Ep28 Play and the nervous system; an interview with Charlotte Jenkins

In this episode of Pondering and Play Therapy, host Philippa Kelly interviews Charlotte Jenkins, founder of Beacon Family Services and co-founder of the app Looming and Us. Charlotte discusses her journey from a frustrated social worker to establishing innovative, play-based therapeutic solutions for families. She emphasises the importance of connection, nervous system regulation, and understanding the underlying causes of children's behaviour. Charlotte explains how her services and the Looming and Us app provide parents with tools to build stronger relationships with their children through therapeutic play. She highlights the impact of small, consistent play interactions on decreasing family conflict and enhancing emotional resilience. The episode offers valuable insights and practical advice for parents and professionals dedicated to children's mental health.

Website: https://www.beaconservices.org.uk/ 

lumin&us® helps parents and carers to:

• understand their child’s behaviours
• support their children’s BIG EMOTIONS
• support children experiencing anxiety
• improve relationships
• reduce family conflict
• support their child’s mental health
• improve family wellbeing
• support, calm and soothe their child through co-regulation of their nervous system
• understand the connection between their children’s feelings, thoughts and behaviours

Visit the lumin&us®  website for more information, or search lumin&us on the App Store or on Google Play to download the App for free.

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Transcript

Philippa: 0:00

Welcome to pondering and play and therapy this week. My guest is Charlotte Jenkins, from Beacon Family Services, and Charlotte is the founder of a not-for-profit organization, she started this, service for families because in a world where connection is everything, too many children and families struggle to find the support they need to thrive. She's also recently expanded support and co-founded Looming and US, which is a digital app providing parents with on-demand therapeutic tools for early intervention. Her mission is to provide innovative, accessible solutions that go beyond traditional services, helping children feel safe and connected. Charlotte has over 20 years in children's services as a social worker and she's developed and delivered play-based therapeutic interventions that help children thrive at home and in school. She's proactive on approaches to prevent more serious challenges later. She's also a the practitioner supervisor and is working toward accreditation in DIC development, psychotherapy. She brings expertise of neurodevelopmental needs and has worked with many adoptive fostering and kinship families, helping them through trauma. An adverse early life experiences and giving them the tools that reduce reliance on reactive interventions. She's really committed to children's mental health through relational play-based therapies and digital solutions that often the statutory services often can't provide. So Charlotte, that's a huge amount of stuff that you are doing there,

Charlotte: 2:00

hearing you say it like that it, it feels quite, different how it's felt in the process of getting to where I am. The story is I'm a social worker by background and worked the local authority and became frustrated. Came frustrated at seeing the level of need and the challenges local authorities had with lack of funding and constant restructures and these kinds of things that prevented you innovating and really responding in creative ways.

Philippa: 2:32

So how long or ago did you create Beacon Family Services?

Charlotte: 2:39

Yeah, we set up Beacon Family Services in 2018 as a legal company. But for a couple of years before that, I'd been working independently and developing projects. And it became clear that was going to need to be funded and. Yeah, my local council was happy to support me with some funding, which was to try some, the play groups at the time and the play groups, the parents and children in our local community who were seeing the work that adoptive families could access and the impact it. On family relationships and saying, actually we need that too. Some of the issues that are happening in our family, divorces, bereavement recovering from domestic abuse actually, the kind of ways you're supporting Adopt ation really help us.

Philippa: 3:34

Okay so it was Beacon Family Services was designed to support the parent and child to have. Strength and detachments or Yes. Those reciprocal relationships that children need in order to thrive. Is that right?

