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
#35: What If Children's Safeguarding Began With Love? Carla Keyte
What if the most powerful safeguarding tool isn’t another form, but a steady adult who shows up with love? That’s the heart of my conversation with Carla Keyte, founder of Lighthouse and a leading voice in UK residential care, as we unpack how safe, stable, loving homes are built—and measured—through relationships, not fear. We explore how love-led practice, not fear-based compliance, creates safe, stable, loving homes in residential care.
We trace the sector’s language shift from behaviour management to relational healing, and ask the tough question: how do we evaluate what children actually feel? Carla makes a compelling case that compliance is essential but should be the floor, not the ceiling. She explains why incident counts miss the lived experience of safety, and how psychologically safe teams create environments where children can play, connect, and grow. We dive into the Lighthouse model—safeguard the child, stabilise adults through supervision and reflective practice, and strengthen the home’s culture and governance—so that regulation supports, rather than stifles, love-led care.
We also challenge the idea that professional boundaries mean emotional distance. Drawing on attachment and neuroscience, Carla shows how attuned relationships rebuild trust and reduce fear. We explore how inspections could function as safeguarding partnerships, bringing multi-agency expertise to design therapeutic interventions instead of handing out labels. From Scotland’s Promise to extending support beyond 18, we highlight the policies that protect the human connection that truly changes lives. If you care about residential care quality, trauma-informed practice, and practical ways to create homes where children feel they matter, this conversation offers a clear, hopeful path forward.
About Carla:
Carla is the Founder and Director of Lighthouse, bringing extensive expertise in quality, compliance, and safeguarding across the residential childcare sector in the UK. With a background spanning Registered Manager, Head of Care, and Head of Quality & Compliance for an organisation operating over 30 homes rated Good and Outstanding, Carla has deep, practical insight into operational leadership, regulatory compliance, and governance.
Carla has a proven track record of resolving complex compliance issues and supporting organisations through challenging regulatory actions. Her specialism lies in developing and embedding Quality and Governance frameworks that drive sustainable improvement and ensure the highest standards of care.
Passionate about love-led practice and the power of meaningful relationships, Carla champions approaches that create safe, nurturing, and stable environments where children and young people can truly thrive.
Carla founded Lighthouse to provide expert guidance and tailored support to providers navigating an increasingly complex regulatory landscape. The name Lighthouse reflects Carla’s vision: to act as a guiding beacon for organisations, illuminating the path through complexity toward excellence in care, safeguarding, and relational practice.
Links:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheSecureStartPodcast
Podcast Blog Site: https://thesecurestartpodcast.com/
Secure Start Site: https://securestart.com.au/
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.
Hello and welcome to the Secure Start podcast.
Carla:I write a lot about my belief that love saves lives. Every child deserves a safe, stable, loving home and that our residential services need support to be able to do that. Children heal through relationships and yet the compliance is the kind of ground on which we stand upon, but not necessarily in the way in which healing can be measured. When we talk to engage with care, experienced young people, what they tell us is important to them are those relationships, are those adults that showed up consistently, calmly, attuned again and again, those adults that took the time to notice and spend time and build strong relationships. That's really where safety is built and felt. As much as children need safe, stable, loving environments in order to thrive, actually so to adults. And if we think about homes and organisations as kind of organic structures, we need to be considering how not only do we provide safe, stable, loving homes, but how do we create safe, stable, loving organisations? How do we create an inspection framework because it is necessary and helpful that breeds love instead of fear? And we know that in order to create safe environments for children, adults need to feel psychologically safe and contained, and therefore the organisation needs to be the container. What we say is compliant is the foundation that we stand on, not the feeling that we reach for. The fact is that we have legislated ourselves and we've safeguarded ourselves against actually being able to love children. And the truth is that when we are so afraid to love children, the outcome is that children grow up feeling unloved. But the real safeguarding is the relationship that that child has with that adult every day who looks after them, who has an understanding of their needs, has an awareness in their changes, in their mood, in their behaviour. And what that looks like, that looks like love and that looks like care, and fear cannot drive out fear. Only love can do that, really.
