Podcast Season 2: Episode 2 – Evaluating the impact of 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 a creative approach to life story work can help children and young people who are in care make sense of their past and build a brighter future. A new model for life story work is being rolled out in the northeast of England and this podcast shares the latest learning and investigates how it could help improve the lives of care experienced children.

[00:00:38] My name is Dawn Williams and I am an associate at Blue Cabin, one of the partners on this exciting work in the region. Today, we are asking the question, how do we know that this model of life story work is making a difference? How do we make those judgments and how do we assess the value of the work that we’re doing?

[00:01:00] Today we have three people in the studio who are going to give us a first hand account of how they went about exactly that and their research has just been published. I’m really excited today to tell you that our podcast is going global and my three guests are in Australia. So a very warm welcome to Blue Cabin friend and collaborator Professor Richard Rose.

[00:01:24] To Misha Tamwufwalao, who is the Principal Practitioner for McKillop Family Services, and to Dr. James Lucas from Deakin University, where he is a Lecturer in Social Work in the University of Geelong. A really, really warm welcome to you. Good evening from, to you. Good day to, from us. Um, Richard, I wondered if just to kick things off and set the scene for us, to tell us a bit about, About how this piece of research came to be,

[00:01:58] RICHARD: of course, well, I guess I’m speaking from Australia, but I don’t actually come from here.

[00:02:03] It’s just nice to be down amongst friends as we continue our therapeutic life story work journey, uh, in respect to the process of delivering training, but also support to colleagues. Um, I guess the first thing I’d say is that, um, We’ve been doing therapeutic life story work now in Australia since 2008.

[00:02:22] Um, and over that time it’s grown slowly but surely, uh, to delivering our, um, beaver, uh, and our diplomas in this work. And, uh, Many people from Australia have been involved in the Diploma work, um, but we were still left with this notion of how do we evidence our practice? How can we, uh, make public what we all see in our day to day work?

[00:02:45] So, although myself and Misha, for instance, where we do this work with young people and families, we see change, it’s very hard to show that change to Uh, an audience who may not really be involved in that direct practice. And, uh, for some time now, I have been trying to persuade organizations in the UK. Um, to research our work and it’s only Blue Cabin’s opportunity with regard to Ipsos Mori and with Corum where we are now seeing some research in England which is fantastic and we’re just waiting for that to be published.

[00:03:18] But for research in the therapeutic life story model, this large approach of nine months intervention with hard to reach children where families and those children are impacted by their early life trauma. for listening. To see if what we do makes sense, if what we do is value added, and if what we do is something that is worthwhile for our children, our families.

[00:03:42] And I suppose for me, more importantly, that it actually shows best interest. Um, there are a lot of things that we work with with children, lots of things we do to families. Um, but to be thoughtful about an approach and to be able to think is this in their best interest has been a driving factor for many of us, including, of course, myself.

[00:04:02] Um, so as we all know from our colleagues in Blue Cabin, uh, we’re excited about this model. Uh, the model you can find out more about if you go onto Blue Cabin, uh, Blue Cabin’s creative life story work or, uh, my therapy life story work, um, websites. But today. Really, um, I’m just ever so thankful to, uh, the university, um, Deakin University for, uh, Misha and McKillop, uh, because they’ve taken the, uh, bold step of not only looking at this model, but McKillop taking on the model.

[00:04:36] Misha’s, uh, kind of absolute determination to make this work, uh, and Misha, you just, you know, Absolutely get my complete admiration for not giving up, um, and I think that comes through in your, your kind of approach anyway, um, and with Misha and with, uh, Deakin University with James and with also, um, Lauren, um, as the kind of support work, um, we finally have, um, Something that we can then say, yes, it’s in best interest.

[00:05:06] But how they went about it, the process, well, I’m as intrigued as you. I get the joy of seeing the end result, um, which has been fantastic. Um, but the process itself, I really would like to hand that to you, Dawn, to inquire. with our guests from, uh, too long in Melbourne.

[00:05:23] DAWN: Thank you, Richard. Um, James, I wondered, um, before we dive into the detail with Misha about what actually happened, uh, I wonder if you could tell us a bit about how you went about developing your research questions, um, how you decided which areas you wanted to do deep dives into, uh, what was the framework that you were working to?

