Building on the conversation from last week's episode with Danny and Mike from Lads Like Us, I explore professional curiosity and #askwhy that they passionately and eloquently advocated for. I explore the same topic from a practical and practice point of view. I share tips and principles that facilitate compassion and professional curiosity with adults and children.
Any questions please contact me on richdevinesocialwork@gmail.com
Connect with me on: https://twitter.com/RichardDevineSW
Follow my blog, where you can be sent fortnightly blogs on topics covered on this podcast: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/
If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your friends, and leave a review - positive, or negative, all feedback welcome.
Building on the conversation from last week's episode with Danny and Mike from Lads Like Us, I explore professional curiosity and #askwhy that they passionately and eloquently advocated for. I explore the same topic from a practical and practice point of view. I share tips and principles that facilitate compassion and professional curiosity with adults and children.
Any questions please contact me on richdevinesocialwork@gmail.com
Connect with me on: https://twitter.com/RichardDevineSW
Follow my blog, where you can be sent fortnightly blogs on topics covered on this podcast: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/
If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your friends, and leave a review - positive, or negative, all feedback welcome.
Welcome to rich divine social work 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. Did they, I'm going to use the conversation. I had in the last episode with Danny and Mike from labs like us. To explore the idea of professional curiosity. And to share some ideas that I. Learned over the years that I think will. Support or has it really supported me and hopefully might support you. In exercising, professional curiosity, because it's one of those ideas. That sound self-evident and obvious on the face of it to implement and to exercise, but in actual fact, In my experience is surprisingly difficult to do. Before I get into that, I just wanted to share. And experience. I had a couple of days ago because I went to. Broadway, large residential treatment center, which is a residential treatment center for individuals experiencing drug and alcohol problems. With with Andy black, who's previously featured on the podcast. And we wanted to go to the residential rehab because I was beginning to. Realize that some of the support that was being offered for parents with drug and alcohol problems. Seem to be insufficient given the intensity or the severity or the duration of the drug and alcohol problem that some of the parents that we were working with were experiencing. And I did some research on this a while back looking at. Different treatment options for. Different types of substance misuse issues. And this was partly. Because. I respond in that, whether you had a problem. Smoking cannabis free four or five times a week. Or you had a severe and enduring. Heroin addiction for the last 20 years. But despite the discrepancy between the severity of those types of substance misuse issues. Those individuals were being directed into the same. Type of support, which was a community based. Drug and alcohol service where they would be accessed in a group or one-to-one once or twice per week. For some of the parents. Who were clearly traumatized. And using drugs and alcohol as a way to resolve that internal, psychological distress. That seemed grossly insufficient as a way of being able to support and to help them. And so when I looked into the research, what it, what it indicated. I'm not an expert or a researcher. So. It's always going to be limited in some sense, because I'm not capable of analyzing and critiquing research papers in the way that if you did research, you would be able to. But from what I could understand, The research indicated was that if you have. Severe and enduring drug and alcohol problem, then access in a residential treatment center. Is probably the most successful or likely to be the most successful treatment for you. And a residential treatment center is basically where you go to a center for anywhere between. Two to 20 weeks. And you're immersed into a. An environment that often has a strong psychosocial element. Sometimes it's underpinned by the 12 steps. From alcoholics anonymous and often has something called therapeutic duties where you take on tasks within the house to upkeep. So it's really a very integrative model of support in an individual with that drug and alcohol problem, but also in resolving the underlying issues that resulted in them developing the drug and alcohol problem. So the research was indicating that this was a preferred. Treatment for those. That had to be an enduring drug and alcohol problems. And then the, but the problem. I suppose that we've come up against is the issue around funding because residential treatment centers tend to be quite expensive. But what I think we often overlook is the. The cost of not offering what otherwise seems like quite an expensive treatment. So, for example, some treatment centers are up to a pharmacy, one pound a week, maybe even