Colby:Hello and welcome to the Secure Start podcast. I'm Colby Pearce, and joining me this episode is an inspirational voice in the UK residential care sector. Before we begin our conversation, I'd just like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands that I come to you from, the Ghana people of the Adelaide Plains, and acknowledge the continuing connection the living Ghana people feel to land, waters, culture, and community. I'd also like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. My guest this episode is Carla Keyte. Carla is the founder and director of Lighthouse, bringing extensive expertise in quality, compliance, and safeguarding across the residential childcare sector in the UK. With a background spanning, registered manager, head of care, and head of quality and compliance for an organization operating over 30 homes rated good and outstanding, Carla has deep practical insight into operational leadership, regulatory compliance, and governance. Carla has a proven track record of resolving complex compliance issues and supporting organizations through challenging regulatory actions. Her specialism lies in developing and embedding quality and governance frameworks that drive sustainable improvements and ensure the highest standards of care. Passionate about love-led practice and the power of meaningful relationships, Carla champions approaches that create safe, nurturing, and stable environments where children and young people can truly thrive. Her expertise in implementing integrated therapeutic models enables her to support organizations to meet children's emotional, social, and developmental needs with compassion, structure, and intentionality. Carla founded Lighthouse to provide expert guidance and tailored support to providers navigating an increasingly complex regulatory landscape. Her mission is to empower teams to deliver values-based, child-centred practice that goes beyond compliance, creating homes that are safe, stable, and loving. The name Lighthouse reflects Carla's vision to act as a guiding beacon for organizations illuminating the path through complexity towards excellence in care, safeguarding, and relational practice. Welcome, Carla.
Carla:Well, Colby, what uh uh an intro there. Thank you, and thank you for having me.
Colby:Yes, well, you're welcome. It is a good one. And what what isn't in there, and I often ask people if there's anything that they'd like to add. Um, but many people are just a little bit um uh overwhelmed by hearing hearing their life's work read back to them. Um but I I kind of discovered you, although I did I discovered you for my must for myself, not in a talent uh talent identification uh way, but through through your writing, and you just you write beautifully um on uh social media platform. They're not sponsoring me yet, so I won't mention LinkedIn. Oh there you go, I did. They shed Yeah, so you you write beautifully on there about um the provision of care in residential residential children's homes. And um yeah, and so that that's how I I first I guess came across your work and uh and here you are on the podcast.
Carla:Lovely, thank you, thank you, no, really, Colby. And I think for me is somebody once said the uh pen is mightier than the sword, and I do. I write a lot of poems and expression and emotion, and I write a lot about my belief that love saves lives, and that comes from my own personal experiences, but my experience of working in the residential sector and seeing how you know the relationships that we form with children, with adults supporting them and the network are able to really uh change children's lives and help to heal their trauma. And I think it's a very difficult time within the residential sector. We talk a lot about policy, procedure, practice, regulation, offset, all of these things are important, and no doubt we're going to discuss them today, Colby. But you know, that forefront for me and summarising everything that we are keen to talk about is empowering safe, stable, loving homes for children. We believe genuinely with our whole heart that every child deserves a safe, stable, loving home, and that our residential services need support to be able to do that. And love uh takes a village to raise children, right?
Colby:Yeah, absolutely. So um let's just start with with that. What do you see as being the role and purpose of of children's residential homes? And um have you noticed anything that's shifted over the last over the period of time that you've been working in the sector?
Carla:Mm-hmm. No, I have, and I I think it's interesting because the core purpose of a children's home is actually beautifully very simple. And it is to provide a safe, stable, loving home for children that cannot live within their own families. I think what has shifted over the last ten years is our understanding of what that really means. And so our children's homes regulations 2015 are, you know, still very valid when you look through the lens of what children need, but our understanding over time, you know, 10 years ago we talked about placements and behaviour management and risk reduction and contact, and now we talk about home and family time and adults who love and and care for children, and so we, you know, in the sector have really developed an understanding that children heal through relationships, and yet the compliance is the kind of ground on which we stand upon, but not necessarily in the way in which healing can be measured. You know, we now know that kind of trauma lives in the body and that safety is a psychological experience that we develop through relationship, not necessarily just through kind of policy and procedure and tick box and uh healing is developed through emotionally attuned adults who are able to regulate with children and support them to make sense of their trauma. So I don't think that the purpose has changed. I think potentially that our clarity has, our knowledge has, our understanding of neuroscience and biology and how trauma shapes and contaminates experiences for the children that we look after.
