Ep29 Play and Residential Care; an interview with Angela Griffiths

In this episode of 'Pondering Play and Therapy,' host Philippa interviews Angela Griffith, a registered social worker and independent social care consultant with over 30 years of experience in children's social care. Angela discusses her journey in the sector, beginning in 1991, and the changes she has observed over the years. Angela highlights the importance of strong management in children's homes, the diverse services offered, and the system's need for better integration of children's voices. She emphasises relationship-based practice, restorative practices, and the need for emotionally resilient staff. Angela also talks about her consultancy, Children’s Homes Improvement Limited, which provides training, supervision, and strategic support to improve outcomes in the care sector. The conversation covers the challenges and opportunities in residential care, advocating for a child-centred approach that prioritises the involvement and empowerment of young people.

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Transcript

Philippa: 0:00

Welcome to this week's episode of Pondering Play and Therapy with me Philippa. And this week my guest is Angela Griffith and she is a registered social worker and independent social care consultant. She has over 30 years of experience in the field of children's social care. She works with children's homes, organizations, and local authorities to provide them with training, coaching, and consulting services that help them improve their practice. Ensure safeguarding and evidence, the provision of high quality care for children and young people. In 2015, she founded Children's Homes Improvement Limited, a consultancy that offers bespoke and tailored support to meet the diverse and complex needs of the social care sector. Her mission is to support, empower, inspire, and collaborate with individuals and teams to improve outcomes and innovations in children's social care. She also offers supervision, mentoring, training for those who run and are responsible for children's homes so that they are compliant with inspections and regulations. Welcome Angela. That's a lot you've got going on there in your, life. So you've been doing this for quite a while and built up quite a lot of experience.

Angela: 1:34

Yes, that's right. Philippa. First, I'd like to thank you for inviting me on today. It's very nice to speak with you. Yes, I've been working in the field for quite a long time. I started back in 1991 as a waking night worker in a local authority children's home. So I would say that I've probably done every job there is in residential care, including managing several homes in one go, working with lots of different local authorities. I did 10 years working in action for children. Yeah, I suppose you can say that my career is quite diverse, but all with children, really mainly within social care.

Philippa: 2:15

And I bet you've seen some changes over those 30 years. Angela, from when you started to where you are now

Angela: 2:21

Yeah, I, yeah. It's fair to say I've seen some changes. When I first started in residential care, there was no inspection, there were no regulations, there was very little training. Really, I think all we had was the initial rollout of the Children Act 1989. So the, we've had all the regulations and the inspections, et cetera. Unfortunately, I'd like to say that I haven't seen as much change as I would like to see in terms of the support provided for young people within residential care and some of the outcomes that they still struggle with that's an issue. I haven't seen as much change as I would like to have seen in terms of children's services being needs led rather than resource led, but I also appreciate that, money's not infinite, but it's still an issue really. And in these cash strap times it's even more of an issue.

Philippa: 3:14

So if you've got people who don't really have any experience of children who live in, homes where there's multiple occupancy cared for with staff or I guess parents one, can you explain what the purpose of them is and what is it? When you're saying you haven't seen as much change, can you tell us a bit more about that?

