BLOG PODS #19 - Being Child-Centred: Lessons From 30 Years of Trying
INTRODUCTION
I’ve been trying (and struggling!) to capture some of my thinking, now that I’m over 30 years in professional practice with troubled kids. I want to distill some of the key lessons I’ve learned into a series of practice emphases or foci.
It’s hard, though.
Every time I think I’ve got hold of something, it either slips away or I think of something else more important. So I’ve settled for riffing on one or two broad themes in the hope that it will make sense to others and maybe even encourage them to hone their skills for the good of the kids they serve.
So here goes - this one’s on child-centred practice; sad to say that in my experience this is much lauded but rarely realised. Lots of people and agencies trip out the phrase without managing to do it in practice.
For all that, it remains a very worthy aspiration.
Core Principles of Child-Centred Practice (CCP)
This is my take on CCP:
* Holistic Understanding of the Child:
* See the child as a whole person, not just through the lens of their behaviour, presentation or circumstances.
* Recognise their emotional, psychological, physical, and social needs, and understand how trauma or adversity might shape their current presentation.
* Above all, think developmentally - a little more on this later in the post.
* Voice and Agency:
* Prioritise the child's voice, wherever possible, in decision-making and system processes that affect them.
* Empower them to express their feelings, needs and aspirations - remembering that it takes time to build trust before this can happen.
* Validate their experiences and actively listen to their perspectives, even when they might be challenging to hear or make more work for us.
* Relationship-Based Approach:
* Build trust through consistent, compassionate and respectful interactions.
* Understand that positive, stable relationships can be transformative for children who have experienced instability and loss.
* Use these relationships as the foundation for all interventions, recognising that healing often happens in the context of safe, nurturing connections.
* Listen well. Really well!
* Trauma-Informed Care:
* Be aware of how trauma may be influencing the child’s behaviour and responses. They may be in the moment with you now, but be behaving out of what happened years ago. Flashbacks & dissociation may be a feature.
* Avoid re-traumatisation - maintain a calm, predictable and safe environment.
* Use a strengths-based approach, focusing on resilience-building and recovery rather than just problems or deficits.
* Developmentally Appropriate Interventions:
* Tailor interventions to the child’s developmental stage and unique needs.
* Recognise that trauma and adversity can delay or alter typical developmental trajectories and adjust expectations accordingly.
* This means ‘forgetting’ how old they are in years, so that binterventions target the current developmental reality not what their age suggests ‘should’ be in place ‘by now.’.
* Collaboration with Families and Networks:
* Work in partnership with families, carers and other professionals to create a supportive network around the child - work hard not to lose the child in the crowd, though.
* Engage families in a non-judgmental way, acknowledging their skills and strengths, and the child’s need for their involvement - as long as it’s safe and appropriate to do so.
* Reflective Practice and Supervision:
* Regularly reflect on your own practice, biases, and emotional responses.
* Seek supervision and support from peers and mentors to manage the emotional demands of the work and to ensure high-quality, reflective practice.
* Stay teachable and read a lot!
* Flexibility and Adaptability:
* Recognise that each child’s needs are unique and can change in the moment - standard interventions (whatever they are) may not always apply.
* Ask, ‘what do they need?’ not ‘what have we got to offer?’
* Be prepared to adapt your approach based on the child’s feedback, changing circumstances, in-the-moment presentation and emerging needs.
* Remember, we serve them not the other way ‘round.
Implementing Child-Centred Practice
I’m trying here to be a little more specific about the ‘hows’ of all this.
* Assessment:
* Go beyond standard assessments; explore the child’s world through their eyes.
* Include the child’s own description of their strengths, struggles and what they need to feel safe and supported when writing your assessments and reports.
* Be a voice for them not just to them.
* Planning and Intervention:
* Co-create care and intervention plans with the child whenever you can, making them an active participant. If they have some ownership of it, they likely have more commitment to it.
* Set realistic, small goals that the child can achieve, building their confidence and sense of agency.
* Review and Adaptation:
* Regularly review the child’s progress and be open to changing the plan based on new insights or changes in the child’s situation.
* Ask them specifically and regularly how it’s going. What’s working and what isn’t. Do they want more or less of something, or to try something new?
* Celebrate successes, however small, to reinforce positive change and growth. Be a careful observer so you can highlight the small steps of progress along the way.
Tips for Younger or Less Experienced Practitioners:
* Patience and Persistence:
* Building trust and making a difference takes time, especially with children who have been let down by adults before.
* It takes a long time to really mess up someone’s childhood; so expect it to take a while to see things change for the better.
* Don’t be discouraged by setbacks; they are a natural part of the process. Empathise with their disappointments first, then help them see that it’s just a hiccup.
* Help the child learn that life is partly about hanging in there, but patience nearly always pays off in the end.
* Self-Care:
* The work is emotionally demanding. Take care of your own well-being to sustain your capacity to care for others.
* Be proactive in looking after yourself - it never happens passively or by default.
* Regularly review how your doing inthe work so you can amend and adapt as you go along, rather than waiting till things get a bit ragged before changing things.
* Check out my little book on self-care for people working with troubled children and teenagers. There’s also an online course on this - here.
* Curiosity and Humility:
* Stay curious about each child’s unique experience and resist the urge to fit them into preconceived categories.
* Encourage them to think about and explore with you how they’re doing - learning that it’s OK, even healthy, to talk about their feelings is a valuable life lesson.
* Accept that you won’t have all the answers and be willing to learn from the child, their family and your colleagues. Take time to actively reflect on what happened, capture the practice lessons - and then go again.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This approach combines evidence-based practice with the wisdom gained from years of hands-on experience, aiming to nurture the potential within each child and help them heal, grow and thrive.
But we all have to do this stuff in the real world. So take active control of your own learning, through things like supervision, reflective practice and constant reading.
In the end, even though we all believe in child-centred practice, the aspect of work we have most control over is us. So let’s do it - that way we stand the best chance of keeping the kids we serve front and centre in everything we do!
See you in the next one.
More information:
* WEB ARTICLE: Establishing trust and child-centred practice in safeguarding (link)
* UN Convention: See article 12 particularly (link)
* BOOK: Looking After No.1 - Self-Care for People Working With Troubled Children (link)
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©️ Jonny Matthew 2024
