The Secure Start® Podcast
In the same way that a secure base is the springboard for the growth of the child, knowledge of past endeavours and lessons learnt are the springboard for growth in current and future endeavours.
If we do not revisit the lessons of the past we are doomed to relearning them over and over again, with the result that we may never really achieve a greater potential.
In keeping with the idea we are encouraged to be the person we wished we knew when we were starting out, it is my vision for the podcast that it is a place where those who work in child protection and out-of-home care can access what is/was already known, spring-boarding them to even greater insights.
The Secure Start® Podcast
#26 How a Reflective, Respectful Approach Helped Families Choose Healthier Relationships, with Adriana Dias
Some projects change direction without losing their purpose—and that’s where real growth happens. I sit down with Portuguese clinical psychologist Adriana Dias to explore Ravira Volta, a pilot that helped girls in residential care and their birth families build healthier relationships by widening choice, deepening respect, and keeping reflection at the centre of the work. Rather than forcing a linear “turnaround,” Adriana’s team embraced non‑linear change: testing new strategies, adjusting the plan with supervision, and redefining success as the best possible connection for each family.
We trace how an external, dedicated team preserved role clarity with the residential home while working systemically across the whole family network. Adriana explains the project’s three layers of reflection—case thinking, design adaptation, and practitioner self-awareness—and why containment is the bridge that turns overwhelming feelings into manageable thought. That process helped parents move from defensiveness to agency, weighing their daughters’ needs alongside their own limits and, at times, choosing partial reunification as the healthiest path.
The conversation tackles the hardest dilemma in child protection: children’s urgent developmental timelines versus adults’ slower change. Adriana shows how honest, reflective supervision safeguarded perspective, prevented enmeshment, and kept the team humane and effective. We also talk integration, funding a pilot, and the big shift the team made—from idealistic “full reunification” to a more nuanced aim: sustained, healthy relationships that fit each family’s reality.
If you care about child protection, attachment, self-worth, or reflective practice, this one’s for you. Listen, share it with a colleague, and tell us: how would you define a “good outcome”—and what would it take to get there? Subscribe, leave a review, and join the conversation.
About Adriana:
Adriana graduated in Psychology from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto in 2006. She later completed a Master's degree in Special Education – with a Specialization in Early Intervention, from the Institute of Education of the University of Minho, in 2011.
Adriana is a Full member of the Portuguese Psychologists Association, is specialist in Clinical and Health Psychology, and has advanced specializations in Psychotherapy and Psychology of Justice.
Adriana also holds a Postgraduate degree in Child Protection from the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra, and is currently undertaking a PhD.
Adriana recently led the Revira Volta project that sought to build healthy relationships between young people in the care of Livramento, and their birth families.
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 pdcast owner, Colby Pearce
Hello and welcome to the Secure Star Podcast.
Adriana:And Rivira Volta um have a more complex meaning. It means that you choose some pathways, some circumstances, and that aren't um fitting quite well, that aren't um uh going well, and you do something. Um sometimes you improvise, like the Portuguese love to do, and you um you achieve a different outcome. And most of the times these families, these parents didn't have the fair conditions to develop, to um um to to develop their competences, to develop their um their dreams, and uh we thought that they deserved um have that fair condition to flourish. We saw ourselves, the team, the the professionals, we saw ourselves as facilitators of church. Um as facilitators of uh of dreaming. We are uh sharing and we are listening to them, listening about uh their knowledge, because they have knowledge, lots of knowledge. It's a different kind of knowledge. It's uh knowledge learned in different countries, but they have knowledge. Sometimes they choose um not to be all the time with their girls because they understand that they have uh conditions to learn. The self-conscience, uh the self-monitorization, the self-conscience, the self-knowledge about ourselves uh that can help us to choose what we want was one of the most beautiful uh goals that we achieved. When we are um when we have um we have this power of choose uh and we choose our pathway uh and we um have this how to cheat, um then we are um pacified with our choices and with what have happened in our lives. But when we uh feel that the the context um robbed us uh degrees of freedom, we are not good. And this was very important for us, um and we cannot uh uh forget that our residences can have um can limitate us if we don't have um self-conscious or can be um very important uh um tools to work with the families because we know uh um who we are. I think that's very important in enough in future projects of this nature.
