Transcription: Framing In Practice: Highland Council, Residential Care and Wider Culture Change (Series 2, Episode 1)

Michael Wield (Each and Every Child)
Welcome to the Each and Every Child podcast. I'm Michael Wield, the Each and Every Child Programme Officer.

Each and Every Child is all about exploring different ways to speak about care experience and the care system in order to shift public understanding and to counter stigma and discrimination. We have eight evidence-based recommendations that have been robustly tested to do this across Scotland. For more information about the Each and Every Child initiative, please see the show notes for each episode.

This podcast series will be focused on how the research and framing recommendations are supporting practise change across Scotland as we work to Keep The Promise. We will be hearing from individuals and organisations across the country to discuss the work they're doing to tackle stigma and discrimination, to share different examples of how framing can be used to affect real change.

So today, we're delighted to be joined by Carrie McLaughlin, who is the Programme Manager for The Promise at the Highland Council. Carrie will share with us the importance of meaningful partnership working and how we can better support the workforce to take the lead in changing practice to improve the lives of our young people, families and wider community. We've been delighted to work alongside Carrie on a couple of really interesting projects over the past few years, learning from the staff teams about how we can best support change, utilising the practical application of the framing recommendations. Firstly though, I wondered if you wanted to speak a little bit about your role at the Council, Carrie?

Carrie McLaughlan (Highland Council)
Yeah. Thanks, Michael. Yeah, I work in the Council, but I primarily work within health and social care, and I have done for the last two years, actually nearly three. It was originally a seconded post to really try and support the Highland Council reach its aspirations around keeping the promise.

And a lot of my work is either trying to get people on board with new ways of working, signing up to different types of projects, but also really trying to drive some of the strategic change that we know we need to do in order to Keep The Promise by 20-30.
Michael Wield (Each and Every Child)

Thank you so much. So I wondered if you could first tell us a little bit about the language guide that you developed at the Highland Council, so a little bit about what it is, how did it come about? How will you hope that people will use it and what is the impact that you hope that it will have?

Carrie McLaughlan (Highland Council)
Yeah, of course. So the journey (and it very much was a journey that we went on when it came to producing the guide), started off through some conversations with different partners, with police, social care, health, education, third sector, and I guess a bit of an acknowledgement that we were recognising that the way in which we write primarily about children, didn't feel particularly trauma informed. It certainly wasn't in line with the aspirations of The Promise. And there was this recognition that we needed to do something different. And we started to meet fairly regularly as a partnership group and we were supported through, (at the time) our Child Protection Committee, to meet together and to think about what we wanted to do and we actually decided at the beginning to create a language bin which was an opportunity for contributions across the partnership as well as from our children and young people about the words that we shouldn't use any more that if we could just chuck in the bin, we would. And it was a really interesting process because, we absolutely acknowledge that a lot of this work was really around supporting children with care experience, but we also acknowledged that it was bigger and broader than that, that it wasn't just about children and young people who had experience of care. There was a broader agenda there and thinking about our stigmatising language across partners, particularly thinking about families as well.

And the bin itself was never... Well, it was always more about the process than the end product.
It was always more about creating a space to provoke thought, to challenge ourselves about our own habits, about the words that we've just got into the habit of using because we've worked with system language for so long. Rather than it be about, here are the words we're telling you that you can't use.

But in the journey and when we thought about what we wanted to do with everything that came up out of that language bin, a lot of people said we do want some advice on alternative suggestions. If there are certain things that we shouldn't be using, what else should we use? So we agreed that we would create a language guide and the bin features in our guide but we were very clear that it needed to highlight principles rather than an exhaustive list of words that we want to change. One: because those words change over time and also the language that we use was very much about being relational, and dependent on what a child or a family would prefer. Rather than anybody deciding what's right or what's wrong. And we had lots of beautiful examples of why that was so important. So, the guide was developed through really good partnership collaboration as well as engagement with our children, our young people and our families.

