5 Things Foster Carers Wish Professionals Knew About Trauma-Informed Care | #TRIBE Talk - Ep. 32

In this episode of TRIBE Talk, we bring the voice of foster carers to the forefront highlighting what they wish professionals truly understood about trauma-informed care. Foster carers are on the front line of supporting children with complex trauma, yet their insights are often underrepresented in decision-making, planning, and intervention design.

This episode explores five key messages that can transform how professionals work alongside carers—moving from fragmented, inconsistent approaches to more aligned, relational, and effective support. Grounded in real-world experience and trauma-informed principles, this conversation focuses on improving collaboration, strengthening understanding, and ultimately achieving better outcomes for children.

Check out the TRIBE Trauma Informed Care training at: https://www.tribecare.org/

Episode Highlights:

• Why consistency between home and professional input is critical
• The importance of listening to and valuing carers’ lived experience
• How misalignment between professionals and carers impacts children
• Supporting carers, not just the child
• Building stronger, more collaborative relationships between carers and professionals

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Tribe Talk everyone. I'm Laura Neal and today I'm joined by Kim Matthews who's the life story lead here at the clinic and we're going to be talking about five things foster carers wish professionals knew about trauma-informed care. Welcome to Tribe Talk, the space for parents, carers and practitioners to explore trauma-informed care in practice. It's currently foster care of Fortnite, so we're having a focus on foster carers and the amazing job they do. Critically, if we don't support our foster carers, then how are they going to be able to support the children that they're caring for? So today we're coming up with five things that foster carers have told us over the years that they really wish professionals understood about the jobs that they do and the roles that they play in our young people's lives. So today I'm joined by Kim, who is our life story lead, and Kim is also a previous social worker and now a life story therapist, who has spent much of the last, I'm gonna say 15, but it might be longer years working with foster carers in a supportive capacity and also more recently helping them with life story work as well and engaging them in the life story process. And I think you're somebody who hears a lot of what our foster carers have got to say about their role.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yeah, lots and lots of comments from them. And I think this podcast is helping me think about what I wish I'd known back then as a social worker that I've learned over my years as a therapist, maybe working on the other side, listening to those foster carers more intently, listening to the the struggles but also the strengths that they have and really taking that back to social workers to help enhance the work that they do with our foster carers now.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Yeah, absolutely. Um so we have five things that we know foster carers wish professionals knew. Um so I'm gonna take us through all five and just ask for your comments on them if that's okay, Kim. Yeah, sure. Uh so number one is that foster caring is a professional role, um, and that's something we hear all of the time, I think, from our foster carers that um it is a professional role, but it's not always recognised as a professional role, which can be tricky in a number of respects, I think.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Yeah, absolutely. There's so much conversation about this happening at the moment, and and really we do want our foster carers to be professionals and to be engaging in that professional role, but they're not recognised as employees of local authority or of the government, and so they're not recognised in in that way um as a professional, and then maybe not having access to the training or support that that professional role would would typically give them in in any other context, and then not valuing their thoughts and opinions and their expertise as much because maybe we don't see them as professionals. So there's a real um kind of torn decision-making around that at the moment, and and kind of where it's gonna go in policy, we don't know, but certainly in the way we practice, we do need to treat them as the highly skilled professionals that we want them to be caring for our most difficult, most traumatized children that we experience.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Yeah, and it is kind of mixed messages, isn't it? And particularly mixed messages, I think, over the years and how things have changed as well, because um, what you just said really resonated with me, as you know, in our um life story training, we're always advocating for life story training for foster carers because they absolutely need that. Um, but it's it's also not always seen as that professional role that should be able to access um high-quality training, uh, and it should be. But then I think alongside that there's also the message that a foster carer um should be more like a family member and including a child as part of their family, which is absolutely true, but then you get those mixed messages and boundaries then as well, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 4:04

