ExChange Wales: Social care training & resource
Welcome to ExChange Wales. The podcast that brings leading researchers together with practitioners and service users to share expertise, research evidence and care experiences. Each participant offers unique perspectives and solutions to the challenges we face as we work to build better social care in Wales.
ExChange Wales: Social care training & resource
Working with Parents with Learning Disabilities - with Beth Tarleton and Danielle Turney
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, Martin discusses the involvement and overrepresentation of parents with learning disabilities with children's services with Beth Tarleton and Danielle Turney.
Find out more about ExChange Wales on our website and sign up to future events: https://www.exchangewales.org/
ExChange Wales: Welcome to the Exchange Wales podcast, a series that explores research and practice sharing, evidence and care experience to build better social care in Wales and beyond.
Martin Elliott: Hello and welcome to this episode of The Exchange Podcast. I'm Martin Elliott. And today I'm joined by two guests to discuss the involvement of parents with learning disabilities or learning difficulties with children's services. I'll let you introduce yourself. So, Beth, do you want to go first?
Beth Tarleton: Hi, I'm Beth Tarleton, and I am Senior lecturer at the University of Bristol in the School for Policy Studies.
Martin: Brilliant. Thank you. And Danielle?
Danielle Turney: Hi, I'm Danielle Turney and I'm Emeritus Professor of Social Work at Queens University Belfast.
Martin: Excellent, thank you. So, as I say, the podcast today is based around the involvement of parents with intellectual disabilities. I guess I always work on the principle that not everybody's gonna be coming from the same place in terms of their understanding of the background to this, why it's an important issue.
So I wondered if we could start by spending a little bit of time talking about why you think this is an important area to look at. So things like, we'll come on to, ideas of the overrepresentation of the children of parents with intellectual disabilities in the care system. So, yeah. So I wondered if you could just spend a couple of minutes explaining why you think it's important.
Danielle: Well, in a way, where you started is absolutely spot on. One of the things that's been an issue for us in our work together has been exactly that point about over-representation and lack of support in many cases for parents with, we tended to use the term learning difficulties, and we can say a bit more about that in a moment, if that's helpful, just so we're not, boggling people with changes of language the whole time.
But I guess that was one of the issues that we started from about how are parents with learning difficulties represented in social care, so particularly children's social work statistics, and what does that tell us about their lives and their experiences and of the same for their children.
Beth: Yeah. I think one of the key things for me is that lots of social workers and people in the community don't think about parents with learning disabilities. Or if they do, they're seen as a niche group, only a small number. But that's where we get to the learning difficulties, learning disabilities thing. There are quite a small number of people with a diagnosed learning disability that have got children, and they might get flagged in the system, but there's a huge group of people who have got learning support needs which often get called learning difficulties, but don't meet the criteria for a learning disability. But they still struggle with the same things that people with an actual learning disability get. And it's that group that kind of don't get picked up in files and they don't get the support, they often can't get support from the adult learning disability team 'cause she don't, they don't fit their criteria, but they need some help, but they often don't get it.
They may or may not get it under the Care Act, depending on who's doing the assessment. So they end up in children's services. Whereas lots of parents could cope with a bit of ongoing support, but there's no sort of space for that. So that's why we use learning difficulties to include that group that haven't got a diagnosis that sort of get lost.
Martin: Yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense.
Danielle: And then by the time they come to the attention of children's services, they're already a long way down a track.
Martin: Yes. Yeah. And like you say, I guess that, that language also has a knock on effect in terms of potentially if you've got a diagnosed learning disability, then you may be getting support from adult services.
But if you are in that broader group of learning difficulties, you're possibly not. And I think that probably comes and we can touch on this a bit later on, but I guess that comes with its own challenges in terms of how well those systems are integrated and talk to each other anyway, for that smaller group.
Beth: Yeah, definitely. And it's a bit confusing 'cause people, often people with a learning disability prefer the term learning difficulty, so people are saying they don't know who they're talking about.
Martin: Yes. So in terms of the representation of either that small group of those with a learning disability or that broader group, I mean, in preparing to, to do this podcast, I'd looked at some of the papers.
There's some quite stark sort of statistics around these. I mean, one of them is some research that was done in England. They talked about a third of all cases that were known to children's services in England where a parent had got either a learning disability or a learning difficulty, and sort of a more international view, which was talking about 40 to 60% of all parents who had come into contact with statutory services had had their children removed and I, for me, that sounds really stark and I just wondered what your reflections were on, on those.
