‘Remember when…’: exploring the experiences of looked after children and their carers in engaging in collaborative reminiscence

Abstract

The background literature outlines the positive impact that life story work can have for children in care, but there is scant published research to support these claims and, to date, none exploring both carers' and children's experiences of engaging in collaborative memory work, which can form an important component of a child's life story. This article explores the experiences of foster carers and looked after children in carrying out such work using the memory store approach, focusing on what their talk could tell us about how using this approach had affected the carerchild relationship, the child's self-perception, aspects of the child's thinking and learning, and their emotions. The participants were five foster carers and the four children in their care. Two to three months after a one-day training course for carers in using the memory store approach, semi-structured interviews were carried out with the carers and a board game session took place with each of the children to explore their views. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to guide both the data generation and its subsequent analysis. Carers' and children's talk suggested that using the memory store approach has a number of perceived benefits, emotionally, relationally and in terms of the child's self-perception and learning. A memory store approach model was postulated on the basis of these findings. One of the conclusions of this research is that using the memory store approach (or similar) should be a statutory requirement of foster carers, not only because of the potential benefits highlighted through this research but also because of the ethical necessity to safeguard the memories of a child's time in care.

Agents and spectres: Life-space on a medium secure forensic psychiatric unit

“…What this suggests is the need to think of patient engagement with the therapeutic landscape of the ward as defined by temporal as well as spatial boundaries. As Lewin (1997) work' (where the past, present and future hopes are recorded using photographs and diaries) is typically used to assist in both informing carers and allowing the client to make sense of their experience over time (Shotton, 2013). Practices such as this might have promise in psychiatric settings as means of supporting a meaningful life trajectory.…”

Storying special objects: Material culture, narrative identity and life story work for children in care

“…The importance of keeping such objects safe was recognised by stakeholders: No matter how upset they get and they might want to break things, that memory box always sort of stays safe, ’cause it’s the one thing that they can keep and look back on . (PW, Leah)Children’s objects are sometimes used transitionally to help them manage the challenges of change by providing connections across place and time (Shotton, 2013; Willis and Holland, 2009; Winnicott, 1953). Whilst not all children’s objects are transitional, for children who have experienced trauma and instability, their birth and foster care objects may be transitional in form as they mark the familial moves they have experienced.…”

“…Children's objects are sometimes used transitionally to help them manage the challenges of change by providing connections across place and time (Shotton, 2013;Willis and Holland, 2009;Winnicott, 1953). Whilst not all children's objects are transitional, for children who have experienced trauma and instability, their birth and foster care objects may be transitional in form as they mark the familial moves they have experienced.…”

Life story work for children and young people with care experience: A scoping review

“…The final three articles in this category evaluate LSW that can be facilitated by carers or adoptive parents following initial training. Two articles by Shotton (2010, 2013) describe separate evaluations of a process that encouraged carers to record memories of the child’s/young person’s time in their care, in collaboration with them. Watson et al’s (2018) article reports a small trial of a digitally enhanced memory storage box (“Trove”) for children’s precious objects, involving six family groups.…”