Charlotte: 3:51

Absolutely. So when I started, the children's commissioner had just done a report and we'd established that around about 75% of the children who were referred to Cams in Birmingham weren't even seen. And of those that were seen, it was only something like a quarter of them that got any follow up. So actually there were a lot of parents who were really confused about how to help their children. And it was that sense that they needed to have some kind of medical health led intervention. And actually what I was observing was that. That for those families the fight and the push to get services was actually getting in the way of them being able to focus on the relationship and the things that parents can do to make things better and often spending a little bit of time making sense of. What was beneath the child's behavior gave a parent a whole new sense of what was happening and they suddenly felt very enabled and empowered to actually start changing the way they did things. In their daily routines, in the ways they interacted that made a huge difference to them and stress levels. The parent came down and when we know that when a parent is less stressed a child feels more relaxed as well. And so things would start to get better without diagnosis. And that doesn't mean that for some families there, there isn't still that necessity that the medical diagnosis. And we also know that actually in terms of access to resources in the school system, that can be really important. Actually in terms of the fundamentals of actually what do children need for good lifelong mental health? And that's a good relationship where they feel understood. Actually that always has to be our starting point, I think.

Philippa: 5:51

Absolutely. So that relationship is key. And you talked there about underlying, kind of reasons that behaviors are occurring. So if a parent was listening to this and thinking, yeah, my kid is just off the scale, I can't manage him. Yeah. They can control it. They are doing it on purpose. They, yeah. Would you, would, what would you say to them? What would be the, what would they start to. What would you help them to start to think about?

Charlotte: 6:26

Yeah, so I suppose we, we begin to think about what that must feel like. For them as a parent and really think about actually some of their drivers. In, in that some of the parents that we meet are going through huge pressures and feel the, in their parenting, they're not being a good enough parent because their child's not getting to school with ease. Their child's not managing the day at school with ease their child's, picking their child up at the end of the day and they're having huge meltdowns, then family meal times are hugely difficult and then bedtime's hugely difficult and, the day feels like it's a day full of conflict. And I suppose we begin to understand some of the pressures for the parent, first of all, of feeling that are they being judged? Are they are they living up to what they feel the parental expectations are and notice some of the pressure they feel. And then we might also begin to think about some of the pressure the child's feeling. In those situations and begin to think about actually what it's like for both parent and child to feel so pressured to achieve something that actually perhaps they're not with and isn't so right for them.

Philippa: 7:42

Yeah. So yeah. Julie and I on a previous podcast have talked about that parental guilt. Yeah.'cause I think that can be so hard, can't it, for parents that they. Th that sometimes we have such a narrow band of what children should be achieving, how they should be behaving. Yes. How your day should look, how you should play. Yeah. All these things. And I think with social media, it's an amazing thing. We are doing this and without all the wonderful developments, yes. We wouldn't be able to be having this conversation. But it also adds that pressure when you can see these perfect parents or these yes, perfect achieving children. And that's great. Some kids are going to do within this expected norm. They're going to achieve, aren't they? Yep. But other kids, mine being one of them, was a lot more bouncy and was never gonna walk with me holding my hand as we walked down. There was no way he was gonna do that. Absolutely not. So we had to find games that kept him safe and his movement, rather than restricting his movement. But I think parents, can. Maybe don't have the privilege that I did of being in a world where actually you've got, other people that are saying, actually it's okay that kids aren't fit for this. But maybe not every parent has that.

Charlotte: 9:14

No, and I think when you've got that internal voice about, am I being, what we call a good enough parent? Oh my gosh. Every, everyone else is getting their, kids into school and doesn't look as frazzled as I feel by the time, I've done the handover and walked away. And actually it's that internal self and I think so many. Parents do look around and feel like it's going so much better for everyone else. Whereas actually the reality is mornings are hard. What we've done the day before how good our quality of sleep has been when we like to wake up. All those things. Yeah. Impact how we arrive in the day, don't they? And, that's a parent's job to actually manage their own. Sense of I'm doing okay this morning and this is what I need to be on an eat and keel, as well as organizing a child who, as you say, there actually children don't yet have the executive function, do they talking. So actually you have to do all this massive amount of thinking that I've got to get their teeth brushed and I've got to get'em dressed and I've gotta make sure that they've had some breakfast and there's a plan for lunch, and then I've gotta persuade them to walk down the road safely. And in the midst of this, they've probably got an agenda. About what they want to do. And sometimes that's going on tablets or watching tally or particularly what they want for breakfast. And it's so much going on, isn't it so much just in that that space of time and sometimes just acknowledging the amount of pressure that in the system can be really helpful to letting parents just go, okay, actually I am doing all right with all I'm juggling. And once parents feel less shame about how good am I as a parent, actually your ability to be more creative and reflective as a parent return, doesn't it? When you are under pressure you can't think of a game to play in that moment. You're in survival mode. You're like, I've just gotta get you into school.