We wanted to make sure that was accessible to all partners, so although within the Council, it's available through our own kind of learning and development modules, it's also available to any partnership that's interested in doing it. We've hoped that it will be kind of built into an induction process for any organisation. That's how we're using it within the Council. And we know other other organisations and partners are doing a similar similar idea. And I suppose in terms of the impact that we hope it has, it's about shifting culture and shifting attitudes.
But it's also about challenging us all about system language that we've just got into habit of using and really hoping that those who engage with the guide, I guess, recognise how important language is. And when we don't get it right, the impact that that has on our children and families, so we want to turn that into a more positive experience.

Michael Wield (Each and Every Child)
Thank you so much. It's so interesting to hear about the multi agency work, the partnership working that you've been doing, but absolutely about that... It's not just the words, but it's about the principles... the thoughts and the feelings about the words that we're using and about how we can tackle stigma and discrimination in that way. So yeah, absolutely. Thank you.
Can you also tell us a bit more about the tests of change that you undertook with the two Highland residential homes? So what was the purpose of this test of change and and what did you learn through that?

Carrie McLaughlan (Highland Council)
Yeah, so this has been, I think, a really exciting and really encouraging piece of work. What we wanted to do is we wanted to explore a piece of practise that I know lots of other local authorities are using, (not just local authorities, lots of other organisations working with children and young people). And that was about writing daily notes or observations or whatever term we want to use about children, but writing them directly to the child. And we knew that there was pieces of practise across Highland where some teams were doing that. So on our, you know, on our recording systems, if a social worker, for example, had been to meet with a young person, they might write that note up directly to the child. So, "hi! We saw each other today. This is what you told me", etcetera, etcetera. But we wanted to test that out because we didn't know if that was the right way to practise. And we also knew that there was inconsistency across our services. Some teams had adopted it, some hadn't, some didn't like it, some did.

So, we decided to look at using a kind of test to change methodology with two different homes who work very differently with children in primarily because the needs are very different. So, one home we wanted to work with were with children who have learning disabilities with one particular young person who's nonverbal, and we wanted to explore how do you really capture the voice of children and young people when they don't necessarily have verbal communication? And I guess, I kind of highlighted the purpose in, in terms of testing out writing directly to the child, is this, is this something that is positive. Is it a more trauma informed way of working?

And so we met with those two different teams and by using a kind of quality improvement lens, we invited those teams to think about the change they want to make. So we didn't say, "You need to start writing directly to the child.

We said what change do you think you might like to make? And interestingly, it did include writing directly to the child, but it included other changes as well. Things like acknowledging that maybe the templates that had been previously created for different homes weren't always as individual as they needed to be for children and young people. So I guess in the most simplest way of explaining this, this feeling that staff are having to fit things into boxes rather than it be quite needs led. That led to various different changes happening across those two teams.
I think we learnt a lot from that and we're still trying to capture what we've learnt from some of those tests to change, if I'm perfectly honest. The kind of main messages were that, if we're going to make a change for our young people and our children, then we need to support staff to do that and this blanket approach of just write directly to the child wasn't going to be the thing that made the difference. And we know that because when we've explored with the teams that we were working with what they really needed: they needed scaffolding. They needed an opportunity to learn from each other. Some of the changes that they all had signed up to make - nobody told them they had to do it. It was... it was hopefully felt like it was quite organic and led by the team and led by what young people might want as well.

There was this sense that actually they needed to learn from each other and where other teams have tried to implement the change, but without that support or training or scaffolding, there's some suggestion that actually the change that they've made aren't really in line with, kind of better practise. So, writing to the child in a daily note doesn't mean it's immediately trauma informed. Writing a daily note to a child doesn't necessarily mean it feels less stigmatising. And there are examples where even writing to the child has sometimes felt quite shaming for the child to read. And that to us really highlighted the importance of the support that we gave teams. So, when we started those tests of change, and we explored what might be useful, the team acknowledged that they would like a bit more support and as you know, you guys from Each and Every Child joined us in person for two different sessions. And that was hugely helpful for the team to see the broader aspects of language and why this is so important, rather than it being about just do something different. They were able to see it in a context that was really, really helpful and that was the feedback that we that we got from the teams as well.

What we then need to think about then moving forward is how do we spread that? So we've learned lots and two different teams found the experience different if you like. That there has been some really beautiful, unintended consequences from this work as well, that's actually broader than just the idea of language and how we write about children. The team started to express that they felt that they were speaking to each other about the children that they cared for in a more compassionate way. They started to express...