Colby:Hello and welcome to the Secure Start Podcast. I'm Colby Pierce, and joining me this episode is a fellow clinical psychologist in Portugal who led a project on an aspect of child protection work that is close to me and close to my heart and my head. Before I introduce my guests, I'd just like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land that I come to you from, the Ghana people of the Adelaide Plains, and acknowledge the continuing connection the living Ghana people feel to land, waters, culture, and community. I'd also like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. My guest this episode is Adriana Diaz. Adriana graduated in psychology from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto in 2006. She later completed a master's degree in special education with a specialization in early intervention from the Institute of Education at the University of Minho in 2011. Adriana is a full member of the Portuguese Psychologists Association, is specialist in clinical and health psychology, and has advanced specializations in psychotherapy and psychology of justice. Adriana also holds a postgraduate degree in child protection from the Faculty of Law of the University of, and I'm struggling with this, Coimbra. That's a I know I'll get Adriana to correct me on that in a moment. Adriana is also currently undertaking a PhD. Adriana recently led the Rivera Volta project that sought to build healthy relationships between young people in the care of Livermento and their birth families. Welcome, Adriana.
Adriana:Hi, Colby. I want to thank you.
Colby:Oh thank you for coming on. Now, there were two, there were the names of two universities there that I probably should have checked beforehand how they were pronounced. Uh and I didn't. So one was is it Min? How would you Minho or how would you pronounce that university?
Adriana:Minho, Minho, Minho. Yes, Minho.
Colby:That's one person Portugal. Minhos. Yes, I've got one from one. The other one I I I'm pretty sure that I failed at. What was the the the one where you did the um the other qualification in the faculty of law? What what's that university called?
Adriana:Coimbra. It's the uh major yeah, the the third major um city in Portugal and the one of the most ancient um universities in Europe, Coimbra.
Colby:And I I think of myself as a an amateur historian. I love history. How I'm embarrassed that I got that name. I didn't know that. I didn't know that, and I got that name wrong in the pronunciation. Um never mind, never mind. Now I also said Rivera Volta. Did I get that correct? Yes, yes, so Rivera Volta, yes.
Adriana:I can't do um that the the the R there.
Colby:Roll the R. Yeah, yeah. We took I think we call it rolling the R, and I can't do it. I I and that noise that you just made, uh, my mother and my sisters can do it, but I can't do it. With your tongue that roll with the R the vibrating tongue. I can't do that. No, but anyway, Rivera Volta is as good as I can do now.
Adriana:Yes, the Portuguese have the Portuguese the Portuguese have some sounds that are a little bit difficult because they are very specific.
Colby:Yeah, that noise, that noise, you can't do that. Yeah, yeah. So Rivera Volta was the name of the program that um that I was mentioning, um, that I'm really keen to speak to you about. In in English, what does Revere Volta mean? How does it translate?
Adriana:Um the translation, um the bad uh translation I I found uh was turnaround. But um this is very this isn't very accurate because I think turnaround means that you go and you come back and have a more complex meaning. Uh it means that you choose uh some pathways, some circumstances and um that aren't um um fitting quite well, that aren't um uh going well, and you do something. Um sometimes you improvise, like the Portuguese love to do, and you um you achieve a different outcome. Um you have you you do um you um move these uh the pieces of the the circumstances and you can have a different outcome. Um uh we hope a better outcome. So is that you mix all the things, you do different things, you uh experience uh different uh strategies, and uh then you have you have maybe you have a different outcome. Um turnaround, it's a more linear um process. You go and you come back.
Colby:Um so Javira Valtis is that well work with birth families, um, work in this space, child protection is never linear, it's it's always um uh follows follows a non-linear course. Yeah. And and if I understand you correctly, what you're saying is it it's not turnaround and come back to where you started, it's changing direction, more like changing direction, taking a different path.
