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
#32 It Takes A Network, Not A Superhero - with Robbie Gilligan
What if lasting change for young people in care comes not from a single attachment, but from a web of “many good adults” who open doors to the wider world? We sit down with Emeritus Professor Robbie Gilligan to trace how schools, mentors, hobbies, and work links create belonging that survives the transition out of care. Drawing on four decades of research and vivid stories—from a nun buying Sinead O’Connor’s first guitar to a baker mentoring a teen before dawn—we map an outward-facing practice that turns values into opportunities.
Across the conversation, we challenge the narrow gaze that reduces a child’s world to placements and case files. School rises as a daily engine of recognition and routine; groups and residential communities offer regulation and growth; and community networks carry young people beyond age eighteen, when statutory support often fades. Robbie makes the case for social capital alongside attachment theory, showing how curated networks of teachers, coaches, employers, extended family, and former carers reduce reliance on luck and buffer life’s inevitable ruptures.
We also unpack what meaningful participation really looks like: keeping young people in the loop, protecting their face among peers, and showing visible influence from what they say. Certainty lowers anxiety; small, consistent actions build trust. The takeaway is practical and hopeful—scaffold repair, protect talents and interests through moves, and design services that help each child enter the world with more connections than they had yesterday. If you care about child protection, residential care, foster care, or the journey of care leavers, this is a grounded, humane roadmap for change.
Robbie’s Bio:
Robbie holds a Professor Emeritus appointment at the School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin. He previously served as Professor of Social Work and Social Policy at Trinity from 2001- 2022, and in total was a full time academic there for 40 years. He has worked in the area of children in care, care leavers and marginalised young people in many roles over his career including as: youth worker, social worker, policy advocate, foster carer, board member of residential and community services, adviser, social work educator and researcher.
He has published widely in relation to the experiences of children and young people in out of home care and care experienced adults (with a strong focus on their work and education journeys). He has recently published with Vietnamese colleagues a study of care leaver experiences in Vietnam. He is currently Co-Principal Investigator of Ten Years On - a national study of care leavers in their late twenties/early thirties in Ireland. He has also served as an adviser (2021-22) to the Organisation for Economic Coooperation and Development report on care-leavers - the first such intervention by OECD on this topic: Improving care leavers’ socioeconomic outcomes | The OECD Forum Network (oecd-forum.org).
See https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4150-3523 for a full list of his publications and outputs
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.
Hello and welcome to the Secure Start podcast.
Robbie:But all of those experiences influenced my thinking and made me appreciate the significance of many actors in the lives of children. We shouldn't paint all the people in the same family system as problematic just because some members have been problematic under certain conditions in a certain period. You know, that's really what we can say. How do we connect young people into resources and opportunities outside in the wider world to give them the opportunity to apply some of the learning and the uh principles or values or norms that we're hoping to instill, but give them a chance to apply them and test them in the real world and to make connections. We really, I think, need to be thinking about not just one good adult, but kind of find the connections for people to many good adults. Being cared about is more important than being cared for in many ways, I think, in the eyes of young people. I think a lot of things are tolerable if you have certainty. Being kept in the loop helps lower uncertainty. If we stay stay in touch with their perspective and know what their concern and their thinking is, and we check that out all the time. I know we know that, but in a way we can think we need to be kept reminded of that because it's difficult to apply it in daily practice given all the other pressures. But if we can get that right, I think a lot of other good things flow from that. And we need to be careful of it just because we've heard certain things from some people that that holds true across the board. So that's why if we can find a way of working where we're listening to every child, not just emphasizing the future, then I think we're gonna get we're gonna get more right more of the time. If they feel people are making an honest effort and they're being respectful, and that they are being listened to. That itself is very therapeutic, I think. They feel okay, I I I'm being seen here.
Colby:Hello and welcome to the Secure Start Podcast. I'm Colby Pierce, and joining me for this episode is a highly respected and influential academic in the subject areas of children in care, care leavers, and marginalized young people. Before I begin the podcast interview, I'd just like to acknowledge the traditional owners 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, waters, culture, and community. I'd also like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. My guest this episode is Emeritus Professor Robbie Gilligan. Robbie holds Professor Emeritus appointment at the School of Social Work and Social Policy at Trinity College Dublin. He previously served as professor of social work and social policy at Trinity from 2001 to 2022, and in total was a full-time academic there for 40 years. He has worked in the area of children in care, care leavers, and marginalized young people in many roles over his career, including as youth worker, social worker, policy advocate, foster carer, board member of residential and community services, advisor, social work educator, and researcher. He's published widely in relation to the experiences of children and young people in out-of-home care and care-experienced adults with a strong focus on their work and education journeys. He has recently published with Vietnamese colleagues a study of care leaver experiences in Vietnam. He is currently co-principal investigator of 10 Years On, a national study of care leavers in their late 20s, early 30s in Ireland. He also served as an advisor between 2021 and 2022 to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development report on care leavers. The first such intervention by the OECD on this topic. Welcome, Robbie.
Robbie:Thanks, Colby. Great to be with you.
Colby:Great to have you and uh I I jinxed myself. I said to you if I made any errors when I was uh writing the bio that I could edit them out. But I didn't even get past the first couple of sentences and I had to re-redo it. So anyway, uh modern technology will allow me to make that all sound very polished. Or not I'll leave this bit in probably. So um, as I said, it's just been a remarkable career, Robbie, and and with a really long-term focus on uh care systems and our children and young people who are engaged with those care systems. I wonder if if you might just briefly tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into this line of work.
