Childrens home – The Vintage Social Worker

Kinder Shores and the power of music

March 16, 2018 Jenni Randall

Can music change things? I hope so or else I am definitely heading down the wrong path at the moment. Kinder Shores is a CD and a concert to raise money for a project to provide specialist counselling for young parents who have been in care during their childhood. To find out all about it go to http://www.kindershores.org.

There were two inspirations for this project. The first my years in social work and my continuing contact with those who were in care as children and young people. I am privileged to still know them. I know that they may leave care but it never leaves them. The issues that come with being separated from parents as a child continue on into adult life colouring a whole range of life experiences particularly those to do with relationships and parenting. I have long-held that if while in care more therapeutic help was available this would be partially resolved but I know too that sometimes we have to work on issues when we are ready. For some young people who, in their adult years, may want the help it is sparse in availability and certainly not specialist enough to deal with the specific issues about being parented outside your birth family. So this project is greatly needed in my opinion.

Having left care more than 30 years ago, and on the surface, a successful adult life, it was only when I became a father in my 50’s that I realised I still needed to talk about my childhood. I was lucky to have the ongoing support of my social worker who helped me through some of my issues. It amazes me that there isn’t counselling available to all care leavers. Not only to deal with issues that took us to care but often for the inhumane way we feel treated whilst in care, especially feelings of abandonment when we do leave, often without the skills to cope alone whilst so young.

These are the words of David Akinsanya brought up in care he is a journalist and campaigner now and they encapsulate perfectly the need for this counselling service.

The second inspiration came through my love of music. Much of the music in the folk and folk rock world is driven by exploration of injustices, by the world of the ordinary working man, of politics, of opening up emotion and feeling, and the need to change the world for the better . Often the songwriters observation of the world and people around them is unerringly accurate and it can connect us with feelings we have hidden, ignored, or that simply relate to our experiences in life. More importantly they can sometimes connect us to other people’s feelings and life experience bringing awareness and understanding. And so there was a song that provided the final push to get this project underway, when I heard this song I knew exactly what it was about. It speaks of so many of the young people I have met, of their pain, their anger with the world that has treated them so poorly. It tells too,of the complex nature of the “rescue” of any adult attempts to make their world safe and secure and of the nature of therapeutic endeavour in whatever arena. She’s the One written by Suffolk singer/songwriter Eric Sedge became both the inspiration and gave me the title for the CD, the concert and the project. Kinder Shores is exactly what I want to help to achieve for these young people, to find peace and tranquillity in their lives for them as individual adults and for their loved ones and children. The words speak for themselves , here are the lyrics reproduced with Eric’s permission.

She’s The One

She’s the one with bad behaviour,

She’s the one who wants to fight,

She’s the one with the reputation,

She’s the one who bites.

She’s the one with all the bruises,

Tears in her eyes,

She’s the one who talks the loudest,

Covers up with lies.

Hush now Babe, I know you’re Frightened,

Hush now Babe I know you’re Scared,

Don’t you know your Daddy Loves You,

Don’t you know we all care,

So breathe in and out again

I saw you drowning off the headland with the waves coming in,

Shackled to your history, chained by your father’s sins,

So I raced into the shallows, to set you free,

But the undertow from long ago knocked me off my feet.

And the waters near engulfed me, but life has made me strong,

So I pulled you from the wreckage of a life gone wrong,

And we built you the finest clipper, now we’ll be your faithful crew,

So set a course to kinder shores may your path be true

Hush now Babe, I know you’re Frightened

Hush now Babe I know you’re Scared

Don’t you know your mummy Loves You

Don’t you know we all care

So breathe in and out again Eric Sedge

So can music change things? Yes it can. It can change how individuals feel, it can provide comfort in difficult times, it can offer explanations, it can make us dance and sing, give us joy, share our happiness, it can inform, explore and inspire. This CD has a narrative to the tracks that explores the issues that face these young people gthe world often without the skills and support to cope but it also has songs that speak about the possibility that in overcoming the difficulties there will be a better future out there. This music informs and inspires hope. If we all come together and share this music it can change things for these young people and their futures.

For more information

http://www.kindershores.org http://www.reesfoundation.org http://www.ericsedgemusic.com

media, Social work, child care and history of social work, Tv drama

Just wanted to say a word about Kiri….if a little late.