more. And so if you send somebody. Parent, for example, to a residential treatment center for 12 weeks. Then you're looking at some, you know, 12,000 pound. But then what we don't, which seems just like completely unattainable or unimaginable that any local authority would be able to afford that. But what we often don't do is offset that against the cost of bringing children into care. So when I looked into this, you were looking at. A thousand pound per child. Per week. So if you have three children and they come into care, you're looking at three grand a week. And it, and then said within four or five weeks, you've already covered the cost of what it would be for the parent to access the treatment. Residential treatment. So for all of these reasons, we wanted to go to a residential treatment center to understand and see what's happening in that kind of environment. And. We were just blown away by. The level of compassion and care. And rigor. In terms of support and people overcome some of the difficulties that we observed. And we were able to be part of some of the groups and just really. C an experience, the power of the peer group, which was An integral part of. People's recovery. So there would be groups where there that would be led by a counselor, but then the peers. The other people who also in the rehab would be offering support and advice and guidance. And so. Maybe in the, in the near future, I might invite Broadway logged onto the, onto the podcast. They can talk about some of that work, because I do think we need to be having a conversation about. The type of support that we offer parents and ensuring that we offer them. The support that's most likely to be effective and to make a difference. So that was my. Experience of Broadway lodge. So now moving into. Some reflections about professional curiosity. And. I'm going to refer a lot to. The dynamic maturational model. Now. This, the dynamic maturational model of attachment. It is, it is a theory around attachment and. What's often not well known is that there's two schools of thought when it comes to attachment theory. The first is what's called the ABC plus D model. Which is a ambivalent secure. I've already done and then disorganized and that's underpinned by the work of Bowlby Ainsworth. And then followed up by Mary main Solomon. Georgian Hassey and many. Any others? And that's the theoretical framework that most practice practitioners seem to know about. And it's also the theory and the framework that gets taught in universities. And. Upper courses. And. It involves. At Ainsworth original patterns, but then also includes the concept of disorganization. And then there's the second and last well-known model, which is the dynamic maturational model. Which is underpinned by Bowlby and Ainsworth. And then Patricia, Kristen. And Patricia Cretan doesn't smarter. Involves So original patterns, but she's at an extended, these. And the dynamic maturational model is a, is a bio psycho social theory of human development and adaptation. Basically the, we are biologically predisposed towards forming an attachment with a primary caregiver, which in turn, then influences and shapes our psychological development. Our psychological functioning shaped in the context of our biological needs, then interacts with society and culture by directionally. And this process then has profound implications for how we deal with our thoughts and emotions and relationships. Now the DMM, the dynamic maturational model is essentially theory about how we organize ourselves psychologically and relationally, particularly in the context of danger. And for me. The dam has probably been one of the most influential theories and ideas on my thinking and practice. And I've just found it to be an incredibly rich systemic and insightful. Framework. And. I wanted to share some of the ideas from that framework, because I think it would support. It supports us in our endeavors to adopt a more curious approach. To some of the challenges that parents and children that we work with. So I fought, I would share some key ideas. One of the key ideas within the DMM is. That we have past. That past danger influences current behavior in helpful and unhealthy unhelpful, unhelpful ways. And so. What that means is that. When we've had difficult or adverse experiences, we find ways to cope with those experiences in the moment that maximize the probability that we will be well-cared for. Or at least minimize the probability that we'll be exposed to danger. And those adaptations or those ways of coping can help us in some ways. But also be unhelpful in other ways. And this leads onto another key idea, which is the idea that adaptations are necessary. And self-protective. So. In the dynamic maturational model, they identify a range of patterns or strategies that a child. Might develop in order to cope with their experiences. And so if you have, for example, Safe predictable. For the most part safe and predictable care, then you can begin to trust your caregivers availability. And trust other relationships and be able to communicate your needs and feelings and. And navigate relationships reasonably successfully. But if you have a parent who is predictable, but emotionally unavailable or predictable, And punitive. Then one