The Churchill Fellowship - Update no. 1

Forgive me but I thought that I'd keep up a 'Churchill update blog' to chart my plans, progress and thoughts. So, if that's nor your cup of tea then feel free to ignore. Of course, I'm happy to answer any questions or comments and if you've got any insight or contacts then please do let me know. Either comment on the blog or you can email me at info@alcoates.co.uk.

It was all fun and games and then TCF* said; 'yes'.  So, after all the forms, planning, promises and pondering the rubber appears to be hitting the road.

I've been collecting names, emails and screenshots of LinkedIn/X/Facebook posts writing them down in a fancy new notebook. I think that I'm trying to start with the end in sight and that's slowing things down. I can literally arrange and undertake video calls pretty quickly but, against my usual nature, I've pushed them back to the end of the summer.

Firstly,  I want to be sure of what I'm asking. Yes, the issue of supporting parents and carers of children with care experience** to manage children's violent or aggressive behaviour is a universal one. Or at least it appears to be but the language and how that is conceptualised differs across countries, professionals and families. I need to be sure that we're talking about the same thing. 

Secondly,  TFC were clear the report that we produce should be in a format that suits the audience that the report is intended for. It does not have to be a written report so I've decided to write a summary but to put most of it into a couple of podcasts. That creates a new challenge, I need consent forms that are up to the job, so I've linked into the helpful bods at CorumBAAF who are helping TCF. 

Finally, the thought has crossed my mind that I may struggle to find that many 'innovators, experts and shining lights on hills' in this sphere so I'm coming up with a contingency. Finding a lack of support is a finding in of itself and not without merit. 

So, that was this week, in the meantime, if you know of any international shining lights in the sphere of supporting parents and carers please do get in touch!

A new note book

* The Churchill Fellowship

** Care experienced is the focus of the TFC this year. That includes children returning to their families from Care, children in Special Guardian or Kinship arrangements or adopted children. 

I've been awarded a Churchill Fellowship!

So, what on earth does that mean? 

For several years I’ve bumped into ‘Churchill Fellows’ in different places here and there and the short answer is that the Fellowship is:        

“to connect to leading experts internationally in a fellow’s field of interest, to gain insights and knowledge and to then use that to drive positive change in the UK.”

 

Simple, or so it seems!?

 

Born from my families experience and all of the learning, studying, research etc. I’m quite comfortable with the notion that helping families/parents/carers to support and manage their children’s challenging, violent and aggressive behaviour is my ‘field of interest’. 

 

So, the plan is simple I am going to research support and interventions offered to adoptive, kinship and foster families that are supporting children with challenging behaviour.

 

Many Fellows physically take off around the world and the Fellowship encourages and funds that but I thought long and hard and decided that as much as I’d like to travel making connections and gathering information would be best served by me doing that online. Of course, my family are disappointed but it feels like the right choice given the nature of the subject and the way families are supported. 

 

I have to produce a report and share what I find in the spring/summer of 2025 and I’ve some creative ideas as to how that could be done and once they are firmed up I’ll let you know. 

 

The Churchill Fellowship has provided me with a grant so that will help me in terms of time as well as to get the message out. 

 

Watch this space! If you know of experts/professionals/organisations supporting families (adoptive, kinship, fostering) across the world then please do email me at 

 

info@alcoates.co.uk

As always, many thanks to all the grown ups in my life that pushed me, picked me up, pointed me in the right direction and pushed me again. You know who you are.

Side Eye and an Elbow to the Ribs - Relationships and Tricky Kids

She dug him in the ribs with her elbow and he gave her the side eye. 

I ignored them, though it was clear across the room other couples were giving each other knowing, withering, disapproving, ‘see I told you that you were wrong’ looks. 

 

I’d been explaining, so one parent looks at the other and thinks: 

‘They’re far to soft on our kid, how are they going to function in the real world, I’ll tighten up some boundaries, rules and expectations to get the kid back on track.’

 

The other parent looks back and thinks:

‘They’re like a camp commandant, I’ll cut the kid a bit more slack to compensate for them, this kid needs a bit more flexibility and understanding.’

 

Slowly these positions embed, views are exacerbated by time and experience and inevitable the gap between parents gets wider. 

 

Folks have often come to my talks expecting or hoping for a magical formulae for getting complicated children to bed on time, eat their greens and stop what can be often complex, challenging, aggressive and/or violent behaviour.

 

They did not come for relationship advice or insight. But that’s where we’re at in the talk, the rib dig and side eye moment. I’d been talking about the impact on relationships of parenting complicated children. For many couples the very foundation of their relationship is significantly undermined by the complexity, relentlessness and personally challenging nature of caring for children with histories of adversity, complex trauma, neurodivergent and with complex needs. Behaviour can be complex, physically and emotionally challenging. A hairline crack in a relationship can be exacerbated to breaking point, sometimes it does break. 

