Over the past month this blog has been focused on the topic of Therapeutic Parenting. We have considered what that term means, whether is has become synonymous with ideas of perfect parenting, and the reality of being a therapeutic parent in an non-therapeutic world. This post will focus on the services that are supposed to be available to support fostered and adopted young people and their families.
Expectations from the General Public.
When I talk to people with no link to the world of fostering and adoption, I can see that they usually have a real heart for the vulnerable young people the rest of us live and work with. They often tell me that they couldn’t do the work themselves but they are confident that there are people and organisations available to offer support. They usually have absolutely no idea what foster and adoptive parents have to go through to access these services. Neither do they understand how lacking, or even damaging, that support can end up being.
Reality.
I often wonder how my children have been impacted by services and individuals who were supposed to help them. Our experience over the past eleven years has felt like a continual battle to get professional help to meet the complex needs of our children. As a psychotherapist in this field I am frequently encountering other parents with similar struggles. A quick search online with lead you to many forums of parents who feel bitterly let down.
There are key issues that seem to underpin this. They cross over all of the services available to our children. Essentially, they are funding, resources, knowledge and shame.
Funding and Resources.
Let’s be blunt. There isn’t enough money from central government to fund the work that is really needed for traumatised children. This is true across all of social care, education and health. Monies that are available are usually only guaranteed for a short period of time and yet most of our young people require long-term service provision. This becomes worse when heading towards the end of a financial year or when there is an election due.
Additionally, because money is so tight, the requirements to obtain it are so much higher. One child I know was repeatedly denied preventative mental health support for years. He ended up in crisis and was offered an appointment within a week….. after his parents sat for 72hrs in A&E refusing to move until someone saw him. Had funding been available on a preventive basis he most likely would not have ended up experiencing further trauma, shame and risks to his safety. Consequently, the cost of the support he now needs is far greater and will be needed for far longer.
How funding and resources are apportioned and managed can also cause unnecessary difficulties. My children couldn’t access their local Child and Adolescent mental health Service (CAMHS) because they were from a different local authority. They couldn’t access their placing local authorities CAMHS service because they didn’t have a GP in that area. They couldn’t get a GP in that area because they no longer lived there. After a two year battle to get the placing local authority to fund therapy with the local CAMHS we were told that they didn’t have the resources to work with them anyway. Twice we were told that CAMHS do not work with fostered and adopted children.
The lack of funding and resources also leads to added pressure on staff, seemingly endless reshuffles, changes in policy and practice that all results in further instability for our children. And if traumatised children require anything, it’s stability.
Knowledge.
Most new foster and adoptive parents expect child-care professionals to know about trauma and attachment work. They often find that this is not the case. As a parent (before I trained as a psychotherapist) I had to educate teachers, social workers, team managers, psychiatrists, counsellors, youth workers, teenage sexual health workers, nurses, doctors, residential support workers, school taxi drivers and escorts, children’s club leaders and the police about the theory and practice around therapeutic approaches to parenting and childcare. I have recently been informed by a manager of a fostering agency that attachment is a ‘fad’ and will be ‘here today and gone tomorrow’.
We can’t blame people for not knowing what they don’t know. But we can, and should, expect professionals to be open to learning. One of the problems I frequently encounter is that of image. Services are continually having to prove their worth and present as better than the other services available. This often leads to them feeling unable to say ‘I don’t know about this, tell me more’.
In addition, our society promotes professionalism to such an extent that it prevents the truly knowledgeable people from being heard: the parents. In most cases, foster and adoptive parents are an incredible source of knowledge about a child and yet are so often overlooked.
When I go into a meeting as a psychotherapist my views are valued, requested and often very influential in determining a child’s care plan. Even if I have only recently started working with that family. When I go into a meeting about my own children of eleven years, my views are rarely requested, seldom valued and on many occasions have no influence over decisions about them…… until I make the professionals aware that I’m a psychotherapist or I start quoting legislation within a complaints procedure. It’s incredibly frustrating but I know I am in a better position than most parents are.
When it comes to supporting traumatised children, knowledge is so incredibly important. Without it services are less equipped to truly maximise the money and resources they do have and, more importantly, ignorance often causes our children further harm.
Shame.
It may seem odd that I equate shame as an issue for services around children but I see it every week through my work. I have met some truly amazing professionals, people who go way beyond their allocated role to do what they can for children in need. I have never, not once, met a professional who I feel came into their line of work for reasons that were not based on loving children and wanting to do their best for them. Somewhere along the line though many professionals become jaded. They know that their services are not up to scratch. They know that more could be done and yet isn’t. They are frustrated by the bureaucracy that has become such a big part of their working lives. They are overworked, under-resourced, stressed out and exhausted. Feelings of ‘this isn’t good enough’ quickly turn into ‘I’m not good-enough’.
It’s completely understandable, but shame prevents connection. In this case, it prevents services from reaching out and creating an honest dialogue. When child services repeatedly engage with trauma they are at significant risk of being traumatised themselves. Their practices can so easily become safety and shame based. Defences to shame that exist in us as individuals (lying, denial, blaming others, minimising and anger) also exist within these services. There can often be a clear mirroring between the shame that exists in our children and the shame that exists in those who are tasked with helping them.
Sadly, whilst there are some fantastic individuals doing amazing work, most of the services around fostered and adopted children lack the resources and knowledge to truly give them what they need. Even those with the OFSTED seal of approval.
But this could be significantly improved if they were open to working alongside therapeutic parents. If they saw us as a valued resource and equal member in the team around our children. When this happens, great things can be, and are being, achieved.
Do you have any thoughts on what I’ve written? If so, please do pop a comment below.
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