The Secure Start® Podcast

#28 What If Child Protection Started Before Harm Happened, with Professor Julie Taylor

• Colby Pearce • Season 1 • Episode 28

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Imagine a world where we don’t just pull kids out of the river but walk upstream to stop them falling in. That’s the shift we make with Professor Julie Taylor, a leading nurse scientist whose work bridges health, social care, and the lived realities of families under pressure. Together we unpack child maltreatment as a public health challenge, not only a forensic problem, and explore what actually moves the needle on safety and wellbeing.

We dig into the socioecological model to map the layers that shape risk and protection: personal histories, family systems, schools, neighbourhoods, services, and policy. Julie reintroduces salutogenesis, the science of what creates health, to rebalance a field that can lean too hard on deficits. Instead of glorifying grit, we ask which supports make resilience possible: stable adults, predictable routines, inclusive classrooms, accessible care, and communities that offer belonging. From universal home visiting to parenting support embedded in trusted relationships, we look at why sustained, long-term help outperforms short, intensive bursts.

The conversation also takes on the “shiny program” problem and the evidence gap. We talk practical evaluation, data linkage, and why frontline teams need smaller caseloads, reflective supervision, and time to think. Then we zoom out to big levers. While poverty doesn’t cause abuse, it magnifies stress and chaos; reducing poverty, expanding paid parental leave, improving affordable childcare, and stabilising housing can lower risk at scale. No magic bullet exists, but a public health approach—paired with realistic investment in people and systems—can build social capital across generations.

If you care about prevention, policy, and the everyday craft of helping families, this conversation offers clarity and momentum. Follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a review with the one upstream change you’d fund first. Your insight might spark the next step forward.

Julie’s Bio:

Professor Julie Taylor is Head of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Birmingham, UK.

Julie is a nurse scientist specialising in child maltreatment and has extensive research experience with vulnerable populations using a wide range of qualitative and participative methods. Her research programme is concentrated at the interface between health and social care and is largely underpinned by the discourse of cumulative harm and the exponential effects of living with multiple adversities. In particular her work has concentrated on child neglect. 

Professor Taylor has given evidence at a number of inquiries and parliamentary groups and has served frequently on both funding and editorial boards.  She has authored ten books and over 150 academic articles on child abuse and neglect.

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:

Hello, and welcome to the Secure Start podcast.

Julie:

And taking an upstream approach to that is so, well, how do we stop people from falling into abuse in the first place and trying to protect them from that has not been entirely our approach. It isn't just one person or one um profession or one discipline that can change things. It needs the whole effort and we need governments behind us. I would say that the one thing that we could do that would really, really, really have a massive influence on child protection is to we know that what you have to do is work with families long term. We could be more thoughtful about making sure that individuals who are struggling or who've had those real adversities early on, that we put into place things that really can bolster that resilience.

Colby:

Hello and welcome to the Secure Start Podcast. I'm Colby Pierce, and joining me for this episode is an international authority about child maltreatment as a public health concern. Before we begin the podcast, I'd just like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands 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, water, culture, and community. I'd also like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. My guest this episode is Professor Julie Taylor. Professor Julie Taylor is head of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Birmingham, UK. Julie is a nurse scientist specializing in child maltreatment and has extensive research experience with vulnerable populations using a wide range of qualitative and participative methods. Her research program is concentrated at the interface between health and social care and is largely underpinned by the discourse of cumulative harm and the exponential effects of living with multiple adversities. In particular, her work has concentrated on child neglect. Professor Taylor has given evidence at a number of inquiries and parliamentary groups and has served frequently on both funding and editorial boards. She has authored 10 books and over 150 academic articles on child abuse and neglect. Welcome, Julie.

Julie:

Thank you, Colby. Nice to be here.

Colby:

And as um explained before we started, uh before I did the intro to the podcast, with the wonders of this technology, all the little um uh blips in my own uh opening there can be edited out and I can come across as being um verbally fluent and uh yeah and able to read still even at my age. So uh I thought I always ask um at the beginning, Julie, um tell us a little bit more about yourself, the work you do, and and how you came to this area of work.

