The Secure Start® Podcast

#18 Relentless Kindness: The Foundation of Therapeutic Care, with Adela Holmes

• Colby Pearce • Season 1 • Episode 18

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What if everything we thought we knew about helping traumatised children was backwards? In this profound conversation, Adela Holmes reveals the revolutionary approach that transformed lives at Hurstbridge Farm Therapeutic Residential Care Pilot in Victoria.

At the heart of effective therapeutic care lies what Holmes calls "relentless kindness" – an unwavering commitment to relationship-based approaches that prioritise connection over control. Drawing from neurobiology and decades of practice wisdom, she explains why traditional behavioural management techniques often fail our most vulnerable children.

"Before they can make any lasting change in their behaviour, they need to feel safe and loved," Holmes quotes from Bruce Perry's seminal work. She shares compelling stories that illustrate this principle in action – like the 10-year-old boy who initially resisted constant adult supervision but later panicked when he woke up alone, desperately seeking an adult presence he'd come to rely on.

The Hurstbridge model, grounded in neuroscience and relationship-based care, focuses on meeting children where they are developmentally rather than where society expects them to be. Holmes explains why going "to the lowest part of the brain implicated" is essential for creating meaningful change. This means providing countless repetitions of corrective experiences within safe, consistent relationships.

Despite facing criticism and doubt, Holmes persevered with her approach. The results speak volumes – young people who experienced multiple placement breakdowns finding stability, developing trusting relationships, and eventually creating fulfilling lives. One poignant example: a former resident who recently married and shared the news with staff who had cared for him years earlier.

For anyone working with traumatised children – whether in residential care, foster care, or therapeutic settings – this episode offers invaluable insights into creating environments where healing can truly happen. Listen now to discover how relationship-based approaches, informed by neurobiology, can transform the lives of our most vulnerable children.


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.

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Colby:

Welcome to the Secure Start podcast.

Adela:

But don't give up and don't change, because it's kind of in the hardness that gets success and that requires really strong leadership and what I call relentless kindness towards children. He talks quite clearly about the importance of children learning how to like themselves. One of the experiences that I've found quite important in moving into developing a model was the experience that I'd had of observing a model that very clearly did not work. If you're going to develop a model of care for any group of children, it's actually got to fit the children for whom you're providing it. We relentlessly were nice and good and we didn't try to achieve things with him that he couldn't possibly achieve being able to use relationships to build safety and trust. Here's something else that I wonder if you know, but that if you do run off, we run away with you.

Colby:

Welcome to the Secure Start podcast. I'm Colby Pearce, and returning for this episode is a highly respected figure in residential childcare here in Australia. Child care here in Australia, adela Holmes. Before we begin our conversation, I'd just like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands that we come to you from. For Adela, it is the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation and for me, it is the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains and I'd like to acknowledge the continuing connection the living Kaurna and Wurundjeri people feel to land, waters, culture and community and pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging Now. I saw Adela out for a return to the podcast after reading a social media post of hers about trauma-informed, relationship-oriented and neurobiology-informed practices and was keen to talk to her further about this. Welcome, adela.

Adela:

Thank you. Lovely to be here, Colby.

Colby:

So, as we just were talking about, and I mentioned in the little intro, what captured my attention was a post on LinkedIn in which you presented some reflections really about trauma-informed practice and relationship-oriented practice in the out-of-home care space and where neurobiology, and I guess in particular, the neurobiology of trauma, sits, with current trends. So that's what I love to pick your brains about and and I'm sure that people who listen to this podcast will also be very interested to hear your thoughts.

Adela:

So, in terms of sort of preparing my mind for talking about that today, if I can just reflect what drove me to write that post, on LinkedIn, I'd seen a few posts that worried me in terms of perhaps a growing tendency to shrink from some of the practices that we have been quite successfully using in working with the young people in residential out-of-home care. Because it is fair to acknowledge and I think I'm going to acknowledge that quite a bit during what I've got to say today but doing this work in that way, in what I would call the correct way for the client group, is hard work and I would not be surprised by people feeling tired or somewhat daunted by it.

Adela:

But the role, I think, of people like myself and yourself and others who lead the way in therapeutic residential childcare is to actually keep the motivation up and to encourage and support those who feel like faltering by the wayside by actually acknowledging yes, it is hard, it is really hard, actually acknowledging, yes, it is hard, it is really hard, but don't give up and don't change, because it's kind of in the hardness that gets success and that requires really strong leadership and what I call relentless kindness towards the children and the word relentless tends to have often a negative edge to it, but I'm not talking about any negative edges. I'm talking about an absolutely relentless knowledge of how important it is that we maintain our internal state and our external state as a consequence. So one of the things I thought I'd talk about today is the lead-up and the preparation that I did when I was writing the proposal which later, you know, then morphed into the model for Hurstbridge Farm Therapeutic Residential Care Pilot, which was requested by the Victorian government.

Colby:

Yep.

Adela:

And I was already working at Take Two, the intensive therapeutic service that had been secured by Berry Street. I was working with Berry Street in Take Two when they wanted to move to the second recommendation of a report that they had commissioned in the late 90s, which was to initiate a therapeutic residential care pilot where an approach could be trialled to see how successful it would be. And of course that came to me in the role I was in at Take Two to write at the time, and so I thought I'd talk a little bit about that and where my relentlessness came from, and then sort of see where that takes us, if that's okay with you, Colby.