 

I recall talking to an adoptive parent about the challenges of raising a child with difficult behaviour, without prompting the conversation turned to their partner.  We don’t see eye to eye any more and we can’t talk about it. We don’t argue about anything other than our child. 

 

There are no magic formulas for managing children’s challenging and aggressive behaviour, but before we get to child we need to attend to our relationship. Is it easy? no. Do I have all the answers? Nope. I do know honest conversations sometimes need to be had, sometimes with the help of professionals to reconnect us with our loved ones to agree boundaries, approaches and how to work together. 

 

As they say, a house divided against itself cannot stand.  (Abraham Lincoln. Luke 3:25)

Peer support - An antidote of sorts.

Sitting with parents of children with challenging, violent and aggressive behaviour this week was an absolute pleasure in the worst sense of the word. 

I wish we did not have to be there, but we were and we made the most of it.  

It’s an easy group to facilitate, in that people just talk to one another and that is often enough. We supply the coffee, biscuits and a roof over their heads. 

We don't need to begin because immediately people relax and start to talk to one another and genuine and warm connection happens. 

The moment of eye contact and the knowing nod of the hear, people agree and say ‘yes, that’s us, I feel that’ the isolation thaws in the warmth of company that does not just intellectually understand but ‘gets it’, I mean really ‘gets it’.

Today the conversation eases towards connection, everyone in the room describes the slow constriction of their social networks, the fracture in relationships and the separation that they live in as they care for their child. Children whose version of normal isn't, children who break your best friends vase or get their cousin in a full nelson on a back garden bouncy castle. 

As we talk the conversations coagulate around this disconnection from the world around, this othering that acts as a lens to focus the isolation even further. 

Worlds that have become small. 

Fractures in relationships that we relied upon in previous times, times before complicated children. 

We are a tribe now, all our stories are different, adoption, biological, kinship, fostering. We walk the same path but we are connected.  

Peer support is often characterised in professional circles as the cherry on the cake of adoption support, an added extra so to say. However, I increasingly believe it's the cake, interventions are good but they are a moment in time, peer support is often woven into every day and minute. 

To finish I mangled a quote from brighter minds 

For families peer support can offer a culture of hope, resilience and 'normality' as opposed to a culture of hopelessness, isolation and a sense being perpetually on the outside of society.*

* the original quote is in relation to adult mental health 'Peer support can offer a culture of health and ability as opposed to a cul­ ture of “illness” and disability' Curtis, L. C. (1999). Modeling Recovery: Consumers as Service Providers in Behavioral Healthcare. National CouncilNews, pp. 7-9. Rockville, MD: National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare.

Shut up and listen.

The desire to be heard seems fundamental to who we are. In the book 'Sapiens' Yuval Harari explains that the telling of stories defines us and sets us apart from all other animals. It allows connection and helps us organise and co operate. 

It's clear to me for that to be true then our stories need to be heard, we need to be heard, we need to be able to tell our stories. 

Scrolling and occasionally doomscrolling through the various social media feeds I’m connected into and the need to be heard and to be listened to bounces off the screen. So many of those that post articulate that they have not been heard, by family, friends and services. They talk of being judged, misrepresented or misunderstood. Living with children with complex needs and the associated risks for challenging and complex behaviour is the norm amongst adoption, foster care, kinship, SEN and guardianship communities. The consequences for the adults so frequently is isolation, blame, shame consequently compounding challenges being faced. 

 

A common thread amongs these communities is the experience of 'not being listened to'.

Being heard or listened to isn't a substitute for tangible actual help but without it then there's limited chance that we'll even get to the start line of help. Being sent on courses that don't fit, being disbelieved or judgements being made on limited information are all too common in these communities and the underpinning issue is a lack of listening. Admittedly, some people caught in the maelstrom of child to parent violence or childhood challenging violent and aggressive behaviour struggle to articulate what is happening and what it's doing to them. But still they need to be listened to. Often as professionals we are waiting for our turn to talk rather than listen.

I've been social worked and I can tell when they aren't that interested in my story. 

Now I sit on the other side of the curtain, I'm invited to speak to parents and carers to offer help and insight. It's not an easy spot to be in, the issues are complex, multilayered. The solutions are often bespoke as we try to turn downward spiralling systems around while propping up struggling adults and expect them to work towards change. 

I often enter into these situations with fear and trepidation but often it's simple. 

Shut up and listen.

The effect is often remarkable. 

'You get it' and 'You understand' are often the phrases used. 

Perhaps then I tell a little of my own story and there's a palpable sigh of relief. 

The message is clear, 'You're not alone'.

We look for stories like ours to make sense of our stories, validate our feelings and legitimise our thoughts. 

Telling our stories and hearing others' stories connects us. 

This is a complex world and if you're living with a child with high levels of need and behaviour that can be challenging then it can be hard to navigate amongs families living in the  'normal'. 