Julie:

Hmm. Thanks, Colby. Um I was trying to think about this because I can tell a very um coherent story about that, but as you know, stories are never really as coherent as they they sound, and a lot of it is serendipity, being in the right place at the right time, taking opportunities as they come along, and things are not as smooth and as planned as they can sound in retrospect. So I am a nurse, um, I'm really proud to be a nurse, it's a really fundamental um part of what I do, but also of my identity. But um 20, 30 years ago, nurses were not seen as people who really had an awful lot to do with child protection. Um, in fact, even anybody in health was not really seen as that was something that you were involved with. And I remember being at um an evening function many years ago, and the medical director of the local um NHS, the health service trust, said said to me, What what what are you doing in child abuse and neglect? It's got nothing to do with medicine or health. And I it was really interesting that people thought that. And I think perceptions have really changed from that now. Um so unless you were a psychologist or perhaps a pediatrician and health visitors to a certain extent, it wasn't seen as your domain. And I wasn't any of those things. So um I had worked on numerous different wards. I worked on a neurosurgical unit where we got a lot of children who had been um probably pushed or hit against walls or whatever, and and parents often gave very incoherent or inconsistent stories about how these injuries had happened, and that really got me wondering about the whole child protection business. And then there was an opportunity to do a PhD um up in Scotland in a place that I didn't really know where it was geographically, and that that really changed my life. So I went up there and the PhD I did, although I was based in nursing, was my PhD was in the social work department. So my PhD is in social work, and it was specifically on child protection. Um, and that really was the start of my research career, and I haven't looked back from there. Um, so I've worked in lots of different places, and not all of them have been in nursing. I've worked in education, I've worked in social work, I worked for three years for uh a children's charity organization, um, and I'm back now in a school of medicine and leading up the nursing and midwifery department. Uh, but my fundamental post is a research post, and I'm professor of child protection here at the University of Birmingham, which is in the middle of the UK.

Colby:

I love that word serendipity, and uh a previous podcast guest, um wonderful Peter Wilson, he 86-year-old um uh child and adolescent psychotherapist, um said that life is like a series of serendipities, uh, which is somewhat of a um a magical way of of uh talking about, and as you say, you know, how life just seems to pan out in in a certain way, as it needs to for us, rather than in a you know, in necessarily in a very planned um manner.

Julie:

Oh yeah, indeed. I like that, a series of serendipities. Yeah, although sometimes it feels like a series of accidents, but you know hindsight's always good. You can make sense of things.

Colby:

Yeah, yeah. And it is the case. I think when you're um when you're in the work, your your your focus is um is is kind of very narrow. And uh when you when you when you step back from it, and particularly people have said on the podcast when they hear their their um their bio being re read to them, they it is quite a common reaction to go to bit go, oh, you know, that's I've done all that, or how did that all happen, you know, in in the lead up to this this time? Yeah, yeah.

Julie:

Indeed, yeah.

Colby:

Yeah, and you have had a qu a very varied um career um by the sounds of it. Do you are there any particular um theoretical orientations or or um practitioners, theorists in the area of child protection that have been of particular um or ongoing influence uh to you and your work?

Julie:

