Walking the fine line between compassion for parents and safety for children (EP.5)

In this episode I am joined by social worker and colleague Andy Black, and we reflect on a great question by Rebecca Key,  'how do you walk the fine balance between curiosity, care and compassion for the experiences of a parent without this clouding your judgment or waiting too long to intervene and take action to secure the child permanence and safety in their time scales'.  We are very grateful to Rebecca for her question, and if anyone has any comments or feedback, please get in touch. 

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Transcript

0:01

Welcome to rich divided sexual app practice podcast. I am rich and I am a social worker. This podcast is about practice related issues, self development, and transformation. It will give you knowledge, ideas, and practical tools for being an effective social worker, supporting you with assessment skills, direct work, dealing with conflict and importantly, helping you make a positive difference in the lives of children and families. Today. I am really pleased to welcome back. Um, Andy black who joined us. Last week. Hello. It's good to be back so quickly after last week. It was a great one. Really enjoyed it. Um, yeah. Speaking on that topic. So yeah, I hope it's going to be a good one stat again. I thought it was easier to have somebody, uh, long sides. Me to farm his ideas off. And I thought that you brought some timidity and a little bit of humor. Which is. Quite difficult to achieve on your own, especially when you're not funny as well. Yeah. Well, I think it's yeah, definitely the company. Isn't it. I have fought about this podcast and weather. The degree to which it should be informative versus like converse conversational. And, um, I'm having come to a conclusion about it. Yeah, I think it's good to have a mix. Isn't it? And I think what you bring is just such a clarity about, um, academic content theory and the experience into practice. And maybe I'll just contribute to that with a few laughs. Yeah. It's a good combat. Um, so today we are going to be, uh, looking at a question that was, um, sent to me by Rebecca Key, who is from Stockport. Um, I think if I ever worked anywhere else up at the net Baines, it will probably be Stockport because I always get positive vibes from what they're up to. And the question that she. Uh, asked was, um, how, how do you walk the fine balance between curiosity care and compassion for the experiences of, uh, Of a parent. Without this cloud in your judgment or waiting too long to intervene and take action to secure the child permanence and safety and that timescales. Sometimes we see the overly focusing on the parent can lead to further risk to the child as perhaps social workers become distracted. By making every effort to overcome barriers, to engagement and distrust, and I can get parents make feel particularly in relationship based practice. Hmm. And I think this is a brilliant question. Uh, partly because, uh, it's, it's an issue that fakes this many social workers in that day to day work. The challenge of, um, holding in mind, compassion, consideration, and ensuring that parents have the right support with thinking about the best interests of the child and their need for. Uh, safety and protection in any which way that that takes form. It's almost the question and social work. I think isn't, it is. Is that our, uh, work is about supporting parents. They can, uh, care for their children. Um, and. Create, one of the things that crammed in saying is that is the best way to support children. Isn't it? The, through the parents. And so how do you then balance that with the need to ensure that the child has an adequate level of care and safety with also paying all of your energy and effort into trying to get the parent to be where they need to be? Absolutely. And so what we thought we would do is look, uh, look for a blog that I wrote about why we ride chronologies. And, um, there's five different reasons that I've identified in relation to why I think it's important that we do chronologies because. And I think it'd be useful to look at this because it will help arms to the question a little bit. And then once we've gone through the five why's. To why to write a chronology we'll then look at we'll return to the question. And I'm picket in some more detail. So I think in social work, We often get told how to do something and, um, when to do it by, but often what's overlooked is the why of the piece of work that we're being asked to do. And I think that's probably one of the most important questions we could ask is why aren't we doing this? That's not, why do we do a chronology? I suddenly didn't know why I was doing a chronology. I think possibly thought about it for more of a systems based perspective that I was doing it as a piece of work that needed to be completed for the family, for the record, for the system. So that there was a log of information that was certainly my feelings awards there. And I'm because it was systems based. I never looked on them favorably. It was always like, ah, got to do a chronology. Um, it was always one of those tasks that was at the bottom of the, to do list. It never had that priority for me. Yeah. And I think that is partly because it's hard to connect. The work with. Why it might be valuable. So if we go through these reasons, uh, one by one, But the first is to understand children's social care involvement