Colby:

That sounds awesome. Interestingly, when you talk about that relentlessness, a number of my guests have talked about the importance of stickability. Yeah, I don't know if they as such and perhaps in the foster care context more so. But stickability, yes, and the other thing that just a question I have, and the other thing, that just a question I have, and perhaps you'll cover it, but if not, I'd be interested to hear what you think are some of the reasons why it is so hard the work.

Adela:

Yeah, look, it'll probably become apparent as I'm talking, but if you don't think I've articulated it clearly enough, ask away. Yeah, sure, but when I was first approached at Tag2 to write this proposal for the pilot, I was very mindful of prior experiences, because I guess my natural inclination had always been somewhat similar in terms of the use of relationship, because that's something that I learnt when, I think, I talked about starting out in the institutions when I did my last podcast. That was something that I learnt in those settings that, even if you were very limited in what you could achieve because of the environment, you could still demonstrate to those young women what it meant to be there for them, present in the true sense of the word, and to demonstrate that you liked them.

Adela:

And I had not read Bruce Perry yet, right but, I'm going to read a short paragraph from Bruce Perry during this, because he talks quite clearly about the importance of children learning how to like themselves, and that was something that I did develop when I was working, you know, right at the beginning of my career in the institutions.

Adela:

But what I also understood was that it wasn't enough. Right, it was important and it was great, but it wasn't enough to actually achieve the change that was required, and I don't know that I understood that completely fully until I'd done all the reading that I'll talk about in a sec. In terms of putting together the model for Take Two Sorry for Hurstbridge when I was at Take Two, for Take Two sorry for Hurstbridge when I was at Take Two, one of the experiences that I found quite important in moving into developing a model was the experience that I'd had of observing a model that very clearly did not work for young people. Observing a model that very clearly did not work for young people. This was something that the department I think had tried to initiate in I'm just trying to think of the year. It was around 2003, 2004, I think and they wanted to develop a house that they had in the community to work with four young people.

Adela:

Now I'm not going to use any names but, the person who developed that model selected a very cognitive approach which involved points and things you could gain and lose, and you know it was quite complicated and it didn't work. And it very clearly didn't work because there was quite a level of interest in understanding why it didn't work and that fell to me to explore in my role at take two, in the role that I was in at the time, because that was what I was focusing on, and one of the things that became very, very clear in terms of why that model hadn't worked was because it was exceptionally cognitive and so for me that was quite important to hold in my mind. And then the more reading that I did, and certainly the more reading of Bruce Perry that I did, I completely understood why that model had not actually worked. And I suppose my starting point then that I developed was if you're going to develop a model of care for any group of children, it's actually got to fit the children for whom you're providing it. Yes, it's got to fit with their needs.

Adela:

And of course, the problem with that one was it didn't fit with their needs, because we were talking about the child protection client group of children who really don't like themselves and their starting point is lower down in their brains, if you like, and reading the work of Bruce Perry and others really helped to cement that in my mind, so I knew where I had to start. Looking was not in the range of cognitive models that exist out there. Now I'm not saying that cognitive models don't work at all. I'm just saying that they're not a good fit for the client group that I was mainly looking at writing a model and developing a model for.

Colby:

Yes, and if I can just jump in for a moment and just for our listeners as well, when you're talking about a cognitive model in my parlance, I'm wondering whether you're talking about a cognitive behavioural model, because you referred to points, and so I'm imagining that the model would require the young people to reflect on themselves and their approach to life in the home particularly, and regulate themselves in consideration of a set of expectations that could achieve them points towards a positive outcome.

Adela:

And for rewards right. Yes so there's an implicit belief within that that A they can regulate themselves which you know we'll talk about a bit more but that they can regulate themselves and that they can do that in a thinking reflective way to achieve a certain outcome, neither of which is actually possible for very traumatised, possible for very traumatised young people who are really not operating from that part of their brains effectively.

Colby:

No, and nor do they expect adults to follow through on promises. You know, on agreement, I often say where such an approach is tried, the young person I've found observed, the young person will go. Well, if you were going to give me that, you can give it to me now.

Adela:

Yeah.

Colby:

And if you don't give it to me now, you are never going to give it to me Exactly, or they'll sabotage. Yes, yes, because they don't like uncertainty, so they hate uncertainty, in fact, and so they'll go. Well, I'm never going to achieve it. You are never going to give it to me, so I might as well just blow it up.

Adela:

Well, it's interesting. You make me think about a child who first, once we had the Hurstbridge Farm going. In the very first weeks of coming to the farm, this young man, who was about 13 and a half, said to me in his, I think, first or second week. He said to me can I have a points chart, a star chart? And I said oh, have you had one of those before? He said yes. I said why is it that you want one? He said because I want a CD of CD, and he mentioned some artist. I want a CD at the end of the week and that's how I'll get it.

Adela:

And I said have you always been able to get, you know, the thing you want at the end of the week with a star chart? And he said oh, oh, not always. And I said how many times do you think you might have been successful? He couldn't really remember. Anyway, I said to him look, we don't actually do star charts here. But I said let me say right now you can have your CD at the end of the week, no star chart. And let me tell you why I don't want you to have a star chart. I don't want you to have a star chart, because I want you to have the CD, because I want you to have the enjoyment of listening to that person singing on the CD and I want you to feel good about having it and listening to it. I said I don't like setting people up to fail and I don't know whether you can do it or not, but I really don't want to start you being here with that experience.