Sorry, I should say, I reached out once the changes had started to take shape within the two different residential homes, we asked the social workers who were involved with the care of those children their experience of the change and they started to feedback; "We really feel like the child's voice is really captured far more clearly in the child's plan". For example, "we really feel like we're getting to know the child in a far more person-centred, child-centred way than perhaps before". And we even find that one of the teams described that their handovers are quicker, which meant that they've got more time to spend with the children and less time having to do that handover. Because the handovers feel like they're more meaningful. That they're not necessarily more succinct than... that, there's less words there, but the details of what they need to know going into their next shift is more informative. We would not have anticipated that, but that's some of the findings that we've found.

Michael Wield (Each and Every Child)
Yeah, I think that's so interesting that you know, this work on language starts with kind of a couple of different, kind of focuses, but actually that impact can be much wider. It can impact on several different areas of people's work. It can absolutely impact on children, young people's experience as well, which I think is also paramount to kind of the core of The Promise. That's why The Promise's existing is to make these changes across the country. So yeah, thank you so much for talking through that. We were really delighted to be invited up to take part in that test of change. It was really great to meet staff at the children's homes, to meet young people as well, which was really fantastic.

As part of our podcast series, as part of the work that we're doing, particularly over the next couple of years, we're really keen to explore and to share how practice is changing across the country and how the framing recommendations are helping with that practice change. So, you've spoken a little bit about it already, but we just wanted to ask how have the Each and Every Child framing recommendations helped with the work that you've been doing in the Highland Council?

Carrie McLaughlan (Highland Council)
Yeah, I don't think there's enough time today for me to express and give all the examples of how. But I'll maybe try and think about a few kind of headliners.
For me, as you said, I've kind of touched on this a little bit with the two tests of change --- what I found really interesting in the conversations that we had with those staff teams was they were, you know, they were really child-centred practitioners. They really care about the children that they look after but they...in particular, one of the residential homes, as I said, was working with children with learning disabilities, and one of the managers was able to share that she so often felt that people weren't really grasping how to best meet the needs of the children that they look after.

And I remember her... and you might remember this too Michael... her having almost what felt like a bit of an epiphany around this idea of each and every child, which sounds like I'm doing some great plug for the the branding of your organisation, but it was so true, because it was exactly that, that rather than trying to say "that's not what our children need because our children are different", it was about acknowledging -- no, all children have the same needs. How they might be met might be different. How we might need to articulate some of that might feel or look different, but the needs are there. And I remember her saying that's going to completely change.... if she needs to put funding proposals forward or argue a case about what they need within that residential home to meet the needs... She, in that moment thought I need to think about this differently, which I thought was really encouraging and that continue to have an ongoing impact.

There's been other examples, I guess, because we've done so much promotion about the framing recommendations across our partnerships and across our services. It's been really encouraging to see that trickle effect. So, where teams have maybe read a paper, for example, that's gone... you know, maybe a committee paper or maybe how a child's been written about in a child's plan and where there's those gentle nudges and encouragement, to say, you might want to think differently, about how we capture that, all of which feels like we're moving in the right direction towards...Yeah, where we challenge stigma and where we write in a way that feels far more child-centred. Where we don't read reports and go..."Ooft, that that felt quite jarring. That didn't feel very nice to read", which is really encouraging. And, I would say even beyond that, because of the role that I'm in, I was asked just recently to read over a paper that was coming from NHS and it was a beautifully written report in many ways.

But had I not had the experience of the framing recommendations, I maybe wouldn't have had... whilst I would have known that it didn't land well, I might not necessarily have found the alternatives. I would have said this doesn't land quite as well as it needs to, but I don't know how else to write that and the framing recommendations are really good at that and I shared them with one of my NHS colleagues, one of our Child Commissioners, and she hadn't heard the framing recommendations. So she went quickly onto your tool kit and that's already influencing her practice and again, it's that trickle effect, isn't it? It's about where that goes. And I'm a big advocate for this as well. And as I said, you'll have to tell me to stop speaking, Michael, because I could just carry on and talk and there's loads of examples, but one thing that really stood out for me was I think so often when we're thinking about The Promise and we're thinking about our aspirations, there's a danger that people think that that's either solely the responsibility of a social worker to Keep The Promise. But we had some beautiful examples of a colleague of mine where she works in business support, and she was able to recognise.... So, she's a Promise Ambassador, she doesn't have any direct contact with children and young people, she doesn't only work in social work...she has a far broader remit. But there were changes that she could start to influence and make, based on the framing recommendations, that then have an ongoing trickle effect.

