Podcast Season 4: Episode 4 – The impact of parental separation on children and young people

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 and their relationships with others, both at home and at school.

[00:00:28] It’s based on the ROSE model of therapeutic life story work.

[00:00:37] 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 exploring the impact of parental separation on children and young people.

[00:00:58] And I am delighted to welcome to the podcast studio, Natalie Wyatt. Natalie is a social worker with 15 years’ experience across a number of national, local government and third sector organizations. She’s a skilled trainer, Consultant and a senior leader. Natalie is a training practitioner from trauma informed consultancy services, which offers an extensive range of training sessions related to all aspects of how we can apply a trauma informed framework to settings, services, and services.

[00:01:34] and systems. Hello, Natalie. I’m absolutely delighted that you’re able to join us today in our podcast studio.

[00:01:42] NATALIE: Thank you, Dawn. Hi, it’s a pleasure to be here.

[00:01:45] DAWN: I wondered if you would like to start just by telling us a bit about your experience of working with children who are experiencing parental separation.

[00:01:57] And how it shaped your views on the, on the subject?

[00:02:00] NATALIE: First off, I guess just before we get into that Dawn, one of the things that I was wanting to say today was just how thrilled I was that you guys even asked for this piece of work, because I think one of the things I have observed from, from my experience, and I’ll tell you a little bit more about that in a moment, but it is that, that I guess parental separation, is so common as an experience that our children live with.

[00:02:25] I think the statistics say something like 3.5 million children live in separated families at any given time, but it’s so prevalent that it’s almost kind of become invisible. It’s not a theme or a topic that gets an awful lot of professional attention, training, supervision, that kind of thing. So just to be invited here today to talk about it, I was really, um, delighted by that.

[00:02:49] So like you said, my background, I’m very much a social worker. I’ve worked in a number of different organizations over the years. I guess my work with children experiencing parental separation started when I was working in local authority children’s services. And one of my kind of early experiences, I guess, as a social worker was of having several children’s case files, paper files as it was back then, showing my age a bit, having these, you know, a load of files dropped on my desk relating to court work or court cases where children were experiencing parental kind of divorce or separation, so typically what we would describe as private law proceedings.

[00:03:36] And it was really interesting to me that those pieces of work were given to newly qualified workers at the time and I think part of that Dawn was that private law, so those court proceedings relating to divorce and separation, they were kind of seen as lower priority at that time or kind of somehow being less complex and you know a nice piece of work for the new worker to cut their teeth on.

[00:04:00] But what struck me about those cases, once I actually got to meet those children, was that, of course, for them, their situation wasn’t straightforward at all. It was, you know, you know, there was a lot of anguish and trauma in some cases arising from their family scenarios at that time. So that kind of sparked my interest, I guess, in, in parental separation.

[00:04:25] And then later through my career, I went on to work for CAFCA, so the Child and Family Court Advisory and Support service. And I did a number of different roles at CAFCAS, but one of them was as a family court advisor. So working with children, representing children in court proceedings, where usually one parent had taken the other parent to court in the context of divorce and separation.

[00:04:51] DAWN: Goodness, what a long journey to get there. I’m struck by your, I’m still struck by the figure, 3.5 million children. Yeah. So that’s huge.

[00:05:03] NATALIE: So that is, so it’s 3.5 million individual children. Of course, some of those will be siblings. So the overall number of families will be smaller. But it’s, it’s estimated these were Office of National Statistics figures.

[00:05:18] So I think it’s upwards of 3.5 million children each year are living in separated families.

[00:05:26] DAWN: I’m interested in your comments about the work being given to newly qualified social workers to cut their teeth on. Why do you think that parental separation doesn’t receive as much professional attention as other adverse childhood experiences?

[00:05:44] NATALIE: So I think in part Dawn, that takes us back to, um, the statistics again, because it’s such a prevalent, um, experience for children and young people, it can be overwhelming for practitioners to even know where to begin, or for systems to know where to begin, and it brings to mind, there’s a, I do a lot of work, um, around poverty aware practice, and there’s a lovely quote that I use in that work, that talks about, how poverty has become the wallpaper of our practice.