Adela:

So you can have the CD and we'll organise for you to go and buy it. You don't have to wait till the end of the week. You can have it now. Now, what was I demonstrating to him?

Colby:

His worthiness, his deservedness, All of those things and that he would. He was with people for whom his interests were important.

Adela:

Yeah, and that I wanted him to feel good and I wanted him to have something that was enjoyable to him, which I would say is probably a thirst, and I wanted him to have something that was enjoyable to him, which I would say is probably a thirst. But that's no, I'm not saying that he miraculously changed overnight, because of course he didn't.

Colby:

That would have been quite inconsistent with his model of relationships and he's likely to have, yeah, tried to sabotage that approach.

Adela:

Absolutely, and he did many times. But we relentlessly were nice and good and we didn't try to achieve things with him that he couldn't possibly achieve. And, interestingly, he is quite a challenging young person to work with all through the about two and a half years that he was in the program. But, strangely, changes were happening. That became evident when he moved on to the placement that he went to next, evident when he moved on to the placement that he went to next, which was a sort of lead tenant model, because he was by that stage, you know, I think, just over 16 and he could move into that and he'd been in that new program for about six weeks. We got a phone call from the people who ran it and they said, goodness, you know, I don't know what you did with him out there, but you know we had his whole history and we read his history and he's just been fantastic here and I was going phew, because I honestly had not thought that we had achieved what I'd hoped we could, but we did.

Colby:

That's an important thing. I think that's a very important experience to have in this area of work. It's part of the reason why I think it's really important that we reflect on young people's journey through our involvement with them, because the changes are often small and gradual.

Adela:

Indeed.

Colby:

But I've always found that they undoubtedly occur. They just take a while. And also the other thing is that sometimes we're just not even around to see the full realisation.

Colby:

And then I also reflect on and this was something that came from an earlier podcast with Graham Kerridge which I might have mentioned to you. In the previous time we chatted about the human capital element and and also the intergeneration you know, like impacts of of turning a life in a in a slightly or largely different direction, and and the impact that has on partners, children, grandchildren yeah well, um yeah.

Adela:

Well, this young man that I just referred to has just recently got married, and one of the lovely elements of the work that we all did at Hurstbridge Farm is that in almost every case, every case, the various young people have maintained a connection with one or other of the people who worked there throughout the years. So, you know, I only became aware that he'd got married recently because I think he had sent something from Facebook to one of the workers who he had really worked well with, because obviously he wanted us to know that he'd got married and that he was happy. And indeed we were happy that he was happy, and I think I said, you know, at the start of our first podcast, what was I aiming for? People used to ask what was I aiming for?

Colby:

A great aspiration, an ordinary life? Yeah, you're reading my mind, adela. I was just about to remind you of that.

Adela:

Yeah, and he's got an ordinary life. He's just got married, you know, his adult life is beginning in another direction and for me that's enough. That's actually more than enough, really to see a product and an outcome, which I think is, you know, really it's really important to be able to say, well, I achieved, or we achieved, that outcome, and that outcome has a tangibility in the real world. And it doesn't have to be flat. It can be very, very mundane, because ordinary life is pretty mundane, but to be able to be comfortable and happy in it is really important. Yeah, yeah. So you know, it was a nice outcome to hear of.

Adela:

And I've, over the years, heard, you know, some people have struggled more than others, of course, you know some people have struggled more than others, of course, but in terms of their struggle, they have struggled with less dramatic issues than they otherwise, I say, would have. Some people might say might have. I say would have, because we all know, you know, what outcomes can be if interventions don't succeed. So when I was, you know, asked to write this proposal for a model, where did I go? I went to look at models that worked, yes, look at models that worked, yes. So I think sometimes we in Australia can get a bit sort of startled and stargazy by models from overseas because they're from overseas.

Colby:

Mm-hmm.

Adela:

But because they're from overseas doesn't mean anything actually.

Colby:

That happens overseas as well, when I work overseas as well, does it?

Adela:

That's interesting.

Colby:

Yeah, I've never been more highly regarded in my work than in other countries.

Adela:

There you are. Yeah, I don't know what that's about exactly, but it must be something to do with some kind of self-talk that makes us regard people whose work perhaps we don't know as well more highly or differently, but it is actually something that I think can really get in the way of good work and developing models that work for our culture, in our environment and in a society with our ways of seeing the world, and Australian values are quite different to values in other parts of the world. But our kids, you know that's the circumstances in which they're reared. So at the time of course we're talking about 2005 was when I was asked to put together this proposal and we were all leaning towards, very strongly towards the work of Dr Bruce Perry, bessel, van der Kolk, dan Hughes, the people who really strongly espoused understandings of complex trauma, and lucky that we were, because this was the client group that we were actually designing a model for. We were designing something that had to work for children and young people who had experienced complex trauma, because they don't cross all the thresholds to come into any sort of out-of-home care. Unless that is the case, they have to cross all the legislative thresholds, all of which imply quite significant harm. So again, you know that's what I had in my head that we had to actually match the model with the actual needs of the children for whom I was trying to design it.