Beth: It is really stark, the research that said a third of people involved for the parents in the, it was actually in the court.
It was 200 cases, and they were, all those cases were in court and they were all about babies. So a third of the parents had a learning disability or a learning difficulty, but only 20% of the children remained at home. So that's even worse than the international figure of 40 to 60% removed. And yeah, it's shocking.
Most people wouldn't think about it. And there's been lots written about the system being unfair and-
Martin: Yeah. And I guess that, and we'll come onto this, but I suppose there, there is that thing about, it , as academics and researchers, we are there to highlight the problems, but sometimes then getting underneath that, around the, that, well, what do we do about that?
And the paper that prompted me to invite you to come along was was about, well, we kind of know what the issues are, so why don't we do something about it. But I think, I don't want to paint too negative a picture. 'cause I think from a policy point of view, and perhaps you can expand a bit on this, there is, there has been movement over the last decade or so, I guess around guidance and those types of things, both here in Wales and in England, around what social workers and children's services departments and their partners should be doing.
And I wondered if you could say a bit more about that.
Beth: Well, there is good practice guidance and in England it came out in 2007 and in Wales it was last year or the year before, not very long ago and it says that parents should have long-term support, there should be accessible information, parents should have an advocate.
It says all really positive things that would add up to longer term support and sort of family focused individualized support. But in England, the good practice guidance isn't statutory. So there were lots of other bits of policy that sort of trump it as it were, but the president of the family division, the two different presidents have actually endorsed it twice, so courts are aware of it, but then social workers often aren't aware of it, and that gets a bit messy for social services in court. But in Wales it is a government document, but I'm not really sure yet what impact it's having. I know Learning Disability Wales, engaging with parents with learning disabilities and do some work.
Martin: Yeah. So as I say, I don't, it is that, it's always gonna be that tension between these things being out there and the extent to which practitioners and organizations take them on. And like you say, there is that tension about other things trump, you know, where there's risks of significant harm and things that, that, that would trump sort of that idea of long-term support.
Beth: Well, yeah, I should have said that the English Good Practice Guidance, has been updated a couple of times by The Working Together with Parents Network. So there is a 2021 version,
Martin: Right.
Beth: Which is available via research and practice Working Together with Parents Network.
But, yeah, it's difficult because some people say that the Children's Act trumps it, and so it's all about the welfare of the children. But actually the Children's Act is really, also says you keep the family together, children at home if you can. And so good practice guidance should then apply to the support and should be looked at, but it often doesn't because there are lots of stereotypes about parents with learning disabilities, and so people assume they can't and so the assessments happen to prove that they can't, rather than looking at what they can do. And I know that's a big generalization, but that's what parents think happens every time you talk to a parent, they will say, they just looked at what I can't do.
Martin: Yes. Yeah.
Danielle: And I guess there are questions about timescales and whose timescales social workers have to attend to and there are issues if it's felt that children's, particularly babies' timescales may be different from the adults. And actually trying to work with that and find ways of holding that together in a way that actually doesn't cause harm is a challenge I think, in some situations. But the point that Beth was making about, starting from a presumption of not being able to, is a real, a challenge in itself before you, from the get go, if the presumption is people can't do something, you are then, are you looking for confirmation that they really can't, to prove it and therefore you've got a strong case to take to court? Or are you saying, okay, let's try and unpack that a bit. What is it that people are struggling with in this situation? Are we looking at how they are at home? Are we looking at how they are in an artificial setting, like an assessment center where nothing they're familiar with is to hand, all of those sorts of things, which then impact how competent people feel and how fish out of water they might be feeling.
Being watched doing something can also feel very intrusive. Even if you're at home, you forget where you put the coffee or you fumble with the sugar or whatever it might be. It's much harder to hold it all together if you're not being scrutinized, but it's what assumptions are assessors going in with about competence and capacity and capability and all those things.
Martin: Yeah.
Beth: And I think that learning disability is just seen as a risk in people's heads. So that doesn't change. And that's seen as one thing when it's not one thing, everybody's different. Everybody's got different capabilities. But if you think it's a risk that you can't get rid of, then that changes your thinking quite often.
Whereas you can deal with other problems. You can get people on the right medication for mental health problems. You can deal with drug addiction and stuff, but you can't remove a learning disability.
Danielle: I think that's the point, isn't it, a learning difficulty or disability is there, it's for life. It's not going to go away.
