Listening to children makes a difference
We have just completed our annual Members’ Week which this year had the theme of "listening to the child...". Together we explored a range of different aspects of this theme - Monday covered a child's identity, Tuesday focused on relationships, Wednesday covered education, Thursday tackled physical and mental health and Friday explored direct work. Over the week we produced 10 podcasts, published three blogs, compiled a daily reading list and ran four live events which reached over 500 attendees. It has felt a real success.
As a membership organisation, CoramBAAF has a clear purpose in supporting our members to make a positive difference to children's lives. It is a privilege for us to share these resources and events with our members. I wanted to thank all those who read our blogs, listened to the podcast episodes and attended the events. We run this week for you, and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. The reflective discussions and engagement that we had with our members was fantastic and really valuable to us. We also want to say a big thank you to all the external partners and speakers whose contributions made the week so special.
What came through to me this week was that the simple act of listening to children and young people can make a huge difference. Listening to children shouldn't be rocket science but sometimes we can make it more complicated than we should. Too often we can try to fit children into adult systems or try to get them to join adult-orientated meetings when we should be sitting alongside, playing, and talking with children instead; to understand their needs and to get to know them. Taking the time to listen to children and young people is so fundamental to practice and in achieving better outcomes for them.
We also heard the importance of listening to children and young people through research. The event ‘What’s the point? - How does CAMHS listen to young people with a social worker?’ highlighted this as did the podcasts involving Sariya Cheruvallil Contractor and Anthony Lynch. Research challenges us to better consider how we listen to children, some of the barriers to this and fundamentally the importance of listening and being curious.
Our first webinar with the President of the Family Division Rt Hon Sir Andrew Macfarlane covering the importance of modernising contact arrangements in adoption, fostering and kinship care was a highlight. We were extremely grateful to Sir Andrew for his time. It was a great presentation, reiterating to me the importance of listening to children and young people about who is important to them - so that they can be supported and keep in touch with those closest to them.
Thank you for a great week, and as a final thought, please do use these events and materials for your CPD. With Social Work England renewal due by 30 November you can use these resources to help meet CPD requirements. We really enjoyed sharing these materials and events and if you are a member and missed anything you can still access the blogs, podcasts and the presentations on our website.
James Bury, Head of Policy, Research and Development but also Interim Managing Director (with Michelle Bell, Head of Membership Services and Engagement), CoramBAAF