Um yes, I guess there are, um Colby. I think one of the things that I've always been really keen to do is to take models or theories that have been used in a completely different context and see if we can learn anything in in child protection from applying those models within within child protection. So um and we've we've done a lot of work on that, written about that a lot, and some have worked quite well and some have failed dramatically. Um, but there's always there's always learning in those. I think the the model that um probably is fairly common and most people would use is the um socioecological model. So John von Brenner's um five-stage socio-ecological model, a SEMP. Um and and I we've used that in lots and lots of different ways. Um, I think I think it's it still holds really well within within this work. So, you know, um taking things from both the what are the things that we can do individually that we can or can't change, probably we can't change a lot of them, and then within a parental sphere, then the broader society, and then the whole political milieu that we that that we work with and and and so on. So working outwards from in and looking at the different factors of influence within that, because these things don't happen at an individual level. Um the other theorist that I've really used and I really um even from my PhD work is um Aaron Antonovsky's Salutagenesis. And it's interesting. Well, we've just come full circle with that one. So um Antonovsky was a um someone who who looked at theories of you know the theory of pathogenesis. So pathogenesis is what goes wrong. You know, we get ill because something's gone wrong, there's some bug or something that's gone wrong. Whereas selecogenesis is the opposite of that, is saying, well, what keeps us healthy? So why do we stay well? And uh people often see that as resilience, but resilience is often an individual thing. So you you didn't do well after you were abused as a child, and somebody else did quite well. So so you're a bit of a failure and they're a success because they had individual things that they were more resilient, and it makes it individual. Whereas Seleucienesis is saying, well, what are the things that are around us that help somebody be resilient or um or or do well? So these things are not unusual. Um we know really we know really well within child maltreatment that um things that really help are uh having supportive adults, they may not be your parents, but other people who are really supportive in your life can really help you. Having um consistency and somebody that you can look up to. We we know all of those things, and it's not down to an individual child to be able to thrive. It's it's it's a it's a whole load of societal things around it. So the whole concept of salutegenesis for me has been really, really important. And I wrote a paper about it many, many years ago, um, and applying that within child protection. We just got a grant very recently where we're looking at that again and saying young people who've had adverse experiences can very often end up with long-term mental health consequences, for example. Um, but what happens, what are the things in between that have been protective for them, that have helped them stay well and not get ill? So trying to unpack that. So it's really nice for me to see that come full circle. So I suppose to your original question, and I hadn't thought about it till you asked me really, was salutegenesis and um a socio-ecological model are probably being the most helpful. Um and of course, there's lots of other theories, and you've got up on your screen here about promoting resilience. So there you go, you can add salutegenesis to that. But attachment and strong attachments and secure attachments are obviously something that we we think about and take very seriously within this field.

Colby:

There's a lot of really interesting things that you say in there, and and it's interesting that you came to attachment at the beginning because uh sorry, at the end there, because um John Bowlby, the original progenitor of of attachment or attachment theory, an architect of attachment theory, was also known to um take knowledge from other areas of endeavour and apply it uh and try to apply it in um in the context of what he was observing about um in relation to children and young people, uh including those who had been experienced considerable separation from their birth parents. Um so that and I the other I have also been a little bit kind of rascally in that way. I I think of it as being rascally, it probably isn't. I'm probably just uh part of that that um ongoing tradition, but um it it is something that is of great interest to me how we apply um other areas of scientific endeavour in uh in into child protection, out of home care, social care. Yeah. And in particular for me, one of the things that that I've done is um is uh articulate a way of thinking about uh learning theory, uh Skinner's learning theory in uh uh in attachment. And in fact, the uh there's a little story at the beginning of of uh each of my attachment books about mice. There was a it was a story of three mice and then it was a story of four mice, an attachment story. Uh there's been two editions of the book. Now those mice are you know line up with the rats and Skinner's operant conditioning experiments, his learning experiments. And interestingly, uh my uh argument is that the the rats who receive inconsistent responsiveness to their needs are very alike our children who who um can't be safely cared for at home. So that you know, in that way um I've I've um practised similarly, I guess, to to what you're talking about and and what um and what was uh um important to Balby back in in the beginning with attachment uh theory. Yeah, yeah. The other thing that you that you you were talking about is uh is and is of uh interest to me is uh um is about strengths. I mean uh basically I could the solution uh let me see if I can say it properly at this time of the day after a long day, but solution solution I can't say it. What is it? Solution Genesis. Solutogenesis, yes. So that that's um in child protection we we we spend a lot of time we do spend a lot of time on what's wrong or what's going wrong. And I think that that given the nature of the work that that impacts us. And it it it over time it impacts our capacity to um to deliver services uh in this space. Um it's it's not uh if this a focus on what's wrong all the time. Particularly, for example, if you you're doing it in relation to the children, what's happened to them, what's wrong with them, you know, what what have been those impacts? The children internalise that stuff. So what we so I always argue that we need to have a and and I use uh um I take the the symbolic interactionist kind of philosophical view, which is um around uh or the looking glass self, this idea that that uh people see themselves as they experience others to see them, and children that is particularly so adults try to influence how other people see them. Um but children are very vulnerable to it. So I think that we need to balance our work with an appropriate level of acknowledgement of the harm that is done and the impacts of the harm that is done, but also on um more taking a more strength-based view. And if I'm understanding you correctly, I'm hoping that that that I'm not talking out of school to be talking about salutagenesis in that way.