Philippa: 11:11

Absolutely. And I, I suppose it's that thing of, how do you do self-care to build your own emotional resilience, which is what you need when you've got a 3-year-old who isn't eating their dinner and the health visitors said You need to make the meat. And you've seen that you've got to cook all these amazing things off TikTok or wherever it is. And actually they're thrown it all on the floor and all they want is a cheeser. Your emotional resilience needs to be quite robust, doesn't it? To manage that? Absolutely. But if if you are living in poverty or in temporary housing or fleeing domestic violence, or even in a domestic violence relationship, or you've got five kids or whatever it is, your capacity to deal with those everyday moments is really tricky, isn't it?

Charlotte: 12:03

Totally. And I think parenting can become really overwhelming in that sense. And, then you get a lot of advice don't you, about self care, about, okay, actually take yourself for a lovely walk and do some breathing. And actually say when you've got five children to get through the day there's not always a lot of time for that. Actually there's a big piece about how you talk to yourself about how you're doing as a parent. And I think, befriending your nervous system, we think about a lot and getting to understand that, actually things. Don't feel great all the time, and it is okay that, you move in your nervous system interstates where you feel a little more agitated, you feel a little more frustrated, but the bit is to be able to recognize them. And also I think as a parent, in, when we talk about self-care, some of that's just some of the basic actually, are you able to get enough sleep? If you've got kids that, that aren't sleeping and you are up and down, that really does erode your own wellbeing. And to have that acknowledged that actually, of course, actually it's hard for you. When you're not sleeping is much more helpful, isn't it, than having someone say to you, wow, it'd be a really good idea if you got eight hours sleep. Yeah. You probably wouldn't feel like yelling by the time, you were getting everyone shoes on if you got eight hours, because it's

Philippa: 13:24

not realistic, is it? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. So tell us a little bit more about the nervous system because you are doing quite a lot of work around this, so if parents, or, anybody's listening to this and they haven't really thought about, why is Charlotte talking about the nervous system? We're talking about stressful parenting. Tell us a little bit about why it's important and what Beacon Family Services are doing to support parents and children with that.

Charlotte: 13:47

Yeah. So actually this is something I did a lot of thinking about particularly when Covid happened. Because when Covid happened I suddenly wasn't able to be in the room with families that I was supporting yet I was still trying to reach out to them and their child online, and I had to think a little bit about actually, what is it that's not there? For parents, and it's very much that experience of how we feel in our bodies really influences the story that we tell ourselves about what's happening around us. So on a really simple level, if we think about, yeah. What happens when we're dealing with a, a phone call where we are trying to resolve, a, an issue perhaps a around, a passcode reset. I've dealt with that this morning. And actually if you've had your breakfast and you're feeling energized and what have you, you can be okay if that happens right before lunchtime. Yeah. When you're a little bit hungry. Yeah, and you just want to get things done. Actually, it feels far more inconvenient. And so actually that being aware of what's happening within us and how that changes our ability to respond really matters. And often when you move into that state where you are more stressed and you are more agitated or frustrated. If you come into contact with someone who's actually in a place where they're like, this is all okay, we can handle this. We've gotta, you can feel that shift in you immediately, can't you? Someone gets that this is a pain, but they've got a plan and they're going to help. And all this stuff is really, IM important because our nervous system guides how we interpret events, but it's also reading other people's nervous systems. So trying to bring calm into a situation this stuff is hugely important.

Philippa: 15:49

Now a nervous system that you're talking about is connected to all different parts of our body, isn't it? So it's not just, the stuff in your hand. It's the bit, it's connected to our brain and it's running down the middle of our body. That's right. It's connected to our heart and our lungs and our muscles and other little bits that help with and our duct.