of the ways that you might learn to cope and adapt to that is to just disconnect yourself. Emotionally. And it isn't like. If you're avoidant DAS, like one category, there's, there's a spectrum on which you can be inhibited or disconnected from your feelings. So, if you have a parent who is mildly dismissive of your emotional needs, Then you'll learn to just dampen down your Automational expression. A little bit. And so you can then present as kind of business-like and quite cool and a bit detached. In adulthood. But if you have a severely depressed mum, Then. You really have to dump and down your own feelings and needs because the depressed mum isn't available to attend to them. And so to protect yourself from the rejection and the pain of your mum, not being there and available. For you. You tend to just shut yourself off and close yourself down. And what you could then also do in that context is. To think about meeting the needs of your depressed mum. Which is sometimes called role reversal. Or compulsive caregiving. If that makes no difference. However, then what the child might do is they grow older. Is developed, what's called a compulsively self-reliance strategy. And so in the context of. Relationships being uniformly disappointed in. The child learns to inhibit their own emotional feelings. For example, the sadness, the rejection, the Aringo, or the lack of comfort. And develop an over of Alliance. On the south. And so. The basic premise is that the child, the child in this context might develop a way of coping with a parent who's a little bit emotionally dismissive or who might be experienced in depression. And the way in which they. Adapt. And allows them to cope with the, the experiences that they're receiving and to, to make the most out of their situation. So it's advantageous for the child. To shut down their feelings and start to look after their mum because when they do that, they get a more favorable response. But the downside to that is that in adulthood, if that strategy goes left on chat, which often it does because the strategies developing early childhood and then often become. Implicit unconscious, psychologically embedded and so operate without our awareness. And so in adulthood, Matt strategy could get carried forward. And lead to an individual, struggling to cultivate intimacy in their personal relationships. Or struggling to empathize with that child's needs. On the other side of. Of the equation. You have some parents who are a little bit unpredictable or a little bit inconsistent, and what a child might do in that situation is they learn that. The mom or their dad or their parents only become available to them. When they cry quite loudly or when they make a big fuss or they. Engage in behavior. That's a little bit risky. And then that parent becomes available. And so they become a little bit fearful and anxious about the availability of their pair run. And so there. Preoccupied or caught up with ensuring that they have that their parents' attention. If the parent is highly inconsistent, highly unpredictable, and sometimes a frightening or unavailable. Then the child in that situation. Might learn to really amplify their level of emotional behavioral presentation. To display that anger and their frustration. Really what the child ends up doing is behaving in quite an unpredictable way. And. That that, that the paradox of this is that the unpredictability of the child. Isn't isn't an attempt. By the child to make the parent more predictable. And that can sometimes be confusing as a professional field going into the family. Where the parent is seemingly well-intentioned and then you have a child who's displaying very difficult dysregulated behavior. Because what you do see as the professional is the experiences of that child. When the mum isn't available or is preoccupied because she's got drug and alcohol problem, or she's caught up in a domestically violent relationship or. She's got some mental health issues, which means that she isn't always available as much as she would probably want to be. And so the child is organized in his behavior and his emotions around. It's a parent who's not reliable and not predictable. And so they can develop increasingly extreme ways to. Elicit. A reaction. And it gets to a point. My auntie kind of reaction is, is better than no reaction. Now. If you're highly fearful and anxious about the availability of your mum and dad, then you're going to become anxious and preoccupied. And perhaps a little bit controlling as a child, and that is a way of bringing in your mom or your dad closer into you, and to bring a degree of security in the relationship. So you can see that that's an adaptation. That is self-protective that helps the child in the context of that. Okay. It gives an environment. The risk, of course, in the same way as the child, who's learned to dampen down their feelings and then takes that forward into adulthood. And is a little bit disconnected in that personal relationships. Is that. The child who learns to amplify their level of emotional behavioral presentation, as in secure and anxious. Can cultivate intimate relationships where there's a level of distrust. Because they've formed a representation that within intimate relationships, People