Robbie:Um well, I often say, and I think in some way, I mean, obviously, there's we have multiple and sometimes hidden motivations that we're not even aware of ourselves, I suppose, but um the kind of overt uh point that I can recall is uh a Latin class. I know that sounds like an unlikely source of inspiration, uh, but it was this uh very, very quiet, uh but uh it in many ways quite impressive. Um it he now I now realize he was younger than I thought. He seemed quite old when I was a teenager, but he was a Latin teacher. Yeah, exactly. He was a Latin teacher, but he was also chaplain to a youth club that was run by uh the past students of the school I went to. I went to a Jesuit college in the center of Dublin, um, and he was a Jesuit priest. Uh anyway, I a number of us went down to the club and played table tennis or billiards or whatever, and I eventually was one of the ones who stayed on for longer and got drawn into a fairly regular commitment and then went on uh summer camps and so on. And I remember in the first summer, I think I went for two for two block weeks of camp, and it was kind of one of the highlights of my life up to that point. It was just very intoxicating, the fun and the energy and so on. And I remember thinking, actually, this is what I want to do in my life. And now I was still very young at that stage, I was probably uh 17 or something like that. But I you know, I it did I I can remember that moment thinking that I had a kind of a quiet moment uh and thinking that at the time during the camp, and uh you know that that did influence my choice of course afterwards. I went and did a a social science type course in Trinity, thinking that that that would be good investment toward towards uh uh probably a further training. Uh anyway, I ended up as a social worker and um you know well actually went on to do some other kinds of youth work as well as that. So I'm actually that youth work experience I would say was very influential in my thinking about uh how to work with young people. Um anyway, went with when then did various other placements as you do, and uh you know, was influenced by those, and then became a social worker in children's services or emerging children's services in Ireland, and worked in in a rural a rural community and uh the centre city of Dublin, which is a more harsh social environment for kids to grow up in. Um, but all of those experiences influenced my thinking and made me appreciate the significance of many actors in the lives of children, and that there are many ways that children benefit or are harmed by influences in the at play in their life. And sometimes the professional gaze is too narrowly focused on the gaze itself and on and on the single actor of the child or the single household in which the child lives, or the single residential unit, or whatever. There's kind of sometimes a very inward-looking gaze, which I think misses some of the some of the actual influences that are are active, or the potential influences that could be activated.
Colby:Um there's a number of things that I that we have in common. I I similarly um was involved in youth work and well more youth ministry for the Church of England, which is the Anglican Church here in um in Australia, and probably it was undoubtedly it was um my experiences um in that uh forum that did result in me ending up being a psychologist who who specialise in working with children and young people. Um and there were um many people, I guess, who contributed um significantly to that. And I'd have to say that it was it was it was adults outside of the family, so outside of the immediate family that that um uh did make an impression on on me um and uh yeah and kind of set me in the path um that that I I've taken. So there is there is a bit of similarity there, and I I I think um obviously the Latin teacher, the the Jesuit priest was was uh uh someone of of um uh who made a significant impression on you at that that time.
Robbie:Yeah, but but if I may jump in there, no, he was he was he, you know, but but I would say very much agree with you that many of the people who I would say have been big influences in my life are not from within my within my family. That's not to say my parents weren't important. I'm an only child, that's another big sort of uh I suppose dynamic in my life, you know. So I didn't have siblings uh or their friends to be connected into. But uh I didn't know, you know, I didn't know the priest, some some of the boys got on, you know, had had close connections with the priests because they they were involved in out of school activities. And I mean in a sense, I was involved in that, uh became involved in that club, but but I wasn't I wasn't that close to this man. But I mean I think I think it's an interesting point, but he still had quite an influence because he that we connected at a particular moment, um, and he opened an open opportunity for me which fitted. I could well many of the boys didn't stay on, they they drifted away. A few of us did uh stay and get involved, and in various ways it became an influence in our lives, career choices, and other things. So, but the point is he he didn't have to have a deep personal relationship for him to have some important influence because we trusted him, we accepted his uh you know, his bona fides, you know, there was something very authentic and genuine about him. Um but all he was asking us was to go to go and visit the club and see what we thought, and it was up to us then. He wasn't he wasn't in any way applying any pressure, it was very much our agency as as these young uh teenage boys to to decide. Uh it was there wasn't any pressure or any suggestion that there'd be rewards of some sort if if we did this. It was totally an open offer. Um and I agree, I mean I met I met friends in the in the in the youth club, uh, other other adults, young adults, you know, what a few years older than me who who became very one of whom particularly Fergus McCabe, unfortunately, deceased recently, but you know, he was became a close friend and influential figure in my thinking right through my life. Um really quite an impressive figure. Now, you know, that's a different kind of relationship, but again, sparked by the chance offer and connection. I mean, uh as I often say to student have said to students, if I wasn't in class that day, I might be sitting here talking to you, you know. So it's possible I would have found my way into social work by uh by some other route. Uh I've no I've no doubt that that's possible. But it's it is it is still an interesting example of how random opportunities present themselves, but often through people you trust. Um and that you know that that's a I think that's a pretty important ingredient.
