1. Communicating with children and young people
Jo Fox BA, BSW
Consultant Social Worker

2. Learning objectives
To understand the child & young person’s ability to contribute to communication through out the age groups
To develop strategies to communicate with children through out the age groups
To identify a range of practice tools that support communication with children and young people.

3. What are we trying to achieve when we communicate with children?
© Child Centred Practice May 2010

4. What we need to understand about children
How does this manifest
Attachment
Regulation
Self Efficacy
Resilience
Sense of self
Other mindedness
Ability to make choices
October 2009

5. Core building blocks of ARC
Attachment
Caregiver affect management
Attunement
Consistent response
Routines and rituals
Regulation
Affect identification
Modulation
Affect expression
Competency
Executive functions
Self development and identity
October 2009

6. Child development in communication
Understand the child’s developmental milestones, including their abilities and the range of communication at their command
Think about how their personality and learning style may affect their communication style
Think about the impact of the experience of abuse on a child

7. Developmental changes in children’s understanding (Jones, David)
Children’s general knowledge about the world is limited by experience.
The ability to appreciate the nature of other people’s attitudes, thoughts and feelings, and to understand that these may differ from one’s own, comes in later childhood.
Older children and adolescents have their expectations shaped by prior experience. They may therefore have fixed expectations about how people in authority might react to them (e.g. black teenagers’ expectations of the police).
Younger children have not necessarily considered the consequences of describing adverse experiences to others. Older children may well have done so, or have attitudes already shaped by their own or others’ experiences.

8. Developmental changes in children’s understanding Taken from Communicating with Vulnerable Children: A guide for practitioners by David Jones
Children’s general knowledge about the world is limited by experience.
The ability to appreciate the nature of other people’s attitudes, thoughts and feelings, and to understand that these may differ from one’s own, comes in later childhood.
Older children and adolescents have their expectations shaped by prior experience. They may therefore have fixed expectations about how people in authority might react to them (e.g. black teenagers’ expectations of the police).
Younger children have not necessarily considered the consequences of describing adverse experiences to others. Older children may well have done so, or have attitudes already shaped by their own or others’ experiences.

9. Try to avoid Close questioning Leading questions Suggestive questions
Complicated questions
Intimidation through personal or environmental factors

10. Kid talk Good at Poor at Feelings Personalising Imagining
Understanding body language
Attributing other mindness accurately
Understanding the nuances intellectually
Times, dates, space
October 2009

11. Ways to think about communication with infants
Even though infants are non verbal they are strong communicators.
When attempting to understand the world of the infant it is important to interact with the child – holding them, speaking to them, observing them being fed and bathed, watching their body responses in a number of different situations.

12. Ways to think about communicating with toddlers
Positive strategies
Watch for
Play
Pretend
Make faces
Watch body language
Look for explorative behaviour
Where do they feel safe?
Exploring behaviour
Proximity seeking
Awareness of themselves

13. Ways to communicate with primary school kids 4 – 8 years
Lots of drawing
Make things
Play games
Use pictures
Sand play
Dance
Tell stories
Dress up
Avoid multiple or complex questions
Give them opportunities to talk in the third person
Let them move around if they need too

14. Ways to communicate with older kids - 8 up.
Make comic strips together
Write plays
Use technology
Art/story book journals
Chart success
Go slowly
Music and words to favourite songs
Write things down
Avoid talking down to them
Give them space to consider their answers
Do not over correct them
Ask feeling questions
Answer their questions honestly

15. Ways to communicate with adolescents
Pick a safe environment
Be clear about what will happen to the information
Check if there are any no go areas
Expect to be ‘played’
Use Art and conversation together
Use music and conversation together
Use film and conversation together
Let them write
Share your notes
Challenge them
Use feeling words
Map progress
Give them written information
Make plans together
Meet them half way whenever you can