with the family or the child so far. And so I think we need to chronologically detail every referral and outcome, every assessment and outcome. Every strategy, meeting every legal me in NF-kappaB. Care proceedings to include that too. And I think that's important too, so we can understand in the present that the extent of social work involvement the families had in the past. Because that will then inform our level of involvement, our understanding of the family's representation of the service and how they've engaged across time. Totally. Uh, I think some of the families that I've worked with have had such extensive, uh, histories and involvement with children's Satia Cameron. One of the things that's really stood out for me and complain chronologies around those areas. Is is how much I really am the latest in a long line of professionals that this family has worked with, you know, coming in, asking sometimes often the same questions that they probably asked dozens of times before. Yeah, it helps you understand that the context through which they're cultivating the relationship with you, because you're going in as a new person. Kind of fresh and trying to develop a new relationship. But as you say, you could be one a month. Several or eight they've had in the past few years. And social work just gets aggregated into their experiences of those seven or eight, and then gets projected onto you as this new social worker coming in. And so some of that upset nurse or resistance or difficulty or whatever might be playing itself out might not necessarily have anything to do with you and to do with their past experiences of social work. And it's important that I think that we take account of that. So that we don't a, don't take it personally, but also that we can acknowledge the changes of social work and, um, the variation of services. The quality. The variation in the quality of services. And I think it changes the conversations that we would have with families. Doesn't it. When we know that, you know, if we're going out for a particular assessment, particular thing that's happened, if we know that there's a history of that having happened before, and they've had a similar conversation with another social worker about the same thing, I definitely think that would shape how that conversation would play out both from the parent's perspective and from the social workers. So the second reason to do a chronology is to understand patterns of behavior. And the call didn't to. Arnie Monroe. And this is her quote. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. And I would die. Essentially is to assess risks in the likelihood of harm. And therefore the chronology is arguably the most effective tool for this kind of crucial aspect of our role. And when we look at patterns of behavior, Such as substance misuse, domestic abuse. Mental health or neglect. We are looking at for free key components, the duration of the issue, the chronicity of the issue. The severity and the frequency. And the reason why we look at those three components in relation to patterns of behavior. It's because that gives us information on how long the individual has experienced the pattern of behavior. So. Uh, the longer the pattern has been in place, the less likelihood of change, arguably how severe is the pattern. This helps us understand the impact and the intensity of support that will be needed. Is it mild neglect or is it severe neglect? Do they have a mild drug problem or severe drug problem that will, that will influence our understanding about the degree to which it's impacting on the child? And also at the type of support and then finally the frequency, because that helps us understand the impact on functioning. How's that been to domestic abuse incidences in three years, or how's that been five in the last six months? Like, I mean, despite, despite, and in my own life, predominately looking at. At the worrying about the future and thinking about the past, actually, when it comes to looking at incidents and when they happen in, um, in the present with parents often, often, what I find is that there's a context. Uh, to each thing that takes place and in the relationship with people. And actually what I found sometimes is that that context words would serve to reduce or minimize the concern I would feel, you know, I hear about or see something on paper. Then I go out and you hear the context and suddenly it seems less significant. And I think what, what those things that you've just read out. Has done the duration, the severity, the frequency. I think what orientates you towards is, is the lifetime experiences of the child, the developmental experiences of the child, that the actually, despite you, in the relationship, you may be looking at this as a more singular incident. It's in the context of potentially a pattern of instance, they've had cumulative impact on the child. And I think if there's one. Issue that gets raised repeatedly in serious case reviews in terms of assessing. Risk is the failure of social workers to look. Historically and take into consideration. A more broader, longer today view about the experiences of the children. But I agree. You're absolutely right. It's. Very hard to find the time to, to, um, look at the history and also to not get caught up in present day concerns and reactions, and how that, how that dealing with that. Mm. Hmm. And. I think patterns that manifest in different contexts. Uh, and then across time you