Charlotte: 16:08

Yeah. Really importantly. Yeah.

Philippa: 16:10

So that feeling that parents or even professionals have where you are like, oh, that just doesn't feel right. You might, it's that I always think about it like, you know when two people have been having an argument in a room, but you haven't been there.

16:24

Yeah,

Philippa: 16:25

and then you walk into that room and you can feel the tension, even if the people are smiling at you and saying, oh, welcome, Philippa. What? You can just feel that, oh, there's something a bit like not quite right here. That's our nervous system saying that's

Charlotte: 16:42

our nervous system, and it is a proper spidey scent. So there's a big word for it. That's called neuroception. Actually within us, our nervous system is taking in sensory inflammation all the time. It's scanning. Yeah. Within us. So within our body, what are we feeling? It's scanning around us. Sorry, my cat just ran across screen then. Did you see. I

Philippa: 17:05

did. He looked very cute.

Charlotte: 17:10

What was your nervous system saying no to Charlotte? I completely threw my my train of thought for a minute. The surprise of that. Yeah. What's gonna happen? So yeah, so we're scanning within us we're scanning around us, so what's in the environment around us and we're scanning between us. As well, and our sensory systems are taking in this information and sending it to our brain, which is dealing with it. So I think that's a bit that's really important. Often people think of their thoughts as linked to their feelings, but actually this starts in our body and it's what we call an autonomic process. So actually our body's responding to this information and affecting our hearing, our digestion, our heart rate, all these things before we've even coalesced a thought in our brain. So actually our bodies are very cl clever in that way. And that's a really important thing to start to think about as a parent because it can really revolutionize understanding both yourself and your child of how quickly you can respond to a situation without actually having, thought things through. And I think a really good example is that for all the drivers out there. Think about the last time you had to press the brake really suddenly. Because actually the process didn't go, oh, look, there's a car stopping in front. I better press the brake. The first time you are thinking about it. Normally the things that you are starting to notice is, oh my gosh, I feel a bit hot. My heart's pumping and what just happened. Am I okay? So yeah we're very responsive to the, to, to what's going on between us, within us and around us. And we're looking to see how safe we are all the time. And you know that when we can create safety for the nervous system, actually it's then that connection becomes possible.

Philippa: 19:10

Because, our. Bodies in our, nervous system in our brain are really great, aren't they? Because they're designed to keep us safe, to keep, to keep us alive, to keep us moving forward. Yes. So the signals we get when it says actually we might die, actually physically changes our body, doesn't it? It changes the way that we think and we process information and the fact that we can't think, yeah, because if a lion is about to eat, you. You don't want to be thinking, oh, I wonder what David Attenborough said about lions Now. Yes. Oh yes, I need to run because you've gone, haven't you? You want that instant response, don't you? Of totally. Oh, my blinking goodness, I need to leg it. Or a little bit stronger than that.

Charlotte: 19:54

You need to leg it. You're not gonna bother staying around to try and fight it, are you? Because actually your body knows Get away.

Philippa: 20:00

Yeah. Yeah. But stress Charlotte can do some of this kind, it can trick the body. Yes. Some ways into feeling like everyday situations can, are more life threatening than they are. Yes. And I'm not talking about a little bit of stress, where I'm thinking, oh my gosh I'm like for Charlotte or whatever it is. Yeah. It's the. It's those things that happen over time. So over the day you might get 50 stresses and those can build up or that you are living in a place that. It is difficult to survive. So you might be living in temporary accommodation. You might be struggling to think about, am I gonna put the heating on or am I gonna feed my child? Or they're gonna need new shoes at the end of, at the end of term and I dunno where I'm gonna get the money from. Those pressures you might be living in domestic violence, but those are stresses that you are feeling as a parent and they can. Your body can then feel that it's life threatening. Is that right?