Julie:

No, no, that that uh that accords very well.

Colby:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's terrific. Now it's not that they're not the only um uh ways of thinking about the work um that you are known for and and um for which I approached you. Um I'm also aware that you're very interested, as I read a bit in the bio, you're very interested in seeing um child maltreatment as a public health uh concern. Can you tell us a little bit more about that, what you mean by that, and perhaps any any um research or uh or other endeavour that has occupied you in relation to that?

Julie:

Yeah, I think um I think having a public health approach or a mindset towards violence, towards abuse and so on now is is not particularly uncommon. I think many child protection systems are are based on a public health model as opposed to a more forensic model that we we used to use. Um so it it's not it's not that that unusual now, but it's been a gradual shift, I think, that that we we tend to see see things. So this fits in very much with what I've already talked about in terms of socio-ecological models, all the different influences that that that come to us. But if if we look at things like um in in public health, the the one model that people, the one analogy that people use a lot is that here's and you'll have heard this, but here's this river flowing down, and we're stood at the edge of the river, and we can't work out why all these people are floating past in the river, and we keep children in particular, we and we keep hoiking them out, and some of them um are already dead, some of them we're we're busy giving them resuscitation on the sign, bringing an ambulance, sending them off to hospital or whatever, and and we're so busy concentrating on pulling people out of this river that we don't walk upstream to see, well, why are they falling in the river in the first place? So, are they being thrown in? Are they being pushed in? Are they jumping in? Is it an accident that they've just fallen in or whatever? And and can can we do something further up the river, upstream, to stop them falling in in the first place? So um lots of our child protection endeavors have very much been about here's abuse has already happened, how do we actually try and um prevent secondary trauma or prevent the trauma of that getting worse? How do we help people recover? And of course, those things are really, really important, but a lot of our effort has been at that, and taking an upstream approach to that is say, well, how do we stop people falling into abuse in the first place and trying to protect them from that has not been entirely our approach? It has been over recent years, but it's quite hard to do because um within a child protection world, as we know, that um there are lots of reasons why, and we don't always know what those reasons are, still we don't know enough about that. But why do you why do children get abused or neglected? Um, why do some parents not don't have the parenting skills to deal with children or to uh to to be good parents and so on? So, and what do we do about that? And how early do we start with that and and so forth? And and anyway, even when we do all of those things upstream, there are still people who fall into the river. So we still need downstream efforts to bring them out and help them recover. So I for me it's been really exciting, I think, to see a lot of our efforts move further upstream, um, but that we can't solve it on our own. So, you know, I go back to another really big health concern was um that made all the difference was the intro the introduction of seat belts in cars. So you were in a car accident quite a few years ago, you would before before seat belts, you'd pretty much be either dead or really severely injured. And introducing seatbelts just cut all of that injury and the trauma of being in a car accident down tremendously. But it wasn't just to do with the technologies in in cars that introduced those seatbelts, it was also to do with um making safer speed restrictions, it was to do with making better roads, it was to do with improving engineering in cars, it was also to do with um getting a whole uh appeal going so that people understood that it was important to wear a seatbelt. Um, you had to get it to be law, and I think most countries now have a law about that and so on. So it wasn't a single effort by some small campaigner who could see people were dying in car accidents. It it took a whole industry from politics right down to individuals encouraging their families to wear them. And I I suppose that's where I come from within child maltreatment is that it isn't just one person or one um profession or one discipline that can change things. It needs the whole effort, and we need governments behind us um to be able to change those things.

Colby:

What what do you what does that look like? Like what do you think needs to happen that would or what sort of interventions would you think reduce the incidence of child maltreatment and and what what evidence exists that's in in support of that?

