The Importance of Understanding What Children ACTUALLY Want From Us

I’ve been doing a little exercise with staff for a few years now that I originally “borrowed” from PRICE Training (who do amazing things by the way) but have adapted it to suit the needs of my staff teams. Every so often, particularly when little practice issues started to creep in to the home I was managing, I’d roll it out on at team meeting and get all the staff to take part. Over the years, I’ve made little tweaks to it but essentially it’s still the same, albeit with one massive new component (more about that later…..).

I’m going to give you this little exercise and I urge you to use it with your own teams. It’s a really powerful tool and it is pretty much guaranteed to get some of your staff thinking and some of the others reflecting on their own value base and practices.

For the exercise you will need:

1. Flip Chart Paper

2. Pens

3. Biscuits and/or Cakes (not actually needed for the exercise but they always go down well in team meetings or training)

• Split your staff team into groups. You will probably want groups of 3-5 people.

• Ask the groups this one question, “what values and qualities do you think the children want from the people caring for them?”

• If you have a few groups, you might want to spice it up a bit and get some to think about the values and qualities that staff want from their colleagues in order to care for children.

It’s really that simple and doesn’t take all that long. I’ve done this exercise consistently for a few years and you can predict (with a high degree of accuracy) the things that staff will always come up with. There will also be plenty of back patting too as they chat about how good they are and how they understand the kids they care for.

They aren’t wrong of course. They should be in tune with the needs of the children and understand what they want from them (the adults caring for them). The thing is though, it is almost universally from the adult professional perspective. All very ‘proper’, very ‘softly softly’ and very ‘social worky’ (I’m not sure if that’s actually a word). The thing is though, children want so much more from us and also things that we don’t expect from our well meaning “caring” perspective.

How do I know this? I know this because I do the same exercise with the children I’ve cared for. That’s the new component I mentioned earlier. I actually ask them what values and qualities that they want us to have. Again, this is something I would urge everyone to do. If nothing else, it’s a great way to capture a child’s wishes and feelings and Ofsted seems to love it (as long as you actually use what the children are telling you). Here is a real example of what a child wrote for me (with permission):

A child’s view of the values and qualities they want from staff.

In the same way that staff always come up with a similar list, every single child (and I mean every single child) has broadly come up with the same list too. There are some values and qualities that EVERY child mentions.

• They want to be listened to listened to

• They want to feel and be respected

• They want to be kept safe

• They want honesty

• They want to feel understood

• They want you to spend time with them

• They want you to be trustworthy

• They want you to be consistent

• They want you to be funny

• They want you to teach them things

• They want you to help them

They also always say:

• They want boundaries

• They want to be told off

• They want to be loved

• The want you to actually like kids

• They want to be treated like a person

• They don’t want it to be “just a job”

• They don’t want you to give up on them

• They don’t want you to feel sorry for them

• They want empathy not sympathy

• They want you to be real

• They want you to respect their property

• They don’t want you to judge them

  
  

The second list is a little harder for staff to digest. I would argue that some of the things that they mention speaks volumes about the values of a team and initiates that things might not be as you would want them within the culture of the team.

The concept of love is something that always comes up. It is enshrined in the key principles of children’s homes within the guide to the children’s homes regulations but it’s something that some people seem to take umbrage to and it’s always a hot topic of debate.

The other eye opener is how children want to be told off. I’ve spoken to the children about this as they say that it helps them to feel safe as they know that we are worried about them when we put boundaries in place and tell them off. Despite this being wholly reasonable and what we would do for our own children, I’ve had countless battles over the years with my own managers and children’s social workers about staff “telling children off”! That is more about their own values than it is about effective and realistic parenting. I stand by the notion that the word “no” is the most caring word we have, yet so many professionals have an issue with telling children “no”. I don’t think anyone likes to hear it but sometimes it’s necessary and it can keep us safe. Deep down, kids get it even if some of the adults don’t.

The best and most telling thing that a child ever wrote was “treat me as a person not a task”. This spoke absolute volumes as to his experience of living in children’s homes and with social care in general. It has always stuck with me and has helped me to approach things from the child’s own perspective.

I’ve had a child tell me exactly why certain staff are liked and others not, but then go on to describe why those “popular” staff don’t make them feel safe but the unpopular staff do. Children want the ‘right’ people looking after them and they aren’t necessarily the popular ones with the kids (or their colleagues sometimes). It is never about popularity, but it is about doing the right thing which more often than not is most certainly not the easy thing!

It is important that we don’t get complacent when it comes to our values. It isn’t about keeping Ofsted happy either, it’s about ensuring that the children are happy and that they feel valued. If we can do that, everything else will fall into place.

If anything, this exercise shows that it is never about us, it is always about the children. Our values, ethics and the way we think about how children should be cared for is the single most important and influential factor on the success of a children’s home. It is at the heart of all we do and it is important that everyone in your team not only applies those values consistently in their practice but that they buy into that value base and believe in what they are doing.

Our values matter.