Some things around how we just... I guess, (using jargonistic language myself here), you know performance indicators; how are we measuring how well we're doing? Well actually, the way in which we've captured those performance indicators are really stigmatising. They're full of acronyms. And actually, it doesn't acknowledge children's experiences.
And even by just having that conversation with people in our service, who have nothing to do with health and social care, and who actually, had it not been for those conversations we didn't know about The Promise, now feel far more informed and are far more connected to the agenda. So, I just think the way in which the framing recommendations are pitched are so helpful. They're quite profound. They're really challenging, in a good way. And there's so many different parts of our practise that have shifted in the right direction because of people's awareness of them.

Michael Wield (Each and Every Child)
Thank you so much. Just to pick up on a couple of things that really resonated with me there. I think when you're talking about... when you mentioned about the Each and Every Child recommendation, which is our very first recommendation and how your colleague found that useful, before diving into talking about kind of specific needs, kind of routing that in the universal needs of what each and every child needs to thrive.
We always say in our Introduction to Framing sessions, that framing isn't about putting a positive spin on everything and making everything kind of palatable. We absolutely need to talk about difficult things. We need to talk about the needs of children and young people, but if we root it... if we start with what Each and Every Child needs to thrive, we're setting the terms of the debate. We're helping people understand the issue better and tackling really common stigmatising mindsets from the very beginning. So yeah, that really resonated with me.
And again, just your example at the end there about, you know, everyone has power as communicators and I think you're absolutely right, that to Keep The Promise and to do all the work that we need to do across the country to Keep The Promise it's not just social work... it's not just, you know, the kind of traditional people that you think might be working in that area. It's about actually how all of us do it.

So yeah, absolutely, I think that's really interesting. And you know, all the consequences of that, all the really positive consequences for children, young people and families as a result of that work. So yeah, thank you so much for sharing that.
Again, we've maybe talked a little bit about this already, but what has been your biggest learning from this work and how do you think other areas working on language could benefit from this as well.

Carrie McLaughlan (Highland Council)
Yay, there's probably a couple of things there. I suppose there's the learning that, initially... I have to put my hands up and admit when I first came into this post and I was thinking about, you know, the huge transformational change required across our systems, I thought, 'language - that'll be an easy one'. We'll go with that and it's not... it's not easy. And I know that because I often still have a tendency to maybe frame things in a way that I think, 'Gosh! I haven't used the framing recommendation!'... so that...you know, it's something that we continue to challenge ourselves for and that's OK. But it's not hugely easy. And, also, I think recognising that, you know, and I guess I knew this, but I probably haven't come to the forefront of my mind until doing a bit more work around it...You know the words we use are a reflection of our belief system, of our core values, as how we see people, how we see the world and when we first entered into dialogue with different colleagues about changing the words we use, there was this tendency to want to train people in the words we should use. It's why we didn't want to produce a language guide in the beginning of this journey. We didn't want to train people in the words that you need to use. But really, I guess holding firm on that and acknowledging that so much of what we're trying to achieve is is about a kind of culture shift has been really important for me and recognising that this isn't a quick fix and slow and steady win for the race. You know, we have been on this journey now for nearly three years and we still have so much more to do. So I think acknowledging that this is not a quick fix, but that some of this is about culture. But it's also about drawing alongside our young people, our families, our colleagues in order to create that change has definitely stood out for me. Yeah, there's a second part of your question - I can't remember it.

Michael Wield (Each and Every Child)
Just how do you think of the areas might benefit from the work that you've done as well? And how could you share some of that learning?

