 Hello and welcome to Pookie Ponders, the podcast where I explore big questions with brilliant people. Today's question is, what outcomes matter most for looked after children? And how can we make a difference? And I'm in conversation with Krista Parsons. Hi everyone, my name's Krista Parsons. My current role is, I'm the project lead for Caring to Learn at Lincolnshire County Council. But I've been a teacher for 30 years and I still class myself as a teacher even though I've been working in a different role away from schools for the last three years. But prior to that I was head teacher in three schools. And I've worked around the country and worked in London for 15 years. And then I've worked in very tiny rural village schools as well. So I've had quite a varied career. All in primary education. You can probably tell from my accent, I wasn't born in London, I was born in Bolton in the North West. But sort of have lived in different places, I currently live in Nottingham. And it was sort of a happy accident when they found myself working in Lincolnshire, which is a really interesting county, a massive geographical spread. And also really widespread range of schools really from the coast, rural, some sort of urban areas as well. So it is really very diverse in the types of schools and children and families that we work with really. So tell me a little bit before we go into the question, tell me a little bit about the Caring to Learn project. What is that? What does it do? Yeah, well, it was actually I feel when I got this job, I just felt like this is amazing actually, this opportunity because Lincolnshire is a great local authority actually. And because of that they work here's what's called a Patterns in Practice with the Department for Education and it's about developing innovative practice really. And they do get the opportunity to research and try new things and Caring to Learn is one of these innovation projects as Patterns in Practice really. And it came about I think really with a collaboration between Kieran Barnes, who's the virtual school head in Lincolnshire and John Harris, who is the head of regulated services and saw sort of a link between social care and education really. To kind of answer this question, how can we improve outcomes for our looked after and previously looked after children. We were lucky to receive the funding from the DFE to sort of launch this research and this sort of way to trial new and perhaps different approaches really because practice in general across the counties is very good and we've got some great schools and, you know, a good and outstanding children's services, but it really is how to make the difference really what extra can be added to, you know, improve life chances and we've got key performance indicators to reduce an exclusion, improving attendance, improving educational outcomes. And those are key factors obviously but it's about, you know, how do we improve the lives really of our children in care and children who are previously in care. So we, I sort of was really fortunate I think to land this role as what is project lead, project manager, coming from very keen to have an education back someone with an education background leading sort of the development. And then I've got a tiny team really myself on one other we focus full time on this Rebecca Fleming who's a practice supervisor in our early health team. It's sort of many years of experience working, you know, more on that sort of early health and social care side really so sort of joined together that approach that joined up approach to really see what we could do differently and try new things really to to help support everyone who works with our children in care. You've already alluded to the idea that when we think about outcomes for children quite often we're thinking about educational outcomes in their narrow sense but actually caring to learn and the work that you do look so much broader than that so how do you decide where to focus your efforts as you say you're a tiny team serving a huge area. What do you think will be the next. Well, we, we were really lucky to work in the development stages with UCL and Professor Clair Cameron and sort of focus on social pedagogy approach really. And if people aren't aware of social pedagogy it's really about a holistic approach to education you know education and it's widely sense really. Bringing in, you know, looking at things holistically we need to you know you need to think about who who are the people that can affect this and we came up with this idea. It's really about Stapley titled the triad of success which is really about home. School in again in its wide sense home setting in its wide sense and services agencies everybody else external to those high those three groups work together equally. You know we're on the same page and they communicate effectively and they understand each other's point of view and things like that and we one of the things we, we, I think you see everywhere really is that everybody, you know social workers schools. Whereas they're all, you know, doing the best and working really hard and really got the heart and the soul into, you know, doing the best for children but they're often working in parallel like this rather than, you know, really be understanding each other's roles and sort of communicating fully and working equitably really and that was one of the things as well we kind of in lots of research it's highlighted but really interestingly you know foster carers will say they feel like a lesser partner you know in that that perhaps they, you know, they do their job of looking after the children and providing a home but sometimes they feel that, you know, their voice isn't heard as strongly as other professionals and they often say this that, you know, because of the people called professionals that it seems that their opinion matters more or their voices heard more. And that was a really interesting thing to hear actually and so we've tried to avoid using the word professionals to talk about other people because, you know, one of the things we have found out is our carers are amazing and they are the experts in, you know, in these children they live with them 24 hours a day and so to really kind of raise their profile and hear their voice and give them, you know, make them feel that they are an equal partner in that sort of triangle really. And but also I think coming from schools I had an interest in perspective that I felt schools were quite low in this pile really because one of the things that obviously is key is safeguarding safeguarding and making our children safe and that's where this process starts really and And so, you know, safeguarding is the goal to start off with, isn't it? But often it does remain the kind of key focus really that we've got children in a safe place, we've removed the, you know, risk and we're sort of putting them in a safe and stable place. And that's kind of sometimes where the conversation then stops rather than, right, we've helped them survive now, but how can we help them go on and thrive? And so, yeah, moving that conversation on, moving our aspirations further and higher is really what we've focused on as well. So that was kind of where we started. So we did things differently in that, for instance, we have a whole training program which we have available for schools, children's services and carers. But instead of having sessions for teachers, sessions for social workers, sessions for foster carers, we have everybody together. I mean, currently it's all virtual but prior to this, everybody is in the room hearing each other's stories, listening to each other's points of view, sometimes raising an eyebrow, you know, perhaps saying, oh, you know, that's not my opinion, you know, and sort of bringing that, you know, that little bit of a challenge in the room and I'm being able to work through that sometimes in discussions and certainly making links and building networks and building understanding of others' perspectives and points of view, challenges, barriers and successes. So I think bringing everybody together in that way has been one of the key