Adriana:Yeah, yeah. And maybe you have we will have a different outcome. Um in this context of the project, um, we thought that families deserve uh fair conditions because the system isn't always fair, and life isn't all isn't always fair. Um, and most of the times these families, these parents, didn't have the fair conditions to develop, to um um to to develop their consciousness, to develop their um their dreams. And uh we thought that they deserve um uh have that fair conditions to flourish, to give them their their girls, because uh livramento um is a residential care home that have only girls. Um they they deserve uh that right conditions, right in comments, um to flourish.
Colby:So the project was very much around supporting birth family, birth parents to be a better the best version of themselves that they could be. Yeah. So that and and and my other my other understanding of the project was that part of helping them to be a bit a better version of themselves as parents was about re positively reconnecting or facilitating healthy relationships um with their girls young people, yeah. They're girls that reside in Livermento. Yeah, yeah.
Adriana:We are sorry.
Colby:You go ahead.
Adriana:We always uh we thought about uh sorry, we um we thought uh most of um of the times uh give them um more degrees of freedom to choose. And that's very important because we are not educators uh in this project. Of course, we share with them knowledge, scientific knowledge, because that's important. Um, but we were um we saw ourselves, the team, the the professionals, we saw ourselves as facilitators of change, um, as facilitators of um of dreaming. Um, because dreaming is um achieving uh a more um degree more degrees of freedom to choose. And most of the time these families, these parents didn't have lots of degrees of freedom to choose in their lives.
Colby:Yeah, so you are as I understand it, you were opening up choices and new pathways for them to follow. How were you doing that? How were you how was the project uh uh being delivered? How were you were you um giving those those additional or those extra choices to birth family?
Adriana:Um first of all, um we thought that we have to have uh an external uh team. Um Livramento, the resident residential care home, and uh have uh a team that uh work directly with the girls. Um in they are they were they are uh their educators, uh they um they um organize their daily routines, um the they are they go to school. So this team uh work as the educators of the girls, but this internal team um cannot um work with their families without having a conflict of roles. Um because if they do the both roles, they have to um change all the time the hat of the role. I I I um use this metaphor. I have a hat is a role, I take off the hat, I take on um another another hat and is another role. Because when we work with the families, uh we have to have um uh a systemic approach. Uh all the elements uh have to be considered. Um we can focus on one or another element uh for some time, but we have to have the the whole vision. Um and we need a team, an external team, that worked specifically with this approach, this systemic approach. Um we included the girls, of course, because they are part of the family, even if they in that moment they were uh they aren't with uh living with the families, but we have to focus on the wall, the whole system. So um we um thought that we need an external team. So we created this team, the team of Rivira Volta that worked uh with the families. We work with 10 families because this was um uh pilot project, um, and that 10 families were chosen uh with the the the internal team. Um um that uh because the that families, uh that girls, um the life project of that girls uh was um the reunification. We thought that the better project, the better life project for that girls was the reunification, because there are um lots of girls that are in the in Livramento, um that uh the the project isn't the reunification because um the system, the the team uh doesn't uh understand that um the family um can be um secure for that girls, uh can be um minimal conditions of uh security to to that girls be in the family. So we uh worked directly with the internal team, but we were we we had uh different roles, and that was important because families um had to have um a therapeutic um uh relationship with us uh uh with um confidence um trust, sorry, uh with um um a collaboration uh approach. Um they work with us and we work with them. We are not teaching anything, we are uh sharing and we are listening to them, listen about um their knowledge because they have knowledge, lots of knowledge. It's a different kind of knowledge, it's uh knowledge learned in different contexts, but they have knowledge. So um this help us to work um with them uh at with this uh approach, with this collaboration approach. Uh and that was a very important point of this project. The other point, uh, very important point was reflection. We have um to have to be all the time reflecting about the um the the way we are conducting the project because uh of course we didn't uh invent anything. This project wasn't new uh in their um approaches, um, in their basis, because we had lots of information of the previous projects, but this one we wanted that um was adapted specifically to this context, and that was new because we had to think about the kind of families we had, we had the kind of context that families uh were, and we have to um think about uh the possibilities, but uh all the time we had to adjust what we were doing so we uh reflect lots with the internal team, uh we reflect um uh within the team uh of Vina Volta, we reflect with our supervisors. We have um um a supervisor, uh Patrick, um and um we have some experts of Portugal that uh helped us to reflect. And the reflection was um a base point of this project.