Colby:It's interesting because I've had other guests on the podcast who say something similar that there were these significant adults in their life that had or these sorry, uh they were adults who had a significant impact on their life direction. And you know, in in child protection and out-of-home care, a lot of emphasis is put on, as you say, on attachment relationships and those close dependency relationships that develop within families and are seen to exert the greatest influence on the trajectory of the growth and development and and indeed the life course of the young person. Um but you know the guests who guests who've spoken to me about you know who this this there was this influential adult, um they may have had only fleeting contact with that person. They're not an attachment figure, you know, in in any sense um that we would normally define such a person. And yet um when they look back, they go, Well, you know, there was this there was this teacher often enough, um, or this therapist that um um they may have only had brief and and fleeting uh contact with, but they said something that just that was a seed, they planted a seed.
Robbie:Yeah, well, I mean uh when I say I wasn't close to him, you know, I I wasn't, I mean, I we have we we'd have had relatively few one-to-one conversations as I think about it, but I was in his presence in a classroom for maybe two, possibly three years, uh certainly two years, I think. And you know, that is like sitting in a classroom being taught Latin, which was my favorite subject, and maybe partly because of the way he taught it and so on, but it was my favorite subject. So that was a big advantage, I think, that he was he was we we were sharing something we both enjoyed and liked. Yeah, um yeah, so but there was enough people yes, yes, I think that's an important element, and I think also it wasn't I agree with you, I think there are times when fleeting things happen and they actually have quite a big influence. You know, you sit beside somebody on a on a on a long-haul flight for three or four hours, you ending you end up chatting at length and discovering shared interests, and that they give you a suggestion of something to do, and so on, and it proves to be very formative, uh you know, experience afterwards. So that you know, in that sense, it's not the contact with the priests wasn't fleeting, but but it was relatively relatively uh shallow in some respects, but in other respects there was a depth there, uh obviously it was part he was very much immersed in the Jesuit culture and the school culture and all of that. And he was very he was also very respectful, he was very, very gently spoken, he was he was very uh understated, and he was the kind of guy that you'd almost feel sorry for him coming into the room because you'd feel that he was going to be, you know, sort of overwhelmed by these teenagers who who needed somebody with a very strong uh will to get to keep them in check. But he somehow was able to, you know, he had a different different form of influence or authority. I think that made an impression on all of us as well. Um he'd come from Hong Kong, so he he was always had that slightly Asian or Chinese uh you know gentleness about him that that um made you know it was a bit exotic for us for us simple boys.
Colby:Um yeah, I mean it it's it's interesting. I I um I didn't I'm I'm I wasn't um wanting to labour the point, but uh um it's interesting to me that the the number of children I see who for therapeutic uh in therapy who want to be psychologists. And some have gone on to university and and um haven't yet I st I don't yet have a a psychologist amongst the the ranks of the young people that I've known over the years, but but it's that children see something in adults from time to time, you know, and they and they that that affinity as I mentioned and um and and there's that then uh I guess that um that desire to emulate in some way that again as I said it just seems to reinforce that we that the impact that um adults can have on the lives of the children, including adults outside of the family and and the network of um attachment relationships as such.
Robbie:Yeah, and I I would say that um a bit of a generalization, but I think that in general uh in the child protection and welfare system, we don't respect enough the power of schools in the lives of children that if we took a child-led view of their world, uh school looms very large in their life. And people like Michael Rutter would say that for you know the great British psychiatrist and psychologist and researcher, um he he, you know, he he was not alone in saying this, but he he drew attention to the evidence on this. That for for young people with family difficulties, school was the was the most important positive resource available uh to them, and often could have a decisive influence on what actually happened as a result of the family difficulties. Now, you know, obviously schools can't do everything, and sometimes we expect too much from them, but at the same time, I think the the the educational but also the social uh resources and supports the schools can bring, even when they're not trying, just just by the structures and the routines and the processes and the informal life, all of these things are happening. Organically within the system. Now, you can also say yes, but schools are also sites where bullying occurs, where where things go on under the radar of the adults, which is undoubtedly true. There's a whole world, a child world underneath the radar of our gaze of the adults, which adults are probably a bit naive about. But some of that that what goes on is positive, it's not all negative. But anyway, the point is I think we need to pay much more attention to the life the the social and inner life of school in uh in the lives of the kids that we're working with. Um but school is only one example. There's also uh you know, faith communities, there's extended family. You know, we might we might say, oh, this family, you know, it uh has XYZ problems, but you know, again, I think we should avoid generalizations and see, well, actually, yes, but that may be true, but two things, two opposite things can be true at the same time. There may also be people in the family who are you know doing well, um, and who are who are interested and open to being supportive, an aunt or granny, somebody else, you know. I mean, I I think that just is so so important to to kind of acknowledge and recognize. Uh, we we do we shouldn't paint all the people in the same family system as problematic just because some members have been problematic in under certain conditions in a certain period, you know. That's really what we can say, but there are others who maybe are uh have a lot to offer, and the it's important that we don't lose sight of that. Uh and similarly, you know, sports clubs, uh the care and love of animals, uh all of these uh sort of uh foci or focuses, if you like, to pr present opportunities for young people to connect to adults who may be positive actors in different ways. Uh and some of those connections may endure. I think that's the challenge when we're talking about attachment theory, but we're probably over. Well, there's a risk that we overvalue one theory at the expense of other valuable theories, like social capital, for example. So the social capital would or the Brent from Branton Brenner's ecology ecological thinking, these would draw our attention more to systems thinking, to multiple actors, to the potential contribution of different different actors, like a Latin teacher. How does a Latin teacher have influence on somebody's social work career? It's not very obvious, but that meant but it's a great example of how those kind of quirky things um do actually spark opportunities for people.