aren't going to be available or consistent or reliable. And so they unconsciously become quite controlling or coercive in their relationships with people who they're close to. And that can have all sorts of detrimental effects, both for them and for their, what, what more for their partner, obviously, because then they become a victim of somebody who's controlling and coercive. So. That's short overview of how children. Develop certain strategies and patterns and ways of behaving. That help them to cope with that childhood experiences or their caregiving experiences. And that some of these. Ways of coping often become implicit or unconscious, and that can, and then get carried forward into adulthood. Now. How does this relate to professional curiosity? So I think. Harmful. Parental behavior. Often, if not always has its roots in how parents learn to survive and respond to danger in that childhood experiences. And so. One of the challenges in child protection is that you're going to be working with parents. Who aren't in behave in ways that on the face of it. Is self-evidently harmful or destructive. For themselves and for their children. And it can seem incomprehensible as to why they might be behaving or functioning. In the way that they are. And we can. Unintentionally become quite judgmental and punitive because we can see that they're causing harm. And we want to point that out quite quickly. Because we want to be able to improve the experiences of the children. However. Often the parents. I've had to develop the ways that they're coping, that seem on the face of it in comprehensible to us as a way of surviving and adapting to that childhood experiences. And so. I think if you are working with a parent, who's behaving in a way that seems incomprehensible or a logical. Then the DMM supports you to think about what happened in their experiences, what went on for them developmentally, that meant that they learned that this was a helpful way of coping. Because it might be that the way of coping doesn't work in the current environment, but was it a previous adaptation that was necessary for their safety and their survival? And so we can take a strengths-based approach to that because we can. Say, look, you've developed this really. Ingenious way of coping with your experiences and that reflects your courage and your strength and your ability to adapt, but it looks like you've carried this forward unintentionally now into your adulthood. And it's causing you all sorts of problems. And so there's a basic idea. I think that underpins the DMN, which is compassion. Is a manifestation of understanding. In other words, the times when I struggled the most to. Adopted compassionate. Approach to a parent is when it's, when I've not been able to make sense of their behavior. And so professional curiosity. Is an invitation to understand and look beyond the surface behavior. And to try and make sense. Of how the parent has ended up in the situation that they've ended up in. And that does require a degree of. Adopting an empathic approach to the parent to really try and understand from their point of view, what the function of the behavior is. So if you take, for example, Drugs and alcohol. If somebody is taking a lot of cocaine and drinking, lots of alcohol. And it's severely compromised in their functioning because it's. They're often I've a really high and intoxicated. Or they're dealing with the aftermath effects and they're sleeping loss, or they feel incredibly depressed. And they're highly unreliable. And inconsistent with the children and the struggling to get them to school. They're spending all the money on. Drugs and alcohol. Their behaviors are. Scary and frightening at times. It. Th th the impulse is to quickly point that out and to. Kind of down in the parent for that behavior. Because we're there to protect the child and their behavior is clearly effected and the child, but professional curiosity is an invitation to understand and empathize with the parent about what do they get out of taking crack cocaine? What do they get out of taken alcohol? When was it that they first started using drugs or when was it that they first started using alcohol? As a way of. Looking. Back. When they first began to use drugs and alcohol, and what you almost always find is that drugs and alcohol was the most effective solution that was available to the often the adolescent. To cope with the psychologically or emotionally on tolerable feelings that they were having to deal with in the context of their childhood difficulties in the first city. So not only. Did they have these difficulties and adversity, but they often have very few social relational support systems that enable them to deal cope with the adversity. And so then when they start to begin to use drugs and alcohol recreationally, That becomes a very. Fitting solution to the problem that they're coming up against. And then it becomes embedded and a bit to eight. It didn't 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years later. They're still using the substances to cope with the underlying feelings and. Psychological distress associated with their experiences. And. The challenge I suppose, is. That. Empathy with the parent. Whilst also simultaneously. Being clear about