Difficult Conversations: supporting discussions about care
Parents, carers, professionals and children and young people together
The Project
Difficult Conversations has worked with children and adults to co-create training tools to help adoptive parents, foster carers and social workers deal honestly and directly with difficult questions from the children in their care. They can help children build secure and positive identities and approach conversations around life story confidently, with curiosity and kindness.
As the adults responsible for children, we need to be as relaxed and skilled as possible when questions occur, in the knowledge that our physical and verbal response can set the tone for future interactions about life story. In a split second the hyper-aware child will decide: Can I talk about this without damaging my relationship with this parent/carer/ social worker? Do I feel safe talking about my past with this person? Is talking about it going to help me feel better? Will I be listened to? Will I be believed?
Introducing
About
How it works
Frequently Asked Questions
If you cannot access any resources, you may need to check that your sign up process and license completion has been successful. In order for you to be able to access our resources we require you to both sign up using the website and to complete our license agreement. At this point, your application will be reviewed by a member of the team. We recommend that you try to login again in a few working days, but if you have any questions reach out to us.
If you are attempting to download our resources using a device that is administered by your organisation (i.e., a work computer or any device using your organisation’s network connection), you may be prohibited from doing so. In this instance, on each resource there is the option to print using your web browser.
Resources
The difficult conversation resources are available to all practitioners looking to run training courses on difficult conversations associated with adoption and foster care. A sample selection of resources are available below, for full access please fill in the registration form. Once submitted, one of the team will approve the form and grant you access to the full library of resources.
Team
Alison Crowther
Facilitator
Alison Crowther is a process designer, facilitator and advocate for using participatory working to find sustainable solutions to complex problems. She believes in talking about things that bother us or will bother in the future us if we don’t sort it out. Originally working with stakeholders in conflict resolution around “wicked” environmental and social issues, she pioneered involving the public in creating national policy in the early 2000s with Sciencewise, part of UKRI. After studying positive psychology and coaching, she now heads an organisation called MadeToLast Resilience, helping to build resilience in individuals, organisations and communities to climate related shocks and stresses. She also encourages small, kinder and transformative “difficult conversations” on issues people commonly avoid in family and community settings, using simple tools like the game “What’s in your box?” to allow the lightest touch to make large changes in mind and behaviour. Alison is Chair of The Belay Foundation, a UK charity which places help in the homes of adopters who are facing challenges in their families.
Prof. Debbie Watson
Academic Lead
Professor Debbie Watson is the lead academic for the project. She is a Professor of Child and Family Welfare in the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol. She has been researching life story work for children in care and those who become adopted for several years and led the AHRC funded ‘trove’ project that has produced a prototype of a storage bag with an integrated storying app that allows children to upload their own stories to loved objects as part of their life story work. She has co-authored a number of articles on the topic of life story work, life story books, object importance and has led many projects with children, families and professionals.
Dr Eleanor Staples
Researcher
Dr Eleanor Staples is a researcher in the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol. She has particular interests and expertise in research with marginalised children, young people and families; creative and visual qualitative methods and social policy analysis. She has worked on several research project involving children and young people in care and has co-authored a number of articles on ‘looked after’ children and care leavers, research methods, and co-producing research with participants.
Katie Riches
Researcher
Katie Riches qualified as a social worker in 2004 and has worked in children and families teams in both the statutory and voluntary sector. Katie joined the University of Bristol in 2014 as a research associate on the C-Change project which developed and piloted a framework for social workers to use when assessing parental capacity to change, and continues to research this area through her PhD studies. Katie is also a facilitator for the Practice Supervisor Development Programme and occasionally lectures on the Social Work courses at the University of Bristol.
Partners
At MadeToLast Resilience we help people have effective, ‘difficult’ conversations which help them plan, practically and emotionally, for their best possible futures. We work with leaders and teams to deliver participative workshops and training around complex, uncertain issues like flooding, future planning, climate change and responses to emergencies. We teach the skills we all need to navigate successful paths and help people think widely about including the right people and making messages easy to hear and play around with. We also run positive, fun projects in streets and communities incorporating storytelling, art, science and food, whilst considering people’s individual responses to danger (how would you fare in a zombie invasion? – a kid’s favourite). We help people put in place practical, communication and emotional strategies that help to destress potential emergencies. We speak at workshops and conferences telling inspiring stories of the future, whilst being that listening, gentle person in the room, ready to hear and support and sometimes say things you think you don’t want to hear…
CCS Adoption is an experienced voluntary adoption agency based in Bristol which has been finding permanent, loving families for children who need them since 1904. CCS has developed and delivered its own specialized life story work service Sharing Stories. The focus of the Sharing Stories model is the quality and depth of the life story information gathered from birth family members (or anyone significant to the child) and the empowerment of the adopters to feel equipped to work with their children about their life story throughout the life course. CCS was therefore delighted to work with the University of Bristol and its other partners on the Difficult Conversations Project.
CoramBAAF is a membership organisation for local authorities and the voluntary and independent sector that provides a range of services that develop, promote and enable best multi-disciplinary policy and practice in child and family placement practice. CoramBAAF’s activities include: publications; training, conferences and consultancy; advice; and campaigning.
Gloucestershire County Council fostering service is a not for profit service placing children of all ages with fostering families in the county. We aim to create stable homes and safe environments for Gloucestershire children locally, so that they can retain good school links and relationship networks to give them the best support they need. Our carers receive high quality support and training as well as benefits, discounts and competitive pay. Our priority is to put children and young people at the heart of everything, so listening to them, their experiences and ideas is critical. We are delighted to support the University of Bristol in co-developing learning tools and practice improvements that will benefit all our young people.
Testimonials
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Events Calendar
You can find events hosted by our project partners and organisations involved in our network by using the calendar below. If you are a verified member of the Difficult Conversations site and you have logged into your account, please select the ‘Add Calendar Event’ button later in this section in order to add your own event to the calendar.
After you have completed your event, we require you to submit a feedback evaluation form in order to better understand the use and value of the resources during your session. Once again, if you are a verified member of this site and logged into your account, find the ‘Submit Event Evaluation’ button below.
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Events
