Book of the Month September 2019 - By Your Side Foster Carer and Adopter Guide

​By Your Side Foster Carer and Adopter Guide: support for children moving families
by Vivien Norris (The Family Place 2019),
reviewed by Sheila Lavery
 
Transitions are understandably difficult for care-experienced children, not least because of the huge losses they involve or rekindle. Chief among these are the transitions from birth family to temporary foster care and from foster care to permanency.  

We expect a lot from children when we leave them to manage these moves without respecting their relational history and their ability to make sense of the conflicting and potentially overwhelming feelings such transitions involve.
 
So I was thrilled to read and review By Your Side, by Vivien Norris, Clinical Director of the Family Place. This genuinely trauma-informed guide for supporting both children and adults involved in the move to permanency joins the ranks of Norris’s other publications including Parenting with Theraplay (with Helen Rodwell) and Not Again Little Owl. This review is in respect of the foster carer and adopter guide, which forms part of a wider resource package including a practitioner guide and training programmes.
 
By Your Side acknowledges that starting well is crucial in adoption. It aims to do this by establishing a model of collaboration and containment. It employs DDP and Theraplay to provide consistency, playful connection, a coherent narrative, routines and rituals and a level of caring engagement so a child remains seen, heard and valued at a time when practicalities and planning often take precedence over emotional connection. The book aims to help the adults develop greater insight and empathy when moving a child. That means the adults must cooperate, manage their own feelings and model mind-mindedness and containment for the child.
 
It’s interesting that even though we know how attachments are built through rupture and repair we fail to use the huge rupture of transition as a critical attachment building opportunity and indeed, a key responsibility. Likewise, we may fail to recognise that the liminal space of transition between what was and what is yet to come is not a void but an opportunity for growth. Norris’s guide is hugely valuable in addressing this area.
 
 The manual begins by listing the seven core principles of the approach (see above) and defines the terms attachment and trauma, which helps to clarify the content that follows. The principles give a framework, goals and everyday examples of the By Your Side approach while providing the flexibility needed for every child and family’s unique experience.
 
By Your Side recognizes that the practical tasks of permanent placements and the excitement of a “forever” family means that adults often minimize or ignore the very real feelings of anxiety, grief, frustration, sadness, confusion etc., that a child may struggle to manage. In doing so we begin or continue a culture of, “if we don’t look at the tough stuff, it will go away” or we wait until a child is settled before addressing challenges. Norris addresses the reality of dealing with what comes up, as it comes up, in the here and now because that’s what being present for a child really means. She also asks us to consider our use of language and a child’s understanding of terms like “forever family”. It’s important to be curious about how those words fit with the child’s experience of family and the concept of forever, given the child’s current feeling state and developmental stage. For example, might we not distinguish between “first family”, “helping family” and “keeping family” rather than the usual fostering, adoption and care-order terminology.
 
What I liked most about this guide is that it puts attachment into action in this minute and every minute that we engage with a child, not somewhere down the line. It makes attachment the responsibility of each one of us involved in the child’s journey, not just the job of the “forever family”. Despite the abundance of attachment and trauma language on everyone’s lips, attachment is still not alive in the detail of care planning. There is still an expectation that a child will transfer attachment from one set of parents to another because it’s in their best interests. The system struggles to hold simultaneously the view of what is needed in the here and now with a long view of permanency. In reality minimising the pain of the transition undermines the chances of “permanency” or ‘forever” from the outset. When placements are not managed well subsequent transitions often become problematic and the adolescent transitions can become so difficult as to challenge the stability of everyone’s place in a “forever family”.
 
The sensitivity of the transfer of care from foster carer to permanent parent in the By Your Side approach means the adults can hold the child and the practitioners can hold the adult carers throughout the transitional process. For anyone familiar with DDP and Theraplay the detail of this approach will seem very familiar. I guess what is new is the packaging of those principles into a practical resource with a refreshing view of the space between temporary care and permanency as a bridge rather than a void.
 
As an adopter I questioned how some of the approach would work in practice. I was reassured that the midway review in the process could pick up on the fragility of some situations and the professionals could bolster any support needed for the child. Practitioners using the approach would need to be very skilled, hence the accompanying training, and the support system would need to be very robust. I’m also curious about what other supports might be available to help the adults in this vulnerable period. Still, it’s a great resource. Thinking as I often do these days about adoption disruption, the content of this guide is not only relevant to getting off to a good start in permanent placements, but together with the practitioner guide and training it would be a hugely valuable resource for repairing the hurt in families when the “forever” bubble is fit to burst and it provides a model of collaboration and support that gives adoption placements their best chance of success throughout the lifespan.

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