can think about as being more resistant to change. But then also you can look at patterns that might be context specific because they might be more, uh, susceptible to change, especially if the context that facilitated the pattern changes. So for example, you might see, um, Examples of that being conflict within a particular relationship with a parent. But if it's only within that relationship and that relationship, and you can see that some of that was about that specific relationship and the particular dynamics. Whereas, if you're looking at somebody that's been violent in a relationship. Um, That they're in currently. Plus the previous free relationships. Plus the violin to members in the community. Plus they've got in trouble with the law and that's. You can develop a kind of pan of them then. Violent in multiple contexts in multiple relationships and across a whole span of time. And so you can begin to see how that might be harder to bring about change then. You know, context, specific difficulties. Hmm. And I think that, um, that does start to feed into the, the question that was asked. Wasn't it about. Um, where do you balance the compassion and care for the parent with the insurance safety for the child? And I think in the context of a domestically violent relationship, there's absolutely a need for compassion and care and curiosity or towards the parent, but where that might form a pattern of relationships that have had an impact on the child. And that needs to be acknowledged and recognized in the context of, of, of the children's social care plans. Yeah, and I do think you can hold empathy for the parent and the particular challenges that they may be experiencing. And yeah. Be clear about the level of concern that you have and what that might mean in terms of children's social care involvement. And so I'm thinking about parents who've misused substances. And being curious with them about the value that they find in, for example, misusing heroin or crack cocaine, trying to make sense of what they see is the self-protective value of taking that substance. And so in that sense, you can be quite nonjudgmental and empathic about. Trying to understand what it is that they find. Because on the face of it, it can be quite judgment on critical about them using drugs and the impact that has happened on their children. But on a deeper level that often substance misuse is a solution to a underlying problem. Typically psychological distress or loneliness and isolation. Um, or unresolved trauma. And so. By thinking with them about what did they find useful? We can be. Empathic. And yet at the same time, Be quite clear that if they've had this difficulty for such a long time, that children's social care. We'll have to take certain steps. For example, placing the child on the top protection plan or entering into pre proceed. And if we don't see any positive changes or changes in the right direction, I think you hit the nail on the head there. It's not, it's not a binary situation as a, it's a continuum. And I think one of the principles that I really try to hold in my practice is that rarely ever come across. Have I ever come across parents who have intentionally harmed their children? I think the temptation for me is to think of it when I'm in the practice of. A lot of either children as a safe or we're supporting parents. And actually it's absolutely not. The split in that way. Yeah, and I think. Uh, I remember reading in motivational interviewing book by Donald Forrester, David Wilkinson. Charlotte Whitaker about that. There's there's two potential errors in the way that we practice with children and families. One is that you're overly focused on the child at the exclusion of the parent. The second is that you're overly focused on. Um, the parent or the exclusion of what might be happening to the child. But the, ultimately what we want to be striving towards is it jewel focus on. Support in the parent, recognizing that helping them would be the best way that we can help the child and yet be in. Laser focused in on what the experience is for that child living in those conditions and the impact that it might be having on them and trying to relay that to the parents in a way that doesn't. Lead them to feel ashamed or, uh, want to be resistant or engage. In denying the severity of that difficulties. So the third. Uh, reason why we do chronologies is to understand the support that's being provided. And there's free components to consider when we're looking at the support that's been provided in the past. One is to look up what support is being provided to is to look at what is the pattern of engagement. And free. If they have engaged in the support, has there been any evidence of change? Now, I think there's limited utility in working with a family without understanding what support has been provided in the past, because you risk duplication. Ineffective use of resources and repetition of the same outcomes. So to give an example, if we've provided. The parent, parent and support, and there continues to be concerns for parent. And then I think we need to consider that we've misunderstood the problem. For example, it might be that their drug use or resolve trauma is interfering with that parenting rather than parenting per se. And so. I think exploration of past support. Engagement and outcomes achieved by offering such support. Can facilitate our understanding of capacity to change. And I think this. Funny, this really stands