This video stems from preparations for supervision I was delivering to a social enterprise that works in the child protection and out-of-home space, with a mind to they might feel acknowledged, and acknowledge each other, in the challenging and rewarding work that they do.

Transcript

I caught up with some old friends yesterday that I haven’t seen or interacted with in more than a decade. As you do when you come together with old friends there was an exchange of information about our children and what’s happening in their lives and also what’s happening for us professionally in our work. This was nice and it got me thinking about when was the last time I was asked by someone in my own profession or in related fields what it’s been like providing a frontline continuous psychology service to children and young people who have experienced a tough start to life for nigh on 30 years.

In turn, it got me thinking about what would I say and probably the truth of the matter is that it impacts you. All my career I’ve either worked in a local child protection department or agency or been a private provider for them. Having had my own practice for more than 20 years it means that I have been continuously involved in service delivery to deeply hurt and troubled children and adult stakeholders in their life and that does impact you in both positive and negative ways and in terms of those negative impacts it’s got me thinking about what is a simple and straightforward way to mitigate any adverse effects of the work for people like me who have had a long career of continuous service provision.

The answer that I’ve come to is that it’s not that dissimilar to what is the answer to mitigating the adverse effects for the children and young people and that is that we need to feel acknowledged for the work that we do, feel listened to and understood and it is disappointing to consider that even after 30 years of working in the child protection and out-of-home care space my experience is that I haven’t been asked.

So if you know a practitioner who has had a long career working at the coalface providing frontline services to deeply hurt and troubled children young people start a conversation with them ask them about their experience ask them what knowledge and wisdom they have garnered across a long career. It’ll help them and it may help you too.