Charlotte: 21:05

Yes. And I think one of the things that we talk with families about is we envisage this situation using a lighthouse and we've got some imagery and I can link you to some parts that you can put in the. Our nervous system as having a state that's like being in the lighthouse or around the lighthouse, where actually things feel okay, we feel safe. We're content, we're able to socially engage and we're able to connect with. And then as you say, we have another state, which we think of that as slipping down onto the rocks a little bit. And that's the pressures that inevitably come up in, in a day. They might be running late, they might be bad traffic, they might be getting hungry, but they cause us to mobilize a little bit. But actually as you say, if we get chronically. Stressed and those stresses are repeated and we can't see a way outta them. We can get stuck in what we call this struggling state. Or we can slip down into what we think of as a drowning state, which is actually where you feel that actually it's got pretty hopeless and you can't imagine that there's any help. So you begin to shut down and just go through motions. Or if it's really serious, we could be talking about depression. But actually this is a hierarchical process that we move. From safety into a more struggling state where we become mobilized or maybe we're stuck in this fight and flight process into this drowning state. And when we get, it's normal for all of us to move through those state. And we move through them hierarchically and we move up again. Often, if we have felt a little bit hopeless about. Something. Being able to move into a place of doing something about it telling someone that really wasn't okay can move us back up over the rocks and that person's response to us. Gosh, that sounds move us. Back to safety. That's a simple way we, we move about. But for some, when you've got stuck in one of those states, it's really hard to see see how you move. And that's where people who are feeling safe need to be able to connect with you and help you help you move. And that's what parents are doing for children. But who is doing it for the parent who, who's around a. Helping them is a really big question.

Philippa: 23:40

And when you, so you talked about earlier on that, our nervous system is scanning both ourselves and our others. So for children. If their parents are in this kind of drowning or struggling stage, yeah, they're gonna be scanning their parents, aren't they? They're gonna be feeling what's coming from their parents. Absolutely. And I'm guessing then that impacts their lighthouse as well and the way that, and then Absolutely.

Charlotte: 24:08

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. If your parent is more disconnected and more unable to meet you in, in the moment, actually, that's your nervous system is going to scanner. Hang on a minute. I, i'm not feeling connected. Actually this isn't very safe for me.

Philippa: 24:24

So then we can, I guess we can get into this vicious cycle, can't we? That parents Yeah. Are feeling stressed maybe about other things in life. Yes. Children are picking this up. And then children's behavior. Is then they are designed to connect. Yes. So they find ways to connect and sometimes that might be in what we deem misbehavior, but actually it's just a survival behavior of I need you as my parent. But that can absolutely come across as aggression, as temper, tantrums of refusal to go to school, but actually what they're worrying about. Is, will my mom pick me up? Will my dad be there when I get home? Or what? What's gonna happen to them? But then that creates more stress for the parent. Yes. So we are going round in this circle.

Charlotte: 25:13

Yes. And if we come back to that point that you are making there Philippa that actually what is under this is that actually. Both the child and the parent want to feel connected and want to feel safe actually, if we start to address that and see it in, in those terms. But actually this child's behavior is a big, keep their parents' attention on them and okay. It, it might not be a way that feels good and, and, makes a parent want to connect. But actually if we can help a parent hold that in mind, hang on a minute, my child is needing connection in this moment. And see the need and separate. Separate it out from the fact that actually their behavior is making me feel like the last thing I want to do is connect with them. Actually, something becomes possible for parents in their own nervous system. They're actually beginning to think about this and understand what's happening and understand that actually it's okay that I'm not feeling like connecting with my child. I think it's one of the things I hear parents talk about that, guilt they feel when they're not having nice feelings about their child. But actually, parenting's really hard, isn't it? If you stop and think about it, who in their right mind would actually want to look after a little individual who doesn't know night from day, who needs all their P cleaned up, can't really tell you what's going on. You know who, who would want to do that yet we do because we want to connect and care and, in babies, when they begin to smile. Actually that the hard work of those those caring bits melts away for parents. And that's really at the essence of it, that if we can create that sense of connection that allows oxytocin to happen in a brain, then actually coping with the bits that are hard, hope is maintained.