out in Rebecca's question where she raises about the possibility of waiting too long. And I found in more frequently than not that the reason that we've ended up waiting too long is because we're delivering interventions, uh, delivering the packages of support. That have already been tried in the past and haven't yielded any successful outcomes. Um, and you know, in some respects you have a responsibility to attempt support at. Different points in people's lives. It may have a different effect, but actually I think that's one of the biggest areas of risk where delay can happen. Yeah, and I think. Uh, an analysis of the support that's being provided is probably one of the most critical elements of. Uh, for example, if you do parent and assessments, Uh, because I think it's, there's a misunderstanding generally in the, in the public, around the, if a child is experiencing significant harm, then that should warrant social work involvement. And. Potentially for the child to be removed, but it's not in of itself sufficient to evidence that the child is being subject to significant harm. You have to have done significant harm, plus that you've done absolutely everything within your power to try and support that parent bring about the changes that would enable them to safely look after their children. And that's partly because the cost of removal is so extensive, um, for children and for parents that you really want to be. Absolutely. Rigorously and robustly clear. That it, that if, if removal is going to be the, the recommendation that you've done, absolutely. Everything that you tan. Yeah. And there's a real moral element in that for me. And certainly the longer I've been in practice. Uh, the more emphasis I had in my own values of wanting to make sure that I'd done absolutely everything I could to support, um, parents and the family. And part of that was. Um, Having seen some of the repercussions and implications of, of legal intervention and families' lives. Um, but also because the reality of children's experiences on the other side of the curtain, so to speak became abundantly clear. Yeah, and I, I do think that is a common experience when you're newly qualified, is that there's a slight bias towards. Over estimate and how positive alternative care might be an underestimate in how impactful it is for children to be removed from that chip. From, from that. Parents. Um, I started off, um, in the fostering and adoption team and I saw a, and so you have so much experience of incredible foster carers, incredible people putting themselves forward to. To care for children in the long term, people putting themselves forward to adopt children. And yet there were features of the system features of, of how it was set up and just the features of life in the way that things can occur. That men often the biggest factor that I think has a negative impact on children's lives was, was instability. And often, sometimes through no one's fault that placements come into an end and children having to move on and experience the impact of that. There's a quote that, um, I've just found by perfect captain Reynolds. She wrote in 1963 is kind of. Reflects this conversation that we're having. She writes if we have naive faith that a good home would cure the lack of one in the case of every unhappy child. We will often disappointed, painful experiences may live on in the unconscious and be of. Be of as productive conflict in a new environment as the old. Um, so she's just reflecting that. That could be at times that naive faith that a good home would cure. Um, the difficulties that a child might be experiencing. Um, and sometimes that isn't always the case. And I suppose, um, that then has an impact on why you situate yourself, the way you situate yourself and your practice. Um, in the balance of, of curiosity and compassion for the parent and intervention for the child. And I do think with the support, part of the analysis is looking at what, what support has been provided? Did it work? Did it, did they engage? And then if not looking at why not? And not assuming that it's because the parents are being resistant or difficult to take, it might be that they went to the program and it wasn't suitable given the level of their need. Or it might be that for various different reasons, the parents have difficulty accessing the program. And so it's looking at the fit between the parents need. And what they're able to access and whether the support is meeting that need, rather than just placing all of the blame onto a parent for not accessing, for example, what parenting program or. Uh, domestic abuse program. And then another key component is looking at what support could be offered. And the degree to which that might ameliorate some of the harm, um, and thinking about the probability of success. It's two ways. Isn't it? That reflection, that analysis of support has to be two ways. It has to be about. Looking at and examining the reasons why it may not have viewed as any changes, both from the perspective of, of the parents, their needs, but also the delivery of that by services, whether it was actually the right service and whether the mechanism by which it delivered actually worked for the parent. So the third. No, sorry. The fourth element of why we do a chronology. Is to understand the child's developmental experiences and to assess the impact of harm. Particularly in relation to the patterns of behavior. So for each incident or event to each