Colby:And you're not the first person to to talk about these things on the podcast. And I think I'm I'm reminded of podcast guests who've really talked about the importance of the power of the group. And they've talked about that, I guess, uh a number of podcast guests, particularly in a residential care context, but but the the important regulating influence that that groups have over development and behaviour and and outcomes in those those areas. Um Richard Rollinson, who has had um a lifetime of connection to the Mulberry Bush, which was the Mulberry Bush School, which was the Docker Drysdale's uh established back in the 1940s and is still going. Now, when I had Richard on, he talked about how uh the importance of the Mulberry Bush school and residential it's a residential community, was that it and it allowed children the opportunity to learn to live with themselves and with other people. Which I thought was uh and then Laura Steckley was another person who really talked a lot about um the power of the group and the and and how the you the group and relationships within the group can be a a force for good um in the lives of our of our children and young people. Yeah.
Robbie:Yeah, uh very much so. I mean I think I think one of the uh points I would pretend to emphasize with with any audience that gives me even fleeting attention is uh that there are multiple influences and multiple actors, and the group in you know, the family group in foster care, the group in residential care, and in other settings, the the the this you know, this the groups, the different groups within the school community and so on. All of those are potentially very influential. But I would also say in the case of young people in care, in foster care, I think in foster care this happens more organically, that they are connected into the community networks because the father the foster family is living its life in connection with other people and they get drawn into those connections. But in residential care, I think there is I mean, there's absolutely there's a need for a focus on the group and on the inner world of the setting. But I think there is perhaps at times a loss in that if you don't also have a similar engagement, an outward gaze, an outward connection, uh, an outward facing approach. That's not to say you ignore the inward, you you can do both at the same time. We can do opposite things, we can value opposite things. Um both serve the same purpose of promoting, I would say, the development of the young person. One of the things that I think in in residential care that we have to think about is not just improving things for the person while they're there under the influence of the setting. As a very wise voluntary youth worker said to me a long time, one of the first lessons of working with young people, he said, the trick isn't to get kids to do what you want them to do when you're when you're right over right there with them. The trick is to get them to do things you want them to do when you're not there. And uh I think one of one of one of the things is that there is a world out there that where if we want if we want our influence to endure, we have to have the ideas and issues tested in the real world while they're with us. And they have to be connected into resources that will endure in their lives. And I've one example that I've developed in recent times, which I really find works well and I like a lot. Uh you know, the Irish rock rock star Jeanade O'Connor, who died in sad circumstances, but nevertheless had a very interesting career, and there's a lot to be learned from her, even though she was she had her dotty moments, but she was also supremely talented. Um and she she had uh it mightn't surprise you to know to know this, but she had a troubled period in her teenage years, and actually the year before she died, she wrote a short biography, and this is what inspired me to develop this point. Uh she wrote uh very she she she was kind of anti-institutional, uh anti-authority, right? You know, proudly and consistently and not subtly. Uh and one of one of the targets of her of her of her um well, I suppose ambivalence is probably more accurate because she did she did like the symbols of religion in different ways, but she she um she she would rebel against uh other symbols. But anyway, she's she acknowledged that when she was in care, but she was, um there was a particular one of the places in Ireland, you know, at that time, not now so much, but at that time there would have been religious run institutions, and she was placed in one of these. But there was a young nun who was kind of closer in outlook and and you know, kind of got her, got, got Sinead. And she could see that Sinead had a musical talent, and she bought Sinead her first guitar. She arranged her first music classes, uh, and the music teacher was getting married, and Sinead had her first performance, public performance, singing at the wedding of the music teacher. This nun also arranged for for her to go or allowed her or sort of smuggled her out, or whatever way, anyway, it was happened, that she went to concerts in the city and got kind of got into the music scene. And she very warmly acknowledged that influence in her life. Uh, and it was clearly quite transformative because you could have had now. I think her talent would have found it found an outlet eventually, but definitely this the nun with her outward-facing practice and her kind of ability to find a point of connection with the interests and talents of this young girl, is kind of a I think tells us a lot about the value of um having this kind of because she was giving this girl uh a pathway forward. She was giving her a sense of belonging in the world of music, she was building up her confidence, give recognition theory would say that she was, you know, she was giving her recognition uh in bucketfuls, but not only her giving the recognition, but creating conditions in which others would give her recognition. That's the significant point that she was connecting her into resources. Um I've written about this in a recent chapter, and but another uh storyline in the same chapter is about Paul McGraw, who was a uh I don't know how big an impression he made in Australia, but he was a favourite uh footballer of his day at Manchester United Ass and Villa. But chiefly for Irish people, he came for Ireland and rescued us in many airy moments. Irish soccer fans are are kind of a you know a breed of people who have who are familiar with suffering, a lot of sports fans.
Colby:Well, I mean, you did have the Manchester United captain for quite a while and very successful.