February 14, 2018February 14, 2018 Jenni Randall

I didn’t know whether to cheer or cry or both! My response to Miriams’s outburst to the assembled media wolf pack was a moment of sheer delight. Forget all the stuffy, prissy nonsense in the media about the portrayal of social workers in Channel 4’s mini series Kiri, I at last saw something that represented how I feel about my profession. How often have I wanted to openly talk with such passion and such humanity about a piece of work, about how I feel for a child for whom I have responsibility. We cannot do it without risking the heavens falling in on us. Even in business meetings it is rare and frowned upon by others who see it as unprofessional.

If we are going to get nitpicking about our portrayal on the media, especially in drama productions, then it will never happen in a way that will make us seem a mainstream emergency service. Of course it will not be a totally precise picture, the procedures will not be complete or accurate, and there may be an added dramatic edge to some characters because it is a drama, it is entertainment and not a training video for the general public.

A picture of us all sat at computers, filling in forms and attending meetings and panels would be like watching paint dry the only excitement being complaining about cold coffee or the irritation of road works when we are characteristically late for a meeting. So we have to stop posting about procedural inaccuracy, dogs in offices and social workers drinking and embrace the essence of our work that the public are more likely to engage with when more dramas are commissioned. I would give the very wonderful Sarah Lancashire a contract for a soap around the same character.

I imagine that the police, doctors, nurses, lawyers and many others feel misrepresented from time to time and no doubt the backlash is that the public want them to behave as in the latest TV show. However they have the public ear and eye, who will have a much clearer view of what it is that they do and how they do it perhaps, more importantly, they may also get some understanding of why they do it. Themes about complex issues around right and wrong, of difficult social issues, and the daily impossible decisions faced are all possible to explore through dramas. This becomes easier than documentaries where the personal and private issues of identifiable individuals may not be acceptable to explore so widely. As a profession we have to sit back, embrace the possibilities and accept the flaws.

I believe the payoff will be huge. And incidentally I know social workers who have the odd drink, who take dogs to work and who have difficult and complex lives themselves. There is more that unites us with our clients than divides us however high we may wish to put our professional pedestals. I thought this was well portrayed when Miriam gets the only real comfort in her impossible situation from her ex clients. There is no warmth from her colleagues or her line manager who despite themselves settle for toeing the company line and offering her nothing by way of help, support or even a kind word. I have had great support from those I have worked with in many situations, they understand difficulty, trauma, pain, anger and all those emotions we share with them from time to time in our lives. We would all do well to remember that in other circumstances we could be in their position in life. While the focus of any work is their situation not ours, all the pain and emotion to work with is theirs not ours there remains a place outside the therapeutic relationship for simple humanity, acts of kindness and solidarity without any negative impact on the “work”.

If Kiri did anything as a drama then it reminded me of why I became and stayed a social worker and I hope it showed that to the watching public. Well done Channel 4 and Jack Thorne.

PS I don’t drink at work but I have taken my dog to work.

Homes, Social work, child care and history of social work

Home Sweet Home?

November 11, 2017November 11, 2017 Jenni Randall

I have had many homes and many lovers as I said in my last blog, but it is the homes and not the lovers that are the subject of this blog! Maybe the rest will come later though perhaps not wise in the current climate. Several things that have happened recently have left me reflecting on the nature of “home”, a friend moving after twenty or so years from the house that had been her son’s childhood home, a visit to my “home” or do I mean “house” in Cornwall, a new chapter for a book about the meaning of home in relation to a children’s home, the movement of people across continents looking for a new safe home, the rise in homelessness and the crisis in the availability of homes.

“Home is where you hang your hat”

I don’t think so! I have put my hat on many a coatpeg overnight but in no way did it constitute home. That may be a sentimental quotation designed to make anyone who is somewhat transient in their lifestyle feel more settled and easier about their lack of a more permanent base. Indeed all dictionaries exclude temporary accommodation or residence from their definition of a home. This includes hospitals, prisons, care establishments and other institutions. This in itself is interesting as certainly care, nursing, convalescent and children’s homes have traditionally used the designation home. In the example of children’s homes this suggests that they cannot be that possibly amazing place we can know as home. This maybe supports the recent trend to transfer most public care for children to family based care.Both my research and experience would refute the idea that a children’s home cannot provide “a home “albeit temporary. There is a fundamental problem though with research which is based on individual experience and unable to be verified by any measurable statistical or quantitative evidence. What are we measuring? Does home mean the same to each person? Do we mean our childhood home, a geographic location, where our family live, does this change with phases in our lives, does it rely on the presence of certain people or possessions in that dwelling place, can one have more than one place that we consider as home? How we use the word may be relevant, do we mean somewhere that is homely or feels like a home even though it is not our main residence. It is certain though that our first experience of a place called home was as a child.