16. How do we represent children in assessments?
Research, inspections and inquiries indicate that children’s voices are absent or minimised during assessment
Focus on parents rather than the child
Use of language in reports
Laming (2003) – Successive professionals never communicated with the child. “This is the first of numerous observations disclosed as evidence to this Inquiry but not at any time recorded on Victoria's case file. The importance of accurately recording observations about children cannot be over-emphasised”
Clever and Walker (2004) – the impact of the assessment framework; This has been a concern in almost every child death enquiry – Jasmine Beckford and Kimberley Carlisle. Most social work cases do not end in such tragedy and most social workers do interview children as part of their assessment. However, because listening to children is so complicated, these interviews frequently result in inaccurate or incomplete information. This, in itself, can be harmful to children as the resulting plans may not keep them safe, may mean that services offered are inappropriate or that they suffer the trauma of a Section 47 investigation unnecessarily and may even be removed.
Coastal Cities Study (Holland ) Ref Sally Holland ‘Child and Family Assessment in Social Work Practice’ SAGE 2004 – The descriptions of young children were often direct quotations from the charts with little changing of the wording. It was clear that social workers were viewing children according to how well they fit in with an assessment tool rather than making observations of/ communicating with the child concerned and then using the tool to aid understanding. (Holland)
Communicating with Children © National Children's Bureau 2006

17. Ways in which children’s voices are silenced
By not reporting what was said
Children are minor characters in the narrative
More weight is given to adult views when there are differences of opinion or conflicting accounts
Presupposing what they might say
Descriptions of children being limited only to how they respond or relate to their parents
Presenting their voices as untrustworthy
One example of a 25-page assessment cited a family with four children and a lone parent. 8 pages devoted to the parent and only two to the children. (The two-year-old was summarised in two paragraphs.) Children were described as ‘minor characters in the narrative’.
Communicating with Children © National Children's Bureau 2006

18. Communicating with Children © National Children's Bureau 2006
Checklist (From Putting Analysis into Assessment by Dalzell and Sawyer 2007)
How well do I know the child?
Which adults know the child best and what do they think?
How has the child defined the problems in their family life and the effect on them?
Under what circumstances did the child express their views or feelings? What has occurred and what did he or she want to happen?
This checklist continues on next slide.
Communicating with Children © National Children's Bureau 2006

19. Communicating with Children © National Children's Bureau 2006
Checklist (cont) (From Putting Analysis into Assessment by Dalzell and Sawyer)
What has been observed regarding the child’s way of relating and responding to adults? (Consider attachment)
What do I know about research in relation to the experiences the child has had?
What communication methods have I used?
How confident am I that I have been able to establish the child’s views, wishes and feelings?
Communicating with Children © National Children's Bureau 2006

20. Impact of adverse life experiences on ability to relate
Slow to trust adults
Difficult to puts names to feelings
Poor historians – can’t remember facts
Omit facts they think could be dangerous/risky
Want to please
Say what they think you want to hear
Poor literacy and expressive skills
Attachment disorder can have a significant impact on successful relationship building and communication

21. Time Time Time More than anything children and young people need time.
Time to feel safe
Time to get to know you
Time to get to trust you
Time to get to know themselves

22. A belief in the future
Children and young people need to know that telling their story can make a difference
It must lead to improved outcomes
Future pull – offering children and young people hope and a belief in tomorrow

23. Make a difference
Use the information that children give you to understand their world, their strengths, their worries and their dreams.
Take that understanding and with the child make a plan to change their world into the one they need and want
Then take the journey with the child – it is not for the faint hearted or the careless – and see them to safety

24. If you cannot do these things for the child then….
“Don’t Ask”

25. 26 September 2009

26. A sample of research studies Taken from NCB training pack
What Children Tell Us
A sample of research studies
Taken from NCB training pack