Julie:

Okay, it's um it's a good question. I think the the state of our evidence is particular is is a bit poor. So um probably not so much in Australia, but here in the UK, we have a fantastic thing of thinking, oh, what's the next tiny new intervention that's going to work? Um we'll pluck it off a tree and we'll often borrow it from the Americans, um, and we'll change it around a bit, and um, we'll say this is our new intervention. We're gonna throw great effort at it. So um loads, loads, family nurse partnership, sure start, all sorts of different models will throw everything at that. And then we find it difficult to get the evidence, or we have some evidence that it works, but then the next shiny new thing comes along. So parenting programs are uh are a really good example of this. There are hundreds of different kinds of parenting programs and or assessments or whatever we'll do, and if it could be graded care profile, and we'll use that, or we'll use signs of safety, or we'll use triple P or blah blah blah blah. There's there's hundreds of them.

Colby:

I've written some.

Julie:

Yeah, well, well, exactly.

Colby:

Could I even I was riding one?

Julie:

Were you? Well, there you go. Yeah, and and they the principles of them are good, and we know those principles work, but they're costly mostly, and they're resource intensive, and they don't work all the time. They work with some families, but not all families, and they're quite hard work, and and people often want quick wins, and so oh, we'll use this one. Oh, no, no, we'll just now use move on to this one. So we've um very recently we had um uh small funding to evaluate a particular model of safeguarding in in a in a local area, and they'd thrown everything at it. It was, you know, this was going to change the world. And six months down the line, they found it hadn't really changed much, or in their heads it had changed a lot. Everybody really liked it, but there was no data to support that, or we couldn't get the data, couldn't link the data that showed that. So that's too difficult. So they've now dropped all the funding for this fantastic shiny one and gone on to another one now, and we're going to do that one. So I just got to watch the space because I'm gonna give it a year, 18 months, and there'll be something else. So I'm trying to come back to your question here is that what would make the difference? I think that we have a lot of evidence about the kinds of things that work or show promise. But what we don't have is a package that definitely shows this works and really makes a difference enough for us to have enough evidence about it and move on. And that's where I come back to this whole um public health approach is that yeah, w we know probably that three or four children a week die because of maltreatment. And an awful lot more than that are uh really affected in the long term because of being m maltreated. And if it was those numbers of children who were dying of or affected by polio or meningitis or anything else like that, there'd be an absolute outcry and we would really throw a whack of resources at it and and and do something about it. And unfortunately, with maltreatment, there's never going to be a point where we can give a vaccination about it or or stop it like that. We're never going to find that magic bullet that that cure all um for it. And that and that is a problem because that's what people seek and that's what people want, or it's just solve this. So um if there was one thing that we could if there was one magic bullet and it Isn't the only magic bullet, I would say that the one thing that we could do that would really, really, really have a massive influence on child protection is to um eliminate poverty. All right, so uh I'm not saying that uh poverty causes uh child maltreatment, but there's a very strong association and we know that it can exacerbate difficulties and stresses for people and so on. And if we were to deal or if governments were to deal properly with poverty, that's the one thing that I think we would see an exponential decrease in in child protection cases. Um but that isn't going to happen.

Colby:

Yeah. It's one of those things that I you d there have been time across my career over the past 30 years that you could almost not say that, because that would somehow imply that um child protection was uh sorry, child maltreatment was an issue amongst the poor. And and that wasn't and it's not uh socially or political politically correct to say that. But but certainly poverty makes life hard. And uh when you put people under hardship, then the cracks the cracks can open up, the cracks can occur in the way in which they approach life roles and relationships.

Julie:

You're absolutely you're absolutely right. You know, poverty hits everybody hard, and we're seeing an awful lot of that now with um increased rises of that. You know, most parents, almost all parents, love their children and want to do the best by them. Absolutely they do. Um but like you say, uh poverty causes those cracks, and very often that falls on um the poor more than than does so than it does those who are more socioeconomically well off. So it is easy to be a good parent, or is the easier to be a good parent if you're not worrying about uh where your children play, who they're playing with, who's coming in and out of the house, whether you can put food on the table, whether you're gonna have to do something else to get food, whether life's just been so difficult for you that and you have other challenges with your mental health or with substance misuse, or um you're trying to deal with domestic violence in the home. Uh and on top of that, you don't have enough money. It becomes really difficult. Yeah. And it's not to say that uh at all that maltreatment is something that's the domain of the poor, not at all. But there's a very close association, and it's there's irrefutable evidence about that now, I think.

