Framing In Practice: Highland Council, Residential Care and Wider Culture Change

Each and Every Child has now been sharing our framing recommendations across Scotland for four years, speaking to individuals and organisations across the country to explore the framing techniques in their roles and lives. These recommendations, designed to change how we talk about care experience and the care system, seek to help build public understanding into what the care system actually is for children, young people and families who come into contact with it – and therefore countering common assumptions, stigma and discrimination. We are now seeing different examples of how these framing recommendations are influencing changes in practice that are having a real impact on the lives of children, young people and families. Through this new podcast series we will be sharing how the workforce are using the framing recommendations to support transformational change. This first episode, with Carrie McLaughlin at the Highland Council, shares details about how they have progressed with changing language in different areas of the organisations – and the opportunities and challenges that have arisen. 

To shift public thinking around care experience and the care system, and to tackle unhelpful mindsets that can often limit how the public think about this issue, we need to change more than just words. These mindsets, which can result in the audience focusing on individual choice, othering children and families, and thinking things cannot change, are irreparably broken or are constantly in crisis, are often activated inadvertently. This means we need to take care with how we present all information that we are sharing, and how we approach this communication from the beginning. Whilst changing specific words is an important part of how we combat stigma and discrimination, to fully shift public thinking in a sustained, positive direction we need a change in culture. A change in culture allows us to address not just the system language that can both alienate and create stigma for children, young people and families; but also change how we approach conversations in the first place, and how we form and maintain relationships, now and in the future.  

The Highland Council’s example of how framing has supported a change in practice in the writing of daily notes demonstrates the power that framing can have on both the workforce and on children and young people, especially with a view to people reading their notes at a future date. Framing can change how people think, feel and act – but it also can help people better record why – why things happen, and why the support is needed. As Carrie mentions in the podcast, the real-life impact of making this change has been improved understanding of the young person and the care that needs to be provided, improved relationships and increased time to really focus on these relationships. But also that change isn’t always simple, or easy. This is more than just ‘writing to the child’ – it is making sure the culture and organisational structures allow this to make sure staff are supported to learn, share practice, and safely challenge their own thinking and practice.  

“But even if one person makes one little change, and every person makes one little change, then that’s got huge consequences in the right direction for society moving forward”

We hope this podcast series will give you some ideas on how framing can be used in real life practice, and the impact that framing can have on children, the workforce and organisations. Ensuring that we are fully countering stigma and discrimination is at the core of The Promise, which marks its fifth anniversary this week. Whilst this will require work to properly understand how stigma is created through our practice and how we communicate about care experience and the care system (even if this is inadvertent), we can also see those lightbulb moments that can make fundamental shifts in how people approach thinking about care and care experience. As Carrie’s colleague mentioned, the framing recommendations highlighted to them that all children have the same needs, but how we meet those needs might require additional supports. This scaffolding of support, with the child or young person at its heart, will ensure that each and every child has what they need to thrive.