Colby:Yeah, so the I guess the the as you say, the language and the the degree of focus on that that primary task or that purpose of children's homes has become clearer and more more defined. And do you think that there's been a change in the experience of the young people who reside in um residential homes uh associated with that?
Carla:Yeah, absolutely. And when we talk to and engage with care-experienced young people, what they tell us is important to them are those relationships, are those adults that showed up consistently, calmly, attuned again and again, those adults that took the time to notice and spend time and build strong relationships. That's really where safety is is built and felt actually in relationship.
Colby:It's interesting. I've had um a number of guests talk about um alumni uh as such of of children's residential homes, going back quite a number of or spread through the podcast episodes and um uh interestingly, what they report is that children who have been in um residential homes generally and even uh the through specific ones that um I've had people associated with them uh on the podcast, is that is that they give they give generally give positive feedback about their experience, sometimes incredibly positive feedback about their experience in residential um child homes, that probably flies in the face a little bit of what policy makers think is in the best interest of children.
Carla:I think we can't be naive, you know, Kobe. The the facts still show that a lot of children, a number of high number of children who are up in residential care or looked after are more likely to end up in prison than they are in university, and that is a sad fact. But I don't think it can take away from the impact of relationships, and what we hear consistently time and time and time again, is one person who uh shows up unconditionally with uh positive regard for a child who builds relationships can help to heal that trauma and change the direction of a person's or a child's adult's life, actually, not just children. It's true for us as human beings in terms of our understanding and knowledge in relation to trauma informed practice. Residential care often can be perceived as an institution or a last choice, or or especially a lot in the media of um money grabbing, or or we've got a lot of concerns around profiteering, and you know, I can't take away again even from those concerns, Colby, but what I see when I work across the sector is resilience and passion and people who care and turn up every day to work with some of society's most traumatised children, and what I also see is that the power of love and relationships can really shape and help children heal from traumatised experiences in their early years.
Colby:So when you visit a home, what what do you see that um really I guess um encourages you or or or reassures you that this is a safe and stable, loving home for for the children and young people who live there?
Carla:It's primarily going to be about children's voice, isn't it? We talk a lot about beyond compliance. So, for example, if we consider what is good when we look at the offset framework, how do we measure good currently? The SCIF, the common inspection framework really sets out what that looks like for residential children's game, but how do we measure what is felt? How do we understand if children feel loved and safe and cared for? Because often the measurement isn't how many incidents we've had, but how we are supporting children through those feelings, through those experiences to uh manage and learn and grow from and through their trauma. So what does good look like? What does it feel like? It feels safe, it feels emotionally safe, it feels like children who feel safe in their bodies enough to play and experience and grow and engage in the community. It feels like children who are able to build relationships with adults and adults who are creating environments that feel and reflect on, where children genuinely seen, felt, heard, loved, and cared for, and where adults are supported with the psychological safety and security to be able to do that in a in a professional and containing way for children.
Colby:And I wonder whether um the the the standards, the safeguarding standards um that exist in relation to or the regulatory standards that exist in relation to uh assessing children's homes. And we see a lot on uh LinkedIn a lot about inspection outcomes. Um I guess I'm just wondering about what relationship you see between those inspection outcomes that that come through those through the regulation system and process and the children's experience of the home. And is there a relationship between what what the um how how homes are rated by Ofstead and the children's experience in those homes?
Carla:Yeah. And you know, the the truth is a lot of homes are a great number, most number of homes are are rated Ofstead good, and and you would I would consider that are delivering safe, stable, loving homes for children. Um the lens again in which we look at that trauma-informed approach, the relational uh measurement of care, I think is the aspect that needs to catch up. So um often in the other end of the inspection cycle requires improvement, inadequate compliance. That's not really particularly trauma-informed language. It's not the way in which we speak to each other or or we talk when we're coaching and we're developing and we're supporting homes on that journey of understanding. Because as much as children need safe, stable, loving environments in order to thrive, actually, so do adults. Um, and if we think about homes and organizations as kind of um organic structures, uh, we need to be considering how not only do we provide safe, stable, loving homes, but how do we create safe, stable, loving organizations? How do we create an inspection framework because it is necessary and helpful, that uh breeds love instead of fear, because I think a lot of the time the sense of judgment and negative language and narrative that we've created creates this sense of fear, and we know that in order to create safe environments for children, adults need to feel psychologically safe and contained, and therefore the organization needs to be the container for that.
