The Secure Start® Podcast
In the same way that a secure base is the springboard for the growth of the child, knowledge of past endeavours and lessons learnt are the springboard for growth in current and future endeavours.
If we do not revisit the lessons of the past we are doomed to relearning them over and over again, with the result that we may never really achieve a greater potential.
In keeping with the idea we are encouraged to be the person we wished we knew when we were starting out, it is my vision for the podcast that it is a place where those who work in child protection and out-of-home care can access what is/was already known, spring-boarding them to even greater insights.
The Secure Start® Podcast
#12 From Orphanage to Therapeutic Community: Portugal's Residential Care Revolution
Colby Pearce connects with the core technical team of Livramento, a residential care home in Portugal with a remarkable 200-year history of supporting girls and young women from ages 6 to 25.
• Tracing Livramento's journey from a closed orphanage during Napoleonic times to today's therapeutic community
• Exploring how a revolutionary director in the 1970s transformed the institution by focusing on education and personal development
• Developing a comprehensive therapeutic model with consultant Patrick Tomlinson that emphasizes reflective practice
• Creating graduated independence through pre-autonomous living within the home and apartments in the community
• Achieving a 99-100% academic success rate through educational partnerships and scholarship programs
• Working systemically with families to promote healthy relationships and potential reunification
• Building a culture where staff at all levels receive supervision and support to prevent burnout
• Demonstrating how residential care can be the best option for some young people when implemented with therapeutic intention
My guests, and I say guests because there are five of them, are Ivone, Maria, Bruna, Carla, and Liliana, from Lar Nossa Senhora do Livramento.
About Livramento
The Fundação Lar Nossa Senhora do Livramento (FLNSL) is a non-profit Private Social Solidarity Institution (IPSS) that receives female children and young people aged between 6 and 25 years old into its residential care programme.
The history of Livramento is intertwined with the history of the city of Porto, dating back to the Napoleonic invasions. At that time, a group of citizens organised themselves to protect children and their mothers from abandonment and mistreatment, creating the first shelter in 1810.
Livramento accommodates female children and young people aged 6 and over who are in a situation of danger or neglect, and whose reception is requested by the competent entities – Family and Juvenile Court or Commission for the Protection of Children and Young People at Risk. The objective of this social response is the protection and rehabilitation of children and young people, aiming at the following possible life projects: family reunification, foster care, adoption or autonomy.
Livramento operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, ensuring accommodation, food and personal care as well as monitoring and promoting their integral development.
In recent years, the residential shelter has undergone a very significant transformation process, which I am hoping to discuss further in this episode of the podcast.
Welcome Ivone (Psychologist), Maria (Social Worker), Carla (Psychologist), Liliana (Special Education Technician), and Bruna (Psychology Intern).
Disclaimer
Information reported by guests of this podcast is assumed to be accurate as stated. Podcast owner Colby Pearce is not responsible for any error of facts presented by podcast guests. In addition, unless otherwise specified, opinions expressed by guests of this podcast may not reflect those of the podcast owner, Colby Pearce.
Welcome to the Secure Start podcast.
Maria:In this way, I think we are not giving all the answers. We are just giving a way of thinking about the work and a way of reflecting about the work and the needs of the girls.
Liliana:In all the different projects or perspectives that we have here working in our that we are more responsible for the project, but we are very connected and of course we have to be that way.
Ivone:Most of the times in other organizations. There are the apartments, autonomous apartments. Then we have here a level in the middle that is the pre-autonomous and what we evaluate. This is a good practice because it is an autonomy, but inside the house.
Bruna:When we started working with the families, we changed a little bit and we would like to promote health relationships with them.
Carla:I really do believe that residential care homes may be the best them. I really do believe that residential care homes may be the best opportunity to life change of some girls in some situations.
Colby:Welcome to the Secure Start podcast. I'm Colby Pearce and this episode will be a little different. Joining me will be the core technical team of a residential child care home in Portugal, which has provided a home and support for girls and young women for more than wait for it 200 years. Before I introduce my guests, I'd just like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land. I'm coming to you from the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains and I'd like to acknowledge the continuing connection that the living Kaurna people, as with all Aboriginal people, feel to land, waters, culture and community. I'd also like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging my guests for this episode and you heard it right, I say guests because there are five of them. They are Yvonne, maria, bruna, carla and Liliana from La Nossa Senhora do Livramento, and I hope I pronounced that correctly. La Nossa Senhora do Livramento is a non-profit, private social solidarity institution that receives female children and young people aged between 6 and 25 years into its residential care program.
Colby:The history of Liverminto is intertwined with the history of the city of Porto, dating back to the Napoleonic invasions. At that time, a group of citizens organised themselves to protect children and their mothers from abandonment and mistreatment, creating the first shelter in 1810. Livermento accommodates female children and young people aged six and over who are in a situation of danger or neglect and whose reception is requested by the competent entities, family and Juvenile Court or the Commission for the Protection of Children and Young People at Risk. The objective of this social response is the protection and rehabilitation of children and young people, aiming at the following possible life projects Family reunification, foster care, adoption or autonomy.
Colby:Live Remento operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, ensuring accommodation, food and personal care, as well as monitoring and promoting the integral development of its service recipients. In recent years, the residential shelter has undergone a very significant transformation process, which I'm hoping to discuss further in this episode of the podcast. Welcome Yvonne, maria, carla, liliana and Bruna. So I think we'll get started. I wonder if, just to begin with, if you might introduce yourselves to me and to our listeners to me and to our listeners and what I guess, what your role is at Livramento and also how you came to this role.
Carla:Who'd like to start, yvonne?
Ivone:Yvonne.
Carla:Yes, yes. So hi, I'm Yvonne. I'm here about 20 years. This year is about 20 years. I'm a psychologist and I was invited to substitute a colleague a psychologist the first one in Livramento because she was pregnant. So that was the starting point of our team. From then it became to grow. Three years later I was invited to become director, replacing the main director. That was a nun, and that's so. We later, some sometime later later, Maria came. So I started in 2005, no, 2005, working here, and now I work as a director.
Colby:Hi, well, and thank you and welcome to this podcast and, yeah, I'm really glad that you've continued to communicate with me through some difficulties with my email, it seems, and we're all here now, yeah, so who would?
Maria:like to go next well, I can go next. My name is maria. I am a social worker. I have been working in livermento for a bit also, like yvonneonne, my role first of all. Thank you very much, colby.
Maria:I'm sorry because, I think I'm a very eager consumer of podcasts, and when I heard that your podcast existed, it was very exciting to me to understand that someone was giving voice to such a specific area and field of work. At least, I don't know a lot of podcasts like this one, and to be invited to participate seemed to us all like a really big issue. So thank you very much for giving us this opportunity too. Giving us this opportunity too. That being said so I have been working in Livramento for more or less the same time, yvonne.
Maria:I entered a few years later and my role is, as I said, quite I'm a social worker, but I am what we call a reference technician, so technical director and technical references, as we are like a multidisciplinary team. And, yes, so we have this role of managing several issues that regard the safety, promoting the rights of children and young people in Porto, which is the second city of Portugal and very glad to be here. We'll have the opportunity to talk a lot about this, so thanks, Thank you and I'm glad to have you all.
Colby:And yes, the podcast is very much well at least quite a significant part of it is going to be dedicated, and has been dedicated, to looking at changing narratives that exist about residential care that are less positive than many instances would show it can be.