I've been blessed having had some amazing professionals and that I felt heard was often the magic ingredient. We need professionals that can listen and listen without limits, be curious and acknowledge peoples' stories and connect.

 

Adoption Crisis: The Jarring Reality Of Adoption - Update

Been a really interesting and busy week in terms of the Adoption Crisis report that Fiona Wells et al. produced. We've spoken to the great and the good across several meetings and had some very informed and productive meetings. 

There's not one person that doesn't see the issues or isn't aware of the challenges that many families face. 

The Julie Selwyn 'Beyond the Adoption Order' report from 2014 loomed large over the conversations, are we still looking at one third of adoptive families in crisis, one third with some struggle and one third doing ok. I'd say probably that's just a view from here. 

Well, there's no empirical data and we talked a lot about looking to build some sort of knowledge base in terms of that as well as in terms of pre adoption order breakdown or post order disruption. The keys to getting that data are complex but it would be a helpful step. It can feel dull but data drives decisions and the adoption community can help with that in terms of lived experience of interacting with services and agencies. 

We talked in terms of the interface of RAAs and local authority safeguarding teams as they often get drawn into the crisis' that families face. We need to have informed and knowledgeable practitioners that understand the complexity of caring for children with complex histories, biology and behaviour. That would not only benefit adoptive families but from a numerical perspective SGO families and families caring for children with SEND. Everybody wins. 

Respite was bandied around and some interesting thoughts in terms of what that would and should look like were had. Adopter preparation was also discussed, how do we effective prepare prospective adopters? There's broad guidance in the Regs but beyond that different RAAs and VAAs do it differently, do we need national minimum standards or steal ideas from fostering where post approval foster carers are required to evidence training and development. 

Ideas are fine and there's no shortage of them, however  initiating and creating change and building consensus is a wholly different matter. The political reality is that we're likely in the run up to a change of Government and that being the case if we're to see the political will for long term change we need to be lobbing this government to initiate change and any future government to maintain that change and see it through. That's complex especially in a landscape of austerity, cost of living and resources being stretched. 

I'm a pragmatist, there's things we can aim for that are within the gift of those that we met but changing culture in adoption is a long term project. 

So, what next?

Well, we're letting the dust settle on the conversations we've had and then come up with some steps we can take to ensure that the issue remains on the agenda and that we can aim for the achievable and build for the longer term objectives. 

Roll the Dice..........

Childhood Challenging Violent and Aggressive Behaviour is complex, it's emotive, its scary. It's challenging for professionals to walk into a home and unpick the murky soup of trauma, behaviour, biology, history, family etc. 

It seems like a little overstatement but picking up the phone to ask for help can be one of the hardest things we do as a family. Beyond the usual barriers, shame, guilt and embarrassment, the uncertainty of what the response will be can strike absolute terror into the heart of any parent or carer. 

This picking up the phone and 'rolling the dice' is what we do as we don't know who will come or what they'll do. 

We've had some amazing professional involvement, which bizarrely we take full credit for*. We've put in the legwork, built the relationships, worked hard at effective communication (and occasionally education). Being honest we've also seen professionals step up and step in when needed and it's been a life saver, those good ones are worth all the gold in the world.  

When it's not been so great it's rarely been intentional but more often professionals finding themselves in situations that they're not equipped or trained for. Of course, sometimes it's just plainly outside of the remit of the agency or they have a lack of resources or capacity for complex work. Mostly the come in and say, 'I'll need to talk to my manager'. 

This week two people contacted me, they'd 'rolled the dice'. For one it went much better than expected, they'd held off for months, absorbed behaviour, violence, aggression for fear of not knowing who will come and it fell favourably. For the other, not so well. Veiled concerns over their parenting, what was going on, ineffectual collaboration between professionals, confusion over roles, a mess added to a mess. Worse still families drawn into child safeguarding at the expense of adult safeguarding. (Note: Everyone needs safeguarding often)

If we can believe that the prevalence of #CCVAB #CPV is between  3% and 10% in the general population and higher in specific cohorts (SGO, SEN, LAC, PLAC) then the powers that be need to take this seriously. It may not be present in every case a children/families/adoption/SGO/LAC social worker has but it will be a feature of some families. We need the profession to build on the knowledge base and be more effective at supporting families and offering effective solutions. At least we need specialists within LA/RAAs to be available to consult with frontline social workers, offer support and guidance. 

Families should not feel like they roll the dice when they pick up the phone to ask for help. I know the solutions are complex, messy and uncertain. However, the basics of listening, understanding and showing empathy and compassion should be our start point regardless and those be a foundation to build effective interventions off. 

                                    

*I think I have a problem, I do have compassion for professionals turning up a our door. 

You can see the training that I'm delivering on #CCVAB #CPV for professionals, parents and carers here