And even more reason why that training and that skill needs to be recognised because what a fine line they're having to navigate um with our young people every single day.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Yeah. There's just so much that comes into it. I feel like we could do an entire podcast just on that because then you can also bring in the fact that um including a child as part of your family becomes even more difficult when you've got all the policy and regulation that you've got to meet as a foster carer as well. Absolutely. Um, but I think specifically what we hear from our carers is they they want their opinion to count, they want their opinion to be valued, and um that's something that we see is absolutely critical in the work that we do. The people who know our children best are their carers, and we need to listen to them, we need to be giving them the skills so that they can listen to their children that they're caring for, uh, that they can support their children, that they can notice when things are going on for their children as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Yeah, absolutely, and that works wider than just life story, doesn't it? It's crucial in life story, and we talk about the everyday conversations that the foster carers are involved in. But also in the everyday care, they see the behaviour changes, they see the relationships develop. And within our trauma-informed care, wider than life story, we need to recognise their thoughts, their opinions, their observations of our young people, yeah, and really take them into account when we're formulating plans, making decisions in meetings, what they have to say really, really does matter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Where would you like to see that go in terms of that debate of is carrying a professional role?

SPEAKER_01 5:39

I think for one, it's really good that we're having that debate, that it's becoming more popularly talked about because it's recognising that need. Um, but I think it is a really fine line. I'm interested to see as much as everyone else the way the policy goes. But I think it is a profession, they do need to be treated as such. If we want that high-quality care, we have to treat our foster carers as such who can deliver that that high-quality care. But how we do that whilst still incorporating that family element takes takes a lot of thought and a lot of um co-working and and yeah, support from everyone around that young person, and it's not just going to be as easy as a generic professional role that maybe others engage in. It does really need some some specific thinking about.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Yeah, which actually brings us on to point two that foster carers wish profionals. I think they know this one, but maybe don't appreciate it, and that's that caring is a 24-7 role. Oh, absolutely. There's no switch off, is there? Yeah. Um, and that's I I think that's always something that um any professional needs to come back to time and time again, because uh for for ourselves, for example, we are we're therapists, or um, for when we were previously both social workers, we could switch off. Now it wasn't at 5 pm every day, as um every social worker will tell you, but you could go home and detach. There is no going home and detaching for our foster carers, it is a 24-7 job where they they are dealing with whatever is going on for that young person all of the time.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Yeah, that's it, and even if we physically detach, um maybe sometimes we don't emotionally, but you have got that separation from it that our foster carers don't, and oftentimes they're caring for other children or holding down other kind of part-time jobs or sometimes full-time jobs, but they've got a lot of dynamics going on in those households. There's a lot of complexities that they're trying to manage and recognising that those are additional pressures and some great benefits from looking after our young people who are care experienced, they've got some wonderful um positives that come with that, but it does bring a lot of pressure too.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah, and particularly if you have a child who has additional needs and you're managing those pressures on a 24-7 basis, and maybe something goes on in your own life, so um, something you weren't expecting, yeah, and you then have to juggle those two things, or maybe three, four, five things for some of our carers. Yeah, um, but it is a lot of juggling, it is a lot of pressure, and um it is I think that some appreciation for actually our carers need downtime as well, is really important.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Yeah, and I think this is where the system pressures play a part, don't they? And that that whole system working around our foster carers is that they tend to kind of get the brunt of of the challenges without the benefits of those support and that space around them, which they absolutely need to manage that that challenge when it comes.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Yeah. So, what do you think are the benefits of it being a 24-7 role? So it there there are pressures, but I think it also brings a lot of benefits as well. What do you see those are?