Colby:It uh the way you describe it, Maria. Sorry, I can edit that bit out.
Adriana:I am I am Maria, I am Maria. Adriana Maria is my name, so you are you are good.
Colby:I it I know it's I've just got I I got that stuck in my head at some point, and I'm not sure how, but yeah, I'm pleased to hear that it is, you know, one of one of your names. Um anyway, what what I was gonna say is that listening to you, it it sounds like there were there were those two key elements. It was it was very much a reflective project and a reflective process that was happening, and I can imagine one in which um you didn't see birth parents as um how would I put it you didn't you didn't see them as non-experts in their own life. If I yeah, you rather you saw them, you met them where they were where they are, yeah, and you collaborated with them to open up possibility new possibilities for them in their life. And it strikes me that it was it's it's a very respectful approach to the birth parents. Um child protection systems um often struggle to help birth parents feel restricted through respected through um the process and a child's journey through care. So it was a very as I'm listening to it, it was very respectful, it was very collaborative. Um you were attempting to change the course of the family's trajectory as yeah. Um and part of that was um about fostering healthy connections with with their with their girls, with their girls in Livermento. Yeah, and you you mentioned that there was a a reflective process, perhaps with with reflective supervision with Patrick Tomlinson as well as um within the Tomlinson. Yes. Perhaps um tell me what you think was the importance of it being a reflective project and there being that reflective supervision that occurred.
Adriana:Uh this reflection uh as some um points, uh some main points. Um in one uh one hand we had the reflection about the cases. We had to think about the specific cases, um, the ten families that we were working. Um and we thought about their um characteristics, um uh we construct um systemic uh hypotheses about what was happening, about uh uh their pathways, the previous pathways, and the the strengths and the fragilities. We uh thought about this, and we use um uh an instrument that was uh that it was created by um um a Portuguese um teacher and and and um um Madalena Larcan um that is um in Portuguese is Imias, um that helped us to have a um a world vision about the the conditions of the family. Um and um this kind of reflection helped us to uh work directly with the families uh and use the right strategies, the right uh strategies, what we thought was the right strategies, um, improve dynamics, uh etc. And there was another kind of reflection that helps us to think about the project, the the phases of the project, the number of the sessions, the um the main strategies that we can we could use in the um in uh each phase of the project. Um and this was um uh a kind of reflection that we have with uh with Patrick, but also with the other experts, um, the design of the project. Uh that's what what I I mean. Uh and uh a third um group, I can uh of uh of sessions of reflection was about ourselves because we thought that the team um uh had to reflect about um about um we we have to to reflect about ourselves as professionals and as persons. Um we have to uh reflect about our values, our uh vision of what is a family, because uh our um our core um visions of what is life. Um and we we did um um um some um exercises um of reflection about ourselves that help us to um to um to improve our competences, personal competences, social competences, and uh therapeutical competences that um we believe uh help a profession to work better with the families. Um Patrick uh said once that the the way we behave with each other as a team will model the way uh the families will behave with the um within them themselves and within us because they are always like like a child uh a child um when we have a child is always observing the parents, um the families are always observing us as a team, as a person. So we have to improve ourselves as a profession, professionals to uh do a better job with them, um, but also to model um the uh some things that we believe that will help to construct um healthier relationships. If we model that healthier uh relationships with the family, the family maybe will um um can um build that healthier relationships within the elements. I don't know if I explain myself well, but very well. These are three um parts of reflection.
Colby:So I'll I'll tell you what I what I took from that, which was that there is there's the reflection on the family and their circumstances and their needs. There's the reflection on the project. So it starts off uh as a project with I'm I'm guessing with with a certain with certain understandings and certain processes, but they're always subject to review and and and following a different path. And that fits nicely in the definition of Rivera Volto, as you talked about, you know, that there's it's a cry it's not set in stone, it it's not just the families we're wanting to um go to help to go in, have choices about uh other directions that they can go in. The project itself can develop and grow. And and and again, it this there's this link, as you say, between you you put it about how we uh as how we interact with a team model something for the families about how you how you interact. But I also but but you were it was like you were all on the same voyage of discovery, you were all learning, developing changing path, perhaps. And and the third element of of the reflection was in in reflective supervision and thinking about your own experience of the work and your own values, your own thinking about family, what is a family, parenting, and you were being more consciously aware of biases, I guess, or or the and blind spots, but but you were more self-aware, um, more able to think about your own experience of the work. You're to to approach the work in a very conscious, deliberate thinking way. Which I can see again is something that we you you you weren't necessarily telling the parents how they had to be, what they had to do. You were what you were modeling uh is a different approach to life, and you were modeling that individually, collectively, and relationally with the families.
