Exploring the Importance of Relationships

“Is our relationship important? Put it this way, two years ago I was kicking walls and kept everything to myself. It’s taken that time for me to trust Steve. He gets my Robertness, he walks towards me when things are bad instead of walking away like the others did”.

Throughout my research each of the ten young people I interviewed described their increased self-worth developing through their relationships with staff. They identified that this relationship was a catalyst for positive change within themselves and in their lives. All ten young people also identified their relationships with staff being important when they left the organisation, and expressed an anxiety about that relationship eventually having to come to an end.

There is extensive evidence that highlights the importance of relationships and the benefits of developing relationally rich environments in order for young people to develop secure attachments, confidence and a sense of belonging. With these foundations in place young people can experience better life chances and more positive outcomes. Young people need caring, authentic relationships in their lives, and that need does not disappear when they move on.

I have selected some literature that supports a relational approach, offers insights into our current climate of caring,  and highlights the importance and impact of relationships throughout our life course.

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Relationships are central to residential child care practice. A relational approach focuses on the importance of the relationship between social care practitioners and young people. However relational based practice is not as simple as providing a relationship, having a relationship or being in a relationship. It is an awareness and responsibility that comes with helping others and practitioners development of themselves. There is a significant responsibility for workers to utilise opportunities within a young persons daily, living environment to support young people’s learning and growth. Garfat (2011) notes that a relational approach “demands closer attention to interaction, a greater willingness to risk self in relationship, and a commitment to hanging in through good times and bad.”

Characteristics of a Relational Child and Youth Care Approach (Thom Garfat & Leon Fulcher (2011) this paper  identifies 25 characteristics of a child and youth care approach to practice.

A commitment to relationships has consistently been highlighted as pivotal to enhance the lives and outcomes for young people who are looked after “. . . it is the relationships between staff and children, and amongst children themselves, which are the foundation upon which their future well-being will be built” (NRCCI, 2009). Research has expressed the importance of continued emotional support for young people whilst in care, after care and through to adulthood. There is a common theme throughout research that young people want relationships to continue and be maintained with their carers throughout their lives. The Care inquiry states “. . . what has been missing is the determination to view relationships – their extent, their quality and the likelihood of their lasting – as the cornerstone of planning and practice”. 

Care Leavers’ Experiences of Transition and Turning Points

Care Inquiry – Making not Breaking

National Residential Child Care Initiative

“The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved”

(Victor Hugo, French novelist, 1802-85).

Loving, safe, consistent, nurturing relationships support growth and development for young people. Although this sentence is true, discussing loving young people in residential child care is still taboo. It is safer to discuss loving acts within our profession, rather than the emotion of love and human connection that develops through relationships. If you have read Garfat and Fulcher’s (2011) paper, in the relationships section you will have read that love is identified as one of the characteristics of a child and youth care approach to practice. “CYC practice is, in this sense, an act of love and loving – one holds others dear, one cherishes their being, and ultimately one acts in the context of love in a non-exploitative manner”.

The need for stable, secure and continuous care for children has been well documented in the work of Bowlby (1980) and Ainsworth (1978), particularly in terms of already vulnerable children and their attachment patterns. Children are thought to develop secure or insecure patterns of attachment based on early experiences with their carer. These patterns are said to contribute to internal working models of relationships that extend to other relationships. Young people experiencing insecure attachment difficulties need adults to help them feel safe and secure. Residential child care staff have a responsibility to make up for earlier experiences and understand the effect of young people’s past, in order to help support them to have a better future.

John Seita and Larry Brendtro (2009) discuss attachment and resilience in young people and practical  interventions strategies in their paper Reclaiming the unreclaimable

Parental Acceptance-Rejection Theory (PA-RT) states that children universally need acceptance from parents and primary care givers. If this need is not met children’s self esteem and self adequacy is affected and they can become emotionally unresponsive. The ‘emotional warmth’ approach involves psychologists visiting residential child care establishments to support staff to deliver two necessities, good parenting and appropriate emotional support for young people to deal with past rejection. The theory maintains that encouraging healthy relationships and empowering carers to build such relationships will play a significant role in acceptance and healing of young people.

“Most of the therapeutic experiences do not take place in ‘Therapy’ but in naturally occurring healthy relationships. The most effective treatments to help child trauma victims is anything that increases the quality and number of relationships in the child’s life.” (Perry, ‘cited in’ Cameron and Maginn, 2011) 

The Care Inquiry highlighted that young people can manage varying connections within different family environments and this view should be the same for young people who have formed relationships with carers throughout their care journey. A relationship with one carer does not have to end in order for another relationship to begin.