27. Studies to find out what children say
Children Speak – Butler and Williamson, 1994
Your Shout! – Judith Timms and June Thoburn, NSPCC, 2003
Remember My Messages – Catherine Shaw, Who Cares Trust, 1998
Start with the Child, Stay with the Child – Voice for the Child in Care, 2004
Ask Us – Department of Health and Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a project to find out the views of disabled children, 2002
Local surveys
Description of the studies, methodology etc:
Butler and Williamson – 190 children, contacts made via SSDs, interviewed in schools, youth clubs and children’s homes. 55% female, 0ver one third were BME, majority years
Your Shout! – Main aim was to find out how children experienced the court system, decision-making within that context and participation in their own care plans. 706 children completed questionnaires distributed through the magazine Who Cares? Majority of sample aged years (72%), White British (86%), 60% female
Remember my Messages – Aim was to find out more about how children experienced being looked after. 2,073 questionnaires returned – distributed through the Who Cares? Magazine, also directly through local authorities, child care charities, in-care groups, children’s rights offices. 55% female, 83% years, 85% White British, 12% disabled or long-term health problem
Start with the Child, Stay with the Child – Project to establish a blueprint for a child-centred care system. Found out children’s views by a number of methods – questionnaire, group work, fun events and work with minority groups (ethnicity, mental health, asylum seekers). 400 children and young people involved, majority years. Age and ethnicity not recorded
QP initiative

28. ‘They don’t really listen. And then they don’t believe you’
Butler and Williamson (1994) – Who do children talk to about their problems?
Many young people had no trust in other people and the majority would talk first to someone within the family network
Over a quarter said they would talk to a friend
A significant number had no trust in adult professionals
‘They don’t really listen. And then they don’t believe you’

29. Butler and Williamson – Young people’s view of social workers
Lack of understanding ‘They don’t know nothing about what it’s really like for you’
Impose their own views ‘They twist the story, then sort it out their way’
Doubts about confidentiality ‘They spread things around: the whole world knows’
Trivialise or overreact ‘Just because I put on a friendly face they don’t realise I want them to be serious with me’
More quotes Pages of Butler and Williamson.

30. Butler and Williamson – What do children want from professionals?
Good listener – ‘not like a robot’
Available – ‘not at lunch, off sick, on training’
Non-judgemental and non-directive – ‘advice should be ‘maybe’ not ‘you must’ – give you choices’
Humour – ‘someone you can have a laugh with’
Straight talking – ‘not always what you want to hear’
Trust and confidentiality – ‘consult before you spread things on’
Break at this point to discuss in pairs, “Think of your last interaction with a child. How many of the points above did you fulfil?”

31. Timms and Thoburn (2003) – What do children think of the court process?
66% said they had someone helpful to talk to through the process
42% said they felt listened to in court
55% did not get the chance to speak to the judge, and 21% would have liked to
When asked who was helpful, social workers received the most responses (30%)
‘I would like social workers to be a bit more alert and to hear what foster carers have to say and when they put down a time to come and see you they must try to make the effort and come’

32. Shaw (1998) – What do children say about being in care?
49% said coming into care was confusing and scary, and 31% said it would have been easier if they had had more information
47% said they had a lot of say in decisions about seeing their social workers
Although 30% described themselves as lonely, 70% said they felt happy most of the time
Having access to ‘someone special’ to talk to was strongly associated with a generally positive state of mind
There are lots of other statistics in this publication about a range of issues regarding being looked after. Those selected relate most strongly to the need for good communication with children.

33. Relationships with professionals
Young people said they would like to see professionals who are: – reliable – keep promises – provide practical help – take time to listen, and to respond – see their lives in the round, not just the problems
‘I would have liked them to sit down with me and have a conversation for more than 15 minutes. Instead of telling me what they were going to do with my life, find out a bit more about me’
Taken from Voice for the Child in Care (2004)
Children want social work support that is:
flexible;
responsive;
individualised/personalised;
respectful of children’s views and wishes; and
participative.
Taken from Children’s experience and contact with social workers – report by CWDC 2010
As with Remember My Messages (Shaw, 1998) there is more in this document regarding being looked after, but the selection shown here is based on the importance of establishing a good relationship with children in order to facilitate good communication.

