Designing Meaningful Conversations with Care Experienced Young People

Back in early 2019, the Dartington Service Design Lab and Snook began working with Renfrewshire council on the Your Voice, Your Way project to create new ways for young people to provide feedback to Children’s Social Work services. Our aim was to ensure that young people’s voices were heard in a way, and at a time, that worked for them. 

After almost a year of directly engaging with young people from various care settings, we identified the communication needs of individuals and the system-wide needs of practitioners and carers responsible for delivering care within the council. From it, we produced both a set of general insights relating to care delivery and the barriers that prevent meaningful feedback and communication, and the needs of those who use children’s care services (young people, parents, carers, and practitioners).

We found that it was important to support ‘meaningful communications’ between young people, practitioners, parents, and caregivers, which formed the basis of the design stages of our work. 

What we found out about Care Experienced young people's communication needs

Designing A Meaningful Conversations Framework

The young people we spoke to made it very clear to us that face to face conversations were paramount and would be their preferred way of communicating as opposed to digital communication methods.

What also became apparent through our research, was the mixed practice in relation to how conversations were conducted. This was important to understand for two reasons. Firstly, it demonstrated that practitioners had effective methods and tools, but that these were not shared, meaning that while individuals might have mastered one technique and their colleagues another, they weren’t able to benefit from collective learning. Secondly, we found that for Care Experienced young people, consistency was vital for providing a sense of stability. Many of them had experienced more than one living situation (multiple foster placements, residential settings, kinship care etc.) and had been supported by various professionals at different stages of their care journey, but standards and methods of care were not necessarily consistent across settings or professionals. 

In response to this, we designed the ‘Meaningful Conversations Framework’, which was intended to be used as an indicator of consistent quality and inclusivity within conversations, for practitioners across the Social Work system. This was to be a communal resource to guide professionals in the development of their practice, create accessible shared standards and to act as a springboard for more equitable approaches towards supporting Care Experienced young people.

How to use the tool

Building from our insights we organised the framework in key sections, with young-person and practitioner-framed indicators in each, and aligned them to the Scottish Care Inspectorate standards and ‘SHANARRI’ guidelines contained within the ‘Getting it Right for Every Child’ policy. Framed from the perspective of a young person, these are:

• I understand and can input into decisions

• I feel safe and respected

• I am understood, my needs are understood

• I am supported 

An additional section about system-wide learning and adaptation was included to ensure young people’s needs were understood and acted upon over time:

• We continuously improve the service

A glimpse into what the Meaningful Conversations Framework looks like

Communicating in a New Context

Prior to the Coronavirus lockdown, the Dartington and Snook team were embarking upon a ‘test and learn’ cycle with a group of front line Social Work practitioners. Collaboratively, we were prepared to test the framework.

At the end of this first test and learn cycle, our intention was to update the framework and ensure that any existing tools were shared and new ones developed where needed, therefore making it more likely that young people would have consistently high-quality experiences of communication.

Now, the Your Voice, Your Way project team are exploring options to re-start following a 5-month pause, made necessary by the Coronavirus Pandemic and Renfrewshire’s need to prioritise front line service provision.

There is much to consider, predominantly… 

How will our previous work fit into this new context? 

• Are our findings and outputs still relevant and able to stand true in a world where face-to-face communication may be less accessible?

• Does the ‘Meaningful Conversations Framework’ have an application within digital service delivery and engagement?

• What role does service innovation have following an emergency response?

Our concerns about the situations that young people now find themselves in are:

• Knowing that young people require safe and private spaces to express themselves honestly without judgement, we are concerned about the home situations they might now be unable to leave. If practitioners are conducting communication digitally, how can we be sure that young people are in a safe environment, with internet access, and able to share their needs and concerns openly? 

• Within a period of uncertainty, and as mental health needs are in some cases likely to increase in frequency and complexity, how can practitioners hold and support young people’s anxieties when they may not have access to all of the information needed to navigate this new world? 

• While Care Experienced young people will have some degree of relationship with a carer or professional practitioner, such as a Social Worker, most emotional support networks and signs of distress are noted by other trusted adults, such as teachers, social and recreational group leaders. Without access to these unofficial support networks, that in some cases provide young people with their only trusted outlet, what additional needs do young people have that are going unnoticed? 

How might we use this project as an opportunity to support Renfrewshire, and other Local Authorities, to ‘build back better’?

• The pandemic has shown more than ever the importance of collaboration, creativity and working in systems, not in isolation. How can actors within local systems work together to ensure ‘meaningful communication’ is happening that involves, not excludes, young people?

• Significant research contributed to the development of Scotland’s Child Social Care offer prior to the pandemic. How can the findings and recommendations from the Independent Care Review be built upon to ensure changes to local systems are in the best interests of children and young people?

• Reflecting on gaps in our existing framework, how can future tools and methods support communication to be meaningful for those with additional support needs, disabilities and English as a second language, as well as those from different cultures, religions and backgrounds?

• What don’t we know, or what do we need to ‘unlearn’, to make this possible?

Our question for you:

We ask readers to consider the communication needs of young people and if these findings are relevant to your own practice or organisation. We also invite you to share your thoughts and concerns about supporting ‘meaningful communication’ within the new context that children, young people and those supporting them find themselves in, and contribute to a wider discussion about how these needs may have evolved. A link to the ‘Meaningful Conversations Framework’ has been provided, which you are invited to use as a platform to share your thoughts, suggestions and ideas using the comments.  

If you would like to discuss our findings and outputs in further detail, or develop ways to apply them within your own working practice, please get in touch.