Confessions of a Life Story Worker - Part 2 of 2

by Megan Bayliss | More from this Blogger

This artice is the follow on article from Confessions of a Life Story Worker: Part 1.

Whose job is it to do the Life Story Work? When I began doing Life Story Work I was worried that I may be breaching statutory laws. I saw the work as belonging solely to Child Safety Officers. My Australian experience with Child Safety workers told me that they were too busy and spent minimal time on their case loads and Life Story Work wasn't being achieved. Also, their understanding of Life Story Work appeared to fit within a Freedom of Information framework - what they had was what they used. I handled it by not doing it. In the U.K., SACCS has nominated workers that only do Life Story Work - they are neither statutory workers, carers or the child's counselor. Their sole task is to complete Life Story Work.

In the borough I worked in London we were able to do our own Life Story Work which meant I collected, collated, and worked with the kids. I LOVED it. I now advocate that it is every persons responsibility to be an active participant in achieving Life Story Work for kids in out of home care.

Where to get information?

Start with a genogram (a family map or tree)

Move to an eco map (who has or has had contact with the child)

Talk to significant people in the child's life (statutory workers, schoolteachers, foster carers, birth parents). Find out first from the welfare agency who you are allowed to contact and how far you are allowed to go in making contacts. WORK IN PARTNERSHIP with the welfare agency.

Ask family members (old and new) to write letters to be included in the Life Story Book.

Take photos - even of the door in a house the child once lived.

Use children's art work done in therapy.

Research - find out addresses, old telephone numbers, family rituals, family secrets, family celebrations.

Do internet searches by putting in the child/family name. Include anything you find.

Contact past therapists and seek permission to include relevant information.

How to help the child integrate the information:

Carer or adopted parent - Always work with a therapist or statutory worker. Check the accuracy of information you are including with those people. Ask for at home strategies and interventions to help in the task of unplesant information integration.

Counselor - draw upon a range of therapeutic interventions to assist the child to come to terms with the information. This is a healing process and you must use best practice principals and ethical considerations in everything you do. Remember too that your work will be open to scrutiny - stay accountable - know that this document could end up as evidence.

Show the child your work as you complete pages. Allow them to write notes to be included on the page. They may disagree with what you have written. This is their right and is part of the integration process.

How to put the book together:

The book needs to be something that can be added to. Many people use a ring binder. Pages can be easily added over the years.

Some people provide DVD's or CD's. It's difficult to add to these though.

My preference is for scrapbook albums - the top fill pages allow for hiding things that the child may not want to talk about yet, the plastic covers offer protection and it is easy to buy refills. Scrapbook albums are also acid free and WILL NOT destroy photographs.

For children from a different culture it may be appropriate to use a different method of collation - a suitcase, a bag, a box, a postal cylinder. Use something that will have meaning to the child and their culture.

Where and when to start:

Start today. The longer you put it off, the less likely you are to do it.

Start with the day's occurrences, at the beginning of life, at the time the child came into your care, or you can work backward. It doesn't matter - just START. This will become a document that can be added to, pages changed around, and even passed to other carers to add to.

If you're a counselor, change your notes into scrapbook pages to begin the process. What happened today. How do you journal and decorate it? YOU JUST DO IT. Under whelm yourself, start with making a paper bag album of today's session.

Write a therapeutic letter to the child. Explain in the letter why you're in their life, what you know about them, what you see in them, what you hope for them. Make this letter the start of your child's Life Story Book. If the child ends up hating you they can change the placement of the letter, hide it between pages, or even trash it if they choose to.

There is no right or wrong way to get the task done, just remember that Life Story Work is about telling a healing story of a time of the child. The journaling supports the pictures, rather than pictures supporting a bit of writing.

Recommended reading:

Melissa J's and Nicole Humphrey's excellent articles on adoption,

The Child's Own Story: Life Story Work with Traumatized Children (HIGHLY recommended by Megan. Purchase new or used from Amazon)

Magical thinking: Life Story Work with Traumatized Children (SACCS newsletter)

This is your life: Life Story Book (DoCHS newsletter)

Life Story Work: What it is and what it means

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