Angela: 3:37

Yeah, so the purpose of a children's home is to provide a safe and caring, nurturing environment for a child or young person who's not living within their family home or living within foster care. Historically residential care was always seen as the. Of last resort, but for some young people it isn't a choice of last resort. It is an appropriate placement for them to. Quite interesting to think about how different it is to be in a children's home rather than in a family home or even in a foster care placement. There are different types of children's homes which provide different types of services. You have somewhere young people live and stay until they're 18. And you have others where they go and it's really quite short term and it's an assessment or it's a pathway, it's part of their journey back home or into resident in, sorry, into foster care or into supported accommodation should they reach 16. There's a variety of different purposes of a children's home and a variety of different registrations of children's homes. So you have some homes that specialize working with children with mental health issues, some with learning disabilities, some with children who've got, challenging behavior and lots of risks. So there's a variety. You've also had children's homes that are offer short break and respite care for children with disabilities, or actually sometimes. In some cases for children who require a little bit of a break from home to support them being able to stay at home, whether they don't have a disability or a mental health issue. So it's quite diverse. The, the estate of residential is very diverse. You also have. Residential homes that are run by local authorities, and we've seen a resurgence of that in the past few years with additional money being given for that and a very large private sector, which we've also seen a lot of press about, particularly the ones where. They're the bigger companies and there's issues around making money outta that particular aspect of children's social care. So there's a lot of changes coming along with that. And what I mean by not seeing as many changes is that residential care provides a good opportunity for children to strive and work towards better outcomes. The quality of the residential care is good in the main. There are some bad residential homes as there are bad foster placements, as there are bad whatever. The issue I have is actually with the system that supports children in care, looked after children, and how it's still remains, in my view, to let children and young people down. Where I've not seen as much change as I would like to see is the actual involvement of children and young people in their own care. We still have a system which is doing to the child rather than with the child. And in doing that, actually in my view, reduces the potential to build the child's resilience because as we all know. The cornerstones of resilience are self-esteem and self-efficacy, and a child in care has very little self-efficacy. And decisions are often made not including them. And we as adults, obviously we know best. And I'm not saying that we don't in some circumstances, because, risks have to be managed. You can never eradicate a risk, you can only mitigate a risk. But we also have to bring children and young people up to live in the world in a safe way. The bits that for me is about not really involving the children, not we have, we give a lot of verbal time to saying that we put the children first. Unfortunately, I still see quite a lot of instances where it's actually not about the child, it's about the resources and it's about an adult's agenda rather than a child's agenda and what's best for the child. And that's my opinion, that's my experience. This is quite a broad brush. I'm saying. I'm not saying there aren't good, services out there. I'm not saying there aren't good social care services or social people who work as individuals within the social care setting who do. Endeavor and strive to put young people at the center of what they do and do strive in endeavor to support them to take an active part and control within their care journey. But unfortunately, I'm still seeing too much of the latter.

Philippa: 8:16

And a lot of people, will watch things like. Is it Tracy Beaker?

Angela: 8:20

Yep.

Philippa: 8:20

Where they live in a children's home. And that in some way can glamorize. Maybe. What the experience is and because they're the children from the bits that I've seen do seem to have a lot of autonomy and a lot of a lot of control. Or not control, but say in what goes on and they're responding to, and then they can act out if and repair the people in the parental role Then rethink what's going on and think, oh yes we can hear you. Is that a glamorized view that isn't, I know I'm asking you a question that I know the answer to, but I suppose lots of people will have watched things like Tra Tracy Beaker and

Angela: 9:05

Yeah, I think there are elements in Tracy Beaker that are right, and there are homes where. That would be absolutely the case where children are totally and fully involved in what happens in the home and how it operates and having their wishes and feelings. Within the children's home regulations, there's a whole standard on children's wishes and feelings, and there's a duty and a legal obligation to take those into consideration and to listen to them and to demonstrate how you do those. It's not so much the homes that I have the issue with. It's a wider system that I have the issue with because whilst homes are striving to do that and are advocating on behalf of their children and young people, the wider system sometimes works against that. So yeah there's an element of glamorization around that. I don't, it's not a true reflection of. What happen in a home, living in a home can be quite traumatic to a child on what, if you think about that, have a of children who. Don't know each other have all got their own trauma and issues to deal with which in itself is difficult. And then they have to set about building new relationships with carers and staff and management and other children within the home, as well as dealing with everything that's brought them to that position in the first place as to where they're at. It's can be quite overwhelming, I don't think it necessarily reflects that there are elements. Yeah, it, it probably reflects an idealized approach of what we would maybe want children's homes to be. Maybe or maybe not. I can't say I've sat down and watched every episode, but from what you're saying, it sounds a little bit idealized. But it's the wider system that for me is the issue. And don't get me wrong, there are I go into homes. And I see some absolutely fabulous and fabulous practice with children where they are totally involved and I've seen, and I get to watch the journey of the child when they come into the home and how they come in and how they change and develop and. To move on from the home, but I also go into homes where that is not the case. Yeah. And I also go into homes where they, homes do fabulous work and are continually fighting with the wider system to advocate for their children as a good parent would do, as in being in loco parentis. But, it's the and within. Again, within the children's home, like I say, you've got the whole standard on wishes and feelings. You have another regulation, which is called Regulation five, where actually the home, including the manager, the registered manager, are legally obliged to advocate for a child if they feel that any service at all. Is not doing what is in the best interest of the child, whether that be not providing them with the appropriate healthcare or not, giving them a access to education or whatever that might be. There's a legal obligation for managers to escalate that within the social care services, and it's really interesting how that can then be perceived. By the wider the wider sector really, particularly within social services it can be seen as quite challenging and it's almost what do residential managers know? They're not qualified social workers. And there's still that. And that's also some of the change that I've still not yet seen. So when I first started in residential, like I said, there was no qualifications to. But now you have to be, you have to have a certain level of qualification to be a worker or you have to be working towards that. You have to have a certain level of qualification to be a manager, but that qualification is not a social work degree. They're not registered, they're not required to be registered social workers, unless of course they're in Scotland, where actually everybody who works in residential is required to do the social work qualification, which is quite interesting. And that in itself creates a almost like a disempowerment for managers in challenging the system. Because, we as social workers, as one myself, as a registered social worker, we know best, we know all about somebody with a lesser qualification, unfortunately, and again, I'm using a broad brush and I'm using very much a broad brush. But there is that they don't, they're not, they're qualified to the level that we are, but so we know best. So if we're saying this isn't a risk or that is a risk, then it is because we say so because. The level and quality of experience that residential care staff have and the knowledge that they develop about the children that they work with, who they're with 24 7 over a period of time, and other professionals might visit them once a month. Yeah, they have, they are the people with the relationship,