[00:06:18] Too big to notice and too familiar to do anything about. And I think there’s kind of a similar dynamic with parental separation. You know, there are literally millions of children living in separated families. So for those of us working in the field or in social work and related fields, it’s, it’s such a commonly occurring theme that it’s almost become invisible to us. And of course there are so many competing demands in, in social work and social care more generally. And, you know, I can understand why perhaps parental separation gets pushed down the agenda a little bit when perhaps we’re dealing with children who have also experienced, in addition to that, domestic abuse, sexual violence, that kind of thing.

[00:07:02] DAWN: We’ve talked a lot about the professionals and dealing with parental separation and some of the system issues that you’re talking about as it becoming almost like invisible and the wallpaper. I’m just wondering, what is it that children say as being really important for them during a parental separation?

[00:07:25] NATALIE: So, um, we know from, uh, research and different literature and also from my own sort of practice wisdom that the children are very clear that they want to be involved in the decisions that are made about them around the time of family separation and that communication is really important to them. What we tend to see is that some children absolutely can and do thrive post separation.

[00:07:52] And those children are sort of less likely to come into contact with services for obvious reasons. But what we tend to find, and certainly in, in my experience, is that it is those children who are experiencing separation where there is a high degree of anger or conflict that, that tend to fare kind of worse in, in terms of post separation outcomes.

[00:08:20] And So it’s, it’s those children that experience, describe as harmful conflict that we as professionals need to be most concerned about. And what those children tell us is that when they are exposed to, or if they experience harmful conflict, they feel a real sense of divided loyalties, they can feel sort of intense sadness, a sense of guilt on, on some occasions, a sense of perhaps responsibility.

[00:08:49] And we know that children experiencing kind of particularly chronic and severe, um, conflict that it can have a profoundly negative impact on a range of their kind of longer term outcomes. So in terms of their kind of cognitive development, their social and emotional development, their physical health.

[00:09:09] So again, we know that that kind of, drip, drip, drip, constant exposure to stress and the cortisol that comes along with that, that can have a real long term impact, um, in terms of kind of chronic health conditions and the young person’s overall, um, health. And of course, their own kind of behavioural outcomes as well.

[00:09:29] So it’s, there’s a real strong body of evidence now to, to support that, the fact that harmful conflict can have a profound negative impact on, on some young people.

[00:09:39] DAWN: And what role do you think social workers, foster carers or teachers actually play in supporting a child through, well, that turbulence that they’re going through when they’re experiencing parental separation?

[00:09:54] NATALIE: Yeah, so such a vital role. We can’t understate the importance of social workers, teachers, you know, other professionals who are around the child at that time. I think a huge kind of piece of reassurance, I guess, that, that those professionals can provide is around reassuring the child that it’s absolutely not their fault.

[00:10:16] And there’s also something about the practical, obviously, a separation can represent a huge shift in the child’s kind of practical living arrangements. If that child is likely to be living in a shared care arrangement they’re now suddenly having to navigate between two different homes. What do you do with your PE kit when it’s at dad’s this day but you’re, you know, at mum’s next day and all the rest of it.

[00:10:39] So I’d say there’s something about kind of being tolerant and gracious and kind of being patient with the child as they kind of learn to navigate all of those different dynamics. As well as kind of supporting them through that. There was a piece of research done, I think it was in 2022, that was funded by the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory.

[00:11:01] And again, these messages around kind of the practicalities, they spoke directly to children as, as part of that research. And that, that was one of the messages, was that children wanted the professionals and other people around them to be understanding about what it takes to not only emotionally kind of navigate having two different homes, but actually what that means practically as well.

[00:11:22] Thank you. They also underlined in that research, the young people noted that their close relationships, in addition to their parents, took on extra significance at that time. So the importance of maybe a close auntie or a teacher, your football coach, you know, whoever that may be, that those relationships became more important to them around the time of separation and particularly if those people had lived experience of separation themselves.

[00:11:50] So someone that the young person can identify with and can be really helpful.

[00:11:55] DAWN: Let’s go to a break so that you can hear about our Creative Life Storywork membership offer.

[00:12:01] 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.

[00:12:10] Could Creative Life Storywork 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.