Carrie McLaughlan (Highland Council)
Yeah. So particularly around the test of change, I think there's so much more to do from that. So, you know the very fact that it was a test to change was about starting small... really getting to grips with, you know, what the challenges were, where there was room for improvement and then learning from that. I think the importance of supporting teams to come together to explore what works for them and the young people that they care for and look after are so important.

There isn't just one thing that works. It's not just a case of, well, you know, we've now created a new template and this is what we're going to promote across the whole of the organisation. Really working alongside children and young people and, yeah, reflecting that in our practise and I guess, I'm saying that out loud and thinking, 'well, that's obvious... Isn't that what we should have always been doing?', but I think there's maybe a tendency to acknowledge that's maybe not what we have always been doing.
Yes, the test to change will be a really, really exciting opportunity to share and spread some of that learning. And I guess, we also want to do that with the staff who've been involved in that journey too. It's not my work, it's theirs. And we're trying to also think about creative ways to kind of share that as well. And so, we've been exploring, like, getting a videographer into, kind of, help really capture why this stuff matters. But from the voice of the workforce and the voice of the children and young people that were part of that.

What what's been really interesting, and I'm probably going off on a little bit of a tangent in terms of the question just asked. But when it came to looking at these tests to change at the very beginning, we said it's got to be led by the voice of children and young people. But when you're talking about writing daily notes for children who are in care, more often than not, those children said, "I don't want you to write daily notes. The very fact that you write daily notes about me, others me! Children who are not in care, don't have daily notes written about them, so, I wish you didn't have them". And I think it's important to acknowledge that because, you know, we still, in terms of our practice, in terms of those care teams, have to do that in terms of their governance, their processes, the legal obligation and for the Care inspectorate.
But there were also ways that we could bring in children to that experience, and I suppose that's also been a really good lesson. And it's also about sharing that with other people. So, where organisations or different teams, say, "But our young people aren't interested in this. They don't want to be part of it". Actually, there's ways in which children very much want to have a say about their lives and very much want to have a say about the decisions that affect them. And through the relationships that those staff teams have with the young people, they have been able to bring in their voice, but not necessarily in the way that we would have initially anticipated at the beginning.

Michael Wield (Each and Every Child)
Yeah, brilliant. Thank you so much. Yes, just so interesting to hear about all of your learning and some, kind of, challenges, I guess... about how we as a country, kind of, can work together to find solutions to those challenges or explore solutions to those challenges.Yeah, absolutely, so, thank you.
So again, I just wanted to kind of talk a little bit about how you've put some of this learning into practice. I know that you mentioned earlier on about Induction and about potentially e-learning as well, so I don't know if you want to just to have a bit of a chat about those kinds of aspects of the support that you offer the workforce.

Carrie McLaughlan (Highland Council)
Yeah. So when we when we got to the stage of being able to promote our language guide, we held an initial master class and it had always been our intention, even before we started working collaboratively with you guys at Each and Every Child to hold some kind of master class around this.

And as you know, you were involved in that. We brought yourself and colleagues from other parts of Scotland who have been doing work, so the work that's come out of language leaders, 'Write About Me' from Aberdeen. And I think that had such a good energy about it on that day and people really enjoyed coming together. And I guess there's a bit of a danger here that because I'm immersed in this world, I forget that not everybody else is. And I think everybody knows this stuff and having sessions like that master class was a really good opportunity for really good partnership working, an acknowledgement of why this stuff matters so much. So I can anticipate us wanting to build on that. And there will inevitably be, you know... there's ongoing lessons learned isn't there, you know, in terms of what we're finding across Scotland and an opportunity to hear about those experiences have been really useful. So I think we will definitely want to build on that.

We are monitoring and reviewing how people are finding the language guide and we are planning to update that.... not in the sense that, as I said, we don't want it to be something that has to constantly change. But because we did use the language bin in the guide as an example, we will be revisiting that over time and we wanted it to be an ongoing interactive exercise, if you like. A little bit like what language leaders have done, where they've got their virtual bin that you know at any point somebody can, you know, put something in the bin that they want. And we're really keen to continue that conversation and to continue that dialogue with our children, with our young people, with our families and with our workforce. And that will obviously form part of our ongoing learning as well.