[00:05:50] JAMES: Yeah, so, it’s um, and good to be here by the way, thank you very much, uh, it’s uh, it’s been about three years in the making by the way, this whole process, so let’s just acknowledge it’s been a very, very long time, um, and it, it kind of, Came about where, um, our other colleague, Kate Davidson, we should, uh, probably acknowledge here, who originally brought therapeutic life story work or wanted to into, um, McKillop Family Services out of home care, um, programs and through our, uh, relationship that we had.

[00:06:32] Initially, in terms of McKillop hosting social work placements with us regularly and, um, their ongoing import into curriculum in our teaching programs here, social work programs, uh, we, Kate approached us and was like, you know, we want to give this model a go. We can see the potential in it. And we, um, then through, through that collaboration went, well, you know, Yeah, great.

[00:06:59] Let’s, um, see how we would apply it. And it was really that collaborative process, that reflexive process between us that we designed the whole thing.

[00:07:08] DAWN: It’s really interesting to hear, um, that you’re already building on relationships between the university, um, and another partner, um, bringing in, um, Richard Rose as a third partner.

[00:07:23] It’s very, that feels very familiar for Blue Cabin to be working in such a collaborative way. And Misha, would you like to say a bit about what that looked, sound and felt like in, with the children and their families that you were working with?

[00:07:39] MEISHA: Absolutely. Thank you for having us. Um, so it’s a funny story actually, Dawn, because I was not enrolled to participate in the training initially.

[00:07:51] Someone else was flagged to do the training and a space came up in the Diploma of Therapeutic Life Story work, um, the day before, um, Richard’s enrolments were due in, and I, In a panic, someone said to me, Oh, we’ve got this wonderful training coming up. Richard Rhodes is coming out. Would you like to participate?

[00:08:13] And I said, absolutely. Oh, I mean, um, and, um, When I got to the training, I just had this overwhelming sense of this brilliant model allows children to have, build a sense of identity. And actually we all have, um, you know, the right to this identity, but children in care don’t. And I’ve worked in the sector, uh, for 15 years and I was just blown away by how much this is needed in foster care and residential care.

[00:08:46] So I came straight back to Geelong to Kate and said, we have to make this happen. This is not an if, it’s a must. Like we, how do we do this? And as James said, Kate, um, started the ball rolling. We approached philanthropic funds and we’re so grateful because we had three funds that really, um, uh, invested in our program.

[00:09:10] We knocked on department doors. We went down. All these other different ways to try and get funding and it just wasn’t possible. Um, and give where you live foundation with the, in Geelong, they’re a Geelong based foundation. They were the first funding bodies to say, all right, we will give you the money to run this program as a pilot.

[00:09:30] However, To do that, we want this to be evaluated. We want to see results because there are none. We’ve, we’ve researched it. We’ve tried to find information. We know Richard has published wonderful books and there’s lots of information about the model, but no one’s actually researched the model. And so we, Kate and I considered that.

[00:09:50] That challenge to be accepted. And, um, that’s when we said, James, we’ve got this great model. Um, and so from there, I am very grateful to MacKillop. MacKillop have allowed me to run with this and, um, We have, we’re very lucky to have a wonderful CEO, Robin Miller, uh, who is, who believes in this model as well and was behind us all the way from the very beginning.

[00:10:21] Um, so the, the initial challenge was to find the funding to run the pilot and then to find somebody who could run the evaluation for the pilot. And James, uh, Came along and said he was up for that challenge too, and I cannot tell you how excited and grateful I was that day and I have been every single day since James agreed to this journey because it has been a journey.

[00:10:45] Um, But we, we, we got through it and we did it and we, we knew we’d find these results, Dawn. Um, so we’re very excited when, when the evaluation progressed and, yeah, it was wonderful.

[00:11:01] DAWN: That is fantastic. What a formidable team. I think it’s important

[00:11:03] JAMES: just to, to, to really reinforce here that to be able to do what we did, the relationship needed to be there at the start.

[00:11:12] Like we, everything that we’ve been able to do in, in all the work over the years, we needed that relationship. If that wasn’t there, I don’t think we would have got the same outcome.

[00:11:27] MEISHA: No, I agree. And I also think that, um, we needed that same shared passion for the work. Like Richard, Richard has this, um, I call it the, the magic of Richard or the Richardness.

[00:11:40] I have, I can’t reproduce this magic, this passion for the TLSW model, but

[00:11:46] JAMES: James

[00:11:47] MEISHA: has the same passion for it. And, and it’s really important that we as a research team, we had to have that relationship, but we had, James had to have the same passion because without that passion, it was, it would have been really difficult to get through.

