From Safe Child to Humane Adult

1. Celebrating 10 years of Success in Caring for Extremely Vulnerable Children and Young People From Safe Child to Humane Adult Christina Enright 26.06.08

2. Growing Up in the UK: Is Britain the Worst Place To Be A Child?

3. The true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children- their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialisation, and their sense of being loved, valued, and included in the families and societies into which they are born’ Unicef Report 2007

4. Assessment of levels of well-being of children and adolescents in economically advanced nations. 6 dimensions • Material • Health & safety • Educational • Family & peer relationships • Behaviour & Risks • Subjective sense of well-being UK last in 3/6 and bottom 1/3 for 5/6

5. Uncomfortable & Shameful Truth ‘A generation of young people who are unhappy, unhealthy, engaging in risky behaviours, have poor relationships with family & peers, low expectations and who do not feel safe’.

6. Why? • What Underlies our Failure to Nurture Happy & Healthy Children in UK? • Northern European Countries Sweden & Netherlands in Top 4- what are they doing right/ differently? • Not just about poverty- poorer economies such as Poland and Chek Republic did better

7. Some Worrying Statistics • UK Child Poverty doubled since 1979 • 1:5 children growing up on benefits • 553,000 children referred to CP due to neglect & abuse. Only 30,700 are protected through CP register • Space for children to roam, play, explore reduced by 90% in 20 years • Children play time as low as 3% (11 hrs in front of TV) • Parents too busy to listen • Most Conversations issuing instructions in 48 hour period

8. Children’s Worries • 34% of British Children always worried • 11% extremely worried What About? • School work • Death/poor health • Parental conflict • Falling out with friends • 10% hate leaving home in the morning because of problems at school • 31% experience bullying

9. Kids Company • 84% homeless • 82% substance misuse • 81% criminal involvement • 83% complex trauma through formative years • 39% young carers struggling to cope • 87% emotional difficulties and mental health problems

10. Violence & Abuse Violence is a public health issue! • Underreported • 16% experience serious maltreatment • 1/3 more than one type • Mother responsible most often • Seriously undermines safety and attachment • Violence & Abuse in the home seriously traumatising for children

11. Human Brain Not Designed for Modern World • Traditional small multigenerational family groups • Early Childhood Social Interactions- modern v hunter gatherer societies :- 4:1 / single caregiver: 1:4 classroom: 2:30 • Compartmentalisation of Western Life- separated by: age, wealth, work, education, profession, ethnicity, religion, race. • Children have fewer emotional, social & cognitive interactions with fewer people • Make sense to expect one person to meet multiple needs?

14. Neurodevelopmental Perspective • Innate drive to form social bonds – power of relationships • Repetitive, patterned stimuli create neural networks • Secure attachment & sense of safety fosters healthy brain development • Quality of attachment determines social, emotional and cognitive capacity, plus ability to form future relationships • Primary maternal preoccupation –internal template for world/expectations • Childhood experience today dramatically different – poverty of relationships (developmental trauma) • Early neglect =profound abnormalities in structure & function

15. Why Does Relational Health Matter? • Attachment fosters development of capacity to care, share, listen, value others, be empathic/compassionate- from being cared for, shared with, listened to, valued and nurtured • Internalisation of healthy self-regulatory process • Violence, suicide, mental illness, physical illness and host of social ills increase when the social fabric fragments • Attachment curbs our aggressive impulses/ promotes prosocial behaviour • Pleasure/ reward from relating – inhibits the misuse of substances • Social alienation/isolation- highest risk factor for school shootings

16. Effects of Developmental Trauma • Trauma- brain hardwired for stress • All information filtered through brain stem upwards • First experiences create template – interpret/filter • More primitive structures as move along arousal continuum – more threatened/ less mature • Continual scanning & appraisal of relational environment for threat- hypervigilance • Fight/flight/freeze • Novel stimuli remembered/ anxiety provoking • Abused children shut down capacity to feel

17. What is Needed? • Policy with Serious and Firm Commitment to invest in Wellbeing of Children • Children are Our Future- change public attitudes • Putting knowledge into practice/share good practice – schools etc • Programmes to Decrease Social & Emotional Isolation • Emphasis on early years interventions – enriching environments- identify those at risk for intergenerational transmission • Particularly hard to reach groups

18. What is Needed? (contd) Model To Recreate Ideal Healthy Family/ Community - pre& postnatal care/ support - home visiting - community involvement programmes - school based service delivery - parent education broadening range of contacts/experiences • Better support for those working with traumatised children • Models that focus initially on achieving emotional regulation • Models that address developmental deficits through matching

19. Kids Company System of Care • Service at street level • Underpinned by relationships – modulates stress response • Informed by neurobiological research /experience • Child/young person centred • Wrap around service- practical, social, emotional, educational support • Early intervention • Support for staff • Emphasis on healing through creativity • Experimentation with new ways of working – therapies geared to brainstem regulation

20. “What we do to our children they will do to society.”