shared or there may be pockets of information that may have been shared. And I think that can perhaps leave carers feeling, unable to answer questions that a child or young person in their home might ask of them about their past, feel them perhaps leaving a, feeling a little bit exposed because they aren’t able to provide that narrative or understanding.

[00:06:38] Certainly the theme is we want to support children and young people to be able to have those answers and perhaps a frustration that they’re not always in a position to be able to share that information, but certainly the will to want to be able to do that.

[00:06:53] DAWN: And Joanne, I’m just wondering, once the child has been welcomed into your home and I’m thinking about the frustrations that Jenny’s just mentioned.

[00:07:04] I’m imagining there might be some pushback from the child when different boundaries are being set by the, the foster carer or even a rejection of the foster carer. And I’m just wondering what support can be put in place for a foster carer who’s experiencing that.

[00:07:23] JOANNE: Yeah, and sadly, it’s not unusual for a foster carer to experience rejection for obvious reasons.

[00:07:29] You’ve, you know, you’ve, you’ve removed a child from from their family. They don’t know what’s happening. They don’t know what’s going on. They’ve been moved into a completely strange family. They don’t understand and you know, you might think you’re explaining to a child what’s happening, but ultimately children, you know, as as adults will tell us they didn’t understand actually the information might be getting provided but they don’t understand what that means to them.

[00:07:55] So you will have a number of professionals and when I say professionals I am including foster carers in that group. You will have a group of professionals around every single child who is being cared for outside. side of their immediate family. and that would include obviously the social worker.

[00:08:12] They will have an independent reviewing officer, the foster carer will be there if they’re in school or nursery, there will be education representatives there. You’ve also got representative from the virtual school. School, you’ve potentially got, a health representative there dependent upon whether the child is, being engaged in therapy.

[00:08:32] So you’ve got a huge number of people surrounding, a child. And when, situations are being experienced where the child is pushing against boundaries or, you know, just presenting with behaviors that are detrimental to that child, the, the best thing to do is to come round as a group and it’s.

[00:08:53] It’s fairly common practice to have monthly, they’re not called core group meetings, but sort of monthly meetings with professionals just to keep on, on top of what’s happening. Is there anything that we need to put in place? The foster carer will also have, as I mentioned earlier, their supervising social worker as well, who they will rely on heavily.

[00:09:12] And the supervising social worker will be engaging the foster carer with regular supervision as well. So there is that, that sort of, place there. There, foster carers and, and fostering agencies tend to have their support groups as well that, that people can, can rely on, and take support from and advice and guidance.

[00:09:29] So there’s a, there’s a huge amount of support that can be provided. I can’t necessarily give examples at the moment because there are so many different scenarios, but dependent upon what is presenting, there will be, a resource or support or advice that can be, that can be provided to the foster carer.

[00:09:49] support that child in their home at the end of the day. They’re the ones that are living with this child and want to, to be able to wrap their arms around the child and, and, and help them move forward and, and feel settled. I

[00:10:01] DAWN: hadn’t realized there was such a, an array of different forms of support that a foster carer could call on.

[00:10:08] yeah. And, and, and that’ll be bespoke to every scenario that comes up as well. So that depending on what happens, different things will be called on. Yeah. and Joanne, again, I wondered if you’d like to say something about, the importance of foster carers being involved in life story work.

[00:10:31] JOANNE: Yeah, so, if you have a child who’s been, taken out of, of your home for an hour a week, for example, by the social worker, and then you’re not being, told what’s being discussed, or how the child has reacted, or young person, and then the social worker, I’ve done it myself, previously, I’ve done it myself, so I’m speaking from the heart here.

[00:10:52] You don’t realize until you’re, you’re sort of a bit further on in your career what you’ve done, really. But you’re presenting the child back into the home and you’re giving a very quick overview, potentially, of, of how the child’s been while you’ve had them with you. but if you then don’t include the foster carer or have a quite an in depth discussion about what you have discussed.

[00:11:16] You don’t need to tell them the ins and outs of everything, but how will a foster carer understand how to manage that child for the next week, two weeks, three weeks, depending upon how quickly that child has processed that. what they’ve, discussed in that session. We don’t know what comes up in, in children’s minds.

[00:11:36] And it might be weeks before, they start talking if they do talk. So, ultimately, any work that engages a child where they’re thinking about trauma that they’ve experienced or break in, attachments with, with key family members, or friends, or pets. Anything like that. a foster carer should really be involved with that, that work.

[00:12:01] We know that by including the foster carer in, life story work sessions, it builds that relationship between the child and the foster carer. And that is ultimately what we need because if a child feels confident, they will talk, they will talk to their foster carer who will class as a trusted adult.

[00:12:21] They’ll talk, and if they’re able to talk, that means the foster carer can help that child. Can also communicate that with the social worker as well, and perhaps look at, look at next steps, in terms of support for that child. So, ultimately, it’s, it’s vitally important.