[00:12:07] BC evaluation. We had so many hurdles along the way. Um, and, and just to acknowledge that

[00:12:14] JAMES: there are other, um, uh, researchers that have been involved in the evaluation side of things like, um, working with Judy Parsons at, uh, Deakin University in the child play therapy team and, um, Jesse Vellick as a research assistant.

[00:12:31] Plus we also took the opportunity to, um, offer some research focused social work placements within the evaluation and an honors social work project throughout the course to embed the, I guess, the research training as well as the social work practice skills along the way. So it’s really served multiple purposes and I’m very grateful for that.

[00:12:56] DAWN: I’m reflecting back about, um, the research team and the, the passion and the, uh, the absolute importance of that relationship being in place is mirroring what you were looking for in, in the work that’s happening in the field. with the children and families that you’re working with as well, that relationship being absolutely key and central to being in place.

[00:13:21] And also, you’ve built a really strong, um, a strong, well, a nest in which it all sits, where you’ve woven in social workers who are in training and bits to do and other people to do diplomas as well. Um, there’s so many connections to, um, the work happening in the UK with Richard’s diploma taking place and local authorities buying that in as well.

[00:13:48] So I’m really excited, James, to find out, we’ve heard about, um, the team behind delivering it. So what are some of the headlines from the research that really stand out that You’re really pleased and you would like to shout about what some of the the key things that you found out after your three years

[00:14:11] JAMES: After three years a whole other PhD.

[00:14:14] I think I’ve just done so I think some of the the the key things in terms of Um, the ability for therapeutic life story work to set up that safe, secure space between the children and young people, the clinician there, plus the key carer that they trust and, and, I guess, yeah, building that safe environment where they can explore some pretty heavy, heavy duty experiences at very young ages, um, is, was throughout all the, all the stories in terms of the wallpapers, the, the metres long wallpapers, talking to the clinicians, uh, about their, their journeys with the children.

[00:15:04] Um, it, it’s, The relationship underneath all of that, again, like we were saying before, the relationship with the research team and McKillop, but the relationship between the children, the carer and the clinician in that triad has been paramount, um, and The ability of therapeutic life story work to help the children and young people, as well as the carers as well, makes sense of everything that’s happening.

[00:15:35] And not just, you know, recounting everything that’s occurring in the past and some of it in the present, but, um, you know, making sense of why, uh, the child is, behaving in a certain, you know, unsocial or whatever kind of way that we all label these things, that there’s actually, um, a reason behind it. And there’s parts of themselves also, oh God, go on forever.

[00:16:00] Parts of themselves and their identities that they didn’t even know about. I mean, there was some, Um, instances, Misha, is that right? That, um, through therapeutic life story work, we were able to, well, I wasn’t, but Misha and, and McKillop were able to, um, uncover the cultural identity of a few, um, Uh, children and young people, uh, as being indigenous Australians, and they had no idea about that.

[00:16:29] And that just opened up a whole new, um, future for them in terms of family connections and again, more relationship and not just with people, but with, with culture, with land. So, um, I think that’s some of the, the great things that I’d shout out. I’ve got all sorts of numbers and things, but I think that might bore people.

[00:16:52] DAWN: Thank you. Um, Misha, uh, at the beginning, you said, Uh, we knew we’d find this out. We knew what we would find out. Um, you know, and I, I, I understand that it’s in your gut. You’ve got a gut instinct that this is what you’ll find out. But I wonder, were there any surp were, were you surprised by any of the things that were found?

[00:17:11] Well, did you find out something that you think, oh, that’s, I didn’t know that we’d find that out. Where, where were you surprised?

[00:17:17] MEISHA: Yeah. So, um, Dawn, I think we, we anticipated that this is a solid, um, intervention that does deliver. wonderful outcomes for children. For me, a couple of the surprises, um, were particularly around the positive impact on mental health and wellbeing, but also on physical health and wellbeing.

[00:17:39] Um, because we found that there was a significant increase in, um, in physical health improvements. Um, and we also found that, um, We connected young people, as James said, young people to, to, um, culture, but it was also the extended birth families that had the benefit of this process because they too were connected with culture and they too were encouraged to seek out their story.

[00:18:08] And, you know, they too were heard in this process and then could share their own questions that they have about their own life. And so even though we were working with that, um, try out of, um, Carer, child and, and clinician, there was actually a system around the child that benefited greatly. Um, and, you know, even the care teams, uh, were better informed to make decisions in the best interest of the child.