Colby:Yeah, it's you make a very good point. We would never in trauma-informed work, we would never assess someone, a child, as being inadequate. No, as not meeting up to our standards. Yeah.
Carla:And I I've thought a lot about this. I think safe, stable, loving homes at Lighthouse is the lens in which we look at everything, whether that's a call for training or compliance support. Over the last five years, we've supported a number of organizations. Organisations that have been inadequate in compliance, primarily around Regulation 12 and safeguarding and Regulation 13 leadership. And what we see is this sense of kind of blame and finger pointing and failure. And I think that it sits alongside sometimes often this narrative around residential care that you know it's profiteering. But when we think about children in the family home or foster care, and we have safeguarding concerns, what we do is we enact child protection procedures, we enact safeguarding structures, we enact working together, multi-agency support and development for children and families and homes. But uh within the current inspection framework, we've become um a much more enforcement-aimed perspective. And some of that is is absolutely necessary. But I believe that in order to have a much more um relational inspection process, we should be asking ourselves, is this a safe, stable, loving home for children? Or is this a home that requires support to be a safe, stable, loving home for children? And I actually genuinely believe that Offset should be a safeguarding partner. And where homes are facing a challenge, then we should enact similar processes to child protection procedures where we have a team of specialists, the inspectors, the local authorities, leadership team, residential specialists, uh, those with trauma-informed and therapeutic experience to help that home provide safe, stable loving homes for children, or to consider what needs to be done in order to develop that further. And you know, in some points that might be that children need different intervention and support, but overarchingly, when we have a clear common goal, when we take away that blame language and we reframe it as safeguarding partnership, we keep children much more at the focus and adults who are supporting them who turn up every day with a huge level of love and care and resilience, uh, to be able to uh provide children with safety, stability, and love in a regulated way.
Colby:Yeah, they're they're all very interesting points, and in and it in some ways it taps into one of the purposes I had, or one of the intentions I had in starting the podcast, um, which was to change the language about around children's residential childcare more generally. But I think also I have had long-standing concerns about the impact of how external bodies, whether they be a regulator, whether they be the media, the uh judiciary or or uh even the local child protection, statutory child protection authority, I've been concerned about the language that they is used about the workforce that they're offering commentary, assessment, decision, you know, judgment about. And in residential care, um I when I see a children's minister, for example, advertise on social media something along the lines of um we, you know, our government has uh established this new service family-based for bad family-based care of children and young people that will save save X number of children from residential care.
Carla:Yeah.
Colby:And and when I see that, it makes my blood boil because I just think whatever your views are about residential care, residential child care, um there are kids that are in it. And it's not it's it and it is quite a heterogeneous group. There are there are always examples of of not so good um residential child care homes. Yeah. Just as and and and there are also examples of outstanding uh um home experiences for children. And I guess now I'm getting on my my my soapbox a little bit, but I I think that if you've got if you're the if you're you've got the power to change, then because you do, and you've got concerns about our residential childcare sector, then then do something about it. Um and I but as just to finish my other point, which was I I'm always very concerned about the experience of the staff when when they are aware of those direct messages that residential care is something to be avoided at all costs, that it is is the option of last resort. And I think the the cost at all costs, that cost has that double meaning because I think you know it is perhaps more expensive in some ways than than other forms of care. Um but so what? You know, raising children is expensive. And I think that that whole language around it is the option of last resort really cheats cheats children, cheats homes and children out of being resourced to the level that that adequately, more than adequately meets their needs.