Philippa: 14:05

so just thinking about that relationship and thinking about wishes and feelings and things like that. How is that balance? Because. I guess what I'm thinking is that parents, people who maybe aren't in. This profession every day when they think you know about wishes and feelings and listening to the child, that they then get to do whatever they want and it's they don't get to do that at home. They might wish to have or want to have chocolate for breakfast, but there's a boundary and they're not having chocolate for breakfast. They're only having it once a day. Or they might want to go to Alton Towers every. Every weekend, but actually there's a boundary and they're not going to, why should children or young people who are cared away from home have more than that? They need boundaries. They need structure that I'm saying this, that's, not actually my view, but I'm just think about if you are if you're listening and sometimes the newspapers and social media can portray that. Children in local authority care, or, get a lot more treats without the boundaries in place. So when you are talking about wishes and feelings, are you talking about they, they can have chocolate for breakfast if they want to?

Angela: 15:23

Absolutely not. I'm not talking about having chocolate for breakfast. I'm talking about ensuring that the child or young person feels heard. And listened to and involved, we can all have wishes, whether they are fulfilled is another matter, but we have the right to articulate them. And, even in a relationship, in an adult relationship, we like to feel that we're listened to. You are the person can still disagree with us, but we're given the space to express what it is that our view is. That view is not compatible with, say, a risk, then that's a conversation that the adult would have with the child around the risks around that. And it becomes a negotiation, a discussion, a compromise. I firmly believe that anybody who thinks they can tell a teenager what to do, he is on a losing battle. It's very difficult if you think back to when you were a yourself, were a teenager. Who could tell you what to do and why would you listen to somebody you know? Teenagers are in are interesting beings and it's a way of working with them that allows'em to feel part of the conversation. We all like to feel valued and even as adults, even when we're managed by people, we like to feel valued. We like to feel heard, we like to feel listened to because that makes us, it promotes our self esteem. So we're not talking about. Just giving children what they want when they want it. It's about being heard. It's about being listened to because the bigger picture around that is it supports their resilience and the development of that, and that's what they need going out into the big wide world, potentially more so when they're being in the care system, because they potentially won't have that network around them that our own children would have when they step outside the door,