[00:18:35] You know, they were better equipped, um, to understand the child. And it just had this systemic impact, which for me was profound and, uh, quite a surprise because I knew it. I had a feeling that we’d have some great outcomes, but I didn’t realize how far the outcomes would reach. with every intervention.

[00:19:01] JAMES: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good point. Yeah. It does. It’s, it’s, it’s beyond just the sessions and, and the, the program and McKellip, it just the ripple effect out, out beyond all that is, you know, that’s not necessarily formally captured in any of the research per se, but we, you know, you know, from your experience, Misha, it’s, It’s, it’s a lot.

[00:19:24] Yeah,

[00:19:24] MEISHA: absolutely. It’s, and another potential research question, because, you know, I think, um, we’ve, now that we know that this wonderful model works, uh, in the triad, let’s look at the extended systems, you know, let’s look at the systemic work and how, how it’s impacting those systems. Um, so, so that was, that was really exciting to, to find out.

[00:19:52] Will: Did you know that this show is available to listen to on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and many other platforms? Search Creative Life Story Work wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:20:08] DAWN: Was there anything that was found out that was more challenging, that might be more difficult to accommodate in, in your work?

[00:20:17] MEISHA: So, um, with, with some of the Shonari results, Dawn, we worked out that, um, even though there was a, an improvement in educational outcomes for the children and young people who participated, uh, the education outcomes were not, um, uh, uh, they were, they were They weren’t as what weren’t what we’d expected. So I guess I was hoping for better outcomes than what we found.

[00:20:44] However, when we spoke to Richard and James and we were reflecting on the outcomes, we thought, well, how much of that is actually a long term impact that we can’t measure in this research? You know, um, So I, I would be really interested to look down the track and do a longitudinal type study, um, to find out those long term impacts because obviously I’d be very interested to see what, um, what came of that.

[00:21:13] Um, I was hoping for a bit, a little bit better results, but that’s okay. It was still great. It was still an improvement. Um, It wasn’t bad, but that was a surprise.

[00:21:23] RICHARD: I think, I think it’s interesting, isn’t it? Because I know when I met you, Misha, the first time and we talked about, uh, this process and you had a lot of your colleagues from MacKillop on that diploma, if I remember rightly, we had something like 11 of them, um, and I think that the, um, the awareness of the work in England and we, we do see education, uh, improvements and they are, uh, sometimes substantial.

[00:21:47] So, I mean, we, we have. you know, doctorates now that have done this course. We’ve got children doing, you know, kind of legal courses and art courses and, you know, some of the social workers who are really making their, their space. We have a lot of care experienced young people now who are working, you know, with other care experienced children.

[00:22:06] Um, but I think that you’re right. It is, it is a little bit different to measure, Attainment or achievement as far as, um, you know, kind of A levels, O levels in our world, your kind of standards of 16 and 18. But what we do see, and I wondered if it came in the, in the, um, research, is something that I kind of, um, think it must have done just looking at, you know, the results.

[00:22:27] But what we do find is that sometimes children Young people who are really struggling in school and then we start doing the work with them. Uh, it starts to actually, um, help them in their vigilance to be lower in their vigilance, a little less preoccupied with their world because we’re starting to make sense of it.

[00:22:43] And what does happen first seems to be, in my opinion, in my experience over the last 26 years, it’s more the peer relationships in school that get better. Uh, and as the peer relationships at school get better and they get invited to birthday parties, or they can actually tolerate, you know, and maintain a friendship, maybe that has to happen first?

[00:23:00] I don’t know. I mean, I’d be curious about that too. Uh, and maybe that is something to look at in that education field because in, again, in England particularly, we’re doing a lot of TLSW in schools now. Um, and I’m wondering whether that might be a space to think about, uh, when you looked at, you know, that, that wider, uh, avenue, the ripples.

[00:23:22] And of course, the other thing that we’re looking at, and it might be something that, you know, we, we think about in time at James and yourself, uh, and others, is, you know, How can we do this work with parents of children where their children have gone into the system, um, and often they’re parenting from their own experiences and they don’t really understand that.

[00:23:42] And we did therapy life story work in that space. And this is something I’m curious about over here. We’re going to have, well over here, I mean Australia at the moment, but in England where I’m normally with, uh, and we have, uh, local authority teams like breaking the cycle, breathing space and pause. And I’m wondering in, in Australia whether that’s something actually that might be worth considering Um, as a kind of, um, breaking that cycle of children going into the system, becoming adults of the carers of children coming into the system.

