Iriss are so pleased to share this guest piece, written by Mim Smith from Aberdeen City Council and Theresa Lillis from the Open University; sharing their work in supporting professionals to write differently about children and young people. This is an area of interest for Iriss - you might have read about our Words of Wisdom project, or engaged with the writing analysis tool, also supported by Theresa Lillis; and we are delighted to share these further insights.
The Problem
In thinking about where to begin, about writing differently, our conversations often felt untameable. We likened them to the ‘Occamy’ magical creature from J.K Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts that famously fits into a teapot. These creatures can change size to fit the available space and once they are out in the open, they become huge very quickly. This is certainly what these early conversations about writing differently felt like, moving quickly from focused and specific to vast and overwhelming.
We are happy to say we did find our focus thanks to conversations with a group of Aberdeen’s care experienced young people. They talked about
- wanting more opportunity to be involved in the creation of their record,
- about it reflecting a version of them they could recognise,
- stopping the use of institutional language to write about their lives and instead use what they felt was language more naturally associated with family life; for example spending time with their family rather than having ‘Contact’.
- wanting language that showed belief in them and their abilities and did not reinforce stereotypes of care experienced people, for example instead of referring to ‘overachieving’ it talked about being proud of them for achieving and doing well.
- when you write about me you must ‘Write Right About Me’”.
These conversations helped us to see that there was a relationship between the voice of the child and the voice of the professional in creating identities and visible voices for children and young people.
For children, young people and adults to thrive, the records that professionals - such as teachers, social workers, police, school nurses - write about them, their lives and experiences need to reflect their concerns, hopes, wishes, and plans. Professional’s writing needs to reflect their understanding of trauma and show care and love about children and young people in their commitment to supporting them through their lives. However, the Independent Care Review emphasised that written records often lack expressions of voice and care and pointed to:
- The need for records to include and reflect children’s voices, pointing to the need to listen to children and to tell their stories.
- The need to avoid ‘system’ and stigmatising language (institutional terms)
- The need for reports to include expressions of ‘care’ and ‘love’.
Whilst simple to state, these promises to include children’s voices and express care raise fundamental questions about the ways in which professionals write, in particular drawing attention to
- the language they use,
- their role in supporting the rights of children and young people,
- professional’s own feelings about their rights to express their voices and about their roles as mediating and enabling the voices of children and young people to be explicitly expressed.
Gaining Insight: The Write Right About Me Project
Write Right About Me has been a multi-agency project looking at how to support professionals to write differently about children, young people and adults so that their voices are more strongly heard, and they can exercise their rights in their records. https://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/Aberdeen-Protects/improving-childrens-futures/write-right-about-me-aberdeens-multi-agency-records-improvement-work
Over 3 years the team have been meeting and exploring key concerns about the way written records represent children’s voices. This has included carrying out surveys of professionals’ perspectives, sharing written records from different agencies, developing examples of records which foreground children’s voices, reviewing research carried out on language, writing and voicing.
Key concerns arising from the discussions and workshops were;
- The child’s voice is often missing in the writing done about them
- The professional voice is often missing in written documents- e.g. the view of the individual worker is often not explicitly stated.
- Overall, documents often reflect an ‘institutional voice’ which seems empty of expressions of care and love for the people about whom the documents are written; and the perspectives of those who are writing.
- There is often no clear expression and distinction between voices - e.g. the worker’s voice and the child’s voice.
- The role of the professional as mediator or vehicle for making explicit and representing the child/young person’s voice is often unacknowledged e.g. it is often assumed that the child’s voice can be simply transmitted and recorded by the professional, yet careful work around enabling the voice of the child to be expressed and then crafted (in words, images etc) is essential.
Findings from the Writing in Professional Social Work Practice Project (https://www.writinginsocialwork.com/) provide some insight into the current format of written records and why they are written as they are. Documents written by social workers tend to focus on reporting what has happened and what actions the social worker has taken. There is some expression of analysis and evaluation, but little expression of emotion or of love and care for the child and young person. In general, not only is the child voice missing, so too is the voice of the social worker. Some reasons for this are:
- lack of time (producing nuanced multi-voiced documents requires care and time)
- orienting to specific institutional demands (this may be specific managerial demands or panels, court expectations)
- a lack of confidence in the right to own a professional voice, fear of repercussions for views expressed.
- writing in a style that seems to be institutionally acceptable, e.g. use of third person rather than first, use of formal sentence structure and/or language
- not feeling able to develop a style of expression that reflects an individual professional view and/or relationships of love and care for the people they are working with.
Based on existing research, work carried out as part of Write Right About Me, and ongoing discussion within the Write Right About Me group we considered that there is a need to:
- recognise that in most cases professionals act as the vehicles for the voices of children and young people. They do not simply transmit but mediate what is said verbally, expressed emotionally and non-verbally etc. (unless audio or video recordings are made and included). There is a need to focus explicitly on how professionals can mediate and represent another’s voice in ways which are authentic and ethical.
- recognise that written documents are/should be multi-voiced and for all voices to be explicitly marked.
- consider what kind of voicing best captures the perspectives of the professional, the care and relationships that professionals share with children and young people.
- focus carefully on whether the child’s voice is actually present in the written text - there is often a gap between what professionals think they have written and what is actually included in the text.
Working Towards Change: Writing Differently
Our view from the Write Right About Me team is that enabling professionals to express and own a meaningful professional voice in writing is essential to fulfilling the goal of including the voices of children and young people’s voice in meaningful ways.
To support ways of writing differently, we have designed an open access e-resource which illustrates how professionals can act as vehicles for the expression of children and young people’s voices, the challenges faced and how these can be resolved. The resource encourages reflection on existing practice providing questions to direct professionals questioning about their current writing practice, including questions about the language, style and explicit marking of voice they currently use and how they could change these to ensure that child’s voice and their individual professional voice is explicit. Specific questions are included about ways in which to ensure expressions of love and care are included. Examples from authentic records are included to encourage an explicit focus on writing differently.
These resources will help all professionals as good (corporate) parents reflect care and love for children and young people in their trauma informed practice, in their writing. This will help professionals #keepthepromise to care experienced people; and to respond to what children and young people have said so they are not retraumatised by the way professionals write about their needs and support to them.
Write Right About Me Reflective Learning e-Resources modules are now available on ACC Learn and ACC Learn Guest.
Aberdeen City Council employees can access this from their existing ACC Learn account. https://learn.aberdeencity.gov.uk/course/view.php?id=515
If you are not an Aberdeen City Council employee please use the link to ACC Learn Guest to create a free account to get started https://guestlearn.aberdeencity.gov.uk/course/view.php?id=515