Philippa: 17:13

so I'm guessing I'm just thinking about, when teenagers are in, in, in their family of origin or maybe in foster care they do express, I'm just gonna use an example. I want to go, I want to go to Johnny's for a party on Saturday night, and they're 40. So they, they are allowed to do that. And as a parent, I guess we have the autonomy to weigh the risk that we think, okay, Johnny pe Johnny's parents are gonna be there. They're gonna make sure there's no alcohol. He stay, he, he is, had sleepovers there before, I'm gonna collect him in the morning. Yeah, of course you can. Or the alternative of Johnny's parents aren't there. We know that. You know that there is no control over that. We don't. So actually, no, you can go for a few hours, but we're gonna collect you. You're not having a sleepover or no, you're not going at all. So there's a, I suppose there's that the child can voice their wish, their desire, which is what teenagers do. They have a relationship, with their parent that says. I hate you for not letting me go, but I know that you love me and you're doing this, so they'll begrudgingly accept it because there's a relationship there. And I suppose, I was just thinking this in for teenagers in who are being cared for in, away from home, maybe in a residential service that maybe the residential service. This is what I think I'm hearing you saying, doesn't always have that autonomy to make the risk assessment. So it's a blanket, we don't let kids stay out overnight or we don't let, or that we do, but we have to go through these million steps and they've only, they've asked us on Saturday morning and see how happening on Saturday night and the residential manager or whoever's leading. The shift at the time doesn't have the autonomy to say yes or no, so the child or young person misses out even if the person would think actually, yeah, the risk is manageable. The risk is okay. It's developmentally appropriate just like the parent would. So it's that disconnect between being able to. Hear a child and make appropriate decisions, because I'm guessing that then damages the relationship.'cause it feels really unfair. Yeah. And it's unfair.

Angela: 19:39

Yeah. Yeah. You're absolutely right. I'll go to homes where, kids have gone to festivals with their friends in camped out and stuff like that. But the process to get to that. Got to go to the social worker, we've got to have this conversation. This risk assessment, got to do this, got to do that. You can't really respond in the moment unless there's a prior agreement around it. You've got the delegated authority to do that. And then, and to be honest, Philippa, sometimes some of the social workers that you know. If, I've spoken with the child, they feel quite competent. They've met the child that the the child is gonna stay with or whatever. They've met the family, they've done the work, but then the social worker says no, because the social worker themselves is risk of birth and doesn't want it coming back on them. And this is why I'm saying about where's the child in this decision and putting the child first. Sometimes I say to a lot of people. Even just parents, to be honest. When you're thinking about how you're responding to a child, particularly around risk, whose needs are being met in the context of that, is it that actually I don't wanna be worried about this child, so I'm gonna say no, so then I can go to sleep even as a parent and we all go through that, we all, having a child myself, and it's a very, it's very hard to. Help them make money, take managed risks and hope for the best. But that, who's, whose needs are being met and how am I supporting this child, my child, or a child within a, in, in, in care, in residential, in foster care, wherever, to take those managed risks in order then to understand what risk is and be able to manage it in the future. And I talk to people a lot. I do quite a bit of training and stuff, and I talk a bit about, when we overprotect our children and what that is about and why we do that. Because actually, we I, the scenario that I tend to use is when people say to me, no, my child's not going to school. I'm the public boss. Because it's just not safe. How long are you going. What are you actually going to allow them on public transport? Because when they turn 18, they'll be an adult. Does that mean it's safe for them to be on public transport now that they are, they've gone from 17 or 16 to 18. What skills have we enabled them to develop to notice risk and manage risk and. Be safe in the big wide world because, you never, not a parent. Even when they're older, you still can worry about them. But I just think as a parent and I apply, would apply the same things. And when I talk to to staff at working children's times, whose needs are being met, what is this about? How are we best supporting the child? And that's what I mean about putting the child at the center. And this is about the child. Yeah. I think that's really what I'm talking about in terms of the management of risk. But you are right, it is, it can be feel very unfair for children who live in the care setting.'cause they can't just randomly decide to go and do something and have it agreed of a weekend. And I did when I worked for Action for Children, I did a piece of work which is called which. Was done with young people around keeping myself safe. It's called the keeping myself Safe Toolkit. And that was done with young people and it was all about them enabling myself to keep safe. And a lot the feedback was about I can't go to the beach'cause they have to write a risk assessment if I go to the beach. Who does that? But because children's homes are also registered. And inspected. You can get to position where they become that risk averse that they don't want anything to go wrong. So they'll just try and eradicate everything and you can't eradicate everything. Like I said, you just can't, and we're not doing young people any favors. And it's also one of the things that when I do work with homes. When I see things in the home that are set out against the regulations or the standards, the quality standards. And I'm like, what is the wrong way around? Really, it's the wrong way around because that tells me you are doing that so that you can pass your inspection. Actually, we should be starting with the child and working to see where we are with that. Does that make sense? You can get, people can get into that situation where they talk about getting a good inspection. I can't take this child, they're run away, that I won't get a good inspection. Children are children. Children's homes could be very risky places. Happen in children's homes. It's what you do with what happens that makes the difference and how you manage that and how you demonstrate that. Actually, yes, that went wrong and this is what we've learned about it. And it's the same with children and young people. Yeah. You go out you've made a mistake. Let's learn from that mistake. What would you do differently next time? You sit down with them and to do their risk assessment. So if you go out, how are you going to keep, what are you gonna do to keep yourself safe? That's what our job is. My, as an adult with children, is to enable them to grow and to live productively and safely in the world.