police report or each. Uh, refer in relation to the parents being intoxicated. That we, we want to know whether the child was present and if so, what they saw, what they heard and how they reacted at the time. And I think it's important that we make sense of the child's lived experiences across their lifespan. Because it may be that the behavior of a seven year old makes more sense when we understand what was happening when the child was two years old. And also it could be the understanding the child's emotional behavioral presentation throughout their life. Provides insight into the trajectory of that development. So, for example, if you see that. Uh, two years old, the child is, um, Display and attention. Seeking behavior or difficult behavior, quite difficult to regulate. Quite hyperactive at two. And then that continues when they're free and then four and then a five years old. That's played itself out into school and again, into trouble. And they're struggling to learn. You can begin to think about what's the likely trajectory of this child. If we don't improve or change the environment that the child has learned Cape with. Hmm. I really think this, this focus on the children's developmental experiences and how they've impacted on their presentation, their behavior in the present is such a vital tool to. Look at behavior in the context of strategies or that child is developed in response to the carrier environment that they've experienced. I think there's been a few times where I've, um, been in to visit families for the first time. And I can't understand seemingly what's going on because you've got a child who is displaying these really quite significant profound behaviors sometimes. And parents who are desperately wanting support and struggling with their children's, um, behavior. And, and on the surface of it, can't quite understand how the family have found themselves in that situation. But through thinking about the earlier developmental experiences, it reveals information about some of the early dynamics, you know, what was going on at the point of birth, what was going on in those first correct. Critical few years. That then helps myself and my understanding and thinking about, well, how can I support. What are the needs here, but more importantly, it helps the family. The parents understand a bit more about how the child has maybe developed these behaviors and avoid this, or potentially avoid this pathologization this medicalization of a child by looking at, uh, how things have occurred in their life to mean that things are the way that they are now. Yeah. So it could be, for example, that a parent was in a really domestically abusive relationship when the child was born. To deal with the domestic abuse, they were misusing alcohol and maybe drugs. And so their ability to be available to the child was compromised and the child was exposed to frightening, scary incidents. And then. When the child is three or four years old, the parents separate. And then a couple of years later, The child had been brought to our attention and the mum has separated and seems to be doing relatively well. And yet the child is now present. And with these kind of quite extreme behaviors. Now, if you've just looked at the issue on face value, you wouldn't be able to make sense that that is. Of the discrepancy between this mom and the stability and the seemingly doing well and with the child, with the significant behaviors. Yeah. If you look like you've just said about the developmental experiences, you can see that that child is organized around. Um, predictability uncertainty. Finance in chaos. So to be hypervigilant and hyperactive, um, would be adaptive in that context. And so they've just built that, that their strategy and their way of coping around those experiences. And even though the experiences have changed. Their way of coping and dealing with their experiences. Fundamentally hasn't caught up with them. Yeah. Um, and it, and I think the chronology is, is the tool to be able to capture that. I certainly, for me, I is. It's took me years and part of being a social worker to realize that the things that happened in the past, in my past and my chartered. I've impacted on the way that I'm functioning in the present. I for a long time, I thought, you know, the things that are affecting me and the things that are in my immediate surroundings, what's going on. And so as a parent, if there were things that had happened in the past, but I know it on the precedent of my life, I think I've struggled to see how that was relevant to how the child was behaving. And I think the use of the chronology and what that can give the social worker and helping them to support the parents to understand that could be really powerful and shifting maybe on a found sometimes the negative. Perception of the child that comes from that behavior. Yeah, absolutely. And then the fifth and final reason to do the chronology is to look three exceptions. And so this may include gaps in the chronology, but there are no referrals of social count involvement. Sometimes we don't become involved until the child is older or we are involved and then we're not involved for a few years before we are again. And that can provide us with an opportunity to explore and develop an understanding of past examples and times when the parents or the wider family system had been able to function. In a way that protects the children from harm. And so from, from that understanding, we