“Home is where one starts from” (T.S.Eliot)

Perhaps this is why it is, for better or worse, so fundamentally important to us all . Our home defines who we are throughout the various phases in our life, it is part of our self-definition and the public face that we choose at any point in time. This need to provide an outward facing expression of our life probably accounts for the need in some for houses so much larger than required or the placing of Georgian styled porticos and reclining lions at the front of ex local authority housing after the right to buy sell off. So if indeed it is the root of ourselves what makes it so critical to each individuals life. Home can be anything from a cardboard box to a million pound mansion but it is so much more than an estate agents description of the building. It is where we find sanctuary, peace , comfort, safety and where the relationships that are the most important to us are centred. It is where we learn about the domestic detail and patterns of living that will form the basis of our whole future life. In some ways home is a feeling rather than a description of a place which is why it is so difficult to quantify the elements that make it or to find set of general principles that would define it. Each of us has a sense of what makes our safe place, each of us can describe how it feels though increasingly it seems we choose descriptors that are to do with the style and materialistic content. However it seems so many images we might choose to illustrate home hark back to a less materialistic time and focus on family and friends gathered by the fireside in a picture of probably unrealistic nostalgia.

“Curses like chickens come home to roost” Old proverb

My memories of my childhood home can be easily brought to mind by the smell of Sunday lunch cooking as it takes me back to opening the back door after Sunday School to the warmth of a kitchen rich with roasting meat. While my memories of home are happy, warm , fun, and secure it is not true of so many. Children and young people for whom home represents fear, hunger, pain, uncertainty, anxiety or sadness can be taken back to those times equally quickly by a wide range of triggers. For those of us who have chosen to live alongside young people in care and to make a home base for them know how sudden these changes can be and how sometimes they can be seemingly inexplicable. An excellent songwriter and folk singer from Suffolk Eric Sedge captures this perfectly in a song called “She’s the One” when he talks of the “undertow from long ago” sweeping him off his feet when trying to reach a child who is drowning ” chained by the father’s sins”. We have to work from a very secure place ourselves to be able to work with these changes but I think we have to be prepared to recognise that whatever the horrors of that childhood place were it remains home to that child. Too often I have heard workers talk in disparaging terms about a child’s home, even tell the child that is was to awful a place to be a home. Just about every young person I have lived alongside has wanted to go back there and many do just that when they leave care. It may be a fantasy that it will be OK or that it wasn’t as bad as they have been told, it may be that they want to make it OK somehow. Whatever the reason right there are relationships with the most important people in their lives, right there was the beginning , the defining moments of their lives. It matters not what curses there were and or even when their return is treated like a curse they have to return , to try, to see, to learn, because it is their home and theirs alone.

Make yourself at home….make yourself a home….

As adults we can develop new contexts for our home with our own children, partners, friends, lovers, and so on. But as adults carers we have to develop a regime that will hold those young people for whom this coveted place home has terrors and at the same time teach them new ways of living in a place that may offer security, safety, warmth, and good memories. In this way they may be able to move forward to build homes in adulthood that do not repeat the patterns learned in early life but where they are able to hold that first experience safely. May be I have not answered my own question about what makes a home, but Debbie when I asked her about what made 11a Corve Lane Children’s home feel like home said “It was where I could curl up on the settee and watch TV”. Maybe there is an element of freedom and choice in the definition of home too. A place where we can be ourselves. It is an ever-changing idea, not constant but changing with time , memories, age and the people who come and go in our lives. A complex concept so much more than concrete and brick that underpins so much of who and what we are.

“She’s the One” Words and Music Eric Sedge on Plenty More Fish in the Sea Broadside Boys 2016.

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