Philippa: 24:54

Yeah that, that makes sense. So how do you think, the residential sector supports or can support children because, and young people could because they are usually in a residential home for a reason. There's a reason. And some of those are because, they've got physical needs and parents and that, that need a break. And I guess that's. That's a clear objective, isn't it? That they're getting older, they're getting bigger, they need more intense, they might need more socialization that their parents can't give, and they have respite, or they have, that they need that more professionalized care than they can get at home. We then, I guess got that the other part of that, which is children that maybe have risk behaviors or are challenging at home, or maybe parents can't keep them safe or maybe they've experienced, trauma, neglect, adversity within the family home and they've, they need to be cared for within the residential sector. What do, what would be a good service? How does that look if you are going to support children in these, the, these areas?

Angela: 26:17

Yeah, it's really, that's a really interesting, given that the, the sector is quite diverse. Yeah. So for me, if I was to think about a good home. Yeah, whatever that might be. For me it rises and falls on the management, number one. Number one, you need a very good, strong manager who is not insecure in themselves, is very open to developing and supporting their team to develop is very resilient. And child focused number one. So I can go into homes and, you can have a fabulous manager and a team that's actually quite new and underdeveloped and you can still have a really positive home. I've going to homes where you've actually got quite a longstanding experience team and the manager is displaying things of, levels of insecurity and micromanagement and risk. The home will not be as good. Yeah. It falls and dies on the management really. So that's number one. Yeah. And then you've got the environment being conducive to nurturing and warm. And that doesn't mean it has to be flashy and it has to be polish. It has to be clean, it has to be tidy. It has to be I walk into children's homes and I can get an immediate feel for the home. You know what it feels like. Does it feel warm? Does it feel welcoming? Just as something as silly as would you like a drink when you come in, oh, nice to see you, or whatever. Because they're greeting me like that. That's how they're are interacting with the children. Conversely, I've got into homes where, or they're signing in book and the member of staff's walking around with their coat on, who walks around the house with a coat on I'm cold. Put a cardigan on. It's a house. This is a home. It's a child's home. It needs to feel like a. Is to feel warm and welcoming. And then you've got the staff themselves and how they interact with the children and young people. And you can tell a lot just from that interaction, whether it's warm, whether it's supportive, whether it's an element of humor, whether there's, and again, within the regulations and the quality standards as a whole standard on positive relationships. Because let's be clear, no matter what you do, no matter how you work or how you practice, or whatever methodology you want to adopt, working with children, young people, whether that's DDP, pace or any other of these. Models that you can use. It all comes down to the quality of the relationship you have with the person you are doing it with. And that's proven within research, so those relationships are absolutely the key mechanism for everything. So I'm a firm believer in relationship based practice as above anything else. Yeah, you build that relationship and it's positive, then you can have those conversations with a child. That might be difficult. You have a build a positive relationship where the young person knows that you, they can trust you in terms of you do what you say you're gonna do. You are not disingenuous, you are not saying stuff just to appease them. You're firm consistent, but you're fair. You get what you see what you get, you they're saying that builds positive relationships. And when the child is in, in a position where it's having difficulty and having challenges and whatever that relationship can be, the difference between talking to the child or young person and bringing them down or actually saying something that's gonna further escalate them. So the relationships are massively important. You can't do any work or input without the relationship. Also, it's how staff talk about the children. Are they talking about them? Just, not when the children are there. Are they talking about them in a negative way? Are they focusing on the negative language or are they focusing on the positive? Language, and it's a bit like children as well. It's a bit like, when you hear somebody say, oh, my child's been a proper little this morning, but actually, has the child been a proper little this morning? Or have you just had a difficult day? It's okay to have a difficult day, it's fine, but we often externalize how we're feeling and make it the child's issue. And that's something that I think society does to us as adults because we have to be seen as really good parents. We have to be seen as good parents. And it's not acceptable not to be good parent, but actually that's why it goes back to what I said before about whose needs are being met, putting the child first, so some of those elements in terms of good care that the child is. I can, that when I speak to the child, they are able to articulate they wishes and feelings to me. I went to a home and I was just talking to the people this morning. I went to a home the other day and the girl was absolutely fabulous. Fabulous. She was, they've got some things they need to address, but she told them, she knew exactly what they didn't need me to go in to be a consultant, to tell them. She'd been in the care system a long time. She was telling everything that they needed to do because we often forget that children see and hear things. Staff have conversations and they think the children don't know. If I want to know what's happening in a home, I go talk to the children. If I want to know which member of staff, is it a bad mood or who likes who, I go speak for children, but it's adults, we forget. It's almost like that thing we forget that they can hear, they can feel, when a member of staff walks into into the home, a child can tell they're in mood or bad mood. It's palpable. And that's why we have to give consideration to what we take into a home as adult workers. Yeah, so those are some of the issues I would say would be a good time. I could go on about all sorts of other things, but from a I think from a relationship based point and a personal point of view in terms of those relationships, it's absolutely key. That's when it's going to descend even more. And I'm not saying that in a home where there are good positive relationships, there's not going to be extremely challenging times because there are, because we're dealing with children who've got lots of trauma and are trying to challenge and they're going on a journey themselves. Like I saying, the whole thing about under the home understands trauma. They understand that. You can have a fabulous day with a young person, absolutely fabulous day. And you can come back and there can be a massive incident that night. And that can be for a variety of different reasons. It was too much of a good day. They had too much of a good day and they weren't with their parents. They actually liked you as a member of staff, so they're gonna target you because actually they don't trust, they don't know how much you, they can trust you or their experience of relationships is that. If they get to another adult, like adults, the relationships are broken. So I'm gonna test, I'm gonna break that first so you can do that to, I'm gonna have that, just the basic stuff in terms of trauma and understanding that and having a resilient, emotionally resilient team.