You're not going to cure it. But the follow on from that isn't that people are incapable of learning. It's that they have difficulties with certain areas of learning. You may reach a threshold where people can't take in more. Certainly not at that stage or whatever it might be, but the idea that people can't learn at all is probably an oversimplification and a damaging one.
Beth: It's also, and that's, the simplification and a bit damaging in that parents have to be completely independent in their parenting. I don't know any parents that are completely independent in their parenting, they don't use a nursery or have Granny round or lots of other things. So it's about the network of support parents have.
Danielle: This is an ongoing conversation that we've been having for really quite a number of years about what are the assumptions behind the standards of parenting that we- and I speak from a social work background- what are we expecting from families and from parents, and the idea that we are these autonomous, hopefully autonomous, but not necessarily independent beings who should be out there functioning entirely separately
Martin: Yeah.
Danielle: without any support. And as Beth says, we've talked a lot about exactly how many of us as parents feel that we did it on our own.
Martin: Yeah.
Danielle: And are we lucky that for most of us, we can call in a partner who is, one hopes, reasonably competent family members, friends, other people who in our networks use informal support services.
Or, are we judging people who do that very differently from people who actually rely on statutory services?
Martin: Yeah.
Danielle: And that takes you into a whole big question about who can, who does, and who should be providing care to children.
Beth: Yeah. Parents tell you all the time that they get, they feel that they get judged a different standard, a higher standard.
And if a parent needs to, if their child needs to go to nursery for stimulation or childcare or to just give the parent a break, then that's really bad 'cause the state's paying. But if you've got a good job and you're paying for nursery eight till six, that's brilliant.
Martin: Yes. Yeah.
Danielle: Or a nanny.
Beth: Or a nanny!
Martin: Yes.
Beth: Yeah. In one of the projects we did, we had a few, high up professionals suddenly have a light bulb moment when they, oh, I've had a, I had a nanny. They were the substitute. I hope my - and my children still thought I was the parent.
Martin: Yeah.
Danielle: I think that taps into something else, which is the notion of substitution.
That there is a, an anxiety, which perhaps we need to explore in more detail about whether having care, additional care provided, supporting a parent. The concern that the courts were, identifying was around this became substitution of parenting so that the parent was no longer the parent, in a sense. They were being substituted by all this other care that was being provided, and that was a bad thing.
And Beth can speak more to that study than I can, but it was certainly something that was raised as a concern in terms of how much support is okay, and how, at what point do you flip over into something that becomes substitution rather than support for the parent.
ExChange Wales: We provide free high quality webinars, resources, and events for social care practitioners and researchers.
You can find out more information and register for upcoming events on our website. exchangewales.org
Martin: And I think some of that ties into this idea that probably over, over recent decades that social workers, and social work support has become very sort of, this is time limited, very focused on particular interventions.
And then we will leave. Like you say, a learning disability is for life. So in theory, those are people that will need some form or may need some form of support for years. And that, and I suppose as a society, it's about whether we think that's good and something we should be doing.
Danielle: You're going to get onto all of our different soap boxes in the course of this conversation,
Martin: Yes. Yeah.
Danielle: Because one of mine, and I will own it, is about re referrals.
Martin: Yeah.
Danielle: And this idea that you go in, sort it, get out, is not going to be helpful.
Martin: Yeah.
Danielle: One of the things that families often come to the attention of services for is neglect. That's how they become drawn into the social services' orbit and neglect, as we know, is typically not an easy fix unless there is a very particular trigger for it. A parent's taken ill or some catastrophe hits the household. A parent is unable to cope for a period of time. Put the support in, resolve it, on you go. Grand. Clearly with neglect there is often not that trigger to have it start and you're talking about low level care that is just not- sometimes drops below a level that's okay enough. Services get pulled in. Families where a parent has learning difficulty are typically, I think, drawn in through that route. And again, it's sort of exacerbating that point about, there isn't a quick fix. Both the learning difficulty and the behavior that goes with it. You can maybe address some of those behavioral issues or attitudinal response, whatever they are, responses of a parent. But that may take time and a parent may be perfectly able to learn, for example, to fill bottles, competently, and feed a child competently at that stage when they've got a roaring 2-year-old who's fully mobile, zero sense, and is into everything and can climb, they may need a different kind of input.
And then when the child is six or seven, there may be another set of issues that come to light then that are particular to that age and stage, and that child and that relationship, that need help. And I think we, if we're stuck in this idea that you get in, do it, get out and that should be then case closed and we don't hear from them again.
