Podcast season 5: Episode 7 – Between Chapters: exploring life story work for care leavers

DAWN (00:09):

Welcome to the Creative Life Story Work Podcast, your regular dose of Life Story Work inspiration. Every month, we bring you Life Story work ideas, tools, and honest insights from a range of perspectives. Stay connected to the latest thinking in Life Story work as we talk to people with lived experience, practitioners, local authorities, carers, and people who are shaping the way we help care experienced children and young people make sense of their past and build a brighter future. In this episode, we’re exploring a three-year project: Between Chapters. Blue Cabin are working in partnership with Mary-Anne Hodd. Mary-Anne is a care experienced independent consultant, and Between Chapters is funded by Esme Fairbairn Foundation, looking at how creative life story work might be able to support care leavers. Today, we’ll unpack what this means in practise, the hopes behind the work, and some of the challenges ahead. So I’m absolutely delighted to welcome to our studio today, longtime friend and ally of Blue Cabin, Mary-Anne Hod.

Good morning. Welcome.

MARY-ANNE (01:34):

Good morning. Morning, Dawn. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to have this conversation this morning.

DAWN (01:41):

Very good. Very good. So shall we set the scene, first of all? For listeners who might not be familiar with life story work and particularly for care leavers, why is this so important?

MARY-ANNE (01:58):

Yes. Good question. The big one. Yeah, absolutely. It’s huge, isn’t it? So I think, well, a big starting point for us really has actually been thinking about not only why is life story work important, but what are we talking about with life story work? What do we mean? Because it can mean a whole variety of things to different people in different contexts, different experiences. So you might traditionally think, and I think something that has come up from the research this year has been that traditionally when we think about life story work, we think about a product that is created for children kind of usually creating, perhaps on their care experience or their adoption journeys that help them look and understand their life story. Now, that often refers to memory book approaches or kind of recording key facts or events from case files.

So looking back at what happened, when, who was involved and how that story is held really varies is something that we’re seeing. So if I can try and articulate the big why behind this, understanding where we come from, our stories, who was involved or who wasn’t, what happened to us, and what that means for us now is a really important thing for anybody to understand, right? To be able to understand that sense of belonging. Where do I come from? What does my story mean for me? What parts do I get to keep? Where am I going to go? What does it mean for my future? Now, traditionally, those life story workers focused on children, so younger children. And there are many approaches often quite structured, delivered over a set period of time and set sessions that work with children to work through this life story work.

So Care Leavers 16-plus there’s a massive gap that it’s not really happening. Well, we’ve seen some really, brilliant practise as well in snippets. But generally, kind of 16-plus is a time where this life story work isn’t funded, isn’t happening in practise, that there’s lots of challenges around it. So I think that’s been a big starting point for us really in trying to understand what is it that we mean by life story work? Why is it so important? And why is it so important for teenagers as well and young adults? Because it’s a really big time of those identity questions.

DAWN (04:50):

Well, it’s a huge transition, isn’t it? That whole period, 16 to 25. You already said we found some brilliant snippets. So we’re at a three-year project, we’re in year one, and this year is just about exploring and finding out what’s already out there. And you’ve alluded already to some snippets of really great practise that’s out there. What models have we come across already that are already used?

MARY-ANNE (05:20):

I guess model wise, the 16-plus that there isn’t a lot, but the practise that we are looking at is drawn from approaches. So we are basing what we mean by life story work is we are looking at therapeutic, relational approaches to supporting young people to make sense of our experience, integrate our past, and develop that stronger sense of who I am now, but also who I’m becoming. That future focus is really important for teenagers and young adults. Actually, it’s sometimes not even looking so far back in the past, but it’s actually, what does my story mean for me now and what does that mean for where I’m going? So with those kind of narrative identity elements, trauma informed practise elements, we’re kind of drawing on work of the Richard Rose model, so the therapeutic life story work, Blue Cabin’s Creative Life Story work, which is obviously adapted from the Rose model.