Maria:Yeah, great.
Ivone:I'm Carla Carla and I have the same functions as Maria João. It's more easy for me my presentation because I will make Maria João words mine. And I'm a psychologist and I am in the technical team Since Liliana, 15 years, 16 years more or less.
Liliana:I think you are since 2010,. I think I think you are since 2010,.
Carla:I think Since 2011.
Colby:Welcome, carla. You might as well go next, then, liliana.
Liliana:Yes, we are introducing ourselves by the time that we are here in Liberamento. So I'm Liliana, I'm really glad to be here with you, so I'm really thankful, as Maria said, and I'm a reference technician. Also, I'm a social educator. I've been working. I was thinking, listening to Yvonne, I'm in Liberamento about 12 years now, I think, and more or less in the child protection, more like 15 or 16 years old, more or less like this. And our role in Liberamento is similar between the three of us, the four of us me, maria, carla and Bruna and the difference is I'm more related to the old, young people that we have here. The are related to the promote the skills of autonomy, but we have the opportunity to explain that in more detail.
Bruna:so I'm veryuna and new head of the team. I've started here on doing an internship three years ago and last year I was integrated the technical team and I have the same roles as Maria Carla and Liliana.
Colby:Welcome to you too, bruna. Now, I nearly forgot to say it, but it's just popped into my head that I wanted to confess that I visit your country weekly. Through the wonders of modern technology, that is. So. Not only do I produce videos and post them on YouTube, I spend a bit of time on YouTube as well, so I tend to watch a lot of YouTube channels of people from other parts of Europe and the UK who come to live in Portugal, both in northern and central, and set up an off-grid homesteading lifestyle, which is what I do here in Australia. When I'm not working, I spend my weekends at my own off-grid homestead as well, so, yeah, so a number of the channels that I watch on YouTube are people who are in Portugal. Mainly, is it Casabranco? Yeah, casabranco around that central Portugal? Have I pronounced it poorly?
Ivone:Castelo Branco. Yeah, castelo Branco, castelo.
Liliana:Branco, castelo Branco, castelo Branco.
Colby:I just abbreviated it a little bit.
Bruna:It's.
Ivone:Castle, Light Castle. It's Light Castle.
Colby:Yes, yes, sorry, okay, so I think look the obvious first question is if you can tell one or more of you can tell me and our listeners about Livermento and the services that the. Well, a little bit about the history of Livermento and the services that it provides today, because it is a very interesting history.
Carla:Yes, yes, it is yes yes, so maybe I can start and I think, if you can complete what I'm going to say. So our story starts with Napoleonic invasions and the girls who were born from soldiers' relationship with girls were put out of their homes because of that type of relations, and that means some good people from Porto City decided to protect those child and ladies. So we are talking about more than 200 years back and since then Livramento take care of young girls, protecting them from the risk situations, different kind of risk situations. So some years later, in the 70s, men start to work in Livramento, like Almeida y Sousa, and we can say that in that period of time started a big change in our history because the house became open to outsiders. It was not so closed like before the orphanage Orphanage, I think so, and he had this vision already about education and about the graduation of children and so on, and he invited a group of nuns, also with a strong charisma of education, to run the house for 40 years, during 40 years. So, and in that period of time you can say the pillars of what Livramento is today were started, the foundations of Livramento concerning the focus on education, the focus on knowing the world, the focus on having good results for the girls and so on. So this is till the dance.
Carla:What happened? They already divided the house in small units in order not to have a huge group of roles to manage. Each of them was responsible for a small unit, just the same way, we have technicians and reference educators to run. So the NNNs stopped their work in 2014 because of the age, because of the challenge of the girls that we were accepting at home, so it was a very challenging management for them. And then it's the first time since 2014 that the house became to be managed and run for someone who is not nun, not religious, but with the worry of having some scientific evidence to having another kind of knowledge. And that was the starting point for our qualification.
Carla:And we can say that some years later, 2016, and now I give the word to Maria, because we always as a team, is a characteristic of this team we wanted to challenge us, to do it more and better, to get better results concerning mental health, concerning education, concerning and so on, and we were not satisfied with what was happening. We wanted more with what was happening. We wanted more, and it happens in this Concerning, this idea of knowing more and knowing better. Maria met Patrick, and now I give the word to Maria.
Maria:So from then she can give us a little bit of Liberamento's story. I'm just going to add on to your sharing, yvonne, two details that I think are very relevant in the storytelling of Liberamento, one of them being that when I when I don't know if this happened to all of us, but when I was going for my interview, for my job interview in Liberamento and I was younger, I went to the interview and Ingeniero Almeida de Souza, who was the president Yvonne was referencing he did the interview and when we, when he was talking with me and he was a historian lover and a very enthusiastic person about life in general he put in my lap a book full of signatures of relevant people that had visited throughout 200 years of time, and the first page was signed by the last king of Portugal, dom Manuel II, and I was. I was even like trying to clean my hands in my hand, like I really have a relic in my hand, and I realized that the signature of the last king of Portugal was done in a day where Livramento existed for already a hundred years. So imagine that when the last King of Portugal was in our organization, the organization was already 200 years old, 100 years old, and another relevant detail I think about our history is that when this man, who was very transformative, as Yvon was saying, entered the Livramento and got this mission, portugal was living a dictatorship that only failed in 1974.
Maria:And so it's interesting that this visionary man who had traveled the world, who had like two courses university studies, with a strong vision about the protectiveness of education, opened up an organization who was very closed, also in a very closed environment, societal environment, and in that context that was also very innovative.
Maria:And then he grabbed the most avant-garde religion or congregation that he found, a group of nuns that were spread throughout the world and whose main vocation was also education, and they didn't even ever work in an organization like ours. They worked majorly in schools. And so I think this set the ground for a kind of culture that still remains, which is a culture of seeking transformation instead of preventing that transformation to happen. And so he, as Yvonne said, put girls studying outside instead of inside. He incentivized girls to go to superior studies, breaking through family cycles of low investment in education. Of those first girls that went to the university still today are very moving because he was really operating also in a ground of a strong attachment and and relationship that was built with these girls, with the staff that he brought and with himself. He even traveled to the islands of portugal to visit one of the girls that was on her first job back then.
Carla:That goes now with grandma. Yeah.
Maria:And so, yeah, so the nuns were innovative. Then we got in Livramento, we realized a lot of good practice was being held, although not very clear the therapeutic intention behind it. So we maintained a lot of good practice that was happening there, and then the residential care setting in Portugal started to change as it changed everywhere in the world. So the challenges got bigger. The nuns were getting older also, and that's just the reality of it, and so we were also concerned of how this transformational process was going to happen, were also concerned of how this transformational process was going to happen and public policies were also being set. You know, like, in general as I believe it must have happened in every country, there were a lot of residential care units there still are in Portugal and so there was a need to transform these organizations, because the consciousness of working with children and young people in Portugal was also very, it was also transforming very much, and so. But we also realized that in the general picture, organizations were struggling to implement these policies because they came with good practices, but they also came with structural changes that were kind of imposed, created impacts that some organization didn't anticipate and some organizations I'm not telling that this was all negative and not all of our organizations closed, but we observed that some organizations disintegrated and children had to be distributed by other organizations, et cetera, and so we were very interested about these good practices and good policies, but a bit apprehensive on what impacts they could generate. So I think this was the first step of absorbing processes that were being set publicly to the organizations organizations and after this, we started implementing these policies without embracing, like formally this, public policies.