We are always going to be on the wrong foot. And if we don't see re-referral, somebody being able to come back and say, do you know what? When you helped me last time and I got that sorted, now I'm in this situation and I really dunno what to do and this child is driving me wacky.
Beth: Yeah.
Danielle: I need a bit of help. For me, that should be seen as a strength and a resource that the person feels they can draw on rather than a failure of practice the first time, if you see what, does that make sense?
Martin: Yes. Yeah, no, definitely.
Danielle: I'll get off my soapbox now.
Beth: I was just gonna to say that we did a project a couple, a few years ago, ooh quite a few years ago now, and it was called about successful practice.
Successful support, I think we called it. And we have found some workers that have been in touch with families for 15 years, often when the case was closed, they just kept in contact and they kept their kids because they had that one person they trusted who would come back in and sort, help them with the thing and then go away again.
And they might not talk to them for six months or a year. And there was one area in London that never closes a case. And parents know that they, well, they didn't like when we spoke to them.
And they, parents could always know they can come back, but that was an adult's team. But the parents knew that they could come back and get the help they needed and they were keeping their kids and they were fine.
And the research shows that good networks of support is really beneficial. And there's other ways of doing it. There's services like Shared Lives that in some areas will take parents and the child and they provide the ongoing support.
Martin: So I guess that's starting to think how you say differently to the norm, or what is now seen as the norm in terms of how we work with families in terms of not just having a one size fits all response to neglect or concerns about parenting, but actually saying for this group of parents, we need to do something different and more imaginative, I guess.
Beth: Yeah.
Danielle: Mm-hmm.
Martin: Yeah.
Beth: And there are some places like Cornwall's got a service that they're really, they engage with parents early on to stop them getting into child protection and they provide support and training courses on cooking and parenting groups and things like that.
And there's some sort of more residentially sort of charities where parents live in group setting, not an institution, but their own flats and things so there is support available. Family group conferences, you could get a team round of family and friends around the family.
Just know that you've got a good support worker who's going in twice a week and can help with things and sort things out and see what the next issue's coming. Like the baby's now nine months. We need to be prepared for crawling. And then they do those things so that they don't become an issue. So things are tackled before they become a problem.
Martin: Yeah, and I guess going back to some of the earlier points that you made around some of those sort of attitudinal sort of value type judgments that creep into practice, in terms of whether somebody's able to parent good enough. We did a podcast, recently, which was around parents who used substances and very, it's interesting.
Some of very similar points came outta that in terms of the standards to which we hold parents accountable relative to what would be acceptable for most people. So if people were, say, misusing alcohol, it was, complete abstinence or we'll remove your children, and it's like, is that realistic?
When I've had a rubbish week and I go home and have a bottle of wine, nobody's going to hold me to the same level. And in my head I was thinking actually that's got some real parallels with what you are saying about, and probably more deeply than that, that idea that, societally do we think that people with a learning disability should be parents to start with?
And then if we do, how do we judge what's good enough and how we as a society support people to do that.
Danielle: It's really interesting bringing that up about attitudes because an exercise that we've used working with social workers and mixed groups, actually, children and families and adults, social workers is to ask people what kinds of stereotypes and attitudes they're aware of. We are not asking them to own them themselves or to, out themselves in any way, but just to say, what are you aware of in terms of how this group of people is perceived? And it's like taking the lid off a bottle. You just get this outpouring of very negative assumptions, stereotypes, prejudices, which are part of the common sense of our society, it seems.
Martin: Mm-hmm.
Danielle: Where we all sit in that is, is obviously a personal matter and we may take on some or all of those attitudes. We may try and rethink them, reject them, but they're there and people are very conscious of them, whether or not they own them for themselves.
Martin: Mm-hmm.
Danielle: So I think you're starting from a step back, just to even have the conversation about parents with learning difficulties.
Beth: Yeah. When I first, when we first got the tender to apply to do our first piece of research on this, I hadn't thought of parents with learning disabilities and I'd worked with people with learning disabilities and children with learning disabilities- hadn't occurred to me.
Martin: Yeah.
Beth: And that, so that was 20 years ago. It's occurred to me a lot since.
Martin: Yes.
Beth: But then 20 years ago, and when I said to my brother about the research, probably about 19 years ago, he went, he used a really awful word we don't use anymore.
Martin: Yep.
Beth: And said those people don't have kids.
Martin: Yes.
Beth: And you still get that attitude.
Martin: Yeah.
Beth: But in the policy landscape, Human Rights Act, and the UN CRPD and all of that, they say support should be provided to disabled people in their parenting role.