Adriana:The the the idea of giving them more choices to choose, but uh in the end, uh the ones who choose are them, not us. They did they don't do what we say it's right because we don't know what is right, um we know what is um what the the science tells us that is wrong, and we share with them the consequences, but uh in the end they um they choose what is right for them, and sometimes and and happened this uh in this project, sometimes they choose um not to be all the time with their girls because they understand that they haven't uh conditions to that. That and that happened uh in some of the families. Um in the end of projects, uh maybe the the in the at the beginning the the idea was the reunification, the the whole reunification. In the end, uh some of the families understand uh understood that um um the old reunification wasn't the the the better outcome. we have a partial reunifications. The girls go to the family at the weekends and they stay at Livermento um in the the the rest of the days or they go to the family um some days or uh half of the week and they stay at livramento uh um for some days and this was um a better outcome because uh the the intensity of the the the relationship um make our uh that relationship healthier because they don't didn't struggle with uh so many challenges daily challenges and um this conscience that would the the um the parents um um gained uh was uh one of the for me was one of the more um beautiful uh goals that we achieved because um the change the the the the the changes are important uh but the self-conscience uh the self-monetrization the self-conscience the self-knowledge about ourselves uh that can help us to choose what we want um was one of the most beautiful uh goals that we achieved um this um when we we thought uh in this project we thought about uh some uh main principles we wanted to to um to apply one of them uh was auto chip the auto chip is very important for us because uh when we are um when we have um we have this power of choose uh and we choose our pathway uh and we um have this how to chip um then we are um pacified with our choices and with what have happened with in in our lives but when we uh um feel that uh the the context um um um robbed us uh degrees of freedom we are not good and it this was very important for us yeah yeah there was one word that you said that i i i didn't quite get but what i'm understanding you're saying is that it was and this is in when child protection authorities become involved with families it's a it's an incredibly disempowering experience for them and though families may already be struggling the child protection the child the intervention the intervention to keep children safe often enough maybe almost universally further disempowers the family because it's a state intervention we we we we are going to take the children into our care for a period of time because we believe that you can't do that and that's an incredibly disempowering uh and and parents don't give a good account of themselves in those circumstances they're not they're not they're not they often struggle to relate to child protection authorities uh in a skillful thinking way yeah they they're more reactive and defensive because they're hurt yeah and what one of the concepts that we talk about on this podcast fairly regularly of late is is the concept of containment and containment being the the relationship that um that we develop with people whereby and it's a bit like a supervisory it's a bit like lots of relationships it's like the parent-child relationship it's like a a a mentor or supervisory relationship but one of the core um component or aspects of um containment is this idea that when you're interacting with someone they can share with you their most overwhelming experiences fears sadnesses and that you can then feed it back to them in a way that is more manageable for them yeah you can help them so in that doing so you can help you help families make sense of process and make sense of the experience that they've had now why all this is important is because of something else that you said which was um that one of the outcomes of the project was that what that you that was you loved the most was that parents were able to think about what was the best part.
Colby:Yeah so a containing relationship is a relationship that helps people to be able to manage difficult overwhelming situations and and and be able to then think about what is the most appropriate path.