Maria:And then afterward we did, but we were already prepared. We set the grounds for it to be implemented in a protective way, and then in 2014, this training that was happening in Alentejo happened, and Patrick Tomlinson was the lead person that was invited to to train the people that were, and so I went there. I was the only person from the north mainly there were people from Alentejo and I think this was a very important few days because I understood that people were building models and people were building therapeutic models, and what I found most exciting was that Patrick was building models grounded in the culture and the context of the organizations, and I was thrilled. I talked to my colleagues. I said we have to work, or try to work, with this person.
Maria:I was in contact with Patrick. He still has that group in LinkedIn, which is an interesting place to share thoughts and relevant information. And then, a few years later like to 2019, we had the opportunity to make to cap funds to work with Patrick, and this was European funding with a specific purpose of enhancing the quality of organizations through consulting and mentoring of professionals. And so we applied for that funding and we started to work with Patrick, developing our model firstly, then implementing our model afterwards, and we kept managing to still work with patrick and he still is our main supervisor and consultant in the liverment and I think that was really profoundly changing for the organization and life changingchanging for me specifically personally.
Carla:Thank you and, if I, may say just something and I will ask my other colleagues to help me. Some years back we spoke about the focus on education and mental health of the girls. So some years back we also made one application with the focus on education in order to support children to have scholarships and to become differentiated on their on their academic projects, academic way. So and we made that application and we still today benefit of scholarship till the regular, how you say, Maria, the 12 years of school.
Carla:Yes, what is obliged. So, and that is a strong basis for their resilience and as a protective factor, because they can skill themselves, they can start to have another view of the future. Something else concerning emotions and these needs to respond to the specific needs of these children with very adverse experiences in all ways. So then became this application. Maria spoke and we still today are working on that, and we still today are working on that. Each of us have the responsibility of lead different areas. Like Liliana said, she's with the eldest girls of the house, working on autonomous skills and promoting autonomy of the girls, and she has. I'll invite you, maybe, so you better explain, because we are divided in different projects. We run different projects concerning the model and, after building the model, we work on instruments, on the work, on a methodology. Inside we reorganized ourselves. We review policies as well.
Ivone:So, and maybe I let you, marie and Carla and Bruno, also speak a little bit about these different projects you lead Well, I will add something that that is not so much the history of Livramento, it's more about sorry, it's more about what we are doing now but just had an appointment, because what you share about the scholarship is a big part of our history and is very important. A little appointment is that our house is implemented in society, in the community, is a community with very risk factors, so the public school has very high risk factors. That was what invited us and moved us to search for other answers, other schools, and these are private schools. So our girls, most of our girls, and if it makes sense for them, for our necessities, they are in private schools because of that scholarship that is financed by a Spanish organization.
Liliana:Spanish organization.
Maria:It's sponsored by Naturgi, which is an energy company a Spanish energy company.
Ivone:Well, our history is made about many applications trying to have funds to promote to achieve our goals and our vision that we want to yes, that's because the vision to become innovative, to never stop, always unsatisfied.
Carla:So this is our charisma.
Maria:Let's say so since the beginning so of I was going to help explain what you just asked, yvonne. So we, for a whole year, the team worked together with Patrick on building the model, designing it and writing it down, and that was a very strong reflective process. We had meetings every week, we had material to read, we would write a section of the model regarding a certain issue. We would discuss it together, we would rearrange it and make changes, changes so we would get to a consensus within the team and that section will be closed and it would be also translated to English, obviously. So Patrick would also contribute, and so we did this process throughout the year and we ended up with in, by the end of the year, a document of 200 more or less pages, written in Portuguese and English.
Maria:And that was what we designed. That's what Livramento does, how it does it, for whom it works, and things to implement, things to change, things to work on in the future. And then came the implementation part. So in this implementation part, who, which was like two years, three years more during the implementation we divided ourselves in four different fronts and each of us would lead one of these projects. Bruna was not in the team yet, but now she also leads one branch of the implementation.
Maria:And so the four branches were Sorry. She's recovering the implementation, and so the four branches were Sorry.
Carla:She's recovering the time. You just can go a little bit back, maria, and speak about the participation process of children and staff, on the diagnosis phase of the model and on the construction of the model.
Maria:Mm-hmm. So this process was also a result of an application that the, and the purpose of this application was not only to design the model although this was the main reason why we applied and we also designed a system of an evaluation impact system. We also designed a value model, a growth and development program for Livramento and a marketing and communication program. So it was a quite overwhelming year. But, that being said, we had different consultants concerning different areas of the whole application and this also has a stream of meetings and checkpoints what is being done. And those meetings and checkpoints also had the representation of different layers of the organization. You know, the children were there, educators were there, the board was there and this was very relevant because, um, it gave a sense of commitment of every, everyone, uh with uh, of everyone within the project, and all the consultants of this application were present, and that's the stakeholders that Yvonne is referring. So it was a participated process and children participated also in important and relevant parts of building the model and they would have the opportunity to interact. Patrick would visit Livramento, I think, four or five times that year. He would participate in processes of the house, he would have contact with the children. So I think a lot of things were very positive during that process. Then COVID happens.
Maria:We were in the first year of implementing the model and so it was a bit impacted, as you imagine, and so, but we didn't stop the process of implementing it, of implementing it.
Maria:So I was leading the building, designing and implementing the training program.
Maria:My colleague Carla is, I was and I am leading because it didn't end, and Carla is leading the process of the policies and procedures, revision and adaptation, so everything is coherent and congruent with the model.
Maria:It's a huge project with a lot of hard work that has been done. Liliana was responsible for developing the assessments for the children and young people, and this is an assessment that ends up in an intervention plan, individual and family plan. And from the training and the intention of supporting the development of all professionals in all layers of the organization, we felt in the end of three years of supporting people, that we might benefit on developing a specific instrument and process to support specific needs throughout. Also an assessment of professionals, because the training is a more collective approach and we felt that, as, as we do with the girls, we might support the development of adults in a similar language, and this process was started by me because I was responsible by the training, but now Bruna has been leading that process also and adapting instruments, and we are still testing out how this is helpful to us and to all the team.
Carla:And we keep the same methodology of the beginning of building the model, Like they are responsible for a project, but then the project comes to the team. The team discussed, proposed some corrections and then come again till we have a consensus. But something it was also very interesting we work on it was the impact evaluation, and that is done over the years. So that is also something innovative in organizations social organizations to evaluate the impact of our intervention, and we do it with different targets Children, staff, professionals, families is a higher challenge to get information from families and with stakeholders also. So every year since 2020, we do it. So every year since 2020, we do it.
Carla:And now we are just reviewing our theory of change because we understand lots of things changed in the last five years the rules, the laws, the profile of the girls.
Carla:I don't know if profile is the right word, but the characteristics of the young girls come into organizations is different comparing with 10 years back or with five years back, because they are more disruptive, they have more severe mental health problems and that means that challenge organizations and the way we are going to work. So something funny when Maria said we still are in the process, it means this is a never-ending process and this is a challenge. This is good but is also a struggle point somehow, because we never hand and we do it on our daily routine of work. So so, just coming to some challenges, the other one is the human resources to have someone with the entire time dedicated to this process of creation. But maybe Liliane could explain the process with the autonomous group, because it's something very different and we have these apartments and so on, and you could explain a little bit better. You are the best one to explain it.