Colby:

I recently I had um Ben Perks on the podcast, and um I think he has an appointment at the University of Birmingham too, and he he's the head of policy and advocacy and child protection and child development at um UNICEF. And he's written a book on about you know how we go about um eliminating child maltreatment from a public health uh well, how we go about eliminating child maltreatment, and he uses very much that a public health model. And I think I think poverty is is one is a big aspect as you as you talk about just making life a little bit easier, less harsh for for parents, uh supporting parents and um supporting parents um in his book he does talk about things like um you know paid uh paid parental leave. The only problem with with that is that the poor often don't have um, you know, in in it certainly in my jurisdiction, the poor don't always have um those opportunities because they're they're not always in work. Um I don't I think which is not to say that I think it's it's a bad thing. I think paid parental leave is something that the um that governments can easily do to relieve hardship for um working parents. I also think uh Ben also talks about he does actually talk about parenting programs, and you're right, there's a plethora of them. Um but the but we we do have parents who um and I think in my jurisdiction I recall that um that the point was made that that um a lot of our children in care at any one time are the children of children who are in care. And there's and there's the there are certain families where intergenerational transmission of of maltreatment is is a significant issue. And um there are there are ways in t we can I guess deliver family support uh including um training on how to um yeah on simple basics around parenting that they they that the parents themselves may not have really uh had exposure to um during their own uh growing up years. Um yeah, access to access to child minding, uh to child care. Yeah, there are I I think there are things that that would help. Um but we yeah, uh we and we need to do them to develop the oh the it is a perennial problem, I think, that what we we know what we think should happen, but it's been such an such an underresourced and perhaps in some ways under-researched uh area, particularly around things like what we're talking about, that we're trying to make an argument for additional funding in circumstances where we just don't have the data to back us up, I think. And you know, the another thing I would say about, and this is something that I've actually been thinking about a lot today, is that whatever if you did, for example, if you're doing um a parenting intervention, that you're doing parent training, parent training in and of itself will not work unless it's in a a supportive milieu, you know, like it could it's rolled out in a certain milieu where people are engaged with an with with an an entity that um that supports them, that develops, you know, that has a working relationship with them, and um allow allows them to um to be able to feel safe and supported and think think about the role, think about what's being imparted to them. I think yeah, child uh um kind of like placement preservation services, uh child and family services, those things do get funded. Um But yeah, there's there's more that we there's always more that we can do. Yeah, I I mean I think you you talk about that ecological model and going out and out and out, and so you in those circumstances you have to think about well, who are the people who are supporting the families and how are they supported so that they can be the best versions of themselves as as supports for the families or as or in training the families. And um, and what about their managers, you know, like who's supporting them? So it just I think I think any endeavor has to occur, we have to be very mindful of the milieu in which we're doing it. It can't just be, as you say, a shiny new thing off the shelf, roll it out, and expect miracles to happen. There's a whole system and layers of systems that that influence whether that would make a difference or not.

Julie:

Of course there are. There are key ingredients that we know we have to do. So um, in in neglect, particularly, we know that what you have to do is work with families long term, consistently, with you know, that a consistent support over a very long time. We know that most of our interventions, we can afford them their six-week intervention or an intensive 12-week intervention, and then that's it. And we don't have that sustained relationship with people over years and years that we need. That's not what that's not what's funded. But we actually know that that's what works and what's needed.

Colby:

Yeah, it keeps me in mind because intergenerational transmission that of trauma and and you know, children coming into care whose parents themselves were in care is a is a real problem. And um that that I've been turning my mind to along with some other colleagues. But even on the podcast, we've talked about um aftercare services and uh you know when children well when young people leave care, and um there's there's some really good examples, including here in Australia, the Lighthouse Foundation would be one in uh Victoria, but also in India, for example, Udayan care, um, where there is lifelong connection to to the organization, lifelong um um sense of belonging, support, access to support through through those those organizations and and the way in which they deliver services. That you would imagine it's it's in those contexts that a set of principles that you want to impart or a or a way of approaching the parental role are m are more likely to stick, particularly in circumstances where the very things you want the the parents to be delivering, the kind of parenting home environment you would like them to create are the same as what they're experiencing from that organization that is supporting them. Yeah. So it's that yeah, it's that I'm not sure if that that I think that lines that i is perhaps aligned with Bronfenbrenner's model, but but I'm not restating that, but um how that would look in society uh more generally. I think I think I wonder whether we we need to be more caring and compassionate about uh the circumstances in which uh uh child protection uh matters or child maltreatment can occur. Um need to be more compassionate so that so that because I think it's an intensely shameful experience for parents when especially when they when when they're identified as having. And I think if we if there is greater acknowledgement that parenting is hard and that we didn't always get the best possible, we we didn't all have wonderful experiences of growing up and exposed to the best possible uh parental models. And in those circumstances where we did where people didn't have good experiences growing up and they didn't have that exposure to the best possible parental models, then rather than judging them and making them feel really bad for being inadequate, we need, you know, as a society, we need to uplift them, raise them up, lift them up. And I wonder about the relationship as well of the of um salutogenesis, where that fits in in all of that. Acknowledging that people have notwithstanding the the hardship, they have found a way to get by in many respects, not uh notwithstanding the ongoing struggles.

Julie:

Yeah, but it's the circumstances that we put around them to bolster that because what you've just done is put it back to they have found a way to get through that, and and a lot of it isn't that individual way because other people don't manage that, but they have had we could be more thoughtful about making sure that individuals who are struggling or who've had those real adversities early on, that we put into place things that really can bolster their that resilience. So, you know, building their self-confidence, building their self-esteem, putting in consistent others who can be role models to them, even it's not going to be their parents or or whatever. We we know that the things that are needed, um, and and we need to put those those in, you know. A very good teacher who just looks out for a kid can make the hugest difference. You know, we hear adults talking about that. Um, the person or the what really made a difference to me was that teacher was auntie so-and-so, it was the bloke down the road who just used to say hi and so on.

Colby:

Um it's a fascinating area. Um and um I mean I just wonder what what what we need to what would you say if you if you found yourself uh before now I'm trying to connect with him and I see lots of posts about him uh in in the UK, the minister that's responsible for out-of-home care. Josh. Anyway, I I won't I won't continue to struggle in case he listens to this podcast or one of his staff. McAllister, yeah, you're in front of Josh. Sorry, Josh, in case you're gonna listen or one of your staff does, but if you're in front of uh Josh McAllister, um what would you what would you say to him about how we can improve circumstances for families and um make some headway in addressing this child maltreatment issue.

Julie:

Well, I think um Josh and his team have been quite fundamental in in trying to say well what what works what works best. Um and I don't think there's anything that you could tell him that they they didn't know. It's just being consistent in that approach and changing the system because the problem is the system. I think you know, most individual social workers or health visitors or midwives or teachers or police or whoever's working within the system really want to do well by those families, to do well by those children, really care, care passionately, take it really personally, go out of their way to make things better. And we you hear those stories probably not enough because we hear the ones where things have gone wrong more than we hear where things have gone right, but that we haven't had a system change that supports um a consistency in in helping people bring together those those resources. So we hear of um social workers with huge caseloads, it's just not possible to deal with that. Or bringing in agency staff all the time, people having or then going off sick because their workloads are too high and and and so on. So where is our investment in it? And um the system needs to change for that.

Colby:

I agree. I I think that um one of the one of the one of the factors that um gets in the way of um um facilitating effective family support, um, as I as I mentioned earlier, is that is is the the role of the organizations, including statutory organizations and statutory child protection organizations and individuals that um that work in this space. So we we can implement universal home visiting and universal um parental access to parenting training and you know universal access to cheap child care and universal access to um parental pay parental leave. But governments can do all of that. And I think you know the the arg there is arguments that that would make some difference, but it's the people on the ground who are rolling out some of those things, you know, especially in you listed a number of those, um, those voc areas of work or or vocation. If they're sorry, I'm waving my hands around now and I'm hitting things, uh, getting getting excited. If we don't ensure that they are uh you know they have the time and the space and the capacity to really think about what they're doing, to have the time and space and capacity to be that person that that um that that people can look back on and say, you know, that that person really got me. Yeah. We don't we want, I don't think it's too far-fetched to say that that people and the the practitioners in this space who are under extreme pressure, um, who are on the verge of burnout, if not already burnt out, who are experiencing moral fatigue and more um they're they're not that those systems that that have though you know too many of those people in it are not going to be able to um impact the um the the the issue of child maltreatment. And we need so it's a it is the case that um I think some people make this argument that we need investment in the, as you say, in the organizations. That they need to be better resourced, better supported, the staff in those organizations need to be better supported. Um otherwise it's a bit like uh you know some of our endeavors at least would be just tokenistic, and there's not the societal, there's not the organizational um milieu to support uh positive change.