Carla:Yeah. And and our sector has become driven by that fear-based language and experience. So adult supporting children feel that. We need a huge amount of resources to be able to support children who've experienced significant trauma, relational rupture, uh, exploitation at the hands of society. These are children who have been harmed and hurt, not what we often consider to be naughty children, or and you know, beyond that, our children's homes have often been considered historically as kind of last resorts and institutions and places where you know we're lacking love and support. And I think that's a key thing for me in all of those roles, in all of those aspects, in all of the policies, procedures, practice, in every offset report I've read in every policy we've built, every role. The thing that stands fundamentally at the core of it, Colby, that I have always been is a love-led practitioner.
unknown:Yeah.
Carla:I believe genuinely that love saves lives and children heal, and we can heal trauma and relational rupture and attachment uh disorder through building strong, safe relationships with children. And in order to do that, we need to have a frameworks that support us to boldly love children.
Colby:So, what I'm taking from what you're saying is that um the very things that um that support a felt sense of psychological safety, a felt sense of mattering, a felt sense of belonging, yeah. All of the a felt sense of connection to others needs to be built into any assessment framework when one is from a from a regulatory point of view, um turning one's mind to the safety and well-being of children.
Carla:Yeah, absolutely. What does a safe, stable, loving home for this child look like? Because you know, we talk about regulation, but actually the truth is called, we've got a number of children, foster homes, supported accommodation, we've got challenges with homes getting regulated, we've got children, more children now than we've ever had in unregulated care. So the question or the key question for me is you know, is this child experiencing a safe, stable, loving home? And if not, what do we need to do about it? Because, you know, this kind of finger pointing and blame culture of the residential sector, the demonizing is not the truth. There are aspects of it that need to be controlled. But the truth is when I travel across the sector in the 20 years I've worked in this um arena, but more so in the last five years where I've been supporting homes to embed safe, stable, loving homes model and to really consider what does that mean on a day-to-day? What I see is resilience and love and care, and people who are passionate and who are genuinely able to make a difference to children's lives and even the national agenda, you know, things that are being said at a national level this week. I'm not going to involve myself in that debate so much, but they they build on this rhetoric that the residential sector is broken and that we're you know not doing and that we're costing, and but the cost of of not loving children is that children grow up feeling not loved, and the impact of that is so much wider than you know whether residential care should be the first choice for children or not.
Colby:From my perspective, it's about building social capital, it's building good social capital by investing in good res good quality, high-quality residential care, which already exists out there, and looking at those providers that provide excellent high-quality care and how what we can understand about the way they work and the way they practice and how that can be um supported across the across the sector. Um yeah, I it is I always say when you when you improve the life of an individual child, you also improve the life of their life partner or life partners, their children and their grandchildren. That's that's the social cat the accumulating social capital effect of actually intervening um therapeutically with our children. And another thing that you said that I thought was really important and is we need and I guess it was it was uh it was a post that you put on in on LinkedIn about understanding that um that I has got uh drew my attention to your work, but is that what you just said just now about individualized care plans and assessing assessing homes perhaps, supporting homes. An assessment can be therapeutic. I mean, if you're doing therapy, you're always assessing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So have a baseline. That's right. An assessment is in a therapeutic sense is is about where are we at and where do we want to get to. Yeah. Where an assessment in other contexts can be about deficit. What are the deficits and how do we ri remediate those deficits? So if we if we want a system that is more is therapeutic, and we want that because um people perform better in the role where they have a regulatory system that is therapeutic. And that assess that system perhaps needs to uh assess the capacity of the home to meet the individual love and safety and belonging and mattering needs of the children. And I guess a point that has been brought up, and not to steal the the floor too much, is what do you do with the most unhappy, the most traumatized, the most complex young people? If we have a if we have a system that has rigid standards as such that don't move with the individualized needs of children, then you'll you'll create a a certain category of children that become perhaps I'm tr I'm struggling to think of a better word, but a a liability or a threat to the standing of the home. So we never want a regulatory system that excludes certain children from care.