Liliana:I was thinking about what you are saying, ivanonne, right now and I think it is exactly as you said. It's like a ongoing process, as patrick said, that a lot of time. It is really a ongoing process and I think we all feel that in all the different projects or perspectives that we have here, working in our more, that we are more responsible for the project, but we are very connected and of course, we have to be that way and um about exactly my, my, the old girls, the older girls. So the difference between my groups are related to the groups of Carla, maria and Bruna is that I have girls from 16 years old to up and then they transition. They are in their groups. When they are admitted in our house they go for the Maria or Carla or Bruna groups and then they are evaluated, their life projects are being analyzed and worked out related to them and their families and the girls, and it is a process and, of course, in the basis we have this tool that we use, the basis we have is this tool that we use, for instance, the assessment, the development assessment, that it is a really help for us to be more connected to the needs of that girl, the needs and for her development and sometimes it makes sense for this specific girl in a period of the year to transition, to have this transition.
Liliana:For my group, the pre-autonomous group, is a little different because it is more intentionally directed for their working, for their training, their skills on daily routines by themselves. They have all of us groups have a technician reference, that is, me or Maria, carla or Bruna, and a reference educator and a support educator. It is like a micro team concerning to each group, and the pre-autonomous is not an exception on that. So I have my reference educator, my support educator that are there present for the girls to work out with the girls of what they need in a daily basis, but not on a daily basis also of what they need in a daily basis, but not on a daily basis also. And then it is like if you work like a small house in a big house the government is really, really big and and it is like a small house they have.
Liliana:They do their, their, their meals every day. They have like a leader, monthly leader, young girl Manager, manager, leader yes, that is responsible for everything that happens on that group, not only related to the. They go on supermarket, they do the menu, they do the supermarket list, they go the supermarket list, they go there by by autonomous, they go on group, they discuss on assemblies that they have weekly um the problems of the group. Of course, educator is always there to mediate something. Sometimes I'm there also and but it is more a training, more intentionally for their social skills. I can say that like soft skills and social skills to um to help them to be more, to facilitate their integration or adaptation in society.
Liliana:So they have different roles there that sometimes they are not very they they are very oh this is so responsibility, a lot of things to do, we have to think in so many things and of course this is a ongoing exercise for their lives and it's very, it's very important and they know that.
Liliana:They feel that of course it's more demanding. But their age are different also, they are in a different phase of their life. They are in secondary, like high school, or in the university also, and so and after that, after a period of time there in Pre-Autonomous, we are ongoing process on evaluation, on participation of the girl in meetings to see if their needs on priority areas are more answerless and the needs are different. And then, if we are in a good planning system and achieved some aims that we feel the needs that that young girl should aim for their life. They transition for the, the apartment, and now we have two apartments, uh, really close to livermento, like not in a mile, I think, it's not even a mile, it's really close, uh, but it's outside and the, the opportunity of that being outside, is very, very important for them, very important. Of course I'm I, me and my reference educator and my support educator are still like on behind and always present but not in presence. I don't know if I was clear enough we are not in presence every day in.
Liliana:Exactly, yeah, we are still working with them.
Liliana:Um, we have, of course, we have related to the policies and the procedure that carla is responsible for.
Liliana:We have we created a lot of a lot, some news procedures that will fill the needs that are important and one example of that is like the transition plan system for autonomy.
Liliana:We feel the needs of have documents that have this agree, like agree between the criteria or the conditions to the young girl B on the pre-autonomous group or to the young girl B on the apartments, and which are the functional areas that we feel that are really important, that we understand and conclude that are really important for them to develop.
Liliana:And some of these functional areas, it is possible and understanding to work it out with the girls individually and some of them are working out on group assemblies and so on, and some of that also functional areas like in alarm, red lights are really important to work it out on workshops and there are themes like our transversal for each one of them and it's some some of that opportunities. Other girls from other groups that are like 15, 16 in the we all talk and discuss related to that and we feel the need for them also to be and integrate on these workshops, like in a prepare, a preparation of transition, also for the pre-autonomous group. Like two weeks ago we have like um two or three, so in the last month we'll work it out like two workshops related to the politicians literacy, because we have elections really like two weeks from now and if we feel the need for the tried to be the most, I don't know how to say it neutral.
Maria:So they could ask questions know, where to check out the programs discuss their ideas and the financial literacy also.
Liliana:that is a really important area also and they have like a workshop, like a month ago also. But we do that. This is related also with that. This is related also with some project that Carla had like he's like the responsible for the training for the young people also.
Ivone:yes, so I can go on for two hours, but now I will. Let Liliana, I would like to say one thing that is something that is particular for our house, that is, the experience of having a pre-autonomous group is something different and it gives us know-how. That is a good practice. Not having groups with very protected. They are small groups. The adult is always there then most of the times. In other organizations there are the apartments, autonomous apartments.
Ivone:Then we have here a level in the middle that is the pre-autonomous and what we evaluate is a good practice because it is an autonomy, but inside the house, you know, and it's like levels that they are going to go through, and I think it is something that differentiates us from other organizations this pre-autonomous group before the autonomous level and we also Right Because the girls see the pre-autonomous group as an inspiration, a dream.
Maria:They are an example. It's like having older sisters and brothers, you know, that are in a different level where I want to get you know. They really are examples for the other girls.
Carla:And now we aim for a long time back to have apartments in the community and we just got it about one year and a half. And now another level is to go to outside home. So with less support, because they are more regulated and they have more self-regulation and self control on that, they are more skilled, that the transition will be smoother. But Liliana, you just didn't hear that about the Adult Transition Plan were built. The girls participated on it. They also gave their. It was a co-participated process. Because they read it. They said here we did, we like to be like this, we can head this. This is not so important, so can you just explain that process of participation.
Liliana:Yes, I think it is like a practice that we all in our house do in all methods and related to the pre-autonomous, of course, because, even because, even because of that, because there are old girls, so they have more critical, they are more connected, and we involve them, of course, in all the practice and all the things that we think that matter for their lives, cuts for their lives and the transitional plan for autonomous, but also the, all the documents, the, the, the rules not the rules like the internal regulations of the department, also before that, the role, the internal regulations of pre-autonomous also, and so they are always.
Liliana:We always want them to participate, because only on that way it makes sense, and we do like meetings with them after dinner, in assemblies also, and so we discuss, we distribute the document, we take the document and so we ask them to read, to give them time to think about that, sometimes some days, and after that we go again and we want to, we want their feedback about what they think, the conditions, what could be different, what they feel the need that is not there, what they would do different and why, and some of their ideas make a lot of sense, and so we integrate that and we adapt that, and this is like a reflect of the participation that we want for the girls to have and, of course, if we do that also, we are also contributing for them to be part of something and for them to be like active in our society also. So they are always training their role on society. So I think it is very relevant and for all of us, it is the only way that makes sense.
Colby:And to begin at 16, when do they graduate from the program, so to speak? About what age would they transition out of your program From?
Liliana:the abutment.
Colby:Out of the apartment or out into their own homes.
Liliana:I think I tried to answer. If I didn't understand very well, can you correct me please? Okay, so I think that is related to our law system, also the Portuguese law system. Our laws say that until for the age of 25, the girls or the boys can be on the social system right, our social system care, yes, but they have to be studying, like it is a condition.