can begin to. Um, explore the. The family's preexisting coping strategies and strengths in a way that might grandly improve the safety of the children. Yeah. I dunno. I find we, by the time we're complete in these chronologies is so often at the point where there's a crisis where, where concerns escalating, cause that time intensive to complete and often the, where we're able to invest that time when it's time intensive. It's usually when things have escalated. And so your you'll come into families at the point of crisis where things are possibly been the most difficult that they've ever been. And it's so important, isn't it to capture and think about when we weren't involved, when things were working, what was, what, where. Well, what are the circumstances that, how, how was, how one of these parents managing the situation, the managing parenting safely in a way that they may no longer not be. And that that will give us important clues into the support that might need to be made available as well. In relation to, it might be that they, the family. Had access to a grandmother who was able to offer some really good practical, emotional support for several hours a week. And now. The grandmother has died. And without that support that they're struggling to function. So it can give you clues as to what might prove to be helpful in the way of support. So they're the five reasons for why we do chronology just to recap. To understand children, social camp, all of them with the family and the child so far. That will give us an understanding of our involvement and the family's representation of the service they've had so far. To understand patterns of behavior. Because the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior and we will never get the duration, severity and frequency. To understand the support that's being provided, looking at what support is being provided, what the level of engagement has been. And if they have engaged, has it. Achieved the desired outcomes. For fleet to think about the child's developmental experiences and to look at the impact of harm, particularly in relation to the patterns of behavior. And then finally to think about exceptions. So times when the family seemed to have coped. Reasonably well, or at least with our social care involvement. I think, um, you know, having spent majority of this podcast on the chronology, uh, and not specifically answering Rebecca's question, I think it shows where we were thinking when it comes to that balance. Isn't it? How do you. Walk the fine line between the balance of curiosity care and compassion for the parent without this cloud in your judgment or waiting too long to take actions secure the child's permanence to safety. Yeah, absolutely. And Rebecca does actually give some useful. Prompts and ideas. She also. She, she rides, I guess, reflective supervision. And hold it lightly. Our hypothesis is quite critical here. And I do think that supervision is probably. Uh, one of the most important tools available to social workers, especially around decision-making because. The emotional intensity of the relationships that we can form with parents can sometimes undermine and cloud our judgment. We're so heavily invested in the family and want in the parent to do well. They can sometimes, um, cloud up our, uh, judgment. And so we need supervision to bring some level of objectivity into our assessment. Rebecca spoke about relationship based practice. And I think this is exactly why you need the sort of tools like a chronology, like good reflective supervision. Like a manager who's going to support and challenge you to make sure that your approach is curious about the families, uh, functioning. I think it's so easy when you're in that to be lost now. And as Rebecca said, and up, um, with a need and desire to try and overcome the anger, the distrust that parents are presented with to really try and get that support. But the risk is that you lose sight of the child. Yeah. And I don't know if there's any kind of obvious solution to that other than to recognize that it's always an ever present inherent tension in our role. The demand that the challenge of holding the child in mind. Plus providing a highly support if at. And challenging relationship with the parent. So it needs to be highly supportive and empathic in terms of the difficulties they are experiencing and the reasons for why they are experiencing those difficulties. But it also needs to be quite challenging in the sense of being very clear and transparent about what might happen if change doesn't occur. And that. There isn't there isn't a fixed solution to that other than to constantly be in relationship with that tension. And use, like, as you say, tools like chronologies and supervision. To clarify your thinking. I think Rebecca has also mentioned about an advocate here and wherever that would help. What do you think. I think. An advocate. I could definitely help. And I've done lots of research around peer advocacy, and I do think that they could offer a relationship and a level of support that just isn't going to be visible to. Bye to be provided by a social worker. The social worker, even the most considerate, compassionate kind fought for social worker. We'll run up against challenges with parents because it, it doesn't matter how interpersonally skilled you are. If you have to tell a pattern. That your, that, that. That their child is going to be given onto a child protection plan or that