[00:24:10] And that would be exciting for me. And like you, I know it will work, but we need to understand why so that we can apply that. And that’s the bit we got now. We didn’t have that before, which is, you know, um, what I felt found, um, you know, its voice in the research that you’ve all done.

[00:24:26] DAWN: Misha, now that you’ve.

[00:24:28] You’ve got, you’ve got your report. What does it mean for the work that you’re, you’re doing? What’s, what will you be able to, what, what, what’s the question I’m asking you? What permissions have you now got to, to work in a way that may be different to how you were working before?

[00:24:48] MEISHA: I think, Dawn, now we have, um, the evidence to show That this brilliant model does work.

[00:24:56] Um, I have a little bit more ammo to push For every child in foster care and residential care to have access to this model I just it is the human rights to have access to you know an intervention that can support identity development and It just seems so um bizarre that we’re not offering this to every single child across the board.

[00:25:24] So I guess, um, in terms of McKillop’s work, um, McKillop have committed to rolling out the all about me and more about me, Richard’s three tiered model. Um, so we’ve been training staff with Richard, um, over the last 18 months, I think Richard, thereabouts. Yep. So to really embed this practice as a practice framework for our, um, children and young people.

[00:25:52] So we’ve just rolled out, um, the three tiered model to all foster care children across Victoria, and we are about to embark on the rollout across residential care, in Victoria and then moving to New South Wales and WA, um, so, which is really exciting, um, and Richard’s been supporting us the whole way through by skilling up our staff, um, and offering that opportunity to engage in his trainings, um, and also we’ve been able to link in some staff to, uh, the TLSWA, um, community of practice.

[00:26:31] So within each state. We have, um, TLSW communities of practice and they meet regularly. So we’ve been encouraging students to come in and connect and offering mentor, um, support from practitioners to students so we can, um, really support that process. And a lot of those staff have been from students have been from MacKillop, um, and MacKillop staff.

[00:26:55] So we’re, we’re very grateful for the commitment that MacKillop has made. to implementing this program and really allowing children and young people to have access to this.

[00:27:06] DAWN: Goodness me, I don’t think there’s going to be any stopping you, Misha. I think the stars were in alignment the day you did Richard’s training course.

[00:27:14] Did they know what was going to be put, what was going to be put in place? But it, but what’s, but what’s really fantastic to hear is the, um, It’s the support that’s being put in place to make sure that that’s being done, um, carefully and intentionally so that the staff delivering the work have got, um, have got all the tools that they need in order to make sure that it’s done properly.

[00:27:42] properly and with care. Care and kindness at the heart of it all. How fantastic. Absolutely.

[00:27:49] JAMES: Care, kindness and connection.

[00:27:51] RICHARD: Yeah. I think that what I would say though, and James, I think this is something that, um, you might want to think about as well with regard to the next step. Um, and that is that, you know, one of the things that we have found when we do this therapeutic life story work, um, and it was brought home to me in the international conference we had in July by one of the parents for child.

[00:28:11] And she said, it’s not just a young person actually that develops, it’s the carer, it’s me, it’s the way I look at my own world. Um, and one of the things that, you know, I often remind people about is when I started the Life Story journey back in 1997, the organization I worked in then, uh, had a crisis, uh, of whether we should continue doing this work.

[00:28:32] Uh, and they were going to close it because it was expensive. We didn’t have any, you know, kind of research and, um, it probably would have got closed if it hadn’t been for the, uh, human resource manager. And she came to me and said, you know, do a, do a survey with all the staff in, in the organization, make sure I’m on that survey.

[00:28:52] And so I kind of did a survey about the value of the work and whatever else and the thing that actually Kept us going which when you look back is such a relief but at the time it was a you know, kind of like a well, maybe we don’t maybe we do and What she found was all the adults that were working with the young people doing the work and doing the life story work alongside Myself in that tripartite.

[00:29:16] None of them were leaving Now that we’re getting sick and what she said in her report to the board of the organization was Actually for every member of staff we lose it costs us two thousand pounds to get a new one and it costs us four thousand Pounds to train them So if we just look at the amount of staff that haven’t left that we would have expected to leave who are doing life story Work, we’re paying for this work four times over And now we know in the Highlands for instance that one of our really good workers in TLSW and again something maybe James And maybe we should look at And they looked at the cost based analysis of this work and, uh, one, uh, the, uh, person here worked with five young people whose trajectory, if not stopped, probably would have meant they would have went to quite expensive out of county placements of around about 7, 000 per year, uh, per week, sorry.