Martin: Yeah.
Beth: So we were sort of stuck at that sort of intersection.
Danielle: And The Care Act.
Beth: And The Care Act, yeah. Yeah.
Danielle: 2014 certainly in England says that.
Martin: Yes. And I suppose, again, trying to put a, possibly a slightly more positive spin on it. I suppose the fact that there are more people with a learning disability who are now supported, hopefully to become parents probably way more than they would've been 15, 20 years ago, is a good thing.
I suppose the issue then is that thing about if having supported them to have, to make those choices and do those things that they want to do, and, their rights around being able to become parents then bumps up against the system that sees their underlying, support needs as a risk and that we haven't squared that circle in terms of, on the one hand we're saying, yes, you should be, you should have the life and the aspirations and everything that everybody else does.
But then whether the systems are there to enable them to do that or in some cases, I guess, penalizes some of them for that choice.
Beth: Yeah. Parents say that they don't get a positive reaction when they say they're pregnant most of the time.
Martin: Yeah.
Beth: But the system hasn't got the money.
Martin: Yes.
Beth: We haven't got the same early support services we used to have.
And if you talk to adult social workers, they just say they haven't got the right sort of services that are registered that can work with parents and children. So there's that as well. There isn't the service system there and also because of the way the child protection system works, there isn't long-term support.
It's gotta be dealt with. So it all comes into this big mix of issues and we don't do things like we do in other countries, where Sweden talks about support that compensates, they realize that, there are some things the parents will never be able to do. So you put the support together to compensate for that bit, whether it's somebody coming in to help with meals or when they get a bit older, somebody coming in a few times a week to help with homework.
Beth: Or after school reading clubs or all the different things. You can, if you've got that mindset of compensation and helping, then you can think, you can get all different things in place.
Martin: And actually that goes back to something you said earlier, Danielle, is that thing about are we using the language of compensation or are we using the language of substitution? Compensation being a more positive way of framing it and substitution being, well, that's a negative thing because you can't cope without all of this, taking on board what we said earlier about, does anybody really cope with parenting on their own? No.
Beth: No. I don't think we'd use the word compensation here. It's just, in Sweden, it's a very big thing.
Martin: Mm-hmm.
Beth: We talk about support, don't we?
Martin: Yes.
Beth: We talk about supporting.
Danielle: Mm-hmm.
Martin: But that support being an accepted and I suppose it's that idea of focusing on strengths and developing strengths and things rather than that, as we talked about earlier, the deficit model of, well, you can't do these things and you'll never go, potentially, you're never gonna be able to do some of these things without support and that being an issue.
Danielle: And another element of that, I think is around the idea of the child becoming the carer. So parentification, I think where the child actually perhaps becomes more intellectually able than the parent.
Martin: Yes.
Danielle: Or can do some things better and is deemed to then become a carer. Again, I don't know whether we've really got our heads around that, whether it is a problem, if it is, how we respond to it in our systems.
Martin: Mm.
Danielle: But I think that's another thing that is in the mix. If we're thinking longer term about how parents with learning difficulties might manage the task of bringing up children,
Beth: There is research quite old that with adult children of parents with learning disabilities, I said they got bullied and stuff at school, but actually they didn't mind. They were their parents and they loved them and-
Martin: Yeah.
Beth: And they had a slightly different life, but they were fine. We've got this idea and a really narrow idea of what a childhood should look like, I guess.
Martin: Yes. Yeah. And it's much broader than what we can discuss today, but I think I've always thought that there's quite a tension between, on the one hand, thinking children shouldn't be young carers, but actually in some instance, we support young people to do that role as a state.
And there's a real tension between that and that's for parents who have all sorts of support needs, not just having a learning disability. Like I said, I think that's probably going broader than we can today. I think to start to I guess wrap this up, when we were talking, you'd started to describe a whole load of different approaches that places had taken on. And I suppose it's probably a bit of an unfair question, but I always quite like the idea of, if you had a magic wand then you could wave it tomorrow, what would support look like? Would it-
Beth: Ooh, that's quite easy.
Martin: Oh, okay.
Beth: Well, it would be personalized adult focused support with whatever they need tailored to the parents' needs. So you might have, what's it called? A person centered plan.
Martin: Yep.
Beth: And with a support network in place, you'd have somebody the parent trusted that they could ring up if they had a problem in the middle of the night.