Adela:

Now I want to read a paragraph. I often read this paragraph when I'm doing training. You'll be familiar with it. Anyone who's familiar with Bruce Perry will be familiar with it. It's very short.

Colby:

Go ahead. I'm not monetized, so I don't think you two can demonetize this.

Adela:

This is out of the boy who was raised as a dog.

Colby:

Yeah.

Adela:

Traumatized children tend to have overactive stress responses and, as we've seen, these can make them aggressive, impulsive and needy. These children are difficult. They are easy to upset and hard to calm. They may overreact to the slightest novelty or change and they often don't know how to think before they act. Hence why star charts don't work.

Adela:

Before they can make any kind of lasting change at all in their behaviour, they need to feel safe and loved. Unfortunately, however, many of the treatment programs and other interventions aimed at them get it backwards. So that was a very clear message to me don't get it backwards. They take a punitive approach and they hope to lure children into good behaviour by restoring love and safety only if the children first start acting better. While such an approach may temporarily threaten children into doing what adults want, they can't provide the long-term internal motivation that will ultimately help them control themselves better and become more loving towards others. So now I'm just going to share a little bit about what it was like developing a model that had that as its foundational thinking, because it was alien to many people to operate in that way. More services than not hoped to, as Bruce Perry says, lure children into good behaviour. Hence the star chart comment from the book.

Colby:

Yeah, with rewards as the lure.

Adela:

And there were times when we had started Hurstbridge Farm, when I used to drive home it was an hour's drive from Hurstbridge to where I lived at the time and I would sit in my car driving and you know, mulling over the day and what we'd done and I'd be thinking do I know what I'm talking about? Am I bonkers? You know? Am I leading things in the right direction? What are we achieving?

Adela:

And I had to be brutally honest, I lost good collegiate friendships during that time because people would say really hurtful things to me about how misguided I was and how we were not setting enough limits for the children, and many, many things that demonstrated that people did not understand. And sometimes I'd get home and I'd run in the door and read that paragraph to myself because I wanted to remind myself of what I was doing and what we were doing as a group of carers together in that therapeutic milieu and remind myself that it was okay and we were on the right track. But there were comments made to me that were really hurtful and from colleagues who I'd really valued in the past, and so I suppose that's part of what I was talking about at the start, about the hardness of doing this work.

Colby:

Yes and doubt is common. Self-doubt is common as mud.

Adela:

And the actual, sometimes quite hurtful responses that people would say as if I had no idea what I was doing. But thankfully, I'm a Cancerian, and one of the qualities of a Cancerian is tenacity, and I do possess quite a bit of that, and one of the qualities of a Cancerian is tenacity, and I do possess quite a bit of that. So I kept reminding myself, and I also kept reminding myself of the other work that I'd done and the reading that I'd done in putting the model together, because I didn't only draw from the work of Bruce Perry, vandenhek and Hughes. I also drew from this amazing book, which was based on the work that had been done in the UK for decades.

Colby:

Yes.

Adela:

You know, people like Adrian Ward, who was one of the editors of that book and who I later met, people who ran the Mulberry Bush School, people who had been operating in a similar way to what we were doing at Hurstbridge and what we proposed to do, because that was source documentation that I was drawing from for sometimes 70 or 80 years, yes, grounded in the work of people like Winnicott and….

Colby:

Dr Drysdale.

Adela:

Dr Drysdale, all of those really good thinkers who put together longstanding and reliable months of books. So they're the two main source documents. When I was putting it together I drew from Plus a couple of places that were very strongly grounded in trauma and attachment understandings in America. One was a place called Villa Santa Maria, which was in New Mexico, and another place called Chaddock, which was near Chicago, and again there were lots of their approaches that were brought together and sort of dovetailed in with Bruce Perry's work.

Adela:

So when we talk about Hurstbridge Farm, I wanted to mention those, because I think sometimes people say oh, you know, adela just wrote that sort of off the top of her head. Well, I didn't, no, I didn't because I wouldn't, because you can't do that. If you're going to produce something and devise something that is really going to have some gravitas, it's got to have been based on something else that has had longevity and been tried and tested, because what kind of an idiot would I be, you know, to just dream something up and put it into action. So very important, I think, for anybody who's drawing together and writing a model of new, a new model of care, to actually base it on the work that has gone before. Yeah, because otherwise that's a fairly egotistical approach which you know doesn't fit and doesn't fit the needs of kids.

Colby:

I think we live in times where every agency wants to develop their own model. You're right, yeah, and we also live in a time where evidence-based practice is reified. Yes, and that does get me thinking sometimes that when people kind of go it alone and look on, a lot of the question, a lot of the evidence is ethnographic in this. It's so hard to do research in this area. You talked about the kind of people who do their own thing, but most you talk about Hughes, you talk about Perry Van der Kolk. You talk about Hughes, you talk about Perry Van der Kolk. I mean, they worked in this space for a very long time.

Adela:

A long time.

Colby:

And they operationalised their thoughts into an approach, and likely also in some ways, based on those who'd gone before them. So you, know Dan. Hughes, I would imagine, was heavily influenced by the work of Bowlby, for example.

Adela:

Oh, absolutely yes.

Colby:

My concern is there is such a plethora of agencies wanting to present their own model, and part of that, I think, is because we have competitive tendering environments.

Adela:

Yes, I agree.