we're going to be entering into pre proceedings. And if changes in bore brought about them again, to think about issue and care proceeded. That's going to severely undermine the relationship. And the ability of a parent to trust you. Whereas, if you have an advocate who doesn't have that level of responsibility, who's independent from that. They are more likely to be able to create a therapeutic relationship. From which the parent can benefit from. I think you mentioned about the clarity. Uh, clarity of communication. Being able to clearly communicate empathy and compassion and clearly communicate. The expectations around the safety and care of the children. And I think one thing, an area when I area and Africa could really help with is ensuring that the communication isn't lost in the quagmire of all the different interpersonal dynamics that can happen between a social worker and a parent. I think it's absolutely essential person to be part of these conversations. I know from when I was first qualified that my ability to communicate to a parent. What was happening within the process was compromised. Because some of the processes were new to me. And, um, and I'm still trying to make sense of what it meant for a child to be subject to child protection plan. Or what it was, uh, what it meant to have a child subject to proceedings and how the process unfolded. And so my ability to communicate that would be somewhat compromised. And also like when, when you were a social worker, I remember the first child protection case conference I went to. And I would say anxious and worried about presented in the report and chairman this in front of a group of professionals. That's that compromised my ability to really. Understand and appreciate that the parent. I would have been even more anxious than I would have been. And so that's where I think an advocate can come in is to offer that level of emotional reassurance and support that might not otherwise be available through no fault of the social worker. I think my, um, my manager came with me to my first child protection conference and it's now on reflection. I can see, she was almost like my advocate. And how I needed that. And my first one. And it's absolutely why I think we should be. I be providing these to parents, providing these really important people to parents, to help them with the process. And one of the things that when I looked into the research on parental advocacy that parents found valuable was having speaking to somebody who. Was sort of a symbol symbol. But similar community who spoke in a similar way in terms of it being quite plain and not very jargon type. And then also being able to. Uh, gain inspiration and advice from somebody who had experienced similar problems. Yeah, overcome those difficulties. And so sometimes it could, it could be that the same message was being given from the social worker to the parent. From the app or from the advocate to the parent, but hearing it from the advocate meant that it could land more favorably and make a greater impact. Um, so I do think that there's always going to be some inherent limitations about the degree to which a social worker can develop a therapeutic relationship with a parent. In fact, I'd probably go so far as saying that I, I don't think it's possible. And it probably sets us up to fail to believe that that's our role and that's what can be achieved. Because as I mentioned, it doesn't matter how skilled or resource where you are. If you're having to tell a parent. That we're instigating child protection or pre proceed, and that's going to cause a significant level of tension and distrust into the relationship. Whereas I do think we can think about other of the people in the network. In the family or professionally that can offer the parent support and make sure that we operate as some kind of bridge between the parent and them access to the right person who can offer the right type of support. Um, hopefully more and more in the future. We're going to see that happening. Yeah, it definitely does seem to be picking up the mentor and the idea of parental advocacy. And then stop, Paul. Obviously they've got new beginnings, which is an astonishingly innovative. Uh, program. You know, probably lead in the way and some of these important ideas for helping children and families. Good stuff. So that is. Everything that we have to say today. Is there anything else you want to add or conclude with, and Dave. It's just thanks to Rebecca. It's such an interesting question. I could say at the beginning, I think it's one of the questions in children's social work and it's so good to be able to have a conversation about it and really think about how we can be using tools and the systems and structures around us, even in the context of limited resources and limited time. To be able to achieve the right balance with that. And if anybody has any force or reflections, please don't hesitate to get in touch. Or if you have any questions. If you have your own, that you would like us to think about and answer. Um, the email is rich divine social work@gmail.com. I'll leave it in the show notes. Uh, on the podcast. So many things for listening to this episode, if you haven't already, then please consider subscribing, following or sharing with your colleagues. And please do leave a comment, positive or negative. All feedback is welcome. And again, if you have any questions, please do get in touch. Rich divine social work@gmail.com.