34. Voice for the Child in Care – Reviews
Children and young people said they feel they are not involved in the conversation at reviews, it goes on around them, and is about them, but it doesn’t engage them ‘I was sitting in a room with about 15 people, all talking about me like they knew me. I’d never met any of them!’
More of this on Page 50 of Start with the Child, Stay with the Child.
Break for short discussion in pairs, “Think of the last time you let a child down by doing something that you knew they didn’t want, or something that didn’t work for them (even a simple thing like cancelling an appointment or being late). Discuss what happened, and what you could have done to prevent it”

35. Ask Us (2002) – Views of disabled children
We want what other children want
We want to do what other children do
We want to go where other children go
We want to be respected We want to feel the same ‘buzz’ that other children feel

36. ‘I feel social workers come and go a bit quick. I don’t care anymore
‘I feel social workers come and go a bit quick. I don’t care anymore. My latest social worker, I’ve already been told he’s only temporary. If you know someone isn’t going to be around, you don’t bother talking to them’

37. Websites that can help with communication
Free Web Tools for Elementary Teachers - Classroom 2.0
Lifeline Publications: Big Blue Book of Sex
NCB | Communicating With Children
Welcome to Youngminds — YoungMinds
Resilience in Children: Professor Brigid Daniel - Life Matters - 18 April 2006

38. Websites that can help with communication
Cafcass - Putting children first in family courts
Youthhood.org: NCSET's Web Site for Youth
TheSite.org
St Luke's Innovative Resources | seriously optimistic books and resources | Strength Cards for Kids, Kids' Skills and more.!

39. Training packs, courses and resources www.ncb.org.uk ©
Aldgate, J (ed) (2006) The Developing World of the Child. London: Jessica Kingsley. (Note, training pack to accompany book is available from NSPCC).
Butler, I and Williamson, H (1994) Children Speak: Children, trauma and social work. London. NSPCC and Longman.
Cleaver, H and Walker, S (2004) ‘From policy to practice: The implementation of a new framework for social work assessments of children and families’ Child & Family Social Work, 9, 81.
Common Core of Skills and Knowledge for the Children’s Workforce (2005). Available from
Commission for Social Care Inspection [CSCI] (2005) Making Every Child Matter. Available from

40. Dalzell, R and Chamberlain, C (2006) Communicating with Children: A two-way process. Resource pack. London: National Children’s Bureau. Available from
Dalzell, R and Sawyer, E (2007) Putting Analysis into Assessment. London: National Children’s Bureau.
Department for Education and Skills (2004) The Common Assessment Framework. London: DfES.*
Department of Health and others (2000) Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families. London: The Stationery Office.*
Holland, S (2004) Child and Family Assessment in Social Work. London: Sage Publications.
How it is (2002) London: NSPCC/Triangle*
Hutton, A and Partridge, K (2006) Say it Your Own Way. Barnardo’s and DfES.*

41. Jones, D (2003) Communicating with Vulnerable Children: A guide for practitioners. London: Gaskell.
Lancaster, P (2003) Listening to Young Children. Maidenhead: Open University Press.*
Lord Laming (2003) The Victoria Climbié Inquiry: Report of an Inquiry by Lord Laming. Norwich: HMSO.
Melia, J (2005) Wavelength: A handbook of communication strategies for working with young people. Brighton: The Trust for the Study of Adolescence. *
Myers (2001) In Safe Hands. A video resource and training pack to support work with young refugee children. Leicester: NSPCC National Training Centre.*
NSPCC and University of Sheffield (2000) The Child’s World: Assessing children in need. Training and development pack. London: NSPCC.

42. Quality Protects and Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2002) Ask US.
Shaw, C (1998) Remember My Messages. London: Who Cares? Trust.
Timms, J and Thoburn, J (2003) Your Shout! London: NSPCC.
Two-Way Street, video and handbook (2001) Triangle.*
Voice for the Child in Care (2004) Start with the Child, Stay with the Child. London: VCC.
Young Minds: obtain information sheets from their website *
Zeigler, R (1992) Home-made Books to Help Kids Cope. USA: Magination Press.*