Carla:Yeah, and and I think we have seen that a lot within the regulated sector. It's why we've got such a high number of children in unregulated or unregistered, we've got a number of delays in the registration process for um offset registered homes. But I think what it comes back to me for each time, Bobby, is the same key question. What does a safe, stable, loving home look like for this child? And what do we need to do in order to achieve it? So often, you know, we get calls from uh across the sector in the last five years, homes that have been inadequate, compliant, children that are moving to and from unregulated care and needing those levels of support. And the first question that we ask, we use the lighthouse lens and we say that actually, in reality, safety, safeguarding, the foundation of everything we do is built on a foundation of safeguarding. In our model, we say on the left hand side we have a triangle and it's quality and compliance or really equates to stable. And then we look at strategic intervention. What does that look like? What do we need to put in place? And often that's where our love leg practice comes in place. So safe, stable loving homes for children. And if we think about Johnny, we say, what do we need to do to safeguard Johnny? What quality and compliance are we working within? What policy procedure is Johnny in a regulated, unregulated home? What do we need to put in place to support that? What strategic intervention, what support or intervention, trauma-informed therapeutic practice, love, leg care, keyword sessions, referral support for multi-agency services through effective assessment does little Johnny need? But we don't stop there. We have to then say, what about the adults? What do we need to do to safeguard out the adults that are looking after Johnny? How do we help them to do that in the most stabilising way in terms of quality and compliance? What interventions do we need to put in place for them through supervision and training, reflective practice that help us create a sense of psychological safety for adults? But again, Colby, we can't stop there. We have to say the home and then wider. What we've been saying is, you know, okay, as an organization, what do you need to do to ensure safe, stable, loving homes for children? And we've been embedding this model in children's homes across the sector and children's homes that have been under scrutiny through inspection that who are now long-standing, good and outstanding homes, not because they've learned to take the inspection box and framework, but they've really considered their culture, their purpose. What does it mean to provide a safe, stable, individualized home for children and to help adults to feel safe enough to love and care for those children on a daily basis?
Colby:There's clearly a role for leadership in that aspect of this conversation. But before I I moved there, while I was listening to you speak, it occurred to me that some people know that I have a history of nearly 15 years working in the regulatory sector, the health practitioner regulation scheme here in Australia, uh, in the psychology part of it. And sometimes in regulation the standards can either be you know broad principles, you know, appro that we we aspire to, or they c they can be quite prescriptive about the things that um we want to see. And I think I think with the latter if you if you look at the children that um that are cared for within um within residential child uh homes or children's homes, then a a a fairly prescriptive model or or set of standards for regulation, I think, um will certainly lack nuance. It's a very new very nuanced area, potentially. But also I I think about what the level, you know, what what is the what is the level at which we pitch it? Do we live a is it pitch at the level of the the bare minimum? This is this is the the ba the this is the um the let the standard of care we expect everyone to be in. And I don't want to draw this similarity the the the relationship with Winnicott's idea of the good enough parent, because I think his idea of the good enough parent is is is but this this i is a really good one in in some expressions, in certain, you know, for example in in assessing assessing on an individualized basis, if you apply it on an individualized basis, but if you have standards that try to I'm trying to come up with language that isn't, and so I'm gonna say it, lowest common denominator in a sense.
Carla:Yeah. I think for me, what we say is compliance. Is the foundation that we stand on, not the ceiling that we reach for. And so it's beyond compliance. We do need a set of regulations, we do need standards, we still need a set of guidance, the way in which we look at that, and you know, how it's framed, I think, needs to be more relational and really considering what does that look like for individual children? Is this a service that's providing a safe, stable, loving home for children? Or in the same way as families, do they need support to be able to do so? And I think that frames that much more in terms of our kind of trauma informed support language assessment. You can't have a one-size fits all necessarily, but what you can have is a commitment, a promise. And actually, we can see that you know, if we look at Scotland, Scotland have uh the national promise. And I think the thing that I could say to you, Colby, in my whole career that I am most proud of is that I am currently the lead for the Love and Care Network in partnership with our colleagues over at Children's Homes Quality, and we are working to build a village to really communicate the power of loving relationships in children's homes, to create the framework and the training and the modules so that we can stand loud and proud and say, actually, our children alert, the evidence basis here for it, the neuroscience supports it, the practice, the research in practice, attachment theory, whether we look at all of the layers of our evidence of care over the last 15 years since the children's homes regulations were embedded, show us that children can thrive and do thrive in homes where they feel safe, supported, loved, and cared for, and we need to be able to provide the framework that supports individual homes for individual children at a time in which they need it.