Colby:

So agencies are trying to present a point of difference to their competitive tenderers. So, rather than, as you would say, drawing on everyone, drawing on the work that is tried and tested which I think they probably do to a certain extent, but they're also wanting to bring something different. I think is what you're saying and, if I understand you correctly, that concerns you from the point of view of departing from established knowledge and approaches that work.

Adela:

Yes, well, I can't see other than what you've just referred to. I can't see a good reason to not apply principles and tactics that have worked for 80 years in some settings again.

Colby:

And the Mulberry Bush School. Mulberry Bush would be probably one of the best examples of that.

Adela:

One of the best. And I must say, when I was in the UK I did go and see a few places and when I saw those places I could see coming to life why they worked. And people may or may not be familiar with a documentary that was made about the Mulberry Bush School in well, it was released in 2007,. I think it was called Hold Me Tight, let Me Go, and I presume it's available still or perhaps you can see it on YouTube. But basically they had a documentary crew come and spend substantial amounts of time at the school and obviously take film of a lot of interactions and situations that they were dealing with and then presumably sit down and edit that into a watchable format. The documentary itself goes for, I think, almost two hours. It's quite a lengthy piece of work. But when I had first started Hurstbridge, it was shown at the Melbourne International Film Festival here, was shown at the Melbourne International Film Festival here, and my daughter, who was actually working on the film festival, said oh, you have to come and see this documentary about a place in England because it's what you're doing. It's what you're doing at the Hurst Bridge. So I went to see it and I thought, well, thank you to my daughter because it felt so you could see its effectiveness. It was just fantastic to watch.

Adela:

And then I went there when I was in the UK a year later a bit more than a year and actually saw some of the children I'd seen on the documentary and how they had prospered and how far they'd come along as a result of the interventions. And I remember I was kind of constrained because they said you just have to sit quietly, can't say anything or be involved in anything, just sit in the corner and be an observer. And I watched one of the children who in the documentary had been very troubled and he was leading the discussion about how they were going to do the end of the year nativity play and he was so calm and grounded and centered. It was palpably different to the way that he had been. And I remember I had just had tears running down my face because of the change in that time.

Adela:

And you know they were doing that again and again and again, reliably doing it. So people could send. You know people don't send children to the Mulberry Book School for no reason. They send them there because they reliably have a model that works. And now I sit back and I think about those early days at Hurstbridge and how well terrifying which is probably the best how terrifying it was to know that I had actually taken that step and gathered together a group of people with an intent to undo harm and help children to heal. And I can now sit back and think, yeah, well, we did it, and they're still doing it, because Hurstbridge Farm is still operating 18 years later.

Adela:

Well, we did it and they're still doing it because Hurstbridge Farm is still operating 18 years later and it's been reviewed twice with no changes substantial changes made to the model of care and it's still working to produce those outcomes. So that's quite exciting. It's the possibly the only thing that actually makes me feel okay about the trauma of those drives, those long drives home, having had to process people's criticisms and running in and reading that paragraph which, to be honest, I could probably almost recite.

Colby:

Yeah as a mantra.

Adela:

But again I think it goes to the importance of being able to use relationships to build safety and trust and do it in a very thoughtful and predictable way and have some confidence that it is actually going to produce the results that we wanted. I mean, one of the things that I drew from the model at Chaddock in the place near Chicago was that they had an approach which was very strongly attachment-focused and they were working a lot with Dan Hughes, working a lot with Dan Hughes. The way that they promoted attachment was that the children did not spend time on their own. They were actively engaged with during their waking hours.

Adela:

The only time they spent time alone was when, you know, they were having a shower or in the toilet, even when they were going off to sleep at night, until we felt that they could get themselves off to sleep. We followed what Chaddock talked about, which was to be with the child in a positive way, which was to be with the child in a positive way and I actually have a story to tell about that with a boy who radically altered in a very short space of time under that kind of administration of relationship relationship. He was in our second intake of kids at the beginning of 2008. And we used to meet the children hierarchically. So we wanted to very strongly deliver the message message as per all of the other models that I'd read that the adults were actually in charge and that we would take care of them.

Adela:

But I didn't want them to meet the other children first. I wanted them to meet all the adults and feel confident and comfortable in those adult relationships. So I used to meet them first and then I would have my assistant manager go and meet them and then we'd go down through the hierarchy of the staff. So I went to meet this young man who was 10 years old, with significant attitude, and he was, you know, quite small.

Colby:

We smile because we know what you know. Other people would be like, well, he's got an attitude problem. But you know, I mean our kids, I mean who doesn't?

Adela:

Who doesn't, why would they not? And why would they not? Why would they not? So he came out with his arms folded and he said this was, I think, quite a good use of a sort of pace-like response. He said first words to me were is it true, you don't let kids out on their own up there? And so I thought now change the transaction. We don't need to respond in like fashion.

Adela:

I said well done. I said you've been doing some research on us. It's a great thing to do some research on a place you're coming to. I'm sorry that you don't like that bit of your research. But, yes, it is true. But do you know why we do that? No, I said well, the reason we do that is because we want you to be safe, and we want you to be safe no matter where you are and what you do. And I said I bet sometimes, when you've been out on your own, you've had a real whale of a time and, you know, done exciting things. But I bet also there are times when you've been in a bit of danger and a bit of trouble, and I bet those times you didn't know what to do. Well, we don't want you to have those experiences. So, yes, we do stay with you to make sure you're okay.