Robbie:Um anyway, Paul McBrow grew up grew up in Kerr, a black boy in a very white, at that time, very white Dublin. Um and still shy, but then I think even as an adult now in his in his pretty 60s, he's I think would admit to being a bit shy, but he was he he certainly was, I'd say then, but he was an extremely talented footballer. And one of the workers in the in the home was very in uh sort of an amateur football uh fanatic. Well, well, more than a fanatic, so you know, he ran teams and was very involved in in the and he could see the boy had great talent, and he put a lot of energy into connecting him into all the football networks in the city, and this eventually led on to his being ultimately a professional in Man United and you know a greatly uh admired uh sportsman of his time. Um, but again, it was that bringing him, you know, okay, he he got on well inside the home, but it was outward-facing practice. Now, not everyone has those talents, but another example I use in that chapter is about a from Portugal of uh a boy who was who got work a work experience opportunity from a residential unit, from a school, not from the residential unit. He wasn't getting on well at the time in the residential unit. I think that's an important detail, actually. But anyway, he he had to get the early morning bus to the bakery, you know, bakers start work early. At ours that we're only turning over in our beds, uh there uh they're open uh open and about with their ovens and all of that. He he got on this was a small bakery uh run by the owner. Uh he got on very well there. Um he was encouraged, you know, to stay on after the work experience and go back and do some part-time work. This was a very, very important relationship he had with this baker. First time maybe in his life that he had an adult who was to some extent a champion for him in a modest way. Uh was a very important alternative to what was happening inside the home. The home, I don't think, had any active role in facilitating it, other than not obstructing it. Which, you know, is not a small matter either. You know, they could have made it difficult in some respect because sometimes they can have, you know, maybe not so much now, but certainly institutions sometimes create barriers or norms that make it difficult for some of these opportunities to be realized. Uh, but again, it's this I think it's how do we connect kid young people into uh resources and opportunities outside the in the wider world that give them the opportunity to apply some of the learning and the uh principles or values or norms that we're hoping to instill, but give them a chance to apply them and test them in the real world and to make connections. So you know that baker is a is potentially, you know. I wouldn't say it's overstating it to be that he might be invited to the to this young man's wedding, that he might be somebody who's a mentor to him in his parenting in the future, not to jump too far ahead. And maybe none of that actually eventuated. But the point is these these are possibilities that it's it's opening up connect opening opportunities. We really, I think, need to be thinking about not just one good adult, but trying to find uh connections for people to many good adults, um, and it really to a network for life which may be composed of former carers, uh positive actors in the birth family network, maybe work colleagues or former work colleagues done some research on young people's entry into from care into uh work and like not just after 18, but you know, before 18, uh voluntary work, uh summer work, you know, uh whatever it was, daily delivering the newspapers or any of these things, some of which, of course, are kind of going out of fashion, I think. But anyway, the point is that sometimes in their stories, these young people said, Look, I made friends with with the boss, he he he did lots of things for me in my life afterwards. Um, you know, you could spend a lot of time trying to find a connection in a you know, many people do make a connection with, you know, my impression is that in a in a journey in foster in foster care, in the American sense of alternative care, there may be one carer that you make a special connection with along the journey. Uh, but you know, for some of the young people who find it hard to make those connections, finding uh an employer or a colleague in a workplace who turns into a lifetime friend is a big win. Uh because actually or building friendships is not a simple matter. Sure it's not, you know, it it you know, and they have they tend to happen very often in in the younger life. And if you haven't made the friendships, where do you uh you know we make them in school very often sometimes, but young people in care moved around in the schools, you know, so often the friendships are disrupted by care. Well, it's kind of an irony, isn't it? We step in to make life better, and we actually maybe uh disrupt some of the good things that are there already.
Colby:Yeah. It's there's a lot in there, Robbie, but it I think the the really powerful message that I'm taking from what you're saying is that perhaps sometimes we spend too much time on the developing of the relationships with the people who are um who are caring for the children at at this point in time. Um and one what we need to be also turning our mind to, because we have a saying here in Australia, it's probably comes from Ireland, given the number of Irish that came here, that you've got to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Um but it but the powerful message that I'm hearing and what you're saying is that we need to have an eye to their future and to developing pathways or supporting, recognising and supporting and encouraging pathways to a future, which is a really poignant issue because um there's a lot of concern about what happens to young people in care when they turn 18 and uh and a lot of dissatisfaction around the observation that they're they're really you know the statutory organization pulls back or pulls out, and the children often our children are left to really flounder at that point in time. And were we to be uh more balanced in terms of our efforts prior to them turning 18 in insofar as not only you you need to get along with the people you live with, but you also need to get along in the world, and you you need to make those um real connections that that facilitate that. And it it was it was also interest of interest to me when you were talking that that the examples you gave were of care leavers, of people, you know, Sinead and and others, and um and I know that you that that's been a an interest of yours and a and a topic of of research study across your career, including quite recently. And I I just I'm wondering about what what what can we learn from our care leaders about how we should um um deliver a child safety and out of care home care system uh over and above what we've already talked about.