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Yeah, no, it's huge benefits. I think the the big one for me is that that the work that they do, the the support that they can provide our young person with, it can really filter into those everyday moments that our young people are with them. They're living there every day, day in, day out, and and so the work they can do, the support that they can provide, the shifts in their thinking that they can help our young people with, they can happen in those small little moments, those drives to school, those cooking sessions in the kitchen. Our carers really use these opportunities as really, really good pieces of work with our young people that can just shift the way they think and the way they behave, which is um so good for them and can really help their psychological flexibility and their thinking. Um there's so many good things that they can do. We don't even see half of it as social workers just dipping into these houses for for visits. We we don't see half of the work and the support that goes on. And I think that brings me on to the the next benefit is the consistency that they're able to provide our young people. Maybe social workers, therapists going in for maybe one-off interventions or kind of dipping in and out. But our foster carers are the ones that provide that consistency with them over a long period of time. When different social workers show up, when there's changes in the system around our young person, it's our foster carers that hold that consistency, and there's so much benefit for our young people who've already experienced kind of relationship rupture and move in from separate placements, having their whole life turned about, it really is that consistency that can provide them with the stability to move forward.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Yeah. So so many benefits from caring being a 24-7 role, um, but lots of pressures as well. And I think sometimes um I think that's where professionals sometimes need to take a step back and remember it is 24-7, and it's not we're doing this for a short period, and I think definitely for us that comes in when we're thinking about trauma-informed care. We're talking about something that's done day in and day out all of the time, and that can um bring a lot of pressure with it. It can and being appreciative of that is so important.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Appreciative and providing the support to sustain that because really it's to everyone's detriment if those placements aren't consistent, if those there are breakdowns or if there are changes within them, nobody benefits. So, really supporting that at those early stages when our foster carers are asking for support um can really enhance that young person's experience but relieved some of the pressures on the whole system.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah. Um, so that was point number two. Our point number three, then, that uh foster carers wish professionals knew, um, was the impact of big decisions. So when decisions are made, the wider impact of that.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

It's huge, isn't it? So a decision's made in a meeting, but the impact of that is seen every day in the child's behaviour, the young person's behaviour, in their emotional resilience, in the conversations that they have at home. Social workers again, they visit, they hear some of that impact, they see some of it, but they're not managing it every single day as our foster carers are. And really knowing decisions in advance, being part of those decisions, having an impact on what those decisions are, can really not only benefit our foster carer in delivering and supporting that information, but can help us do it in a way that best supports our young people too.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Yeah. Because I think those big decisions as well. So those you said it decisions made in meetings, decisions made in meetings. I think that the child is considered as part of that, but there's also other things that come into that. There's policy, there's practice, there's practicality. There's different pressures on people making those decisions. And what the carer deals with on a day-to-day basis is not the impact of those other pressures, it's the reality for the for the child or young person. So it could be the reality of a placement move, or it could be the reality of not being able to go on a holiday because there's not the right um procedures in place to safeguard that child, and it might be something that for the child doesn't make any sense at all. Um, and then the foster carer sees the repercussions of that on a day-to-day basis.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Absolutely, and when other professionals rightly so are managing those other dynamics and those other system pressures, sometimes we do lose sight of the significance of the impact of those decisions on our young people. But again, treating treating our foster carers as professionals, we want them to advocate for that young person to bring their impact to the fore so that we really do think of that when we're making decisions for our young people or their families. Yeah. That their needs and the impact on them is weighed up before we finalise any of those decisions, really.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Yeah. Yeah, because the foster carer will be dealing with that day in and day out. Just thinking of one that comes up fairly frequently, um change in contact arrangements, for example. Um, so you might have a situation where mum, for example, hasn't attended contact for the last three contacts, so contact is put on hold. Um, foster carer has the role of communicating that to the young person, but the young person hasn't been in those meetings and those discussions, finds it difficult to make sense of it, and then the foster carer is dealing with the uh repercussions of that every well, day to day, but then also during that time when contact usually happens. Well, why can't I see my mum? Why is my social worker saying that? And um, something that seems like the best decision in a meeting becomes very difficult to deal with at home.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Yeah, and it might still absolutely be the best decision, but that comes with that collaborative approach, then doesn't it? Helping explain to the child and and it not just being a one-off explanation, it might be that a social worker's explained it but needs to come back and revisit it, needs to answer some more questions or explain it a little bit differently. And it's our foster carer that's gonna hear that feedback from our young person and know when they need a little bit more, when they're not really understanding it, seeing the behavioural changes that say actually we need to explain it a bit differently, to give them a little bit more now, to hear what they're saying back, because maybe there's a different way of doing things that that as adults we hadn't have thought of that our young people do express. But it's our foster carers who are going to hear those messages. Yeah. And need the skills to be able to know what to do with those messages. Absolutely and then the support around them. Know how to support our young person with that, but also know how to explain it to the adults, the other professionals around them, and be heard when they say that as well. Their opinions be validated and and treated as the other professionals in that space. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Point number four that foster carers wish professionals knew is that carers need information. Uh, I think this is when we hear all of the time all of the time. Absolutely. That carers need information. The number of carers I think that we've spoken to who say they don't have any information on their young person's background or they don't have really important specific pieces of information. Um, and carers do need information, they might not need all of the information, but they need information to be able to provide effective care. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Provide effective care, um, yeah, generally, but I think this one fits so nicely into life story work as well, and that our young person's narratives or young person's lives doesn't sit within sessions that somebody else comes in and provides, it sits within their whole entire life. Every single day is part of their narrative, and our carers need to know what that history is to make sense of what they're seeing in conversations, in behaviour, in which way round they drive to a certain area and what that's going to trigger for them. Those things show up every single day, and if our foster carers don't know, they can't be expected to respond in the best way for our young person. They can try their best, but actually, that informed way of dealing with things can help them so much more support our young people in that trauma-informed way.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Yeah. What would your response be to people who say, well, um, that information is confidential. Carers can't have that information because um because of confidentiality.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Yeah. I'd say that our carers are the ones that are holding and shaping those young persons' narratives. They are they are moulding that every single day, and to be able to make it a consistent narrative, one that spans from the past seamlessly into the present, and then hopefully towards that positive future, they have to have that understanding. And it's so much healthier for our young person to have that healthy challenge, to have that perspective taken from somebody that they trust and that they see every day. So a foster carer is saying, Oh, I wonder if it's a bit different, I wonder if this is why mum did that thing or didn't come to contact. Having that knowledge can really help them have those conversations in a much more open and healthy way for our young people that stops so many of the more complex emotional challenges and behaviours that I see definitely in therapeutic life story work. Years and years have gone on where nobody's corrected something that that could have been corrected really early on, and if a foster carer knew the more accurate story, they would have definitely been able to support earlier. So, yeah, sometimes confirmate um confidential information is there. There are things that are a parent's story maybe and not the young person's story and shouldn't be shared. But for for our um, it comes back to that professionalism as well. We share this information with professionals supporting that young person. So if they were a doctor involved in some some examinations and they needed to know that that history, if it's a school teacher and they need to be shared that information, we need to treat our foster carers the same way because they're caring for our children on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