Liliana:the condition is that they have to be studying.
Liliana:But I have my, all of my girls are studying.
Liliana:So here in Portugal, if you want to go to the universities, like three years and more, two years for the master's degree, and so easily they catch the 24, 25 years old.
Liliana:So our work is to support them on that process. Of course, some of that girls begin to work sorry to study and then work on part-time, and so they are supportive on that also because we think that it's good for them in all matters to have this balanced system and it's good for their responsibility, it's good for their budget management, it's good for their responsibility, it's good for their budget management, it's good for their training, also for the financial, and it is like a step-by-step situation that we are giving support to them and working out on individual meetings, group meetings and so on, and we have this experience that they catch this opportunity, because a lot of these girls that I have right now, at this moment in the pre-autonomous, in the apartments, are girls that were financed by naturgy. You know this program that we are talking about like social, the scholarships that we talked like about 20 minutes ago or half an hour ago.
Colby:I'm going to try and summarise all this and ask some other questions.
Ivone:I'll be doing well.
Liliana:Yes, a lot of these girls were being supported. But a lot of these girls were being supported like in the whole school system, the Portuguese school system, like 12 years old, and after that, university for the ones that want to, and we motivate them a lot to be on the university and it's like a nice group impression also because they see the other girls on the university, they want to go to the university. They have like this protective participation on school until the end of the high school and so I think it is really the impact of this programme, of Natalgy programme is outstanding.
Liliana:It's like life-changing.
Maria:I would like to add to the answer one thing that these are the girls that continue in Livramento. And Portuguese government gives a huge help here too, because if you are in a residential care facility and you want to go to the university, public universities tend to have greater and difficult criteria to match, and so for a lot of young people in Portugal they go to private schools whose criteria are a bit achievable more achievable and, in the case of our girls, they apply to a scholarship, a public scholarship, and the majority of them have access to it because they are in residential care.
Maria:and also, and answering to your question, some of the girls leave the program earlier if there is potential change in the families or whatever. Was that motivated them to be separated from their families? And me, carla and Bruna have experiences in managing processes where girls integrate, reintegrate their families before getting to Liliana's group when they came to my group.
Liliana:There are only autonomous work it out because there are no prevent. This is not the aim of return to the family. They want to be with Libermento, they want to be studying, they want to be there, and so we give them this opportunity and the courts agree with us saying that, okay, the girl wants to invest on themselves, they want to be on Livramento, they want to study, and we all the community support them on this process. So all the girls that I have are on an autonomy project.
Maria:Can I just Same?
Liliana:thing of Maria Carla and Bruna.
Ivone:I was just saying one thing, More than the age, of course the age is a criteria, but also in transition from different groups or transition to home, to society, is the evaluation of the competence. So age is important, the change, the transition from our three groups to Liliana's group, the pre-autonomous of course, age is important 17, 18, but the competence is the most important and the regular emotional regulation Carla also and the regular emotional regulation Carla also competence social, emotional and so on, and functional, all the competence.
Liliana:This is the criteria the competence.
Ivone:We work and we intervene in the basis of the competence this was a topic you just point out, liliana, about Armory.
Carla:I don't know about families. Our whole intervention with families and of course, since the first moment they came into Livramento, family is an important target, considering we see family as a potential partner, but never forgetting the vulnerability of the families and never forget that if families were okay, girls were not here. So we work in this basis of trying to empower families, to integrate families in the work we do. It is a very difficult process sometimes, but because of that we made another application. So we are leaving application through application and another application to have some funds to do the work we want to do, because it is expensive. This is another challenge the sustainability of this process. So, bruna, lead this. Maybe you can develop a little bit this project. We had to work with families in a different model of those projects happening in Portugal, because we have another idea about how can work better this work with families towards the unification, towards going back in a good and safe conditions to family. Bruna, maybe can help.
Bruna:Yes, in the first. Firstly, it was that the first objective about our work. But when we started working with the families, we changed a little bit and we would like to promote health relationships with them. So our model was a little bit different. Because we were, we came to the houses and worked there with the family In the context of feminism.
Bruna:So we, and it was a little bit different because the family wouldn't be arriving to the cabinet or a meeting in the house, in the living room. No, we would come to the houses and work with them, with the family.
Carla:And with different people of family, as well the significant ones. Yes, we work with all of the system, so it was a logic of a systemic and family approach. In a systemic way empower families in their context and fill their routines.
Carla:They are part of the solution, not part of the problem. So that is a different vision and we believe also, Bruna and Adriana, it was someone else who is a family therapist also. The purpose was this to make family to be the authors of their change, the responsible for their change, and in order to believe they are skilled and they can do it.
Bruna:Of course, not all stories are of success, but the main purpose is to promote their skills and relationships. So that was accomplished.
Carla:Something is very challenging for all of us is that the kids are removed from the home, their home, their natural places, and they were the victims, and then somehow there is an expectation of they go back to family, like if for magic, everything is okay after working with the kids in, uh out of their natural context. So the natural context must be interviewed and must be skilled.
Maria:For since first moment maria go ahead, I was um, just going to add because it might sound a bit confusing, when bruna was doing this project, she was not a reference technician in the house.
Maria:Yes, so she was not part of the team, she was an external, she had been working with us, but then she left and she started this project with adriana, which is a who is a family therapist with a specific methodology of intervening with family, guided by this university in Coimbra, with reference university, in systemic intervention with families, with their supervision and consulting. And she was not a part of the technical team. Otherwise it would be kind of a conflict of yes, yes, and then, after this project finished, then bruno was started to working with us and we also aim to make a second application to continue this project.
Carla:It was a pilot one. It was also written like the structure of the program, the model we are implementing, and now maybe next year we plan to have another application to keep going on on this work, with some revision of the model we're implementing about family. But also this intervention about family is part of our model, just like work with the carers of Livramento and with the eldest girls and so on, schools as well.
Colby:Sorry, the schools. Do you interact with the schools that the girls go to?
Carla:yeah, maybe you can explain better. It's a very close relation, must be a very close relation with schools to prevent lots of things and promote lots of things.
Colby:But maybe they can explain better than me because they are the ones who are working on it.
Ivone:We contact not just with the director, the principal teacher, the reference teacher. But we also promote meetings with psychologists and the teachers, or pedopsychiatrists and the teachers' network.
Maria:We work with them, network, special network of the yes, and also there are elements very important. The staff from the school that are not teachers, the staff from the school that are not teachers that see?
Ivone:they, yes, and they are important to know if they are well to give them information about the girls, they pay attention when they are playing or they share important information with elements from the school.
Carla:They are strategic people on the field.
Bruna:Yes on the field.
Ivone:Yes, they are very possible to us, and then we make an intervention together.
Colby:It sounds holistic, isn't it?
Ivone:Yes, that's it.
Colby:Yes, yes Must be. It sounds so wonderful what you're doing. The jurisdiction in which I live and work residential care is very different to the way you describe it. There are a number of questions that I've had in my mind as each of you have been talking. I think it sounds like to me it would be fair to say that there's been three significant transformations at Liveramento, particularly within, say, the last 50 years. So from the orphanage and the question I had was who was staffing the orphanage before the nuns were brought in, before?