[00:12:37] DAWN: Yeah, I’m smiling as you, as you went.

[00:12:40] Or pets, thinking about some of the sessions that we’ve run. Well, I think we had a mixture of cats, dogs, gerbils, and even once a pony came in as well, but it was really important that these animals were part of the, the setup where those young people were. Let’s go for a break and we’ll be back in a moment.

[00:12:59] TRAILER: We want people to gain more of an understanding about what it’s like to be care experienced and to have a better understanding of what it actually means. Could creative life story work make a difference to the care experienced children and young people you work with? Maybe you’re a social worker. I think we forget at our peril that actually telling a child the story of their early life is one of the most profound uses of social work power that we could ever operate.

[00:13:29] Perhaps you’re a foster carer. You know, when they say it’s all about the child, it’s not because our experiences, it’s about the carer and the child, and it just gives a new angle to our relationship because we’re learning about each other together. A creative life story work membership will give you, or your whole team, access to resources including activities you can use in direct work with children and young people, training with life story work experts, and lots more.

[00:13:59] And I think a lot of our children are looking for meaning, looking for, you know, well why is it I feel this way when my You know, my friends don’t. Why is it I get angry eternally and my friends don’t? The greatest thing we see is when we are able to say to young people, this is your story, this is about who you are, and then children towards the end say, it’s not my fault that these things happened, but it is something that I can do something about.

[00:14:21] And once we have that, Then we know we can move forward. Find out about our membership for individuals and for organizations on our website, creativelifestorywork. com.

[00:14:36] DAWN: Jenny, I’m just wondering if you’d like to say anything about some of the benefits of taking part in creative life story work, life story work that we’ve noticed, in the sessions that we’ve been doing at Blue Cabin.

[00:14:51] JENNY: We are very lucky, as podcast listeners will know, to have benefited from the extensive support and guidance from Professor Richard Rose.

[00:15:02] he created therapeutic life story work as an approach. And ultimately that approach is very much based upon, a triad model whereby There is a conversation and a process which involves both the child and a supporting adult, a key adult, often a carer, a foster carer or a kinship carer. And so the process can be facilitated in, if you think of the shape of a triangle, whereby it is about that process together.

[00:15:31] And we’ve learned a great deal from Richard about how to best, set up spaces. Whether that’s in want, a child, a carer, and a therapeutic life story worker in Richard’s model or in our process in a group space whereby the foster carer is absolutely a crucial part of that approach. Their, commitment and energy.

[00:15:52] them being present in the space, them being alongside the child or young person, them being able to support and witness what’s happening in terms of the conversation and the reflection. But also, some of the key outcomes has been the sharing of the self with the child or young person, so that the life story work process isn’t all about the child sharing or reflecting on their experiences.

[00:16:15] past or their present. It’s also about the carer being able to do that as well, so that there’s this building of trust and relationship that’s implicit within the process, which sees that, yes, a very important part of life story work is about The child or young person getting a better understanding about the past in some instances in order to move forward, but actually, when doing it alongside the carer is about the shared understanding of one another, and we have heard from anecdotal feedback and from evaluation that it’s been provided a safe space to explore things from a different perspective or with a different person.

[00:16:53] It can really build the emotional literacy and language between the carer and the child, which can then be taken into the home between sessions. And it’s recognizing the value of the strengthening of relationships between the child and the carer, knowing particularly in the home, it might be incredibly busy and finding that space.

[00:17:11] safe space and time each week or each month to sit together or alongside a child might be quite challenging. So actually ring fencing that time, that being a facilitated conversation and it being based upon an equitable relationship has been really crucial and fundamental, but yeah. Really key fundamental feedback has been it helps to build or develop or strengthen the relationship Between the child and the carer by them doing it together

[00:17:40] DAWN: and just the flip side of that joanne What are some of the limitations?

[00:17:46] If life story work doesn’t happen in a timely fashion.

[00:17:50] JOANNE: Yeah Well, sadly that also happens and we know by the research that that I undertook. A couple of years ago, the flip side is you have children who have a huge number of questions who don’t know where to go, don’t understand what’s happened, don’t understand what is happening, don’t understand where their future is going to be, Don’t understand what why potentially they can’t live at home, but mum’s had another baby who has got Is living with mum.

[00:18:21] They don’t understand what’s happening. And sadly that will Come out in the in the child’s presentation And the pushing of boundaries the rejecting of foster carers that will all come out So ultimately if children don’t know what’s happening aren’t aren’t enabled to process that What experiences they’ve had, and again, just coming back to, you know, at the end of the day, these are children who are being removed from, from family, in, Usually traumatic, traumatic, scenarios, they, they need to understand in order to, to be able to, to develop and, and move forward in, in their own lives.