Adela:

So he wasn't convinced. He said, well, you won't stop me. And I said well, we will do whatever we can to keep you safe. And I said here's something else that I wonder if you know, but that if you do run off you're, we run away with you. And he looked at me and he said what do you mean? I said, well, because we want you to be safe, our staff stick with you no matter what, and if you feel you've got to go, well, they'll stick with you to make sure you're safe.

Adela:

And he wasn't in like that at all, so he sort of went oomph and walked off. And then he came back and said to me are you going back there now? And I said yes, that's where I'm going now. He said, well, I hope you have a car accident on the way there and die. And I said, well, I hope I don't, but I think you're telling me that you're a bit angry about what you've heard. That's okay, we'll work our way through that, that's fine. And then I explained to him who was coming to meet him next and how it would all go on. Obviously, it wasn't magic. It didn't transfix things in that short a space of time, but it just, I think, gave him a taste that we weren't going to be competitive.

Adela:

So that was February, beginning of February 2008. He never ran away, I might add. He only once walked up the driveway and the staff member who was working with him that day, doing you know good activities, said oh hang on a minute, mate, I'm just tying my shoelace, I'll be with you in a tick. And he'd just turn around and walk back again. But fast forward to June. The end of June in that same year, 2008, I was driving into work one morning. It was about I don't know half past nine, and as I got to the bottom of the driveway he was running around in his pyjamas. I mean, it was cold, you know it was June. Outside the house, adela, adela, waving his arms. So I wound down my window. I said what's the matter? He said there's no adult with me.

Colby:

So what did he do? He sought one out.

Adela:

So I said oh, how's that? How come, have you just woken up? Yes, I've just woken up and there's no adult with me. So we went and found out what had happened was he was fast asleep and the worker in the house had gone up to get some milk for his breakfast. So he happened to wake up at exactly that minute. Happened to wake up at exactly that minute. However, the message is clear He'd actually got to quite like having an adult who cared about him with him, and so, you know, we saw enormous changes in him, and in some ways, we hadn't seen the extent of the change until that morning, when there wasn't anyone with him, and we realised that he had learnt to accept being cared for.

Colby:

While I sit here and listen to you, Adela, and thinking about why I wanted you to come back onto the podcast. You've talked about the importance of relationships and relationship-based practice. You've also mentioned the importance of neurobiology and the neurobiology of trauma, thinking principally of Bruce Perry, and I think what I'm hearing you say is that it's about the order and sequence. It's about sequencing our work?

Colby:

Yes, it is, and that's what the neurobiology of trauma brings. It's about. This is actually where you start and this is where you go next, and this is where you go next, and the relationship is the containing environment yes, and you can't substitute anything for that it you've actually got to go through those levels of connection.

Adela:

Now you can tag team a little bit because you know in a therapeutic milieu I can tell you how many times in a day I used to have staff come and say, oh, I need some space because it is intense. But that's when you tag team. But if you do the building of relationships correctly you can do that, because kids are not developing only one relationship to rely on, which is what I discovered in the institution that one relationship might be great but it's only going to work when you're there. So what we used to really focus on at Hurstridge was developing those relationships across the board.

Adela:

That was what Chaddock talked about in their writing and also the Villa Santa Maria. Those relationships were transferable to a certain extent. I mean, obviously people are people and they have their certain quirks and you know personality, styles and they'll actually bring the relationship to life in a slightly different way. But the underpinning of that relationship, which is the certainty of being cared for, the reliability of adults as protectors, the reliability of adults as people to like you, value, you, have fun with you, that can be shared and that can be an overarching experience.

Colby:

Yeah, a Prince William experience.

Adela:

With another boy. I won't go into the entirety of his story but, again, very little capacity to trust adults. The day that I knew we'd actually got there with him was he'd been with us for about three and a half, four months. We used to walk everywhere with the kids. They didn't walk anywhere on their own on the property it was 33 acres but anytime they went from one place to another they had someone walking with them, doing nice things, talking about you know what they were, but a presence, an adult, co-regulating, calming, valuing presence.

Adela:

And this particular day we were having a birthday celebration for one of the other kids and we were all on the balcony and had the barbecue fired up and this particular boy had said, had made a present for the other boy whose birthday it was. And he came up to me and he said will you walk with me up to the house because I've forgotten, you know the boy's present and I want to go and get it. And when he asked me if I would walk with him, I knew that he had accepted being in the presence of a calming, co-regulating adult. Otherwise he would have just gone and I would have said hang on a minute, I'll come with you or somebody would have. But no, he came to me and asked me to do it and I thought, hmm, okay, that's good.

Colby:

So we hear a lot about trauma-informed practice, the importance of it, and I'd probably be well, I am one of the people who's probably contributed to the narrative that trauma-informed practice is relationship, is the distinguishing feature of it, and developing relationship, and it is. But I think what you're suggesting is that it's more than that. It's more than just the, it's how you utilise that relationship, how you structure your work.

Colby:

Yes, and while I listen to you, I think what you're talking about has real implications for staffing in community residential care. It also has real implications in foster care and kinship care and the ratio of adults to children.

Colby:

I've always had a saying, adela, when that, when I've been speaking to people who are starting out on their journey of having their own children, I'll say to them never have more children than there are adults to attend to them. And then I'll say but if you do happen to have more children than there are adults, have lots more children than you have adults so that the children have always got company, got someone to be with.