Martin: Yeah,
Beth: And just a family focus, public family focus system. And that provides parents with ongoing support that's tailored to them. We came up with something called the six Ts to help social work practice and it was called, I think. I'm not gonna remember them all now. Trust, time.
Danielle: Time is the first one because if you haven't got time to spend with somebody, you're never going to get anywhere, anyway. So time, trust.
Beth: Trust. So you need the time to develop the trust. Tenacity?
Danielle: Transparency, tenacity, truthfulness and a tailored response.
Martin: Right.
Danielle: And if you get them in the right order, they make a rather neat triangle.
Martin: Ah, okay.
Beth: Yeah. Basically relationship based practice, that's done in a supportive way that parents trust the worker to help them and not to be judging them and try having the fear that they're gonna - they're only getting evidence to remove their children.
Danielle: And trust is two way.
Martin: Yes.
Danielle: So that the worker can learn to understand where the parent's at and what they can and can't do, what they find easy or difficult to talk about, and actually to build that relationship so the parent can actually say, I can't manage this bit.
Martin: Right.
Danielle: And not feel that the world's gonna end.
Martin: Yeah.
Danielle: And sometimes it is going to, and that's the other bit of this, that we can't skirt around that actually there are going to be situations where a parent with the best support and the best inclination is actually not going to be able to manage the particular needs of that child at that time. And there are going to be times when that is a decision that has to be considered. And again, when we were talking to parents about what constituted successful practice for them, I think it was that feeling that they'd been part of the conversation, they'd understood what was going on and they may not have liked a decision, but they could understand it.
Martin: Yeah.
Danielle: And I, I think that is perhaps the best way we can proceed in that sort of situation at the moment that people feel they're part of, a genuine part of the conversation that their views are taken on board, that they understand what the concerns might have been and why at this stage they're not able to meet them.
Martin: Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle: It's that feeling of being done to without explanation.
Martin: Yeah. Yeah. And actually I think, the reality is I think that doesn't necessarily speak to a specific response to parents with a learning disability. Those are core parts of what I would've thought is good practice with anybody because I think if you spoke to any parent who'd got had contact with children's services, like you say, whilst they might not like the outcome, I think the fact that they felt that it was transparent and that people had heard them and worked alongside them, are all core things of what good strengths based relational practice looks like for anybody.
Danielle: Mm-hmm. Sure.
Martin: So I don't- for some of this, it feels like it's not a big ask to say, this should be what practice looks like anyway.
Danielle: When we were talking about the six Ts, I think we felt that we'd come to that position through this particular study we'd done on successful practices.
But when we talk to other groups and discussed it with other practitioners, we found people say, oh yeah, that works for me too.
Martin: Yes.
Danielle: And it is in a way a statement of the obvious in a fairly cute form, but it was, and it's a commonality that if we can talk well with people with learning difficulties, if we can work well with people with learning difficulties, in a way we can probably, we're not gonna go wrong with other groups.
Martin: Yeah.
Danielle: And I don't mean that as a lowest common denominator. I just mean if we are looking at how we work humanely and responsibly with people, there are some very basic principles that you were just highlighting that work with people.
Martin: Yeah.
Danielle: Full stop.
Beth: But social workers might need some training about working with people with learning disabilities, particularly children's social workers are often scared, 'cause they haven't got experience of working with that group of people because of the stereotypes. They think they're slightly different and you need different skills to work with them. And you don't really, you just need to think about your communication and not using jargon and being really clear and explaining things nicely.
Danielle: Being allowed to take the time.
Martin: Yes.
Danielle: And maybe have to go back more times than you would expect to say, possibly the same thing in a slightly different way. It's those kinds of adjustments and again, reasonable adjustments should be a language that we are familiar with and comfortable with.
Martin: Yes. Yeah, no, definitely. Obviously you've made reference a couple of times to the paper that the podcast is broadly based on and we'll make that accessible to people afterwards so they can follow up and look at it in more detail. But that sounds like a really nice place to loop together and come to an end.
So thank you both ever so much for joining today. Hopefully people find it really interesting. I have. It's really nice of you to come in and take the time. So thanks very much.
Beth: Thank you
Danielle: Thank you.
ExChange Wales: Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Exchange Wales Podcast. At Exchange Wales, we connect researchers, practitioners, and people with lived experience to share evidence, practice, and insights that shape social care.
Our work spans children's and adult social care, and we're also exploring the growing role of artificial intelligence in the sector. If you'd like to learn more or get involved, please visit exchangewales.org.
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
ExChange Wales: Social care training & resource
ExChange Wales