[00:30:06] And, uh, her work actually helped that young person and helped all those five young people and their carers to maintain that placement. So, the cost based analysis that was, it saved something like 1. 8 million. So, actually, I think the next step for us is that, and certainly for me, you know, It does cost money to do this work.

[00:30:27] It’s not expensive, but it does cost money. But how much money does it save? How much, uh, does it give our young people and families a chance to experience family life? And also for the long term benefits, does that mean then that we see children, you know, emerge as adults that can manage and love and enjoy family life?

[00:30:45] So I think that’s, that for me would be a wonderful next step. Um, so we’ll see, we’ll see what happens.

[00:30:51] DAWN: Richard, I wanted to, um, give you the last word really, and to say I wondered what this means for therapeutic life story work international. What does having this evidence, this research and this report, what does it mean for your organization?

[00:31:12] RICHARD: Um, well, for us, uh, we kind of head up all the regional organizations, so TLSWA, TLSW USA, um, soon to be TLSW Portugal and Japan, um, and, um, I guess that, you know, one of the things I’ve always been asked is why is there funding for this work when there’s no research? And I almost say, well, it’s word of mouth, people see what we do, they talk about it, and they accept it.

[00:31:38] But that’s not really good enough, uh, and that’s not really accurate enough. And I think what, um, James and, you know, the colleagues at Deakin University, and what Misha has done, uh, with regard to MacKillop, has actually just grabbed it and said, How do we know it works and what they’ve come up with is a finding of the points that are really good, the points that we might need to think about, the points that actually give this a credence.

[00:32:03] So for me, what I can now say is that this work is evidence based and this is something that, you know, a lot of local authorities in the UK and I’m sure elsewhere will say we only invest in evidence based research. pieces of work. Now this might be one part of the jigsaw of evidence based. There’s lots more research coming out over the next few months, but for me, a three year study, you know, kept with it, delivering outcomes, giving a report that we can hold in our hands, but under each of those numbers, as James was saying, is a child or a young person.

[00:32:36] And, um, one of the things that I love most about your report that you produced and I’m waiting obviously for the rest of it, you know, when it comes out probably, but what we have is children who, as James was saying, find out their heritage, other children who actually can go back and live with their parent, you know, and each one of those is a success.

[00:32:56] And I think for me, it’s TLSWI to be able to. You know, be part of that, even if it’s from my point of view, very remote. I mean, I haven’t been doing any of the work that, you know, Misha and her colleagues have been doing as far as the direct work and certainly none of the work that James and his colleagues have been doing.

[00:33:12] So in a way, I’m kind of riding their wave. Um, but it’s a big wave. It’s gone all around the world, guys. Um, you are talked about now in Oregon. You’re talked about in, um, Japan, in Taiwan, in Singapore. You know, um, and so I would say from a TLSW international concept, well, many, many thanks for both of you. Um, but also hopefully I can support you and help you with further research and let’s see where we can go.

[00:33:39] DAWN: Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:33:41] RICHARD: Thank you. Richard,

[00:33:42] DAWN: Misha and James, thank you so much for telling us the story this morning. What a huge story that is. Um, and I’m sure the ripples will be felt in. Blue Cabin and the North East of England. So thank you very much for your time today. It’s been an absolute joy to have you in the studio.

[00:34:03] JAMES: Thank you, absolute pleasure.

[00:34:05] DAWN: Thank you

[00:34:05] MEISHA: so

[00:34:05] DAWN: much. Whether you’re a foster carer, someone who has experience of the care system, or you work with children and young people, We hope this episode has given you an insight into how we could make life story work better for young people. You can find out more about our show at wearebluecabin.

[00:34:26] com forward slash podcast. And we’d love to hear your thoughts. So you can record and send a direct question or message to the show via the website, tweet us at we are blue cabin. If you’d like to listen to future episodes, remember to subscribe wherever it is you usually get your podcasts. And if you’re using Apple Podcasts, please do leave us a review as it really helps others to find our show.

[00:34:53] Bye for now.

[00:34:57] Will: The theme music on this show is by Madofan, sourced from Pixabay and used under license. You’ve been listening to an Anya Media production for Blue Cabin. Find out more at anyamedia. net forward slash

[00:35:14] podcasts.