your, there is. As a social worker, it too. Speak about some of the concerns that their behavior is heard among the children. And some of the implications that, that there might be if there isn't change within a certain amount of time, but I do think it is possible to be both. Deeply empathic, but also clear and transparent about the extent of the concern, the impact on the child and some of the dis. The implications should change, not occur. So. That's a little bit about the dynamic maturational model and what we can learn. When we think developmentally. And try and empathize with parents and make sense of why and how they find the particular behavior that we see on the face of it as being destructive is helpful. And self-protective. And also how that often begins in childhood. And for many children. We can also think about the child who is emotionally shut down or withdrawn and disconnected. As a way of them. Coping with their experiences or conversely, the child who is hyperactive inattentive. Engage in risk taking behavior. Getting themselves into trouble as a way of bringing attention to themselves in the context of uncertainty that people are going to be available in that to attend to their needs. And sometimes we. Can see that the child has a particular difficulty or a particular challenge. And we'll want to go in and fix the child. Because it looks on the face of it. If it as if that's the problem, but often children that just adapt into their care given context. And if we try and fix the child, then we run the risk of taken away from the child. The south protective strategy. That's helped them to cope with their experiences so far. And so this is why Kristen didn't says change the danger, not the child. We want to change the conditions and the caregiving context so that the child doesn't need to develop such a sophisticated self protective strategy. That incurs. Risks of difficulties. Further on in life. So that's the theoretical framework that I think is useful or at least it has been for me to understand. Some of the difficulties and challenges that parents experience and to that. That supports and facilitates me in. Developing or Kobe in professional curiosity. And then. There's another component, which is about how do we have conversations with children about some of the difficulties that they're experiencing or encountering. Because one of the things that Mike and Danny from labs like us. I've talked about his professional curiosity, but also that on social media, they've got the ask. Why campaign? So trying to speak to children. You might be experiencing abuse or adversity about what's going on for them. And. And. There's a few points I want to. Make about that. The first is I think, any attempt to. Adopt a curious. Approach to our work with children. Has to begin with recognizing some of the challenges. One of the challenges is there's this kind of social, cultural bias towards preserving. Childhood innocence. And so we can be overwhelmed by the prospect of speaking to children about. Violence about sexual abuse about drug and alcohol issues. About neglect. But the reality is that for a lot of the children, we work with they're living these lives. And so, although we, we have an inclination to want to protect them. And hold onto this idea of preserving their childhood innocence. Sometimes we deprive them of the opportunity to share and talk about what's going on. In in our endeavor to do that. And so that's one of the that's one key challenge is that we, as a profession are being asked to have conversations with children. That you just don't typically have with children. The second challenge. Is. The sheer volume of the work that's expected of child protection. Social workers provides a really challenging context to plan meaningful work and to spend enough time to establish a trusting relationship. With a child. The second challenge is that we often visit children in homes. And if the child is subject for child protection plan, for example, these visits. Regularly. But they often require us to have difficult conversations with parents as well. And. There's a really brilliant paper by how refocus and cooled. How children become invisible. In child protection work. And. One of the things that he talked about is the challenges that social workers faced with some families. Despite being effective in other families. So a social worker could be really child-centered Gavin, find out their wishes and feelings. In one family home and yet go to a different home. Find that they weren't quite capable of being able to do that. And I'll just read our quote. From this paper. He writes that they would become overcome by the sheer complexity of the interactions they encounter. The emotional intensity of the work parental resistance. And the tenants atmospheres in the homes, and this could result in them unintentionally losing sight of the child. So it was just recognizing that that social workers are a incredibly busy and B are often going into. Homes where there's a degree of hostility or resistance, and that can undermine our capacity to. Hold in mind the child and to make the time and space to fully speak with them. And then the third challenge is. Th th the psychological tap challenge, which is the. It's quite hard to