An interview with Sheila Gordon, Director of Children & Families services

What changes within CrossReach Children & Families that have been embedded since the publication for The Promise most excites you?

I think we have seen a much greater commitment to improving the quality of care for children and young people we support in terms of creating a safe and nurturing space for them with when they are no longer able to live with their families. We have also seen a phenomenal push in terms of ensuring that young people are surrounded by adults with the capacity and ability to develop, create and sustain loving relationships. We’re also so much less scared of talking about love and accepting that for some of our young people, they may want, need and desire these loving relationships across their life span, not just when they are being supported by us. We are considering if these relationships are for life how can we do that whilst maintaining professional boundaries so that it works not only for the adults but for young people also. I also get excited thinking about the changes we are implementing in terms of supporting young people who are moving on from our service and getting this right too as we know that this can be an overwhelming time for young people. I also love that we are seeing more of our young people being supported for a much longer period too which has the capacity to really improve outcomes for our care experienced young people.

What do you think has enabled the changes you mention?

It’s really been a multi-pronged approach. The development of the practice model has come out of CrossReach’s value and ethos which we have always known exists, however the practice model has just made this more explicit. We have increased our understanding of trauma and the impact that can then have for the children and young people we support and understanding how we can appropriately respond to that pain-based behaviour which children and young people may sometimes present with. Likewise, we also know how much our responses to pain -based behaviour can contribute to a young person’s healing and growth. I think all these elements have come together to give us a much better understanding of how best we support the recovery and development of children and young people who have been harmed through traumatic experiences. We also have a workforce that are knowledgeable and experienced, and I would argue that the training they receive is nationally outstanding.

You previously talked about the acknowledgement that sometimes we need to nurture the special relationships that can develop between children and young people throughout their life and once they have left our care. What changes are being implemented to enable this to become day to day practice?

We now have conversations with young people setting out what the future may look like in terms of how often a young person may want to pop back and how often we, as adults will be in their life. We’ve seen young people move on from our services and adults regularly supporting that, keeping in touch and swapping phone numbers. We use social media better now too. I know so many adults who are in regular contact with young people and I have also heard of young people who have come back to our services and being welcomed with open arms and open hearts.

Do you think more needs to be done at an organisational level and at a national level to ensure that young people can nurture these special relationships once they are no longer being supported by our services?

I think some of our stakeholders external to CrossReach are still uncomfortable with that exact notion, so we must do some work to ensure that this concept will be supported. It also needs to be done properly and carefully so that both adults and young people are properly supported. I think we have a long way to go for this to be seen as healthy and accepted as normal practice.

What changes do you think need to happen for that to be seen as normal practice?

I think the promise has helped enormously in steering this conversation and I think as more providers and more local authorities begin to grapple with this concept, we will see it improving because at the end of the day it’s all about relationships.

What do you think are the major barriers that our services face which would prevent us from keeping the promise?

I would really hope that there aren’t too many barriers that exist which we can’t overcome. Some issues are quite tricky and require space, time and consideration to understand how we can resolve them. Some examples for us include the work that we’re doing with transitions and supporting people to move and nurturing those relationships which have grown and developed. To be honest, I see CrossReach being at the forefront of these changes. Our Head of Service, Martin Walsh has done lots of work with SSSC about having supportive relationships using social media. This should be celebrated and not something that people are suspicious about.

If you had a magic wand – what is the one thing that you would change?

The main one for me is commissioning. The fact that we purchase things for children and young people in the same way we purchase things like toilet roll and janitorial items is just not right. I am part of a group working at a national level (CCPS) trying to change commissioning practices. In Scotland, we’re not a big country, we have an idea of the number of young people who may have to be looked after out with their family each year. So, lets make it so that we have lots of placement options and choices and end the competition for them. Let’s make it that young people can get the place that they need to stay, whether that’s a Local Authority Children’s House or an Independent Provider it shouldn’t matter. There would be less competition and would therefore create more opportunities for collaboration between providers and local authorities. We should be thinking geographically so that young people stay within the communities which they identify as belonging too. If we ended the way that residential placements were commissioned, then all these things would be in touching distance.

How far are you away from this being a reality?

Several years I think because within that you have procurement law for local authorities. Local authorities are bound by procurement law so if they are spending a certain amount of money, they have to be spending it correctly which is tendering. However, there is much more of push towards different forms of tendering which still meets procurement law but are more flexible but to me that falls short of the vision and world we want. We need to take away this notion of commissioning because it’s a power imbalance and it doesn’t do any favours for young people.

What does your perfect world idea of commissioning look like?

I think it would look like the provision of care for children and young people to live in a place of their choice. There would need to be some kind of mapping of where places are to make sure that we have enough to meet the needs of children and young people and their families. I would love it if there was an app or portal where if a young person needed to be looked after away from their family, the social worker would be able to say this is what’s available in your area. So, there would be a real flip in power, control and choice for children and young people. We would then be able to match young people properly. Lots of local authority provision tends to be larger children houses which is interesting because most young people would prefer to live in a smaller environment. So many local authority houses are 6–8-bedroom houses and not a lot of them have smaller houses as an option. I think it’s another reason for us to change the provision because what tends to happen is that we support many young people who have already been supported in other houses or other another form of provision which hasn’t worked rather than the independent provider being 1st choice. It would then become more balanced.