Julie:

Yeah.

Colby:

Well, I don't I I see a lot of Josh Josh McAllister on uh online uh because I get a lot of I get a lot of stuff from the UK. So it seems like there's a bit of hope um amongst uh at least some of the people that I who's who's um who I'm connected with on online uh about what might be able to be achieved in the UK. Um and and maybe yeah, how do you feel? How hopeful do you feel about the future uh in terms of child maltreatment and and our capacity to do something meaningful about reducing it?

Julie:

Um I'm possibly less optimistic than you are, and less less positive than you are. I think that we go through periodic reviews of this, there's an inquiry for this, there's the report on this, there's the oh let's you know, um the review of uh Eileen Monroe's review of child protection 10, 15 years ago and so on. We go through these cycles, um, but does anything really change? I don't know that it does. Have our rates of maltreatment changed? Well, you know, I think there are probably some um reasons to be optimistic. They haven't gone up hugely as far as we know, but we have got better systems of recording them now. So I don't know if that's artifact. Um but they haven't got hugely better.

Colby:

Yeah.

Julie:

We'll see.

Colby:

What what what keeps you kind of in this space? Uh you know, continuing your endeavours in this space.

Julie:

Um well I think it's important, isn't it? Um, I think it it is really important. Our children are always going to be our future, and if we can get them the best start, um then that's going to make a whole difference to our whole um humanity. So uh do you know you it may only make a difference to one child, but each child may make a difference to ten others and so on. So and you can see, you can see that some people do well. So let's try and harness that and help others also do well.

Colby:

Yeah, I think that's a great message. Um building we can build social capital. Every child that whose circumstances we improve not only benefits that child, but benefits their life partner, their own children and grandchildren. So we build social capital in that way. Um so yeah, even it is the case, as you say, that even if it's only one child, um hopefully it's more than that. But you know, it's worth it's worth the effort. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And absolutely. And hopefully what we see in time, I think everyone everyone who works, I guess, in in public health and mental health and social welfare would anticipate that if we can build this social capital, if we can change the lives of of uh children who are experiencing hardship and improve their their circumstances, that the spend, the commitment, the energy that is put in there will pay dividends down the line in terms of you know public public um health or public public issues like mental health, addictions, uh, crime, um, and you know, and uh family violence and so on. We just need the we just need the research, that you know the longitudinal research that is able to show when we do these things system-wide, when we make these these bold changes, we get we achieve these um much hoped for outcomes. We can and we can demonstrate that.

Julie:

Yeah, we do. Um and and we are getting we are there are people who are working in that space who are beginning to be able to show that cause and effect kind of thing between doing this will lead to this long-term outcome, and it was the intervention that made a difference. Um, but when we're not terribly good yet at linking all of our different data um to be able to definitively show those things. So there is a kind of watch this space, but we are making progress, I think, and there's reason to be hopeful.

Colby:

Yeah, yeah, that's well, that's good to know. Yeah, from a from a clinical psychologist who who's you know, I've been in it up to up to my uh eyeballs for the last 30 years working. Uh I happily say to people, I've never been promoted, yeah. I've never never advanced in my career in the sense I've always just stayed at the coal face, so to speak, of um delivering um therapeutic care and therapeutic services, particularly psychotherapy services to children young people. So it's nice this podcast is a nice place to kind of put my head up uh from the grindstone and and talk to people um in a more in a more um in a more general way and a and a more s system-wide way about work. So thank you very much for making the time, Julie, to come on. And uh and I wish you well in all your in your work, your work going forwards.

Julie:

And to you too, probably.

Colby:

Thank you.

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Colby Pearce

Host