Adriana:Yeah so that I mean that's as you say it's beautiful that that families were able to think about what was best for them for their girls and for themselves and and be able to make decisions along those lines a very a very good outcome yeah Adriana I was wondering um you said that there you you referenced that there'd been previous projects but why why did this why do you think this project needed to be done as a you know at when it was done and how it was done because um this projects was uh we did this project within the residential care home um there are other services in Portugal um that work with reunification but um uh they are um based in CAFAP um the centers of family support that uh do different kinds of of of work they work with the families um when the children are within the families they work with the families that the parents are divorced and they have to um manage the the the the con the connections and the contacts within the the the two progenitors um and they work within the reunification um but they are more uh general uh they work quite well but they are more general and we wanted a project a team that worked specifically uh within the the residential care home uh a work uh a team that works specifically with this within this context uh a team that work um very closely uh within the the the another the the other team that that um work with the girls um and uh we thought that uh this kind of project could be uh uh different from the um the other services that are um being doing in portugal because um they um serve a more um um more uh communication that is more um um close uh that's can that can we can uh work the two teams can work uh directly daily uh and uh the the the attention we give to the families to the girls to these dynamics could be more um more specific yeah it it sounds like it was an integrated project integrated between where the families were at where the girls and where the girls were at right as opposed to uh yeah you know the girls live here and the families live here and there's a service over here um there was much more integration between the three yeah yeah yeah but do you recall any particularly significant challenges that you you faced in um in delivering on this project and its aims yes um some of the challenges was uh i i I tell you uh um a while um was the we have to reflect about the the um the path of the the the project we have to um do some corrections to the number of sessions dynamics the strategies that was uh some of the challenge but another challenge that i didn't uh talk about um yet was the what i i i don't know if i can explain myself but what we um called the time of the family uh and the time of the children um these two times uh weren't always the same uh the same compass um because we know the time of the of a child is very short they just have a window of a window of opportunity to to develop some kind of competencies um and we have to rush um our our intervention with the children because they don't have time that kind of time uh they have lots of time in life but they don't have that kind of time of to develop some um some some competences and um and the time of the family uh the time of the um the adults is a different kind of time and sometimes um we know that the fair conditions for an adult to develop is here two years because they have to have time to think to reflect to talk about to uh experience experience some different kinds of uh um of uh circumstances of uh um of um um situation situations uh to change but the time that the that girls their children have isn't one year two years three years and this this compass uh between the two times was a challenge for us because sometimes we had to take difficult um decisions um with the parents and the um with the the internal team because the two times don't don't don't match um and the the parents deserve this fair time but the girls didn't have that time um and this this is a very for me as a professional this is one of the greatest um challenges of interventions because sometimes this um make me I don't know if I can use this word but we are persons that this make me sad because I I I I realize that sometimes we cannot achieve all goals we cannot achieve all outcomes we have to choose between what is the better outcome for a children um and what is a better outcome for an adult and for the whole family that have this time too I didn't know if I I explained myself but this is one for me one of the greatest challenges of the project.
Colby:Yeah I won't repeat what you said but um it did come through very clearly what you were what you were basically saying was that um the children the girls and their families were out of sync out of synchrony in I guess we would just say out of sync in terms of where they're at in their development yeah and um and sometimes to I guess uh for the parents to get to that place where they are the best versions of themselves as parents is is is going to take time longer than the length of I guess a project like Rivera Volta.