Adela:

But it's really interesting, isn't it you? What you say is so true, because it's not just about what the adult says or does, but it is about the ratio as well. But it is also about the way in which you can generalize elements of those relationships so that you can tag team. And there will be times when children who have experienced such massive harm, particularly in the realms of attachment capacity, when they cannot let you go right, when they really really need you to be in the space with them to co-regulate, and sometimes, if it happens that you're perhaps at the end of your capacity, that's really quite hard. So that's why a group milieu works effectively.

Colby:

Yes, I was having that very same thought. Across the podcast we've been talking about, there's a couple of things One is just like.

Colby:

not every family is the same, neither is every endeavour in residential care and the residential care that works therapeutic residential care that works, therapeutic residential care that works. There's a number of important things, components to that the opportunity for continuous relational connection through having not only other young people around, but having adults. It's got to be staffed well, though for that. Adults it's got to be staffed well though for that, and that's that's a message that that policy makers and funders really need to take on board strongly.

Colby:

Yeah, the. But the other thing I was thinking about as you were talking, was about the need for staff to have their own support in this space because, as you say, say some of the children, you're not going to be afforded gratitude. I always think seeking gratitude is a fool's quest from young people. Some adults will say we're not praising you for doing well at school because that's what we expect you to do. You know like it's not noteworthy if you have a good day at school, if you flip it around. That's not dissimilar to saying you know the argument against feeling like we should be validated all the time for the job we're doing with, with our kids. No, that's your job. Yes, that's just actually your job to do a good job with the kids, but it's as you said earlier, it's hard work, it's very hard and I think and and other other guests uh have well have also talked about.

Colby:

It is really important for staff to have the opportunity to feel, to reflect, to think about what they're doing, to reflect, to reflect on their own reaction to the work and be supported in relation to that.

Adela:

I agree, and that is really, I think that's incredibly hard to achieve. Some people say, or have said over the years, that Hurst Bridge Farm worked because of the farm environment. But actually I mean, yes, sure, that's part of it, but that is not why it worked. That's part of it, but that is not why it worked, because the work was in the relationships and how we used the relationships as vehicles for our knowledge of what needed to happen. So we know that kids, when they first came to Hurst Bridge, they could not regulate their presentation, they could not think effectively, they were not in a calm place inside their minds and they didn't like themselves very much and we did all sorts of things. And I think one of the key elements is to not lower expectations but alter expectations. So when I used to say this many, many times in a day to the staff there times in a day to the staff there it's not actually that I'm asking you to validate when a child is unpleasant towards you. What I'm suggesting is that if you can neutralise it neutralise it you're better off in terms of your own response and what the child gets out of it. And that related directly to all the things that I read particularly Bruce Perry's work about kids needing to like themselves first.

Adela:

I can remember an interaction that ended up with one of these erstwhile colleagues of mine ringing me because a child had been quite difficult with their visiting child protection worker and the staff, as always, had taken a decision internally not to humiliate them or shame them in the presence of that worker. So, yes, we would deal with it, but we would deal with it when they had gone and then I'd get a call from that person's manager saying what are you doing up there? You know that he was really rude to whoever the worker's name was and your staff member did nothing. And I said that's right, they did nothing and let me explain why they did nothing. Went through what I, you know, just talked about and said can I tell you that right now that kid is out in a car with that worker unpacking why they got so upset when the child protection worker was there and that worker will try and go through it with them and help them unpack that until they have actually got somewhere. Even if they don't manage to do the whole thing, they will keep going until they've got somewhere.

Adela:

And the reason they're doing it in a car is because when you had little kids, what did you do if they wouldn't go to sleep? You'd put them in the car seat and drive around the block a few times. We are helping that young person to regulate and to soothe. So please don't tell me we're doing nothing. We're not doing nothing, but you can't see it. And we had gone out of our way to help, you know, to visit and explain how we did what we did. But of course, until you saw it, it was impossible to know I like.

Colby:

I like the example of the car. I think it's a very good example of the sequence. Yeah, I always in my own work, I always say you know, what do we do for babies? You know, we spend a lot of time thinking about their experience, responding to their experience, without them having to explain it to us Exactly. You know, thinking what's going on for baby all the time. And then, yeah, and we didn't expect them to regulate, we helped them regulate, and all of these kind of ideas. Some people will say, well, you're just babying the children.

Adela:

But you know, I yes, I think we might have talked last time, but I've certainly.

Colby:

I can easily dispel that notion. When you think about um, what we do, a person's needs are the same whether they're one or 101 what they their relational care needs and their needs more generally. It just looks different in how you operationalise it. So we're not babying the kids. What we're doing is we're filling in the gaps.

Adela:

Well, we are, and one of the things that I think that we if I said it once, you know, we must have all thought it and said it hundreds of times at Hurstbridge, which was Bruce Perry says you have to go to the lowest part of the brain implicated to create neurobiological change, and he talks really volubly about the amount of repetitions of corrective input that you have to provide. So if you think about that, that's all we were doing that day. We were going to the lowest part of the brain implicated and we were going over it again and again and again, in a calm, non-punitive way, until even one little notch of awareness was achieved.

Colby:

Yeah, yeah, and we do this for years, you know, with our babies and young children and, like you were reflecting on a little bit earlier, I've had my doubters and the doubts rubbed off a bit.