Carla:the nuns were brought in. Poor ladies Two very severe ladies Okay, managed about. I think we reached 136 girls in the beginning and then 18, 19, two severe ladies. When Engineer Almeida Sousa was invited in the 70s, he said he made a revolution. Yeah, so there was this he was making a revolution, and he started a revolution then, and then it was. In that period of time came the nuns, the nuns and did those.
Colby:So a couple of things that are probably relevant to some of the previous conversations that we've had on our podcast, including about the transformation in the Cotswold community from a reformatory they call it a bore store, I think in the UK, but it's young offenders, young male offenders to a therapeutic community around the same time. I would say but the person that you are referencing comes in. What do those two women do?
Carla:They just take care of basic needs. The old girls were just very equal with themselves. They were not individual needs who responded, just they feed, they work on domestic tasks. They didn't go to school. School it was inside, only the basic knowledge that only after 18 years old they was going out, but before that they were just closed like a kind of a prison we can say. So it was a very severe thing. Yeah, um, and that was like that not only in the middle, but it was a cultural thing in society in institutions across the portugals told that the children, the young girls between 14 and 18 wouldn't leave.
Maria:So they would stop leaving the house and the facilities when they got to the teenage years, or more or less 13, 14 years, and they did have kind of workshops where they would learn useful things like sewing et cetera. And then I think the thing that happened the most, as Ingeniero Almeida also told us, was that they would leave these facilities to go to families and like high society families and work like cleaning and cooking, etc. Um, and they would not leave before the age of 18. And he would tell other things that were not very pleasing to hear, like having windows painted, not to to, to look outside to the street, etc.
Carla:So it was very much a closed institution and yeah institutionalized, but uh, basically yeah, and he comes 50 years back. We've made a big change.
Colby:Yeah, and so he comes in. Did those ladies leave Livramento at that point in time? And the nuns came.
Colby:Yeah, and the nuns came in, and he drew the nuns from outside of Portugal as well as within Portugal, is that right? Yeah, yeah, and so the whole culture, I guess, of the facility would have changed from one of basic subsistence and subservience to one of you described a focus on education and developing the individual and their capacity to lead a normal life, I guess an ordinary life, in the community at some point, and so that was quite revolutionary, as you described for such facilities as Liveramento was at that point in time. And then so they were there you said the nuns for about 40 years, so they must have overlapped with you, maria, and you and Von you were there when they were there, and you as well, carla, yeah, and me too also.
Liliana:But you was just I was with them like one year and it was very interesting because my my admission was really but good, one can contextualize better my admission was concerning their um mission was concerning their um replacement living. Yeah, when I want to play about that, it's like I'm I'm the one that was like the yes you are right.
Carla:You are right, lilliana, and they still have the nans, because they are our friends. The, they still have here a home whenever they come to porto to go for a consultation and so on. They can sleep here and they come to visit us, they sleep here, they are invited so they still are part.
Colby:Yes, yeah, wow, um, there's so many questions I can, uh, could, ask you, but but, um, I'll just go on with my little um. First little bit about the transformation. So, when that first major transformation, it was very much an opening up and a focus on education and developing the girls for life. And then you mentioned the nuns left and you had professional carers, I guess come in to the role. So that was, I think, and expectations that were imposed by the authorities in Portugal about what these therapeutic, what these residential care homes would look like and what would be the practices there.
Colby:The education element continued to be very strong, the education element continued to be very strong, the education focus continued to be very strong, and then maybe even another time of transformation or whether it's, you know, in actual fact, I'm starting to think that it's just growth, it's incremental growth and development of Livermento, where, from that time in the 70s where the new director came in and the nuns, and then what was set out by the authorities, I guess in the mid 2010s to then developing therapeutic model and, alongside that, what we would call a transition from care program. But the older girls, liliana, that you talked about, talked about and also the project to look at family connection and family reunification. So it's really been, as far as I'm imagining it to be, a continuous growth and development over these past 50-odd years for Liveramento.
Maria:And.
Colby:I just think it's remarkable, really, what you describe, what is happening and in amongst so many questions I could ask you, and in a month, so many questions I could ask you. I guess I was struck by how much of a family environment it must feel, which would be in many jurisdictions and many contexts, to describe a residential care facility as a family environment. People would think that that was not true, not accurate, yeah, but but you talk with I'm imagining in my mind girls from six and older growing up. They can see older girls who are going to going to private schools, um, graduating to, to the, uh, the older girls program, university, and that's what happens in a regular family, isn't it? You observe your older siblings as they progress and it sets aspirations, you know, aspirations beyond survival to aspirations of flourishing and thriving. How many girls kind of start 6, 7, 8, 9 and go right through and into the older girls' program, to the apartment and beyond? Have you had, how many girls have you had that have been able to make that full progression?
Carla:so in the last 15 years, there are a big change about the social protection system, because when I started and marie and carla, almost 80 percent of girls were less than 12 or 15, less less than 15. So and now we have only one girl with 10 years old and the average age is about 16 years old. The average age is different. More than 30% are 18 or plus. So, however, that was the question.
Ivone:It was? Was it the girls that enter here with six years and go through and yeah, and?
Carla:for one hand, we see, so we have some critical positions because we really do believe. I really do believe that residential care homes may be the best opportunity to life change of some girls in some situation and sometimes, when they come with 16 and 17, we don't have much time to work on them because it's different the time we have to transform For other hands. We also yes, hands. Because of this, we also. We also yes.
Ivone:It's first because of the attachment because they can live at 18.
Bruna:If they can live, they can decide if they want, if they want.
Ivone:They can live at 18. If they came here at 17, we have few time to have a secure attachment with them, so they yes, sometimes we didn't have time to to to work on that less time with more problems.
Carla:For another hand, we also have this experience of admissions of girls with 17 18.
Carla:They ask to come to residential care home because they have this consciousness of how important it is to be protective and the difficulties families sometimes have concerning relation and interactions with families. So, however, I must say that, more than before, we have academic success, because we are between 99% and 100% of success in academic progress. Although all these challenges we have, the biggest challenge is whenever they come with 16-year-olds. They already were absent at school, they had problems at school and so on, were absent at school, had problems at school, and so on. So a protective factor, like we said, is not going to the same kind of schools from those they came, but to a different kind of schools. But that means a different kind of friends, of relationships, a different kind of vision about the future, of another significant ones around the social context they start to live, and that is empowerment also because they see how this is different, I can do like the other girls, I can do like this and then they become ambitious. So I don't know if you answer your question, colby now we have just one.
Ivone:Now we have just one girl, I, I think that came here at 5.6 and is in university. We have five. We have five girls.
Colby:Five currently at university.
Maria:I was doing the exercise and I can remember at least five girls that started really little in Livramento and that are between the 20 and 25, yeah, years old, yeah, and that's over.
Colby:Well, that would be over the last 20 years, within the last 20 years, I guess yeah yeah, yeah, and so I guess what I'm also understanding is that there has been a change that is probably roughly 10 years or so ago, where the complexity and the age of the girls went up when they came in. Am I right in thinking that? Yeah, so that interests me a great deal from the point of view of what you're doing, bruna. So are we saying that these are girls who are 15, 16, 17,?
Bruna:that you're looking at family reintegration with, or are they younger girls On that program.
Colby:It was that ages. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they, yeah. And were they coming? Where are these girls coming from that are coming at 15, 16, 17? Are they coming from foster care? Are they coming from their birth family? Where are they coming from?