I think there is more work to be done around, like the strategic landscape around language and how we how we write within our strategic planning. So, I'm heavily involved in the articulation of our Promise Board Plan which will ultimately be our Corporate Board Plan. And I think that those continue to be challenging conversations, challenging spaces to be in, in a world where...many people involved in strategic planning have their own language. I think I'm OK to say that I remember saying to one of my senior managers not that long ago; "We speak a different language. I'm not used to this corporate world." And there's something to be said about that, when we are writing strategic plans that are supposed to support our children and families, how are we articulating that?

So, I think whilst we did do some initial work with our Corporate Parenting Board and our Child Protection Committee, there is more work to be done around that, particularly looking at the framing recommendations and that will continue to form part of our learning.

Michael Wield (Each and Every Child)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's something that we see across loads of different areas across Scotland as well as is... how organisations are looking to reframe or use the framing recommendations within their corporate parenting plans. Yeah, all of that kind of external facing work as well. Yeah, absolutely.
So finally, coming onto our very last question and quite a broad question. What are your hopes for the future of language work across Scotland and how do you think that language work can contribute to keeping the promise?

Carrie McLaughlan (Highland Council)
Yeah, wow! That's a big question. I guess I come back to that video that's part of your introduction to framing. And how powerful that scenario is, where you know an individual, I think he's on Sauchiehall St... (maybe it's Buchanan St) is being interviewed about his view on something. And I just think, right there and then, it highlighted...How do I articulate this without sounding blaming myself? The powerful aspect of language, how we can bring people on board and how we can help challenge stereotypes, misperceptions...You know, you talk about this in your framing recommendations around kind of fatalistic language and how unhelpful that is, and I think, the more and more our population gets underneath that and connects to... the more and more we become a trauma informed nation. The more and more we become compassionate individuals, the more and more we speak in a way that is with, with compassion and consideration. I think that's massive. I think, like that's really important and you know, I'm in this job now, but my background is a psychologist and I feel... I'm really passionate about and very, very connected to how we speak about people and to people, has the opportunity to be a beautiful experience or a really, really bad one. And if we could just take a couple of steps in the right direction, what that would mean for society is pretty massive. And I don't mean to like overdramatise this because it sounds like I'm getting all profound. But yeah, I just think it's got the potential to be huge.

And I can just think of lots of examples where, when you're having conversations with individuals, and whether that's people that you work with or whether that's your granddad, or whether that's your family member and you kind of promote about how we speak about people really makes a difference. But even if one person makes 1 little change, then that's... and every person makes 1 little change, then that's got huge consequences in the right direction for society moving forward.

Michael Wield (Each and Every Child)
Yeah, absolutely. I absolutely agree with everything you've said there. And I think what we always talk about or try to talk about in our framing sessions is about how stigma and discrimination often comes from the way in which we speak about issues. But often inadvertently, it's about actually how we're speaking about a certain issue can tap into unhelpful ways of thinking, which we might not be meaning to, but that's just how we're influenced by the wider narrative narratives... Culture, news, headlines... about how we all speak about issues and actually, from what you've said, how, if we begin to shift how we talk about issues, how we shift how we talk about the solutions can really get people on that journey and in doing so can tackle that stigma and discrimination.
So, I think, I mean, you could absolutely talk forever about the power of framing and the power of this language work. And I agree with you that the potential for change is transformative.

Carrie McLaughlan (Highland Council)
Yeah.

Michael Wield (Each and Every Child)
Yeah. So it's it's really exciting to be part of... There's still quite a long way to go... It's by no means done, but that's what we're here for. That's why Each and Every Child is here -- to support organisations and individuals across the country to explore the recommendations in their own way and how they can use them in their own lives, their own areas of work. So yeah.

Carrie McLaughlan (Highland Council)
Amazing!

Michael Wield (Each and Every Child)
Brilliant. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day, Carrie. It's been, as always, a delight to speak to you. And thank you so much for telling us about the work of the Highland Council - all the different aspects of work that's going on.
If you want to find out more about our work and listen to our other podcast episodes, you can visit our website at www.eachandeverychild.co.uk. So, thank you so much for listening today.
And thank you, Carrie, for coming along.

Carrie McLaughlan (Highland Council)
Thank you.

Michael Wield (Each and Every Child)
Thank you. Bye.