Adriana:Yeah and I I was wondering while you were talking about it Adriana um about the role the role of supervision the role of the reflective supervision in terms of um coming to understand that and and whether there are other particular um insights important insights that were gained as a result of or uh as a product of that reflective supervision process um the the role of supervision um I guess it uh has uh two main goals and we we get in love a lot with supervision because our supervisors uh have um a different experience and a larger experience of course so they can give us different inputs um about the design of the of the project about the um the um the conditions and um the hypothesis of the uh of of cases uh and that was very important for us because sometimes we are not uh um we are not uh um seeing something uh that they they they they give us a different input and we can we could uh change our vision of what was happening uh within the family but um the supervision uh especially the supervision with patrick because it was um more um personal uh the the our uh the the the the other team that helped us uh help us more with the the reflection of cases or um and the with the the design of the project but patrick helped us to reflect um in a more personal way and it was very important for us to give us this self-conscious of our resonances uh of what was happening with us as persons and as professionals that were uh that were uh facilitating or that were not facilitating the work that we were doing with the families and that was important very important for us as a team um for me as a as a profession but for us as a team we were three uh three psychologists if i i didn't say that um but uh was very important for us because we could um understand sometimes that some resonances about our visions about life about our visions of our preferred visions of about families about life about parents um our expectations about what we wanted to uh to achieve because sometimes we we work so hard with the families that we sometimes I think we we we become uh in in certain way part of the family uh and that take us take us off the therapeutic um our in some way take us the therapeutic um um capacity and uh and the the supervision help us to to be with the family but um um without losing this therapeutic capacity i you understand what i mean yeah it it it's about i mean i would say it's about being able to think about the circumstances of the family in a i guess i we would say a metacognitive way but it's really um it's it's about being one step removed may maintaining a position one step removed and observing the goings on of the family but also observing what's hap where our own interactions with the family our own and and where we where we sit in this dynamic with the family so I think that yeah the role of supervision there as as I understood it was that it helped you maintain perspective about the family to help maintain perspective about your your own part of that dynamic with the family that working dynamic yeah and um I mean we I think one a theme of this podcast Adriana is about supervision and the the absolute importance of it that it it's that it's so critical to work in complex um endeavors like this um where that that it where it's quite confronting for us and it also can really tug on the the the emotional heartstrings we would say like it it yeah it's so so yeah supervision I think is vital and in particular as you describe it it the fact that it in it doesn't necessarily have to give you all the answers it it it just needs to help you be able to think yeah and in the same way like we do with the families.
Colby:That's exactly what I was going to say we don't have to tell the families exactly how to live their life or they should be living their life or or what all the answers are. In fact uh another theme of this podcast has been I don't know or another another element of the discussions has been this idea that we don't have to know everything. We don't have to know all the answers when we admit that we don't know then we create a space where you can have a meaningful conversation and work things out with people. And that's when you're doing that with your colleagues and with your clients that's such a respectful way of of conducting that interaction and I could and if you did nothing else treating your those pet those families with respect yeah would change their life course to some degree just treating them with respect treating them as partners in an endeavor in a journey treating them as people of worth my own apart from my my big interest in attachment uh Adriana my other a big interest at the moment is or has been uh for a long time is in self-worth and and I think all therapeutic endeavour that improves self-worth will bear some pretty good outcomes for people because the alternative to self-worth is worthlessness and people make really poor decisions about their life when they feel worthless.
Adriana:You talked about over the um the course of the project um your own thoughts changed the project changed um but in our pre-meet when we when we met beforehand you you talked about how your own thinking changed over the course of this project um I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about that what changed in your thinking mostly um I think that when we started the project we thought that we were working with the families to the reunification to the wall reunification um and um we um uh designed a project with the um a certain number of phases that uh was um was uh implemented or will be implemented with that uh uh order uh and then at the end the the the the outcome was the reunification i guess it's um when i think about that uh in risk in um looking um back i i think that uh we have a a kind of i uh idealistic view about uh uh about this and can i can i just jump in and say that's a very can I just jump in and say that's a very much a psychologist way of doing things yeah very strands and all of and you were three psychologists yes yes yes yeah yeah yeah I I agree with you um and and it was um yes a beautiful and idealistic view about the the the things but when we were um um implementing the project we started to think that reunification can be a more um a less strict uh concept um because we we started to think about healthy relationships more than reunification yes reunification is important and maybe it will be an outcome in some um situations but the most important uh most important thing that we could work with the families was working uh within the the healthier relationship relationships between them and then we thought and we reflect lots about what is a healthy relationship we did um lots of exercise um um in the context of supervision and uh then with the uh with the families uh thinking about what is a healthy relationship what that means what mean these concept what