Robbie:Um yeah, well, I think probably one of the most important things we can do is listen to their accounts of their experience. I think uh that is a way of keeping us honest as service developers or service providers uh or professionals or carers. So I think listening carefully to what they're saying about their experience. And also I think listening to people when we get evidence about care leaver experiences, maybe a tendency to listen to people who are who are in the midst of transition at the age of 18, 19, 20, 21, which is a challenging time in anyone's life, not just caregivers, I think. Uh, but sometimes you get a more considered and more rounded view of the whole process of of of growing up in care and transitioning out of care into into uh an independent or more independent adult life. Uh, you get a more considered view when people are a bit older. So I think we need to talk to listen to people of all ages. Um Inside the care system in the transition period after leaving care and when they've had a bit of time to reflect, and maybe when they've begun to have children of their own and so on. I think there's different life stages when different issues uh resonate or are more significant for people. Um I think the issues that are you know seem to be significant for for young people in care, listening to care leavers, are things like the stigma of being in care, the difficulty they have in deciding whether to tell people about being in care. That's very telling, I think. Um the challenges about sense of belonging. Um, do I matter? Do the people I I'm with really care for me? Uh being cared, it's being cared about is more important than being cared for in many ways, I think, in the eyes of many of the young people. Um the significance of school experience uh and attainment, um the significance of being able to continue interests in hobbies or you know um the yeah, very often placement means you know, examples of somebody who was a very good swimmer who who was placed a long way from any swimming pools and couldn't maintain that interest. Somebody was a ballet dancer, uh, and that that that interest got completely lost in placements. Uh uh it was only rediscovered when when she got developed a very strong uh bond with her foster mother, and they were rummaging through old photographs, family photographs on the on the couch one evening, and uh, you know, in one of those kind of nice, sort of warm moments, and suddenly there's a photograph of the foster mother in a tutu, and that sparked a whole discussion of oh you uh I didn't know that, and I oh new were and yeah, and it kind of reopened the possibility that that uh the young person could could maybe re-engage with that. So I think the the problem with the professional gaze is that we've very, very procedural view of the needs and the interests and the the hopes and so on of the young people, and that we don't start with a person-centered a person-centered view. Um I've I've just uh worked published a paper recently where we're talking about children's views of participation in child protection, a slightly off the point of being of the caretivers, but it's relevant. Um and one of the things we were we did a we did a study of young people's experience of being in the child protection system, of being, you know, being on being the focus of attention. Uh, and that was interesting in lots of ways. But one of the things, you know, when you really sort of thought more about what they were saying, uh there were two things they really wanted. One was to be kept in the loop. So we were writing about about participation in this in this paper, and the but the two themes were one keep be keep being kept in the loop and not losing face. Um, not losing face meant meant not losing face, especially among their peers or in their local community, because they were the subject of child protection concerns. So, I mean, the system wants to protect the children, which is of course important, and the kids don't dispute dispute that they were right to be to be there, but they had concerns about how this was done. So they were one but one boy talked about two social workers arriving to to see him in school, took him out of the classroom, um, and he had to go and talk to them. But you know, it was reasonable business. But he said, you know, the interviewer said, What was it like going back into the into the uh classroom? He said it was horrendous because he had to try and explain what was why was he out of the classroom. Totally under the radar of the social workers involved, who as far as they were concerned, they they were busy people, they had to, you know, um uh you know see him as soon as possible and sort out whatever. Uh but they the the boy the you know if you have a more child-centered view, or if you're if you're helped to see understand that perspective, you then think, okay, well, how do we actually it's not that we don't see kids in school, it's not that you don't do certain things, but it's just being a bit more savvy in terms of how to do it in a way that doesn't put the kid into uh negative uh space in his peer relationships. Um and equally, you know, if you're not in the loop, you're you're you're you're feeling more deflated, more anxious, more uh resentful, and so on. And it's not they were out of control, uncertainty. Probably one of the great enemies of all I think for all of the young people I've in all the contexts is when you're in this when you're in the system, whatever system and for whatever purpose, is the uncertainty. Yeah, yeah. So I think a lot of things are tolerable if you have more certainty. Being kept in the loop helps lower uncertainty. Um being kept in the loop means giving more time to make keeping the you know, keeping the young person up to speed with what's happening. There's in the participation literature, there's a lot of emphasis on formal moments of for participation. In other words, there's two issues. One, either that it's about set piece participation, come to this case conference, come to this planning meeting, but then in between, there mightn't be the there mightn't be much from the kids' point of view, participation. So it's about it's a more maybe low-key iterative process that day by day you do rather than something you sort of have these flashy moments of set pieces where you think, oh, yeah, we we're a very participation-oriented organization. We have we uh we include children in all our major decision making. But what actually the young person is looking for is something more low-key and kind of you know natural or organic rather than these what I actually might be quite intimidating set pieces, which are more difficult to actually engage with properly. So for depending on, you know, if you have somebody who's very competent, maybe they they find that uh fine, but but that's not how all how how certainly in the in the study we did, that the impression we strongly got was young people valued this more organic, iterative, low-key, day-to-day kind of effort to keep them in the loop. And that's how they saw participation. And I think it's the lesson of that is in all our work, and going back to children in care and caregivers, is if we stay stay in touch with their perspective and know what their concerns are and their thinking is, and we check that out all the time. I know we know that, but in a way, we keep need we need to be kept reminded of that because it's difficult to apply it in daily practice given all the other pressures. But if we can get that right, I think a lot of other good things flow from that. That's what I would stress, I think.