As human beings we are interdependent, we are all care givers and care receivers. Holland (2010) discusses some of the tensions between justice-based approaches and concepts such as rights and explores what children want in their every day experiences of care. She advocates  that the care system acknowledges the complex networks of care relationships and encourages continuity in formal and informal care relationships. Holland also suggested that “interdependency be acknowledged and valued alongside a goal of self sufficiency for care-leavers.”  (Holland, 2010, access required)

Research indicates that young people leaving care have more difficulties to overcome and poorer outcomes than their peers who live at home. These challenges and difficulties include homelessness, employment, mental health, offending and teenage parenthood. Not only are looked after young people exposed to more adversity in their young lives, but they are then expected to become independent and deal with lives challenges at a younger age and with limited support. Research has consistently highlighted young people leaving care before they are ready has led to poor outcomes. The Staying Put Scotland guidance (Scottish government 2013) highlights the need for placement stability, a readiness for young people to move on, for supportive relationships to continue, and a for a cultural shift in residential child care in order for care to continue.

“The idea of delaying the exit of young people from care settings until they are sufficiently skilled, and – more crucially – emotionally and psychologically equipped, is not new. But the Staying Put approach takes this idea further, demanding genuine needs-led assessment and the promotion of consistent positive relationships (which transcend both settings and roles)”.

Uri Bronfenbrenner stated that a child needs “the enduring, irrational involvement of one or more adults in care and joint activity . . . Somebody has to be crazy about that kid”. We all remember adults in our lives who were ‘allowed’ to be crazy about us. It may have been a parent, teacher or an aunt; we all, too some degree, experienced that love, belonging, relationship and trust – unlike some of our looked after children today. Love and care is passed on from staff to young people through their relationship and it is through these relationships that healing, learning and development can flourish.

Laura Steckley and Mark Smith (2011) discuss ideas of care from a care ethics perspective in: Care ethics in residential child care: a different voice (access required)

Maslow (1943) and Bowlby (1988) identified that feeling secure and safe was a fundamental primary need in human beings and through these needs being met other needs can be realised and achieved. Young people may have experienced a lack of emotional, physical and relational safety. Residential child care workers have a responsibility to provide young people with a sense of security, safety and belonging. Consistent, supportive relationships are required in order to achieve this. Psychodynamic theories offer insight and understanding to some of the complex behaviours exhibited by young people in residential child care and the importance of relationships to counter such behaviours.

Charles Sharpe (2011) explores this view ‘Residential child care and the psychodynamic approach: is it time to try again?’

Research on resilience highlights the role of positive relationships in residential child care and the importance of frontline practitioner’s contribution in promoting self belief and well being for young people. A sense of well being is linked to the quality of relationships individuals experience. Having friends, feeling that we belong, and that we have people we can rely on in times of difficulty are all factors that are protective to our health. A residential child care worker who is committed to a young person helps them to feel valued and achieve a sense of well being. There are challenges in residential child care in how professionals and organisations support young people to feel valued. A special relationship is viewed with suspicion and there are increasing discussions surrounding relationship boundaries within residential child care.

Phil Coady (2014) explores boundary decisions of residential child care workers in their relationships with young people.

Young people who are looked after can have experienced educational and social exclusion through difficulties that they have encountered in their lives. Also significant adults in their lives may have fallen short in their responsibilities. Young people require carers to keep them safe, healthy and to support them to achieve. It is the responsibility of professionals, managers and organisations to ensure that young people receive this support. As corporate parents it is expected that we do at least what a good parent would do. Young people are requesting continued support with adults that they have connected with throughout their care journey, there is a duty of care to ensure these supports continue throughout life.

A commitment to relationships is noted throughout varying policies, legislation and reports, highlighting the unequivocal link between the importance of relationships with young people and carers and how these relationships shape and promote positive outcomes and life chances for looked after children and young people. It is evident that although “. . . the quality of relationships are difficult things to measure, they are fundamental to the success of the care system” (House of Commons, 2009).    

There is clear evidence that supporting continued relationships for young people in care, through care, and after care will increase outcomes and provide a safety net for young people in times of difficulty. However the question arises about how organisations will receive this information and what cultural and procedural changes need to occur in order for care to continue once a young person moves on. Is your organisation implementing the changes required to support relationships to continue between young people and their carers?

During the interviews I conducted, young people reflected on their changed perception of relationships, their development of trust for others, and their change of view of themselves through their relationships.

Staff spoke about the struggles they encountered, how their relationships were tested and how they managed through the process of providing relational based support to be there with young people in times of crisis and doubt. They shared how they supported young people through their relationships to believe in themselves and achieve their potential.

Watch out for my next blog on young people’s success stories and their advice for staff on how to build positive relationships with young people in residential child care.