And then we’re kind of thinking as well, we’ve been talking to practitioners and thinking about practitioners contributions from like Polly Baines, Katie Wrench, and we’ve looked in more detail as well about some projects that Blue Cabin have been doing. So thinking about All About Us projects and some Creative Aid work that was going on. So there’s lots of really good models. And again, a lot of those resources are still focused primarily at younger children. There’s some really good practise happening in some local authorities, thinking about later life letters. We’ve been thinking about drop-in sessions, which is a conversation we had last week, didn’t we, with South Tyneside, thinking about how we can do drop-in sessions for teenagers and young adults.

DAWN (07:08):

And what about, because you said at the beginning, it’s huge, but what are some of the gaps and challenges that you’re already noticing about the support available for care leavers?

MARY-ANNE (07:23):

Yeah. It’s a tricky one, isn’t it? Because it’s a time, like you touched on already, Dawn, that everything changes. You go from having lots of support and wraparound to maybe not as much. So you go from having that social worker and if there has been any kind of consistency with that person in your life, that changes to your personal advisor. Hopefully it’s not an abrupt transition, we would hope, but we know in the reality that sometimes it is. The funding changes, the legislation changes when you hit 18 and that sense of that safeguarding and full control.

And then what we’re hearing from young people as well and practitioners that are supporting young people is that it’s a time that we’ve got like really real world challenges going on at this age of like, where am I going to live? How am I going to pay my rent? What am I going to do for my job? And then on top of that, you add that potential impact of adversity, of the complex trauma, of any other familial challenges that might be going on. So it’s a hell of a time, if you can frame it from that young person’s perspective, that we’re carrying a lot in these years of 16 to 25.

DAWN (08:38):

A big part of year one is about listening. And we’ve certainly had conversations with lots of different practitioners in different local authorities and some artists, but how will you make sure that the voice of care experienced young people are also at the heart of this project?

MARY-ANNE (09:01):

Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s really important. And that’s something that we will be continuing to work on throughout the next couple of years. So as it stands, any practitioners that we’ve spoken to at the moment, we’ve let them know that if they have any young people that would like to talk to us about this, that we are open to those conversations. We’ve got date in the diary towards the start of next month where we are meeting with a group of young people that are with Carefree Cornwall and we’re holding a kind of workshop to talk about their experience of life story work or lack of experience perhaps and what they would hope life story work would look like. And then we want to further those conversations in years two and three. So speaking to more young people across the country really that have experiences of it, or lack of experience as well, because I think that’s important in itself.

If you haven’t experienced life story work, what would you want it to look like, right? And the adults that support them is a really important part of this. So one of the things that we’ve learned this year when we’re talking to Derby Theatre, actually, and some of the practitioners there, that they do creative workshops with young people and they’re finding that this life story work is coming about in sessions with them quite naturally. So it’s throughout everything, isn’t it? It really is. And people that are important to these young people at this age.

DAWN (10:24):

We’ve brought together different groups of people to have some conversations so that you can listen in year one. What’s been exciting or surprising about some of those conversations that you’ve been involved in so far?

MARY-ANNE (10:39):

Do you know what? There’s been a lot really. I think one thing that I’m hopeful for is that there is, across every conversation we’ve had, anybody that we have spoken to has a real desire to want to get this right. They are really committed and see the importance and the value of life story work for young adults. And that idea, that understanding … By the time we get to these teenage years, we carry our stories about who we are and what that means for us and for our future. And every person we’ve spoken to understands how life story work can be a really important part of that future focused support as well. And yet, everybody has an understanding that it’s not easy and that there are real challenges around it and that there is never going to be a one size fits all to this.

So what we’re not going to have at the end of year three is saying,” This is exactly how you must do it for everybody.” That’s not the reality for teenagers and young adults, right? So that adaptability, being able to hear from people that are already doing snippets of this of what works, what works for them, for their young people, and then where the gaps are as well. And the themes are becoming really clear that it’s giving us some kind of real tangible next steps to think about, which I think is exciting.

DAWN (12:11):

Let’s go to a break so you can hear about our Creative Life Story Work membership offer.

Trailer (12:19):

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.

Perhaps you’re a foster carer.

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.

And I think a lot of our children are looking for meaning, looking for, “Well, why is it I feel this way when my friends don’t? Why is it I get angry internally 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. And once we have that, then we know we can move forward.”