Colby:Yeah, the the the the promise is uh uh somewhat paradigm shifting, I think, in the sense that, and I think we've kind of moved a little bit around this topic, but um the idea of loving the children in in your care has been polluted in a sense by concerns around what what do professional boundaries look like.
Carla:Yeah, absolutely.
Colby:And if you so so that's a really good example of where a safeguarding standard actually contributes to a poorer outcome for children and other people. It's that that the law of unintended consequences in a s in a sense, you know, no good deed goes unpunished. We keep a professional distance, we keep bat we maintain boundaries, and then what what what what are the consequences of doing that for for our children in terms of their experience of whether they matter, whether they're loved. What the promise Scotland really um um restores for us is our ability to to actually say that the ch the children need love and that's and that's part of our role. That that is it that's not a boundary transgression that that's not even an uh it's not even um poor practice. It's a it's a fundamental human need. Yeah. And if we can't provide that, then what what are we doing? What are we here for?
Carla:Yeah, yeah. And you know, the the neuroscience supports this. And the um fact is that we have legislated ourselves and we have safeguarded ourselves against actually being able to love children. And the truth is that when we are so afraid to love children, the outcome is that children grow up feeling unloved, funnily enough. Um it's interesting, isn't it? Because a lot of these policies, this is the line I think between safeguarding and love. And I've what I've come to the conclusion of in all my research and thinking, Colby, is that the most purest form of safeguarding is love. Children need to feel safe, they need to feel regulated, they need adults that are going to hold boundaries, hold them in mind, and be able to, you know, hold some of those experiences that they have been through. When we safeguard against that, when we historically, when we think about compliance and safeguarding practice, we think about have you filled out the safeguarding form, have you informed offset, have you done a Reg 40? We think about safeguarding compliance, policy, procedure, practice. But the truth is none of those things actually keep the child any safer. They inform people of the safeguarding need, they put a network around, and of course, those things are very important. But the real safeguarding is the relationship that that child has with that adult every day who looks after them, who has an understanding of their needs, has a awareness in their changes, in their mood, in their behavior. And what that looks like, that looks like love and that looks like care, and fear cannot drive out fear. Only love can do that, really.
Colby:Yeah, well, I think that's a very well-made point. And my mind where my mind is going, you know, on the basis of what you're you're saying, is if we assess for performance, if that that's that's what that's a bit like those two different types of assessment that that I was referring to earlier. The as one is the assessment of performance and capacity and and ability to do to perform us in a certain task or role. The other is about um assessing particular a person's circumstances or an organization's circumstances and turning our minds to where how what are we what do we implement, how do we support, what what what is the intervention to the intervention. And that the therapeutic intervention. And that's a that's a different type of safeguarding. One from one and and I I see this this is really relevant across safeguarding because of children, because people are talking about this in terms of what child protection system how child protection systems should function. That you know, so a lot of the time the way they function is that a parent a family is in deep trouble, and they assess them to be in deep trouble, and the children are un uh are unsafe, and they remove those those children. Yeah. But it but the dialogue part of the problem with that is is then we also know that governments and their and their art agencies struggle to provide the the the care that children need. That yeah, and they will always struggle, I would say. There's nothing that they they cannot replace the birth-family connection by and large. So they'll always struggle with that. And what what's coming into the more and more I'm seeing it um in terms of what people are saying about our our uh child protection systems more broadly is that the intervention should be more a therapeutic one. Yes, we assess, we assess the si the layer of the land as we find it, and rather than making a judgment at that point in in relation to a line, what we say is what what are the therapeutic interventions here? Yes. They get the get this family, they get this foster care placement that you know where there's been a care concern, they get this children's home to a place. And and this is the the important thing is if that is if if that's a philosophy that underpins our regulatory or our child protection system, then um it naturally follows that we're looking for strengths to build on. We're un we're we're understanding the circum what the circumstances here, not from a point of view of of judgment, of judgment and decision making, but from a point of view of how do we address those circumstances therapeutically. Yeah.