Philippa: 33:37

Yeah. Do you think we talked about relationships, that is the key, that this podcast is all about relationships and how we have those and how the effectors and all those sorts of things do you think play. Or playfulness within children's homes plays a part. Can staff be playful and play and use play?

Angela: 34:02

Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. That most, most definitely. The way which play used or playfulness, should I say, depends on the young person. And you know what? I've got homes where they've had seven year olds in. And I go, and I, even as a visitor, I've got one home, I think, was she seven or eight or maybe even nine, I don't know. But she was very young. And I spent the whole session when I was there doing my visit because I do regulation, 44 visits, talking with her and playing with her and her horses, which she'd got all set up and we're having a conversation. So some of those mechanisms, those things like plague can be used as a, I don't wanna say tactic, I wanna say process by which. Or the conversations can be had?

Philippa: 34:46

I suppose you're in that connection, aren't you? When you are playing and there's the third thing Winnie Cut talks about the third thing that you are not, you are focused on the horses rather than staring at one another, aren't you? And it exactly makes conversation much easier, doesn't it? Yeah. And I wonder also if it, when there's been a disconnect, when there's been a rupture in that relationship that play, whether it's going to get, having a game of football in the back garden or down the park or, even cooking together or listening to music. Yeah. Those are all play aren't they, in different ways. If it can bring back that relationship that, that. Between, between young people in the home, if there's been a disruption there or between a young person and a staff member. If that can be helpful. I.