Colby:I agree, and sadly, um one of one of the little sayings that I trot out for largely for shock value, because I am a bit mischievous like that, is um whenever you get a group of adults in the in the room in this sector, the first the first voice that's that's lost is the child's voice. I've I've heard people um when I say that, I heard actually a team that I do supervision with um talked about one of their former colleagues who when they went into these meetings, uh the you know, kind of case conferences in for children in care, they they would say, hand up if you love the children. Um I I've had other conversations and particularly a recent podcast guest, a forthcoming podcast interview um with a foster carer who puts a photo of the child on the table when there's a case conference. And it is sad that that's there's there's the the out it is tough work, and and I think when it is in circumstances where it's tough work, it um we become a bit more inward focused because we're we're concerned about our own well-being, and um, and we often have responsibilities with our for our own children and our own family, and we worry about our capacity to fulfil those those uh responsibilities in circumstances where the the job is is really quite difficult in some ways. In many ways. Um but I do I I think what what I'm hearing you say is um we we need to we need to be completely across the experience of of the customers of the service, so to speak. I'm not I'm not wanting to reduce it in that way, but you know, there is probably lessons from across other industry areas where you know customer experience is actually of paramount a paramount consideration and of paramount importance. And we would probably say, well, you know, that's that's a major supermarket chain, that's way less serious than child protection. But but isn't it interesting if they are more interested in the customer experience and more adaptive and responsive to the customer experience than what might happen?
Robbie:Yeah. And one point I'd like to emphasize uh in this uh very I think this is a very rich vein of of for reflection and discussion for everyone who works in these systems. But I think there's one or two traps. One is to have a consultative group of young people and talk to them about the issues, and then think, okay, we've got to fix on that. So we just take their ideas and we'll do what they say, and then everything will be we'll be we we'll have that base covered. Um that's I think a trap because they're not the like a hundred children or five hundred children. They they I used to say to to my students, you know, the there's there's six there's well in the our system, there's about six thousand young people in care on any given day. And I said there are six thousand stories. Just because you've heard one, you haven't heard them all. Uh each story is different, and it's our job to hear that story, not not think we have one, you know, just a single story. So we can't generalize, you know, research training tells you not to be very careful about generalizing from data. Uh, you know, I mean there are certain guiding principles on that, but you know, you're you're you're to be cautious about generalizing from a small number of uh observations, whether that's of individuals or or tracking somebody over a short period or whatever. Um now we can learn, definitely we can learn. It's better that we talk to people and listen than not, but uh we need to be careful that we're just because we've heard certain things from some people that that holds true across the board. So that's why if we can find a way of working where we're listening to every child, not just uh episodically a few children, uh then I think we're gonna get we're gonna get more right more of the time. Um and I think that that helps I think it helps it also is very powerful, I think, for children to feel they're heard.
Colby:Yeah, yeah.
Robbie:Therapeutic. Even even if they don't I think they begin to see that it's it's not possible for everything to get to be what they want, but they've they at least were heard.
Colby:They still have to go to school.
Robbie:Yeah, yeah. They can become cynical if they feel there's no change uh based on anything they've said. So there does need to be some visible influence from what they've said. But I think uh they are they're pretty sharp cookies, really, and they know that it's not always easy to do deliver on everything. But uh if they feel people are making an honest effort and they're being respectful and that they are being listened to, that itself is very therapeutic. I think they feel okay, I I I'm being seen here. I think for many young people, the the problem is they bring a set of problems or they they're landed with a set of problems in their life that they're carrying forward, and then people don't actually add to those problems by g not giving them a sense of being heard or a sense of being seen, which are very profoundly uh therapeutic if they're if it's done with with genuine uh and authentic commitment and interest. Yeah, yeah.
Colby:I it's very interesting, just a very interesting conversation. Just take it a little bit in a in a slightly different direction. Um carelavers are hard to track, or is that not your been your research experience?
Robbie:Hard to track to the research.
Colby:Hard to track, hard to hard to keep uh engaged with.
Robbie:Yeah. Um well I think a couple w one of the points I think is that we need to think about back to that point about uh help building a network of resources in the community for each per sort of a curated network for each person we were working with. And they may that we may not we may need to conceptualize resources as not just services, uh, but also uh you know, people or uh informal resources, sports clubs. Well, it uh sports clubs can be fairly formal places as well. But you know what I mean? In a child protection sense, they may look informal for the purposes of child protection, but they're very important for lots of reasons, good and bad. Schools, uh you know, work workplaces, work opportunity, work experience, uh building up those kinds of connections. If if we build connections for young people, then services maybe fade in importance and people begin to develop their own trusted connections in their networks and communities. Um but I think also that where they have uh I was talking to somebody last night who in fact a conversation between a professional and a careler who uh they you know they they knew each other for the first time, I think 10 years ago or something like that. And while they've they're no longer in a service user uh helper relationship, they they still have some not not regular contact, but they're they had a they bumped into each other through a set of circumstances and they're they're meeting for coffee in the next few in the next week or so to catch up on on all the developments in life. Um and I think that that you know that is lovely when that when the kind of quality of the relationships people encounter in this in the service system leads on to some kind of humanity later on in life, and that especially in small communities, I think people are gonna, you're gonna your paths will cross in different ways, uh and and even in bigger bigger uh suburbs or whatever. But um I think it's yes, services we need services, uh particular, and particularly the most the most isolated or marginalized young people would probably need services because their own natural networks will be weakest. Um uh but I think the best the best combo, if you like, in service or policy terms is some kind of combo that is actively cultivating, curating, nurturing informal resources as well as providing services. We say one good adult as a sort of a guiding principle, and there's a lot of wisdom in that, but I think there's two concerns. One I think is it's a bit based on luck whether you find that good adult. And I think we've got to do the policy challenges to reduce the reliance on luck. So that we actually have systems uh which are trying to make sure that we don't rely on we don't need luck. It happens because the processes lead it to you know lead it lead it in that direction. Uh and services are kind of a minimum safety net for people who don't owe their supports, but we should be trying our our aim should be to try and generate an organic network of support, which will include some people with professional know-how, um, but would be also the grannies, the uncles, the aunts, the neighbors, the sports coach, the old the the former carer. You know, that's very powerful, I think. The the importance of former carers, and also how I think an important point in care leaving stories is sometimes there's the rupture, there's the care relationship, the care journey. Somewhere in the towards the end of care or in early in the transition, there's a row. When somebody formed a new organization in Ireland, the first item on the agenda was the split because those they fall out of. And in a way, that happens a bit in in placements or in care settings, that somehow there's a uh at some point there's a sort of a falling out. And and this also happens in ordinary life, too, you know, outside the care system to some extent. But I think the point is if if if you don't lose faith in the possibility that this life will heal these things very often, not always, but very often. Sometimes the arrival of a baby is a point where everyone sort of sort of gets back in their box and sort of starts being a bit more well behaved, and and and and the the the baby bathes everyone in in good good will. Um so I I think it's keeping you know, keeping trusting in the potential of these relationships, and even if they're not working well at a particular point, they may come good with time.