Find out about our membership for individuals and for organisations on our website, creativelifestorywork.com.

DAWN (13:57):

The plan is that at the end of the three years we’ll be in a position to have some new resources or some tools that we could share that we’ve made together with young people and other practitioners. Can you imagine, have you got a sense of what a really good life story work, resource, what it might look, sound, and feel like? Can you see that yet?

MARY-ANNE (14:23):

I do and I don’t know because the scope is so large, I think I have a real good essence right now. And one of the things we’re working on in year two is the starting point of, okay, so thinking about sharing with the people that are close to young people at this age, what we mean by life story work in this context, why it’s important or why it might be helpful and what some of the challenges are around it. So we’ve got some really good answers around that now, which we can develop into sharing. For example, personal advisors come up time and time again as an important person in young people’s life. I know it from my own experience, right? And so sharing that role, but at the end of the three years, I think it’s going to look something like, yeah, it’s going to be that feelings focused stuff of understanding the impact of it.

There’s going to be some resources and tools around the psychoeducation because something that comes up time and time again. And it was really interesting actually with a conversation that I had with a charity called Break Charity and Gail and Steve there were sharing. And it was really insightful, us talking about that kind of psychoeducation that in order for life story work to really have an impact, we need to understand a little bit about why our brains work in the way that they do and why our bodies do what they do to protect us if you’ve grown up in an environment of complex trauma. So there’ll be some resources and approaches around the psychoeducation side of stuff. And then the practicalities of it is something we’re learning is that it doesn’t always work at this age to be structured and time limited. So getting an 18 year old, for example, to show up every other week for a session that is booked in at a certain time, the reality of that is that that likely doesn’t work.

What we’re seeing is that these life story work conversations happen naturally with people that are in their life, whether that is within these charities where people go to have creative spaces, whether that is with a personal advisor, whether that is with a foster carer, life story work is naturally embedded throughout our lives. So it’s making it more accessible in that sense, I think, and perhaps less overwhelming. And it needs to be this big project that you have this big book at the end of it, but actually how do we create something that gives anybody that is involved in that young person’s life the tools to be able to have meaningful conversations that can be framed as life story work? And if they don’t feel comfortable having that, then who is that person in that young person’s life? So it’s interesting to think what that might look like.

DAWN (17:06):

That’s really interesting to hear that already you’ve got a glimmer of what that resource tool or thing might look like. But beyond that, are you able to say what kind of impact you’re hoping this work will have on individuals, practitioners, or actually even policy?

MARY-ANNE (17:28):

You like to throw the big questions, don’t you do this morning? Do you know what? I think a real key theme in this has that from the outlook is around the concept of interdependence. And we know now more so that we are hopefully moving towards a system that understands the importance of interdependence and networks of support and ongoing relational, reciprocal commitment to our young people that doesn’t stop at 18. And this conversation’s been around for years and yet we still see Care Leavers sense of loneliness and independence focused as the primary goal. Now, when we get into that conversation, we often start to understand that when we talk about independence, we’re often talking about independent living skills, which are great, but everybody needs somebody. And I think my hope would be that this understanding of what these conversations, the impact that these conversations can have in a young person, young adults, sense of identity, self-worth, self-esteem, sense of belonging, and their sense of connectedness to the people around them that care about them, that that expectation becomes the norm.

We’re seeing it. Part of the children’s care review was that care leavers have at least two loving relationships into their adulthood. And you think, okay, well, how do we measure this? What does that actually look like? And my hope is that actually a commitment to life story work like this is a fulfilling part of that because it has to be relational if it’s done well, if it’s done in a way that is actually going to make a difference to a young person and a young adult. So I hope that that concept of interdependence is going to become the norm and that will be, this will be part of that, right?

DAWN (19:32):

We’re funded for three years. We’re just coming to the end of year one. In the next two years, what are you most looking forward to discovering or creating?