Angela: 35:38

Yeah, I think it's really helpful. It's really helpful. Within a children's home, you know what, they tend to do things, they call'em key worker sessions. It's usually based on things that, children have got needs and things that need to be addressed. And sometimes people think about a key worker session is sitting down and having a lecture or going through a workbook or whatever. I'm a firm advocate of let's bake a cake and have a conversation. Let's go for a walk, or let's go and do whatever. Those. Those third things create the environment. One, to have, like I said, to have the conversations, but also to feel like they that you've got special time, dedicated time. We all like to feel important. We all like to feel like we've got our own dedicated time. And it's particularly important I think, within children's homes where there might be multiple children. And sometimes I've got home, so everybody need, every child in that home needs to have their individual time because they all need to feel special in some way. And those play elements, whether that be, going, getting the nails done or going to doing whatever, spending that special time. Is part of building that relationship and bringing, bringing people back together again. If there have, if there has been a rupture and there's a lot of homes also operate in a restorative practice where they talk about that. So they have a conversation and you've got emotionally mature adults who are willing and able to hear. They themselves have not done the best job that they could have done. And we talk about, reflective practice and reflecting upon, what was that about? What was that about for me? How did I respond appropriately to that child? Did what did that triggering me? Going, and again, where was I in all of that? I often think about, if, when you are looking at the behavior of a child or an incident, the first place you, you should look at is yourself in terms of how am I, what's is happening for me, and how can I then make sure that whatever's happening for me does not leak out to what, how I'm now gonna deal with the child. Because if it does, then it's got the potential to further escalate. Yeah. But that, that, but that's what I'm talking about in terms of emotional. Resilience and building that within the team and within the staff. But yeah, players I think has got play and playful is a humor. Humor particularly with with teenagers is always a good one, I think. And and sometimes giving them an answer that they weren't expecting you to give is always a really good one,

Philippa: 38:09

yeah, you were just, I just want to just go back a little bit. You talked about restorative practice. Yeah. And I guess some people won't know what that is, Angela. Yeah. Can you just give us a little bit about what that is? Yeah. And how you support that.

Angela: 38:24

Yeah. So restorative practice is really where you if there has been an issue. An argument. So Rupture in that relationship, a rupture in the relationship. Whether that be, let's say for instance, the child has had to be held, physically held, which can be a massive rupture in a relationship. Part of the process that goes on afterwards would be, some places they do, they call it a make a, making it right discussion. So sit down with the child and the person who. Do whatever, and they have that restorative conversation about how they felt and as, as honestly as they can do to then rebuild and what they're gonna do to rebuild their relationship together. So it's based on restoring and re reconnecting those relationships so that they can move forward productively. Sorry, I say so. It gives a child a chance to be heard. The member of staff a chance to be heard, but the member of staff shouldn't really be talking about how the child might them feel. Really, you should be blaming the child. It's about restorative and building relationship moving forward. Sorry.

Philippa: 39:27

I was gonna say it's about maybe because I guess in those moments, a child, a young person can feel like you are doing this to me. Which I guess is where we started the Yep. The conversation around, you're doing this to me, you've, you've. Put this boundary in place and you're doing it because you don't like me or because I'm unfair. Because children who've had early life adversity often see the world in a really negative way, don't they? Understandably. Yeah. What you can view that may be somebody's boundary or somebody's intervention is because you are bad and because they don't want you to be happy. Yeah. But maybe what I'm hearing is the restorative practice is giving. The child an opportunity to hear maybe a different narrative around that. It's I was really worried about you. Yes. And I was really trying to keep you safe and therefore helping to build that connection rather than drive the disconnection. The disconnection is you did it because you wanted to hurt me. The connection being, okay, so maybe you were trying to keep me safe, which I guess as parents is what we do all the time, don't we? We say. I know you really wanna go to that party, but you're not going because I'm really worried that something's gonna happen to you. Yeah. But they've got, our kids who haven't had that early life adversity. Have all this experience that lets them know that their parents doing it because they love them, because they want to keep them safe. But maybe children in a, in a different setting, they don't have this experience that people do to keep me safe. Because they care about me'cause they look after me. They've maybe got the experience that people do these things because they like hurting me because I'm a bad person. And what I'm hearing you say is this restorative practice is about helping the child have a different narrative and driving connection.

Angela: 41:24

Yeah. Yeah, I would, I would totally agree with that. It's I've seen it work exceptionally well within homes and developing really strong positive relationships that are built on trust and respect. Because, that's a big thing, I think, respect. Within relationships, and again, as adults, sometimes we think we should have that automatically because we're the older person. And respect is earned and it's earned through the way in which you interact with the old person, the way in which you treat them, the way you talk to them, the way in which we involved them. But I guess

Philippa: 41:58

that's about also hearing the child, isn't it? And the young person. Yeah. That bit of, okay, so I was doing this out of care, but you were experiencing it like this and I guess what you're talking about is validating their experience. Yeah. Of saying, absolutely. I can see that was scary for you. I can see that this was what was going on for you. And that builds that trust then, I'm guessing. Yeah.