Carla:And and I think in in a lot of ways that's the same foundation and model that we and Lens that we've built at at Lighthouse. And now I remember a very old boss of mine, she said to me, Um, Carlish, said you, you you're fantastic at safeguarding children. I was a residential manager. When the kids are in your care, they're really safe. I'm working with high-risk young ladies, uh, young ladies at high risk of exploitation. And uh she said, it's like you're running around the country with a cage and catch these kids, and when they're in your cage, they're safe. But what happens when you lift up the cage? And then you start to consider okay, a lot of people work really hard to safeguard children. We've got Johnny, he's safe. We've done the quality and compliance, we've told Offstead, we're sold to the social worker, we've told the people, we followed the procedure. But what are we going to do? What's the intervention? What's the strategic intervention that little Johnny needs? Is that you know stronger keyworking, attuned adults? Is it, you know, referral pathway, mental health support, you know, is it that he needs uh education, different care planning aspects? But then not only what intervention does little Johnny need, what intervention do the adults need to be able to provide a safe, stable, loving home to be emotionally and psychologically contained and safe to do so. So the two things can't be separate. We used to teach our adults, and and and there is a contrary to it in our safeguarding policies, in our professional boundaries, leave yourself at the door. Don't be behind a closed door with a child, don't hug a child, God forbid you tell them that you love them or that you care for them or you might buy them a small gift when you go on holiday. And all of these safeguarding policies and procedures, Gobby, they they were built to safeguard our children from predators through the last 15 years, where we've seen, you know, serious and significant um child protection cases in our media across our country, across the world, across our sector. Failure upon failure is if you would have it to believe that way. But we've created all of these policies that do safeguard children, but inadvertently they safeguard them from being loved and supported because 15-year-old boys aren't sitting in the living room in front of numerous adults talking about their feelings and crying in their trauma, and they're crying at three o'clock in the morning in their bedroom with an adult who's taken the time to build a relationship, and the door probably is going to be closed, and you probably are going to be sat on the bedroom floor crying and feeling and experiencing. And once upon a time, we were told, you know, don't bring the emotion, it's not effective safeguarding. But children need adults that show up for them, that care for them, that love them, that hold them in mind, that build trust and build a sense of safety, not just in tick boxes, not just on paper. The paper that you, the poem that you read, I think, you know, we don't require improvement, we require understanding, understanding that children have experienced trauma, understanding that adults holding that is messy, understanding that leaders need an incredible amount of resilience, and yet often we, you know, we fail to understand the trauma, the need for love, the investment that that takes to show up every day. It's one of the most difficult jobs that I have ever done, and I am have never been so proud to stand here today in that capacity as my lead for loving care. I've been an effective safeguarding uh practitioner, I've driven changes in quality and compliance and offstead inspection. The regulatory framework is important, but at the heart of it all, if we don't keep the love, if we don't reclaim it, if we don't say it out loud, if we is there in our regulatory framework and coming all the way back round, you know, Colby, we talked about the promise in Scotland. I believe that we should go one step further. And I call on, you know, the UK government to invest in every child having a safe, stable, loving home, whether those children are in foster care, whether those children are unaccompanied asylum seekers, children living in residential homes or supported accommodation. And I urge our government to go one step further and say care doesn't stop at 16 or 18. Children, you know, we talk about transitions and independence, but actually the reality is children, adults, human beings need sustaining loving relationships. And one person who loves you unconditionally can build resilience, can shape your future, and can help to help children overcome the trauma that they have experienced so that they can go on to live, you know, really fulfilling uh lives and and to break that aspect of, as we talked about earlier, intergenerational trauma. It's a big thing there, Colby.
Colby:Yeah, yeah. So, Carla, it's it has been a real uh pleasure, joy to have you on the podcast and discuss these matters with you. Is there any final thoughts that you would like to uh leave our listeners or watchers with?
Carla:Yeah, I think that's it. There's one real message from this conversation. I hope it's this, Colby, because children don't heal in systems, they heal in safe, stable, loving homes, um, held by adults and leadership that feel safe enough to stay open and steady enough to kind of stay present through these experiences, you know, through the difficult times and to stand with them. So I think you know, we don't need harsher systems, we actually need a more understanding one. We don't require improvement, we require understanding because when we build homes where love is protected, we have clear evidence that love saves lives.
Colby:Yeah. Wonderful, thank you. Thank you very much, Kamala, and uh yeah, thank you for coming on the pod.
Carla:Lovely, thank you, Colby.