Philippa: 27:15

So that's what Loom Lumen in Us is an app that helps to build some of those, but also family beacon Family Services you do that in person as well. So it's about using play as a way of building those connections. So tell us a little bit more about that.

Charlotte: 27:34

Yeah. So tell you a little bit more about that. To. We started with some paper resources that we developed for our families. Introduced the lighthouse model and help parents think about where they were in the model, where they say struggling or drowning, and where was their child. And then help them select games that match that state, because that's one of the things that, you know, that I was experiencing was that if you just say to a parent who's very stressed, why don't you try playing with your child? They might say, the last thing I feel like doing is running round and playing hide, sequel or what have you with my child at the moment. I can't find that within me. And that's what's really important. It's the right kind of play to match the state. So actually we designed these resources that started to help with that, and they became really popular. And we worked with Adoption UK with some focus groups of parents from Adoption UK and later from kinship as well. To really understand, what was it about having these paper resources that were so helpful. And what parents started to say to us was that in the moment where I most need to play with my child, that's the moment I feel least creative. I can't think so I. A resource and actually I don't want it to be at home in the drawer. I need it to be with me because a lot of these moments might happen when I'm out and about when I'm, visiting someone and I need something. We would really like that to be an app. So that's when we launched our app version with funding from. Clarion Housing. We built an app that's been really helpful, but it allows parents to do a. Of what is happening either for them or their child, because the app is not something that you give to your child. It's a resource for parents. It's a resource for parents to help them in the moment and to help them in building and strengthening their relationship. With their child. We've recently relaunched a new version, which is allowing parents to track a lot more about what is happening in the relationship with their child and what their concerns are and how their feeling about themselves with the parent. So that actually. Over time, we can make better and better recommendations around the kind of play that will be helpful. The other things that parents have said to us is that in using the app, they started to track what was happening and notice that there were times a day when actually a little bit of play completely changed things. So I had a family who noticed that if they made dents before bedtime. Bedtime was completely changed. And so actually we've also created that facility within the app for parents to make notes when they're when they're enjoying activities about what has happened or also where it's not worked so well for a child, but they can hold notes so that actually they can begin to build some thinking themselves about why is this working? And then they can set little reminders for themselves. To actually play. So you can get a little p your child loves to play just before tea time, so it's really a resource that's about helping parents to have the space to reflect because it's really busy as a parent. And that creative and thinking space is hard to come by. Actually say you're just in the often in the doing doing, get through the. We survived it, but actually we want families to have a sense that we had moments of joy and connection. We had fun today. They were highlights.

Philippa: 31:17

And that's, the purpose of play. The purpose of this app and the pur, the play and all those things is to build that connection. Yes. Because if we are building that connection, we are soothing that nervous system and saying that we are feeling safe. Yeah. You are safe in this relationship. You're safe in that connection. Yes. And that can be for both parent and child.'cause play is not just about the child, it's. Also helps the adult.

Charlotte: 31:45

Totally. Totally. And I think we easily forget that, and you must know this Philippa, how many times do you have that conversation where you ask a family about what do they do to play? And people think about very formal play opportunities. Oh, the last time we played a game was whereas actually there's something about being playful. As, as well. And, as adults, I think we are much more playful. And we, we, you. People don't often think of their hobbies as their time for play, but actually yoga's massive for me. It's really important to me. And actually I'm playing in those moments where like I'm really trying to extend my balance or, create a bind that is, you know, more than the, actually that's me playing. And exploring my body and making sense of how I feel in in, in the world when I cook for my family. Yeah. And actually, not when I'm just throwing jacket potatoes, what have you, but, I've got some time to think about what does everyone, like, how can I make this really, that's playing. And equally when we do that with someone else, that is that, that is lovely. And one of the reasons and the things that I love most about my job the bit that I never heard anyone talk about when I was exploring moving into delivering play therapies was how lovely it is. Have that time with parents and children playing where you all just get lost in the moment. It just is so lovely. It's it's, it's one of the benefits that is priceless. I think of the work we do.