[00:12:32] 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.

[00:12:58] Training with life story work experts, and lots more. 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.

[00:13:18] 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. 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.

[00:13:38] DAWN: What changes do you believe or think need to be made within social care just to give to give this issue the professional time and attention that it deserves for 3.5 million children? I can’t get that figure out answered.

[00:13:56] NATALIE: Um, so I think What I would like to see is more of a recognition at that kind of systemic level that this is a feature of many children’s lives and whilst the, the, the kind of The dynamic between the parents in these types of scenarios may not instantly seem as kind of high risk as some other kind of types of adversity that we deal with.

[00:14:23] Part of the reason I would really like services to think carefully about the impact of separation and particularly high conflict separations is because there’s some evidence that actually unless you address the child’s experience of harmful conflict, it can actually become an obstacle in some of the other interventions that are going on around the family.

[00:14:44] So the Early Intervention Foundation did some work, I think it was around 2016, 2017, looking at the, again, the sort of impact of harmful conflict and separation for children and young people. And it found precisely that, it found that, that it can be a real challenge, it can form a real, it can form a real obstacle when you’re trying to do other types of interventions with the family.

[00:15:09] So say for example if you’re trying to do some basic parenting work where perhaps there’s been some neglect, that, that actually to get the best results out of that it is optimal to have an effective kind of co parenting relationship between the parents and that, that, that if. There is this unresolved, um, conflict in the relationship.

[00:15:30] It can really limit the success of other interventions that are taking place around the family.

[00:15:35] DAWN: And just in terms of other interventions, what would an effective intervention look like in a case of harmful conflict?

[00:15:43] NATALIE: Yeah, so that’s a slightly tricky question because what we know is that the evidence base isn’t quite there yet.

[00:15:50] So whereas earlier I said there’s a really reliable evidence base that tells us that harmful conflict in particular can have a profound negative impact on children. You know, we can say that confidently the evidence base in terms of kind of what works interventions and programs is a little bit more mixed.

[00:16:07] It’s not quite as robust yet. So there’s no one kind of magic bullet. I can say you can try this. What I would say from my own kind of practice wisdom. And from my experience working in, in the family court system is that I think there’s a real place for restorative practice when it comes to working with, with parents experiencing separation and some kind of systemic approaches, not kind of working with each of the, the family kind of in silos.

[00:16:36] So yeah, I think there’s a real, I guess the plus side of there not being that kind of reliable, known intervention is that this is a bit of a space where I think there’s space for some innovation and creativity. But yeah, absolutely, I would be saying attempting that through the lens of kind of restorative practice is likely to be the way to go.

[00:17:00] DAWN: Looking ahead, what do you see as the biggest challenges and opportunities in improving outcomes for children who are experiencing harmful conflict?

[00:17:11] NATALIE: So I guess that takes me back to what we were just saying about interventions and support. I think it’s, we’re moving in the right direction when it comes to practice around parental separation and harmful conflict, but there’s real gains to be made in terms of services and interventions to help reduce the To reduce the, the actual dynamic between separated parents but as well as kind of ameliorating the effects of that on, on the children and young people who have already experienced it.

[00:17:46] So, yeah, it’d be exciting to kind of see what the future brings in that space.

[00:17:51] DAWN: Natalie. Thank you for your time. Thank you for shining a light on something that we’ve never talked about before on one of the Blue Cabin podcast. It’s been really lovely, lovely to hear your thoughts and observations and we look forward to hearing more in your upcoming podcast.

[00:18:09] Live Classroom, where people can meet you and dive in a bit more about all things parental separation. Thank you.

[00:18:19] NATALIE: My pleasure. Thank you, Dawn.

[00:18:21] DAWN: If you’re interested in finding out more, you can join Natalie in her Live Classroom. You can find out more details on our website. at creativelifestorywork.com.

[00:18:35] 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. You can find out more about creative life story work On our website, creativelifestorywork.com. And you can find us on LinkedIn and X at CreativeLSW. Please do get in touch with any comments or questions as we’d really love to hear from you. And if your podcast app allows you to, please do leave us a review as it really helps others to find our show. So until next month, bye for now.