talk about some of the things that we're being asked to talk about. Because it causes some discomfort, even in ourselves. Even if you take a pee. Even if you put aside the childhood innocence element of it, even as an adult, some of these topics are quite difficult to talk about. And there's a paper by John Byrne and systemic practice practitioner. And he in this paper. I forget what the paper's called now, but it was in 2018. He was working with a woman who. He thought was avoiding why she was attending therapy, which was because of her experience of sexual abuse. And he detailed the conversation he had after he'd realized this. And I just read this out because I think it's really aluminum. So we. He sat to this. So this client. Every time we approached that issue. You seem to change the subject. I am wondering why. He said, I stopped, began to speak the question. I changed it to every time we approached that issue, the conversation goes somewhere else. Who do you think avoids it more me or you. He writes my thing can still influenced by the idea that she was avoided, but I wanted to be kind of by included myself in the question. She replied you do. I was taken aback, but eventually received curiosity to inquire. How, what do I do? How do you notice that. Thankfully, she replied. Wow. Whenever I am close to talking about what happened. You will say something like it. Doesn't have to be now take your time. And so on. And so he reflects about how in his wish to be sensitive. He's had acted superficially. And so it's not uncommon for our own discomfort about a particular topic to lead us to avoid in that. And then denying the child the chance and the opportunity to talk about it. Now, obviously there are some children who might not want to, and that should be respected. But it would be a shame to close down that option to them based on our own insecurities. So I think. It's important to recognize the societal cultural, professional and psychological barriers. Because that will then help us understand. What we need to overcome in order to have conversations with children about what's happening to them in their home environment. To implement the hashtag. Ask why campaign that Danny and Micah advocate in for. And so I have a few ideas once you've overcome, we've overcome those barriers about how to have conversations with children. About what's happening for them. I think. The first idea. Is that we need to ask the child. Why they think we're why do they think we're visited or if they know why we're visiting? Because some children. Might be worried that we're there to visit, to find out how naughty they are to find out things and then tell that parents. To punish them to trick them. Too. Get them. Yeah. To get them into trouble. There's various different reasons that the child might think that, that we're there to visit. And so if they're unclear, then they might become fearful or defensive. And explain and our role in clarifying why we're seeing them is I think the main way to alleviate some of these fears. And so often. When I visit a child, I'll say. Oh, my name is rich Devine, and I'm a social worker. Do you know what a social worker is? And there isn't a right or wrong answer to this and they might say, oh, maybe it's to do with help in, or maybe that they're unsure. And I'll invite them to, if you were to just take a guess, because they're still fearful about getting the right arm. So. And then I'll say something about. What do you think that social workers work with all children? And they might be able to say yes or they might be able to say no, If they say no, then I'll explain. Well, we tend to work with families or children where there might be some worries about the family. Can you tell me about why there might be any worries about your family? And so that's a very open-ended question, but it's kind of going in narrow and narrower. And then. If they're not able to explain why we're worried, then I might ask some more specific questions about. What we know to be some of the concerns. And. I think our job is. It's not to Optane their wishes and feelings. But robber. Or to force them to talk about their experiences, but rather to maximize the probability that if they want to, that they're given the opportunity. And we have to confront the challenge that most children won't just easily open up about their experiences. Partly because it, for some children it's all day of afternoon. So for example, asking the child what it's like to live in a pervasively net, neglectful home. It's going to be challenging because they know no different. But also because they might be fearful about the repercussions. About sharing information in relation to what's going on at home. And so there's. A need for us to cultivate a degree of trust. And find ways that. Maximize the probability that the child would be willing to talk about some of their experiences. And then I also think. We've become a little bit fearful about being quite direct in our approach to speak into children about what's happening in their lives. And I don't know what the cause of this is perhaps part of it is that it stems from. In achieving best evidence, interview and children around. Allegations or disclosures of abuse. One of the key. Ideas or key recommendations. Is