uh includes a healthy relationship and at the end uh um for us the better outcomes was when the the the families gain this um self-conscious again um uh of what is a healthy relationship and um within their specific family uh what is a healthy um how can we operationalize a healthy relationship sometimes a healthy relationship a wealthier relationship in that family was uh the girl um go uh to the family again and live uh with them and uh we have a total real uh reunification sometimes the outcome the better outcome for a healthy relationship was the girl stay at livramento start study um for more years uh and go at the weekends to the family and that was uh a um a good outcome for a better for a healthier relationship so that changed that idealistic view of the the the phases the orders um the number of the sessions uh the a clean project very uh very um very tidy project i i guess um that that change in our head um and the um the the concept of healthy relationship uh become more important i think that was the great um change in my mind in our mind yeah wonderful wonderful outcomes um of course um from from my perspective um if you know that the a a really terrific outcome as you you've talked about it is um these best connections the best possible connections at the at the time um that were possible that that certainly also though um that um that capacity to think and reflect on what what was a good outcome for for them as a family yeah I think that that's that's remarkable because um in my own experience um the way in which parents feel like they are treated in child protection matters then they become they can the that treatment that disempowerment can make them really struggle to be able to think about what's in the best interest of their children yeah they become much more inward focused so yeah so the you know being able to achieve that outcome is is remarkable and well done do you think there'll be further projects like this um either with livramento or or um um in Portugal more generally we want to uh replicate the project um maybe first uh to Libramento um so we can uh uh have more um uh more specific data um because uh like I said it was a a pilot project and we was um we thought a lot about uh how we can uh implement the project and at the end we feel that we we need to start again to do some things differently um to um um to see if uh how what we thought previously uh will have different uh um outcomes um but we don't know yet if um it will be possible yeah you had my understanding is you had funding you had some uh external funding for the project as well is that right yeah yeah yeah it was like um bp like aisha yeah it was uh an external fund an external yeah like it's a bank oh it's a bank yeah yeah yeah so it's like um almost I'm thinking philanthropic but it's not not that's not the right word um but it it's it's like social funding I guess a bank yeah yeah a bank uh yeah okay so that have a bank that have a project of social funding yes it's like that yeah yeah so if you did a project again you would you would you you would take on all of this learning from this pilot project and you would you would um start in a different place I guess um yeah yeah but do you do you I I'm interested to know whether you it would there would be a different outcome to the one that you achieve that you would be looking for maybe we start um because when we realize this kind of uh of uh things i i said to you uh we are at the middle of the project maybe if we start from the beginning we have uh more time to do things like we thought um of course the guidelines of the phases of a project the number of the sessions the stretches the dynamics these are always uh uh this is um all uh important things we have to have that we have to have limits we have to have guidelines because we cannot live and this is this is true for everything in life we cannot live without limits and without guidelines but um if we start with this vision that the the better outcome is the healthier relationship not the to respond to the expectations of a system that wanted to uh on off um answer that oh oh we have uh reunification or we don't have a reunification uh this black and white response um maybe we can have more time to um do things with families differently and maybe we can go for um go further um in the outcomes uh in the the results um and another thing i think is very important in the in in future projects is the um this reflect reflection about ourselves as a professionals as professionals because i think this uh was um a very important point of this project um of course um we know from the for our formation uh based formation that uh we have to have um professional skills uh therapeutical skills but we forgot lots of the a lot of times um of uh develop our personal skills uh as persons and when we are in uh with the families uh with persons we are the professionals of course but we are the persons too um and we cannot uh forget that our resonances uh can um have um can limitate us if it we don't have um the a self-conscious or can be um very important uh um tools to work with the families because we know uh um who we are i think that's very important in enough in future projects of this nature yeah well i i really hope that there are future projects of this nature i hope you get an opportunity to um put into practice some of these key learnings um that you you that you made from this pilot project but i i guess i i think that the the outcomes that you achieved are are really good outcomes anyway so that you the any subsequent projects the outcomes are gonna be that you're going to look for are going to be very similar these best most healthy relationships between the children and their families i would add um growing um empowerment in the birth pan in amongst the birth families growing their sense of their own worth growing their sense of their own uh importance in the lives of their girls or their children um I would add um achieving an outcome where parents are able to truly reflect on what is in the best interest of their children which is really quite different to the circumstances in which um child protection authorities place children away from parents so I think there's some all of those things are such worthy outcomes for a project like this um I I wouldn't change the outcomes with the subsequent project you might change the process but I think the I think the outcomes are great and um thank you very much for coming on and um um english is not your your your first language obviously so um very brave of you to come on and um communicate with uh uh with uh an English uh podcast in this or English speaking podcast in this way as we mentioned earlier my Portuguese is nothing like your your command of English I know two things in Portuguese so thank you again it was it was my pleasure Toby very thankful for for the invite