Colby:Yeah, I think um I often say, sorry, I I jumped in. I you know, I often say that conflict and ruptures are are part of life, and and our children need to experience them and get and and get over them or or or have that re reconnection. Otherwise, the difference is in the care system, these ruptures can be can be can go unrepaired. And I think that's really destructive because then you have an outcome where children learn that conflict will inevitably lead to an unresolved rupture. And um and that's not good for them. And it's not good for them going on going forward in their life, um relationships that they have.
Robbie:Yeah, that's such such an important point. And part of our task as adults, I think, is to scaffold young people uh through these sort of issues or you know, around these issues, so you know that we we create sort of safe, manageable pathways, supported pathways through you know, finding resolutions to conflict. Uh and you know, and also maybe uh you know uh also learning to uh to let the passage of time to some extent um uh you know uh he play a part in healing, but and and a supportive adult acknowledging that there is this complex, but often these we the you know it it the time can can the the with the just to not lose hope, I think that's an important point. That if if they if they want to restore a relationship that the other person doesn't want to, or whatever, that just keeping hope alive, I think that's quite an important. And also helping people very often young people come into adulthood with gaps of knowledge in terms of connections they have. They don't know their father, or I mean they they may know roughly who their father is, but they don't know a lot about that part of their background. So I think there's a lot of good work that can be done within systems to help fill gaps like that. That's done, you know, hopefully while they are in care, but if it isn't, that's I think a challenge. Where do young people go for that kind of more profound sort of helping? That uh I think insofar as systems are aware of the support needs of caregivers, they tend to be conceived as being or conceptualized as being about things like housing. Very, very important. I know that. But it's not the only issue. Uh educational uh issues, you know, getting the right information about educational opportunities, having the right rules that are flexible enough for to cope with the kind of disruptions that carelavers face. Um but also the emotional uh labor, if you like, of of being a careler is quite considerable. And that that's something that came through, interestingly enough, in our Vietnamese study that uh how much young people were wrestling with issues on their own that were quite demanding emotionally. And I mean that's not unique to the Vietnamese, it just happened to be maybe a lens we were looking at the what they were saying through. But um I think that's you know, we need to kind of uh we need to uh I think think about that. How do we uh how do we create points of access for caregivers where they can get that kind of considered uh more therapeutic type of support, not not that everyone has to go to therapy forever or anything like that, but just uh therapeutically informed support that's more emotionally oriented at times, I think is what people need to process certain kinds of experience or process certain kinds of gaps that they become aware of in their in their lives.
Colby:Not not you don't have to um I had a recent guest who said something along the lines of and I'm trying not to butcher it, but but you can be therapeutic, an adult can be therapeutic towards a child without being the their therapist as such, or something, something a bit like that. Robbie, I'm just I'm aware that we've we've both got time restraints uh here. I feel like we're just really getting into the conversation and um that people will reflect a lot on on what you've already um said during this conversation. Um, but they'll put they may well want to know more. I will you you have supplied me, I think, in our communications the link to that study in in Vietnam, which I'll include with um with the podcast. You also referenced mentioned a book or a book chapter. Um is it a book or or or or a chapter in a book that's coming out? Yes, it is.
Robbie:It's a book, it's a book about social support and and residential care. Uh I can send you the details.
Colby:Yes. Well, and and I'll share them with uh I'm just I'm sorry to cut across here.
Robbie:I'm just a an a contributor of one chapter, but you know, it's edited uh by colleagues uh internationally.
Colby:Well, yeah, as I said, thanks again. And um uh maybe though I'll get lots of emails asking me to get Robbie Gilligan back on again.
Robbie:Well, I'd I'd be happy to drop by again.
Colby:Maybe I'll do it in Ireland next time because I have an affinity with Ireland, yeah.
Robbie:Or I could drop by in Australia sometime. Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, no, I've a I've uh I've quite a few um uh research connections with Australia at the moment, but also friendships with people, uh Australians or Irish people living in Australia. So we my wife and I have been back and forth a few quite quite a lot quite a few times, so it's it's one of our favourite places, but um it's a pleasure to talk to you. I'm certainly happy to drop by sometime in the future if you're if you're uh well I will I will I think of Donegal as the second home.
Colby:So uh and and I still have a reasonable amount of my work being delivered up there, so yeah. Anyway, speak to you another time then.
Robbie:All right, Kelby. Lovely talking to you. Thank you for the invitation. Take care. Thank you. Bye-bye.