[00:19:02] And if we aren’t helping children do that, they’re not going to be emotionally, able to progress as they mature, and become adults. So it’s crucially important that that conversation does happen and it’s ongoing as well. Not just a one time in in In the child’s life. It needs to be open Always being discussed

[00:19:29] DAWN: jenny.

[00:19:29] I know that our blue cabin creative life story work program has been Evaluated by ipsos mori and I just wondered as a closing question really, Wow What were some of the headlines and also, what did we hear back from, foster carers and also, some of those care experienced young people?

[00:19:56] JENNY: The, evaluation.

[00:19:59] looked at a lot of different elements of the creative life story work program. One of those things were the all about me creative experiences, which is this group experience for children and their carers facilitated by one of our associate artists at Blue Cabin and a pastoral support worker from a local authority and Coram looked at, well, what’s the impact of perhaps that approach to live story work rather than a more traditional approach to live story work?

[00:20:27] And the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. There were a few things that we learned from that in that there was some trepidation around endings. So, concerns that the group sessions were coming to an end and because there’d been such, a lot of positive feelings around that. there was a real importance around understanding what the process involved and also a slight trepidation from carers that it would be opening up wounds, perhaps a trauma that they weren’t able to support in the home.

[00:21:00] And so it’s really important to recognize those key pieces of feedback from the evaluation. But overall, the feedback was incredibly positive. The vast majority of carers felt it was more. impactful and more traditional life story work. I’m doing traditional inverted commas because in some local authorities there isn’t any life story work.

[00:21:19] So, yeah, so more, traditional life story work. a lot of the children and young people felt it provided them with space to explore their life story on their own terms. So not this approach, which is right, we’re going to sit down with you now and look at your past in this order, at this level, over this period of time.

[00:21:40] It was asking the child, asking the child. A young person with their carer, what’s important to you to explore in relation to where you live, who’s in your life, and it flips life story work process because it provided the agency for the child or young person to say actually what’s important for me right now is to explore this specific thing about this thing that happened and then build around that.

[00:22:03] So the agency was really felt as a result of that. The relationship between the carer and the child really strengthened, but also the children were felt more in control of perhaps some key decisions going forward because they were able to explain why they felt a certain way, or they had a language for it or a word for it, or they were able to do that alongside their carer.

[00:22:27] So we know, for example, one of the courts that will stick with me is one of the young people fed back that this, taking part in this made me feel better. So it was greater than, to a certain extent, life story work. It was more about the self and about this individual as a human. And one of the carers, for example, said, when talking about their experience of being involved, it did make our relationship stronger.

[00:22:52] He has now got a really strong attachment with me, which we did not have before. And so that has been really good. He trusts me and he knows I will keep him safe. So it’s, it’s the broader. Impact of taking part in these sessions together in a really safe space that will last beyond the session itself. and I think I know, being a mum of a six year old, how important it is to be the custodian of her story because despite the consistency, repetition and predictability that Richard Rose has drilled into me about being a parent and how important that is, and despite how often I may I provide her with parts of our story, she will still ask me the same questions and find out and want to find out things that have been happening in the past.

[00:23:45] And even just this morning, we were dancing in the kitchen and she said, did we used to dance like this when I was a baby? And so if you think about me being the custodian of her past and helping her to have a memory of it or talk about it, the role of the foster carer is so crucial because if they have an understanding of the The child or young person in their home’s past, they can really help that child or young person understand where they’re at in the world because they can help to reflect that past back to them and with them and then that becomes the, I suppose, the story of their relationship together.

[00:24:20] So it’s not about it finishing or ending, it’s about this ongoing conversation and understanding that. A child or young person may be really interested right now in did my uncle ever buy me chocolate buttons and me being able to say he did that was the thing that he did every single time you met he gave you a bag of chocolate buttons and that’s really really important and and trusting the foster carer to be able to hold that space I think and providing them with the tools to be able to hold that space really safely I think is all about what we’re trying to do through Richard’s support and with Creative Life story work as well.

[00:24:56] DAWN: The foster carer is the trusted custodian of the story. I think we’ll leave that as our final thought this morning. thank you, Joanne. Thank you, Jenny, for our conversation this morning. if you want to find out some more, Joanne has written a blog, which is on our website. So you could go to Creative Life Storywork and read the full blog.

[00:25:21] If you wanted to dive into a bit more information, whether you’re a foster carer. someone who has experience with the care system, or you work with children and young people. We hope this episode has given you an insight into how we can make life story work better for young people and how you can use it in your own practice.

[00:25:43] You can find out more about creative life story work on our website, www. creativelifestorywork. com. And you can find us on LinkedIn and Twitter or X as it’s now called at creative LSW. Please do get in touch though with any comments or questions as we love to hear from you. If your podcast app allows you to, please do leave us a review as it really helps others to find our show.

[00:26:12] So until next month, bye for now.