And it's really fundamental to trauma-informed care. Absolutely. How can you be trauma-informed if you don't have any information about the trauma that a young person's experienced? And then we fall into the realms of are we re-traumatising? Are we triggering trauma because we don't actually know um what's happened, and therefore, if we could re-traumatise, we don't know. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yeah. And one of the key things that our foster carers tell us is how how do I respond when our young person shares something with us? And that being informed, that understanding that history really helps pitch those responses in a much safer way that doesn't re-traumatise our children, that does hold them through that trauma processing part of their experience so much better than if they didn't have any knowledge at all.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Yeah. Um, which leads us on to point number five. So, point number five that foster carers wish professionals knew was that to be trauma-informed, you have to treat your carers in a trauma-informed way as well.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

100%. We've talked all the way through this, I think, about system pressures, the the struggles that we have to balance, the different dynamics at play. And these can lead to kind of care burnout, physically and emotionally being tired, um, physically being harmed, being being in the the way of like some really challenging behaviour from our young people. And then to be criticised or judged or not treated fairly in that situation can is what our foster carers tell us anyway, can can feel like there isn't that trauma-informed um treatment of them um as professionals caring for our young people within a system that should be trauma-informed right from the top down.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yeah. And recognising that when you're working with trauma, that is just essential. Like if you we're expecting our foster carers to um work with highly traumatised children, we have to be providing uh a trauma-informed approach to them as well. Absolutely. To make sure that everybody is protected within that system.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Yeah, and that comes back to being treated as professionals, doesn't it? Again, and being ac having access to those additional supports, the the mental health support, the training, that that whole system working with us to be trauma-informed and be supportive of such complex histories and stories that they're carrying as well as carers for these children.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Yeah. So those are our five things that foster carers wish professionals knew about trauma informed care. Number one, uh, caring is a professional role. Number two, caring is 24 7. Number three, the impact of big decisions is huge in everyday life. Number four. Carers need information in order to provide effective trauma informed care. And number five, carers should be treated in a trauma informed way. Thank you for listening. If you've enjoyed today, then subscribe to Tribe Talk for more trauma informed care in practice.