that we don't ask leading questions because it will contaminate the evidence. And so I think we can sometimes be fearful to bring in, in certain subjects. And then also there's the other concerns or anxieties that I've talked about. In terms of not knowing how to navigate the conversation or being fearful about bringing up subjects that we feel like children shouldn't be. Speaking about. But. We're not often. In a position where we're interviewing children. In respect of a disclosure where we're looking to get. Criminal standard evidence. And so to give you an example, If I, if we receive a police report due to mum and dad fighting most intoxicated. And. In the police report it. It states that they, they attended that there was lots of commotion that the children precedent and they were observed to be disheveled and distressed. That would be, I think probably a two step process that I would follow if I was to visit the next day. So firstly, I would ask the child to just generally about their life and see if they will voluntarily discuss what had happened the night before. If that isn't successful. Then I think we can ask them more directly about the police attended their home. And that's because we are in the unusual position in child protection, because we often understand what is happening for the child at home. Unlike, for example, a teacher who spends time with the child, or maybe even a counselor, And so that means we can share our knowledge with the child, that we know that their mum and dad have been five 10, or that dad was drunk, paid. Over the weekend. Or that the police were called out. And then suppose the child still chooses not to discuss on the back of that. Then we can think about an analysis that explains. Why we think that the child was. Not willing to open up about what was going on for them at home. And so. That's a couple of ideas about being gently direct in our approach with children to give them an opportunity to talk about what's going on at home. And I think a big part of. Developing the confidence and the competence to be able to have these conversations. Is around making sure that you practice and that you go out with your way to spend time with children and families. And learn how to navigate conversations, learn how to bring in certain subjects. So. There's some reflections on, on a theory that I think could be helpful to cultivate professional curiosity. With adults who are displaying difficult or disruptive behavior. And some ideas and reflections upon having conversations with children. Too. Maximize the probability that there will be willing to share some of their experiences. So I'm going to end. The podcast with a quote by. Bessel van der Kolk. Which he has a book called. I'm just looking at my bookshelf now to remember the title. And I can't find it, but it's coming to me. The body keeps the score. Which is probably one of the best books I've read on trauma. If you've read one book on trauma. That's probably the book to read. So I'm going to read this quote now. Feeling listened to an understood changes our physiology. As long as you keep secrets and suppress information. You are fundamentally at war with yourself. Hiding your core feelings takes an enormous amount of energy. It SAPs your motivation to pursue worthwhile goals. And it leaves you feeling bored and shut down. Meanwhile, stress hormones, keep flooding your body, leading to headaches, muscle aches problems with your bowels or sexual functions and irrational behaviors that may embarrass you and her others. And only after you identified the source of these responses, can you start to use your feelings as signals of problems that require your attention? So in that sense, Given children, the opportunity. To share and talk about what's happening, can change their physiology. It can be an intervention in of itself. If you want to read some more about direct work with children, I wrote a blog a while back. Called three reasons why direct work in child protection is challenging. And 10 principles to overcome them and be able to fact if meaningful relationships. That you. We're invited to take a look. That's the end of this week's episode. Next week. I have an interview with. Professor Colin Pritchard. And it's going to be a fascinating, it's a fascinating conversation. I've already had the conversation and I'm going to upload it. For next week and I'd highly recommend tuning in for that. Many thanks for listening to this episode. If you haven't already, then please. Please consider subscribing, following or sharing with your colleagues? I don't know. What difference it actually makes, but every podcast I listened to really emphasizes the idea of subscribing. And sharing and following. So I feel like I should be doing the same. And please do leave a comment positive or negative. And please, if you have any questions or queries or feedback, please do send me an email. I'll leave my email address in the show notes. And finally, if you have any questions, please do get in touch. I've said this quite a few times, but I would really love to have a segment at the end, answering practitioners questions. Or if there are any topics you would like me to explore, or even any people you'd like me to speak to. Then please do get in touch.