Angela: 42:25

Yeah. So it's not like sometimes as adults we, if a child says, I think needs some whatever we spend our time trying to contradict them to get them to agree with our view of the world. Yeah. And that's an example of actually not listening to them. Yeah. I'm sorry. You, because and also that for me as well, that goes back to what society tells us about being parents. So if you've got a child saying stuff to you that makes you think, oh my God, that makes me sound like a terrible person. I don't really wanna hear that because society tells me I can't be that person, therefore I have to interject and get the child to actually see that. That's not how I meant it. And one of the things I learned a very long time ago when I did NLP is that you are not in control of anybody's behavior or thoughts other than your own. And the way in which you say something is not the way in which it's perceived or received, and it's perfectly valid for that person to receive it and perceive in. They don't have to accept that you, you didn't mean it in that way, and then maybe you would look at yourself and then go maybe if I'm in that situation again with that person, I might try a different way of expressing that so that maybe they did hear it a different way. Because like I say, the only person's behavior you can change is your own. That's the only person's behavior you are in control of or can change is your own. So again, we always go back to looking at yourself within the context of it, but I think hearing and understanding how the child feels is really important for reflective practice. And reflecting on then is there anything else I can do differently? And I know even in myself as an adult from, managing people, working in different organizations, not even working with children. I've sat on my over overnight and reflected and thought oh God, did I really say that in that meeting? And I've got this response. Next time I'm gonna do it differently. And it might take me quite a while to reflect and a number of times to reflect on the same thing, to change what I'm doing, to get a different response because it's a process. It's not that you're just gonna say it once and change, it's a process, but you have to be open to that process of always continually coming back to yourself. And I don't mean that in a selfish way. I mean that in a reflective way. But also not beating yourself up about it. If you don't get it right, it's okay not to get it right. Like I said, as parents at some point in our children's lives, we're not particularly great. All of us, every one of us. And that's absolutely okay. Yeah. It's okay because it's life and we do the best we do at the time that we do it. With the hope that we're doing the right thing. And then we might reflect on it later and think, oh actually, and that's okay too. That's absolutely fine. Reflect on that. Learn from that, and just try something different. It's okay. But like I said, the societal expectation that we should all be perfect parents.'cause everybody's judging us. I think if you, if we take a step back and spend less time worrying about what other people think about us which I would say to anybody about anything, we'd be much happier in our lives and much more contented really. But that's a wider subject.

Philippa: 45:40

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's as we're nearly our hour, Angela, there's so much more I could ask you, so maybe you'll have to come back on. Yeah. But just as we are wrapping up then, so you support children's homes to do this. I'll put a link in the description of this podcast to your website for you for people to. To get in touch with you, but your job just generally just give us a general overview of how you support children's homes and what you do.

Angela: 46:10

Yeah. So I, the, in, within the regulations, there's something called a regulation 44 visitor at any home that's opted, registered, has to have somebody independent go in every month. And view the record, speak to children, speak to the staff, and write a report with recommendations for improvement as to whether they are meeting regulations or developmental recommendations. And that's then sent to the manager and the responsible individual, but also to Ted and that report forms part. What Ted can potentially use as their key lines of inquiry when they come to do an inspection. That's number one. Additionally, we provide training things like safeguarding. My, I myself, my, my particular special specialty and passion is management training. And I am about to launch some sort of networking events within the West Midlands around management and management training. That's my passion because like I said at the beginning, it all rises and falls. On the management and those being strong and resilient and supported to do their role. We also provide support to people who are opening children's homes in terms of the process and what they need and what they don't need. General consultancy in terms of strategic support and development of their children's homes, organizations anything, everything really to do with children's residential care and actually now more as well supported accommodation.'cause they're also now in the process of being registered by Osted. They have to be 16 to 18, are now registered with Osted, or some of them are on the way. So some also do things like mock inspections, reviews, audits, all sorts of different things, but focused on improving the service, moving it forward, developing it and that type of thing. Really.

Philippa: 47:57

Okay. And so people can get a hold of you through the website. Yeah. If they want to have a conversation with you or think about absolutely. Any of these services. That's wonderful. Angela, thank you so much for your time on our podcast. Thank you. And we look forward to speaking to you again at some point in the future.

Angela: 48:15

Thank you.