Adela:

It's always that, yeah.

Colby:

And it's always been a challenge to advocate for therapeutic care for our children and young people. I think part of that has to do with other species in the animal kingdom. Don't have experts telling them how to raise their young.

Adela:

We're the only ones that have Exactly. But our young are dependent for so much longer than anyone else in the animal kingdom.

Colby:

And they're capable of so much, and they're also equally capable of a life that's unproductive from a broader point of view. So there is complexity there that we need to acknowledge and tailor our approach to caregiving. We do that in the home anyway. Our kids aren't all the same.

Adela:

Well, we do, and one of the things that I think is a really important skill for people who work in this field, with these kids who have been really impacted by complex trauma, is the skill to be able to let things wash over you. So you know when kids I don't know how you go with expletives on your podcast do you commit them or do you blake them out?

Colby:

Go ahead, say what you need to say.

Adela:

Well, when kids say things you know to me, like oh, get fucked, or this or that or the other, if we buy into that we say goodnight really, because those are defences. We have to recognise them as defences and I have never been a person to buy into any of those kinds of expressions. And in fact I've got a million stories I could bore you to tears, you'd probably fall asleep. But one story I think really sticks with me we had, you know, in our first intake of young people that we had at Hurstbridge, we had probably eight of the young people who no one could work with.

Colby:

Yeah, they would have recorded them and sent you the most complex, troubled population of kids.

Adela:

We had, you know, children who'd had sometimes 42 placement breakdowns before coming to us, sometimes 42 placement breakdowns before coming to us. I said to the staff for that first year, when we were in about September, october, I said I would like let each of the kids know that I would like a Christmas list from them. I'd like a list of what I like for Christmas. And they said, yeah, right, that's going to be easy. And I said, no, it won't be easy because they won't believe it. They won't believe that we care, they won't believe any of it. But we've just got to stay right and true and calm and see how we go. I still have the first list I got from the first child because it reminds me of the importance of relentless kindness, right? So, anyway, we got one or two and, to cut a very long story short, there was one in particular who'd had, you know, some pretty horrific childhood experiences, who just didn't, wouldn't do it, wouldn't you know? No, I'm not going to do it.

Adela:

So I think about the beginning of December, I was walking out of the office building and she was leaning up against the wall and she said something like well, so when are we going to go and get this fucking Christmas present, then Now some people might have said, when you speak to me nicely, well, what would that have done, you know? So I just said now, yes, I went and got my bag and my car keys. And we got in the car and went to get it and on the way there I won't tell the whole story because it's very personal information, but on the way there a whole story came out about why this young person didn't like presents and Christmas and it was an actual experience that she had. So very important not to get caught up in the. You know the niceties of nice behaviour At some point you can, but not at that point.

Colby:

Yeah, the importance is to avoid debate, to get involved in the behaviour and respond more meaningfully to the reasons why you're seeing it. Adela, I could talk to you again. We could talk for hours, I'm sure maybe, maybe the next conversation we have can could be about how you I'm just thinking about this last little story how you explain to people, um, to that we it's important to defer social niceties to another time.

Adela:

Yes, I think that's actually a very good point.

Colby:

The reality is we don't berate our babies for throwing up on us pooing on us weeing on us in the middle of the night when we're trying. We don't berate them for throwing whatever at us for spitting their food out. There's a time to provide a corrective response, but there's a whole lot of stuff that has to come before that.

Adela:

Has to come before that and it's got its solid grounding in neurobiology because it's go to the lowest part of the brain implicated. And I used to say that again and again and again to staff, because if you don't go there you can't go anywhere. You must go to that place because you're building up from that place and you're building up from that place with what the young person didn't get in the first place, which is love and kindness and care. So you kind of have to say, okay, this is like a large baby walking around.

Colby:

People also take exception to that.

Adela:

Well, yes.

Colby:

Yeah.

Adela:

But this is what it is and sometimes you know, at a certain point you always, like you, can sense the point in the relationship where you can start to introduce that young person to some of the metaphor. So that same young person rang me up once, ages after leaving in a not very good state and, as we all know, anger is a couple of stages up from despair. So I did something which I thought might make them angry, but even if it did, it was probably better than despair. So I sent this young person a photograph of my hand, like that, my palm up, and the response was WTF. And then I texted back and I said can you not see it? And I knew it was provocative, but I knew the young person well enough to be able to do that.

Adela:

And the response was see what? And then I rang and said your hope, it's in the palm of my hand. I'm looking after it. Until you can get it back, I'll give it back to you. I'll give it back to you now if you want it, if you're ready for it, but if you're not ready for it, I'll look after it now, forever after. That has been a means of communication between us, so it's kind of somewhere around Anne Hughes and Pace and metaphor as well. But in difficult situations in past times probably not so much in recent times but in times where you know things were a little bit tough I could just go and she knew exactly what that meant.

Colby:

Yeah, Well, Della, again it's been wonderful speaking to you, and if you're going, we'll probably have another conversation.

Adela:

Oh, I'm going yeah.

Colby:

About what I was just mentioning earlier, but thanks again.

Adela:

No problem, good to do it. See you, colby.

Colby:

Bye for now. Thank you.

People on this episode

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Colby Pearce

Host
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Adela Holmes

Guest