MARY-ANNE (19:44):

I’m looking forward to having more conversations this year, so learning from people already and having conversations again with people that are already doing snippets of this work, because we said there are people out there that are really committed to this. So understanding what works well for them and being able to share that learning, I think is going to be really interesting. A bit of trial and error in that, I imagine. And hearing from more young people about what this would look like if they were in charge of it, because it’s not an easy thing. Some of the real challenges that we are seeing is how we get young people, what their priorities are and focusing on some of this stuff when they have got all of those other challenges going on that we mentioned. So I’m looking forward to figuring out what that might look like and to actually then getting to do some of the trial and error.

So perhaps piloting some of the resources, really interested in that psychoeducation stuff as well, really interested in adapting some of the resources we’ve got for younger people are brilliant. How are we going to adapt those then for 16-18-plus? And I’m looking forward to, as I say, working with other people that are already doing some of the stuff to learn from them as well, and learning from their young people. So I think that’s some of the things that I’m excited about.

DAWN (21:10):

And it’s great that we’ve got three years to think about it and do time and space to do that. And I suppose just the thing to say that if other people or other organisations who are listening, they can go on the Creative Life Story work website and contact us directly if they want to be involved in any of the conversations that we’re planning over the next two years.

MARY-ANNE (21:33):

Yeah, please do. And I think the other one is that’s coming to mind is that conversation around accessing records and stuff as well, which I think is going to be interesting because we had the new guidance come out from the ICO about redactions, which has been recommended for practise. I’m interested to see what the reality of that is going to be like because we are hearing real challenges and personally I’ve experienced it myself and the timeline of accessing records and the amount of redactions that are made and how that can be really challenging for understanding our stories if we are looking for answers in it. So I’m looking forward as well to learning from young people, from practitioners, and from some of the research in the sense of perhaps A, what do we do if we are waiting for a really long time for our records?

What do we do with the information that we’ve got? And for some young people, some of the stuff that we’re hearing already is that sometimes we don’t need our whole files. Sometimes we come, especially as a young adult with our own stories about what we want to know about or what we want to learn or our narratives of why I’m no good at X or why this means X for me. And it’s those things that you want to unpack. So sometimes it doesn’t need that whole access to all of the files. So all of this nitty gritty stuff, I’m really looking forward to getting into a little bit more.

DAWN (22:55):

Okay. And my final question to you this morning, is there a message you’d like to share directly with any young people who are leaving care who might be listening?

MARY-ANNE (23:11):

Oh, wow. Yeah. Do you know what? When I think about my own leaving care journey, if I focus it on life story work, there were times when I was 18, 19, where I really knew that I wanted to access my records. Luckily I had a brilliant personal advisor that told me to get my exams done first and I’m really glad that I listened to her. So not feeling that I had to rush into that was something that helped me. I think we can put a lot of pressure on sometimes on our files giving us all the answers and they sometimes don’t. It’s really hard to sum this up, Dawn, because it’s huge, isn’t it? I think that leaving care leaver time is one of the most insane times in our lives where everything does change. There is a lot of pressure, there is a lot of expectation on what comes next, and there is a lot of suddenly managing a lot of the decisions alone.

And I think for me, what would have helped is just knowing that it does get a little bit easier and that kind of keep putting one foot in front of the other kind of thing in the sense that, yeah, I think understanding my story, where I came from, who was involved was really important and useful and at the same time to not put pressure on any of that. And if you are thinking about getting your files, whatever you do, don’t do it alone. Make sure you’ve got somebody with you to do that journey with you and read them alongside you because they might not have all the answers and sometimes they leave you with more questions. So yeah, I think if anybody listening has any interest in what life story work might look like for them or how it might help on that journey, then definitely reach out and have a chat, because I wish I had more of it – let’s say that when I was leaving care.

DAWN (25:07):

Thank you, Mary-Anne, and thank you for our honest conversation this morning. It’s such a privilege to be involved in this year of conversations that we’ve had and to think about the next two years and to where that might go, what we might do. So I’m sure we’ll have another conversation when we catch up about year two and then a big one for year three as well. So thank you for your time this morning. A real pleasure to speak to you, as always. Thank you.

MARY-ANNE (25:37):

Thanks, Dawn. Thanks for having me.

DAWN (25:44):

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 practise. If you would like to find out more about Creative Life Story work, please visit our website, creativelifestorywork.com, and you can find us on LinkedIn and bluesky @CreativeLSW. Please do get in touch there 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.