Carla:Well, in Portugal we are just as you know. We have the opposite rates concerning the rest of Europe and the world. So 80% of Portuguese girls with these factors live in residential care homes. Only now we are trying to change this percentage, this weight concerning foster families. So we are still very, very we have very few foster families, maybe 2% of the young people in the system, so mostly they are. They come from families directly to residential care home, also because of their age, because it's easier to go to a foster care family when they are younger, not with 16 or 17. That pushes to think about the prevention intervention, preventive intervention in the prevention intervention, preventive intervention in the field. How it happens, because I believe, if the girls can, with 16 or 17, the risk factors were there since long time back and never changed, so that is another situation that's it to to get.
Colby:If those girls are primarily coming from their birth family and the birth family are um, um, I struggle with their parents are struggling greatly to provide the level of care, uh and that that they need, it's remarkable to see a transformation whereby they can either, or both, successfully reintegrate into a family environment that is much safer and much more able to respond to their needs. It's also remarkable to think that those young people have an opportunity to complete their education and go on to higher education as well. I mean, we know that education really is the key to rising out of poverty and for our children and young people in out-of-home care, for them to change the trajectory of their life, and in doing so, of course, we're changing lives of their children and grandchildren and so on. So there's tremendous human capital built through services like yours, where you are changing the trajectory of the lives of young women. When your former director, when he arrived in the early 1970s, how many girls were in the orphanage at that time?
Carla:I remember when he came, yeah, oh, more than 80. I believe 86, 87. And then when I start, I remember 76, 77, when I start, then, when I became director, it was an objective to have less girls here, objective to have less girls here, and then we reach the number of 45, our protocol. But these 45 are divided in units of 9.
Colby:I'm just wondering how that was achieved to reduce the numbers of girls at Livramento.
Carla:How we did it. Yes, we proposed to social services to reduce the number because at the same time we became working more in individual process of the girl, with more trying to promote the development, to organize everything of each goal. They have a different level of intervention. The nuns intervention it was very good but it was a very family in a very family way also, very family in a very family way also. So we felt it was not standable. We could not stand to work with so many girls and to go deeply in the work on them. Even today we feel they are too much.
Carla:So maybe the girls are too much, or maybe we are too few, the human Christophs. So we then made a proposal, and that it was accepted to videos.
Colby:Okay, it's been quite the process of developing and rolling out the therapeutic model with Patrick's assistance. I'm just curious as to how it's been received by the carers on the ground, the carers that look after the young people. How have they received it? Have there been any challenges in being able to implement with them?
Maria:implement with them. Well, we decided that the best way to start implementing the model was to use the training as a source of gradually promoting the appropriation of people and being such a challenging work and emotionally challenging work for them who are in the front line of everyday management with the work, to absorb whatever tools or reflections or knowledge towards the work. It's interesting that we were just focusing on the changes, because I think one of the challenges of implementing the model was also the clash between recent entries, professional entries in Livramento, and the professionals that were already working in Livramento for several years. And we do still have a few educators that worked there for several years, even though the majority are more recent recruitments.
Maria:And I think the challenge in the beginning was this is not safe, you know, because everything was done in a certain way and now people are expecting us to think about the work, to express ourselves about the work.
Maria:To express ourselves about the work, to agree on certain basic things and anchor things and to agree on things that have to change. And there are cultural issues that are very positive, of a religious background and a certain way of managing things, but there are also not that positive things associated with that culture and that we have to change, and that we still have to change. We have to be very aware of things that are very rooted in the way of managing things and that are not helpful, and and so that was one of the challenges, the resistance to change, um, but I think that throughout the process of doing the trainings, I think people understood that it was more helpful than damaging to participate, to engage in reading the materials that we distributed. We also do manage the training rotatively. I mean, I'm leading the project, but I'm not the only one that is doing the sessions. Every one of us is doing them, and everybody is doing them and everybody.
Maria:So everyone is doing it and we do, everyone in the technical team, obviously, and everyone is attending to the sessions.
Maria:Uh, even the boards of administration has sessions to have a certain level, appropriate level of knowledge of what is being done in livramento and what is working with traumatized people and what helps and what not. Helps the cooks have, the general services have, the educators have sessions, and that is very relevant. Our method is this we share a bit of material, we share a bit of the model, but we can share things that are not part of the model. An article we can build a two or three pages on an issue that is became relevant in a certain point of time, and then we don't do like a very uh, like class, uh, format. You know, we share the material material ahead and then we discuss uh, what were the thoughts about that, what experiences are we having related to this issue, what did people do, what they think about, what they felt about it. And then, in this way, I think we are not giving all the answers, we are just giving a way of thinking about the work and a way of reflecting about the work and the needs of the girls.
Colby:We want people to think about what they're doing and to be supported and encouraged to stop and think about the work, how it's impacting us, what we're doing, and one of the other things that's really came through in these podcasts is the importance of doing that right through the organisation you know and across all the roles in the organisation. You want an organisation that is aligned, that has a common knowledge base, has a common philosophy or approach and there's an understanding across the organisation of what that looks like.
Carla:Yeah, something else we felt it was very important and it was a change is about the recruitment process, because the characteristics and profile of staff are very, very important and in Portugal they are not obliged to be graduated the one who take care directly with children. Sometimes they are not so much skilled and our recruitment process we made a system with the help also of Patrick is focused on the character, the sense of mission, the sense of purpose and so on, the values of people and the resilience also, because that's very important. It's very easy to become vicarious, trauma or burnout, so it must be emotionally very strong and also with sense of purpose to work in a place like this one, and the recruitment process becomes a very important instrument.
Ivone:We made about different moments, that we have different moments, methodology that we apply of support the educators, the carers in meetings to the technical and the carer or in a group, and also the training meetings and the training. Can you help me, Maria João?
Maria:just clarify what I'm saying so um, when we thought about the model and the appropriation of the model. This is the more formal way of appropriating, but what Carla is saying is that we also thought about all the of the group processes inside Livramento, and the group processes go from the start the group process from children until the group process between different layers of the team, and so we are responsible for a set of people each one of us and so we have the responsibility to meet in a trustworthy how do you say it? Frequency, and in those meetings that can be in a one-to-one or one-to-three groups, we discuss what is going on, what people are feeling about what's going on and what strategies may be put in place to manage what's going on, what people are feeling about what's going on and what strategies may be put to place to manage what's going on. Um, we also have these meetings with yvonne. We have these meetings with the ones that are at our responsibility.
Maria:The educators have these meetings with the girls, with the group assemblies, and we do have meetings directly with the girls in a holistic way, as we spoke before, but also in a in a more internal way of managing things with, for example, the assessment of their development and and the building of the plan of intervention with the girls, and so all of this is support. All of this is also appropriation of the model and a way to maintain as healthy as possible dynamics inside the liveramento and if this is reliable and systemic, etc.
Maria:it's less probable for collusions and subcultures to develop, etc, you know, or it's difficult for them to happen without visibility. That's what I mean to say.
Carla:And we also have supervision, you know, with Patrick and the team and me too, and now the team felt the need of having some more clinical supervision. Let's say and we add someone to this team and maybe something we didn't say about all the applicants we tried to have a scientific committee that could go through all the phases of the application of the projects and also reflect with us at the same time. So it was a supportive system all the time in our situations.