Philippa: 33:24

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think it's just a privilege, isn't it? I, yeah. I just think I have the best job in the world. I, yes. I get to spend time with. Families and children who through play, are honest and open and connected, and you don't often need words. You can feel where they are. You can feel, that today's been a really hard day for you. I can feel the energy in the room and then through play, hopefully, you get. 50, 60 minutes, and when they leave, it might not last very long, but when they leave, there's less of that prickly tension. There's less of that disconnect

Charlotte: 34:07

Absolutely.

Philippa: 34:08

Between the parent and the child and they've, you've bought them back together, they might run off by the time they're down the end of the street and it's all back again, but you've, yeah. They've allowed you. I think as a, as a practitioner, I just feel that to be allowed in that space with a parent and a child and to have them sometimes at their most vulnerable is one of the greatest privileges of my life Really? And I love it. Yes.

Charlotte: 34:37

Yes. And it is a privilege, isn't it? And. To, to bring some joy and laughter through play as an antidote to the real stress and distress that that children and parents are feeling. And I know that we are both social workers, so we're very conscious of the social structures that are around families. And I think so many parents don't feel that they can enjoy. Play and being playful with their child just because it's feels so good. They feel that there has to be an educational objective. They have to be progressing or learning something new or developing in some way. And so actually a big thing about our app, it's just plan B. That is enough.

Philippa: 35:29

Yeah. And just as we come to the end of the shot, that plain and being can just be small moments, can't it? Because again, yes. Lots of the feedback that. But that, we get or and I have conversations with parents around. Just feeling that they've got to do these, big stints of play. It's got to be organized. Yeah. But, being in your dramas on a Saturday. And like you say, building a den or and you can build the den and feed them snacks. You don't always have to be in that play, do you? But you can. You don't be connected, can't you?

Charlotte: 36:06

Absolutely. Absolutely. Or pulling silly faces at one another. Yeah.

36:11

Yeah.

Charlotte: 36:12

Doing some silly walks as you go to school, sharing, hand squeezes, all these little moments of being playful, make a huge difference. And for all those parents that are listening in all the trials we've done around our resources, we've been looking for families to, to play with their children for five or 10 minutes. Right

36:30

a

Charlotte: 36:30

day and to use this stuff. So we're, this isn't something that, you've got to we're gonna take a whole afternoon and we're gonna do playing. This stuff is, available when you've just got a couple of minutes and a couple of minutes here, there and everywhere builds this. And in fact, we run a program of subscription packs. So we shared our activities some resources to play them and some information about why the play would be helpful with families once a month for six months. So they got six packs. And we asked the parents to complete a questionnaire for us at the beginning. And at the end, and actually we saw over 80% of parents felt closer to their children. At the end of that six months of just taking those few moments to play during each month about 70% of families, a little bit more than 70% experienced a decrease in conflict. So it's really powerful to do. That is what we know. And we're doing more research developer. Is it okay if I do a plug here? Absolutely. We're doing more research. Research, absolutely. So actually we will be inviting people to try our app and contribute to the research. The app, there is always a free version available. But there are additional features and you can download the free version of the app or you can pay for it or you will be able to join our research trial.

Philippa: 37:58

Perfect. And I will put in the description of the podcast the link to the app and, yeah. The link to Beacon Family Services Yes. So that people can access Yes. The resources that you have. Yes. Available. Because yeah,

Charlotte: 38:16

families that are in the West Midlands and are in Birmingham, we also run the play groups and some parent workshops as well that can be accessed. And

Philippa: 38:24

they can access that through your, through the website, can't they? Absolutely.

Charlotte: 38:28

Yes.

Philippa: 38:29

That's perfect. So yes, I'll add those in. Thank you so much for your time, Charlotte, today. It is just been lovely chatting to you and hearing about all those amazing things that I'm sure for parents and professionals really are just a great resource. So thank you very much.

Charlotte: 38:49

Thank you for having me. It's been lovely to chat to you about it.