Colby:I mean, I expect nothing less of Patrick, of course, and the contribution that he's made and the contribution that he's made. I recall a conversation that I had with Patrick some time ago where I'm just I'm trying to think of the. We were talking about questions that you might ask an organisation or ask a group of practitioners about the work, to kind of draw out what's really important. And in the context of that conversation I said I'll. I think there's only really three questions that you need to ask and answer Maria just said two of them, but in your presentation earlier all three were encapsulated and that is to be able to stop and think what's really going on here that's question number one and to have a theoretical framework which helps us answer that question what's really going on here? What's going on for our clients, but also what's going on for ourselves?
Colby:The next question is what can we do to respond therapeutically to what's really going on here? And that's where the model of care comes in. And often the model of care can have both it can have the understanding of what we need to know and how we best understand our service recipients and also what we need to do to respond therapeutically. And then the third question, of course, is how do we know we're making a difference? And I think you talked about a constant process of evaluating and, of course, if we don't turn our minds to what success looks like in our endeavours, then all the problems just take up our attention and we struggle to see those things.
Colby:So I think you know evaluation and constant evaluation, review and improvement is so important and very much based on having in our minds what success, what a good outcome looks like. So I've heard all of those things today, so that's terrific. I know we're sitting on just a little bit over an hour and a half. I usually give people who come on the podcast the opportunity to ask me a question if they like. I probably would suggest that we don't have five questions of me, but did you think about a question that you might like to ask me before we go, because I love answering questions without notice?
Maria:Yeah, we discussed a little bit before the beginning.
Maria:So recently I mean, I've heard about your podcast, uh, because patrick told us about it, and uh, I went and searched and heard I think three episodes and I thought it was. I was really blown away by the work of dr nicola sullivan I think it's her name and the work that Sally Rhodes did with families, which sounded very innovative and very mind blowing, I thought. And so I was like Colby has access to people that are doing good and innovative things, good and innovative things. And so, since you have that access and you are doing this that you're doing, we would like to know, from your position and your lenses, looking out not only in Australia but throughout the world, what innovative things have been or have been coming up to you in the field of residential care that you think it's relevant to share with us and with whoever is listening okay, um, there's so many things that that I would um say so far, from the various podcasts with people with experience in residential care, the things that really stick out for me, one is preserving family connection, I think.
Colby:Well, I don't think. I believe that our attachment style, the way in which we approach life and relationships, is an amalgamation of all of our significant attachment experiences. They're all of our important relationships, contribute to our overall attachment style. So you have attachment relationships and those relationships can be secure, insecure, disorgan, disorganized, whatever. And then you have attachment style, which is how a person approaches life and relationships in consideration of all of their attachment experiences and how that is reflected in their internal working model or attachment representations model or attachment representations. So it's very difficult to achieve attachment security in terms of security of attachment style when you leave certain relationships damaged, when you leave certain relationships damaged unrepaired, and that happens too often in our out-of-home care system.
Colby:So I think, one of the things that has really stood out for me, and even going back to the Cotswold community in the UK where Patrick first started his work, the Cotswold community in the UK where Patrick first started his work what I understand to be the case about other such programs and therapeutic schools the Mulberry Bush School is this acknowledgement of the importance of preserving and repairing and strengthening connection with family and how those places including now in the supported accommodation facilities in the UK that I know of the children go home?
Colby:They go home for special occasions In the therapeutic schools. They go home in the holidays, special occasions In the therapeutic schools, they go home in the holidays. So these are very, I guess is full of risk, that we can't get rid of all risk for our young people, that we need to be able to manage risk, but we also need to ensure that our children have good family connection. So, in a nutshell, I think it's been, with various programs, the totally different approach to preserving birth-family connection. Yeah, and that's why I was really interested to hear about the work that Bruna had been doing as well and that you're seeking to do more of had been doing as well, and that you're seeking to do more of.
Colby:I think you brought. You mentioned two of our previous guests, maria and Sally. Sally is from my jurisdiction. I provide clinical supervision for her team and they do terrific things in terms of getting children home, getting children, young people home. Nicola is in Ireland and a secondary interest for me beyond residential care is supervision, supervision and support, and what I've noticed with most of my guests is this idea of you know everyone in the organisation having supervision.
Colby:Now, you referred to meetings as well as supervision, but what I mean by that is that everyone has the opportunity to stop and think and reflect and talk about the work and talk about the individuals where that's appropriate. So I think that's it shouldn't be innovative, but it is. Would be my observation. And look, and I don't have thank you for suggesting it might be the case, maria, but I don't have necessarily the reach that you were saying in terms of people I know from the jurisdictions in which I have worked is that you know not everyone in the organisation.
Colby:In fact, very few people in our statutory child protection departments, for example, have even the opportunity to just stop and think about the work that they're doing, its impact on them, what's really going on for them and for the children and young people that they're making decisions about how to respond to their needs therapeutically and how we know that we're making a positive difference in our lives. I think without supervision, without that setting aside of time to stop and think, the work becomes very, loses its heart and just becomes very procedural. I've said that in other podcasts as well when we stop thinking about what we're doing, we just become very heartless and procedural and that's awful for our young people. Sorry, maria.
Maria:No, that was a great answer and I do agree with everything that you said. I think we all do, and I think this is also a challenge, you know, because we have this in this structured way since we designed the model. Obviously, meetings happened before that, but we didn't think about the flux of meetings in a systemic and systematic way. Flux of meetings in a system, systemic and systematic way, and maintaining it, it's a very for us at least, it's a very great challenge because, uh, because of several factors, but one of them being that our context is very unpredictable, although we try to bring the most predictability that we can. And it's challenging not to reschedule, not to drop the meetings that are planned, etc. But I do think that this is essential to our work to have. They might be small, like short slots of conversations, or longer, it doesn't matter.
Maria:I think anxieties go down when people know that they can count on this one meeting that they are going to have in two days and that it's very probable that it's not going to blow away and not happen.
Maria:You know, and when we have adults that are less anxious, we will have children that are probably less anxious also, and so there, I realized that we all reckon that, uh, when we started doing this, you know you can always spot on people that are struggling, and I think the nature of human beings is jump to judgments and think, oh, that person has a problem, she she's not fitting in, or or she's always struggling in the same issues, and it's very easy for us to personalize an issue on someone rather than on the way things are happening on around and in the system.
Maria:And what was kind of evident to me is that we will always have people that are struggling and whose profiles might be relevant to the good work. But when the system is working, it's less probable that this is going to have a negative impact in the girls and the young people. And I'm not saying that we don't sometimes fail, I mean, and that a meeting doesn't happen. But I am also very aware that when that happens, things start to happen, you know, like anxiety starts to arise and issues that might have been contained in a certain point are are not contained. And so that's why we all of us value so much this consistency and this stream of places where people can think about what they're, what is going on, what they're feeling about the work and the girls, but not only the girls the work in general and feel supported and listened to, and that is one very, very relevant issue of our work.
Colby:Well, listen, thank you again for um agreeing to take part in the podcast. Hopefully, um, you, we, we kind of uh are able to present all the things that you wanted to present. Um, I think it is such a it's such a fantastic endeavour that you're involved in and I'm really pleased to be able to make it public through this podcast. So I just wish you all the best in your continuing endeavours on behalf of the young people, and maybe we might have another chat another time if you're open to it.
Liliana:Yes, of course.
Carla:Yes, thank you very much.
Bruna:Thank you very much, Colby.
Ivone:Thank you.
Liliana:Thank you, thank you All right.