things we have found has been very, very successful in what we've tried to do for the last three years, really. You know, we really say now, that's what it's got to be, it's got to be everyone together in this and physically together or virtually together so that they can, they can share and understand each other better, really. So that's one of the things we did. We also, it was kind of three pronged attacks. So we have this kind of development program. We have a good practice framework which we built and we, again, this is based very much on Claire Cameron's work book, which is called Caring Schools and Learning Placements and so we developed what I call the Caring Schools and Learning Homes frameworks. And they're self-evaluation tools, really. You know, what good practice is in this area and for schools we built it into an award because it's something to work for in a developmental process. We have a sort of bronze, silver, gold, three tier developmental process of working through this, but it gives them a chance to look at their provision and practice for, you know, all of that. It's not just about looked after children, actually. It's wider than that, isn't it? You know, it's all that huge group of disadvantaged children and families, I suppose, because what's good practice for looked after children is certainly good practice for all children, really. So we really make that point. And we work with all schools. They don't have to have looked after children currently with them because of course they could, you know, have looked after children at any point, really. So what we like to say that they're looked after ready. But we do really stress that what's good practice for these children is good practice for all the children. We built an inter-op meet any point. Every time I have a question or a thought, you seem to just naturally go there. So I'm just taking it all on board. We built our sort of development and our principles on the cornerstone, what we've called the cornerstones of good practice. And so it's kind of within Lincolnshire we work within signs of safety as our safeguarding structure. And so, and that strength based practice, you know, it sort of asks us to sort of see where the resources are in the network and work from that and build on safety. So we kind of take that strength based approach. And then we've built in, you know, to say, Well, within that we're working in a social pedagogical way. So we're looking at the lifespan and the whole holistic approach to education and its widest sense. We've built firmly on principles of restorative practice relationship based practice. The relationship comes first it's where everything stems from. And that also, you know, where very early on we hooked massively into the Rita Pearson Ted talk every child deserves a champion. And, and that run, you know, some of the things she talks about in that amazing Ted talk ring true for everything we were trying to achieve. It's about, you know, even just one trusting adult one strong relationship can make the difference for child's life. So we really, you know, that idea of relationships but also relationships between adults and adults, adults and children and children and children as well. And so, you know, how to make relationships better stronger and more effective in all areas in your, in your work, in school, in, in your meetings, and in your families as well. So that's what relationship based practice and then introducing this and being really trauma aware being looking at things through a trauma lens understanding what's happening for children, what has happened for children, have a better understanding of all that sort of area and being really sort of trauma aware in how we work with our children and their families and, and each other as well really. So that's kind of what we build on that. Wow, there's a lot to unpick there so I'm going to start with some of the things you said most recently first and I'm interested in learning a little bit more in terms of the relationships based practice which speaks to what so many of us think we know, but putting it into practice when you have a child maybe arriving in your home in your school who you don't know who is faced a challenging time building those relationships is difficult sometimes isn't it so what have you learned along the way and what are the kind of the practical things that you advise and guide and have seen work that can help people with that. Well, social pedagogy has this model called three P's, which talks about what is your, your professional, your personal and your private selves, and, and, you know, that really run true when we looked at that we talked about this to a lot of professionals I suppose but a lot of the people we come in contact with because when you need, when you want to build a relationship with someone you have to make a bond you have to share something of yourself so people who are overly hidden behind their professional role that sometimes is a barrier to making strong relationships and, and I think so it was really, it's really interesting we do we ask people to kind of share a bit of their professional their personal selves as well and understand so, so even from silly things like every time we meet you know we share we have a check in and we share a little you know we ask these kind of icebreaker questions but with the purpose actually with an intent of saying you know let's you know we're here for a serious reason you know we're here to do some really good work but actually let's have a smile let's have a share share ourselves and let's make a link and a connection with each other as well so you know we have to ask people what makes you smile before we start something what you know what was the last thing you really had a huge laugh about or you know what's a what was what's something you're looking forward to what was your favorite toy growing up anything like that to kind of kind of bring that into the arena and say that we're actually the connection is important we'll start building that first and then we can get on to the business as it were and and that principle is really important with children isn't it and again with with we've borrowed and learned about and and we're trying to bring from lots of different models so in the in the soft trauma informed arena we talk about Dr Bruce Perry the three hours which is you know, regulate, relate, reason so again it's about being in that really calm state but then the relationship comes next and then we can get to the business part as it were but not until the other two parts are in place so we we talk a lot about that especially with foster carers as you say there are school staff who who are working day in day out with you know children and young people they might be angry they might be distressed you know we've tried to ban the word challenging behavior and the challenges for us really isn't it the challenges for us and I think you know so we said to people think about meltdowns and incidents all these ways we describe these kinds of things so in schools or in homes as a real sign of distress in some way a communication of behavior and and then take that step back we also use ideas from therapeutic parenting from Dan Hughes pace and and that idea of you know playfulness in relationships comes in it's really interesting all these you know when we're trying to bring some ideas together but lots of them overlap flow together really well actually because again pace talks about playfulness joyfulness and acceptance of people as they are accepting of situations and then curiosity wanting to know more wanted to understand better and empathy and and so we say that for everybody you know if you you know in this when I think of a time I was in the school and I was really frustrated with social worker because I wasn't getting the action I wanted or I didn't think we'd heard me or they did they weren't taking my point of view you know and then now we're and I think about that if I think about and I know more about social work and how you know and the structures barriers processes and all those kinds of things I think oh gosh I didn't understand half of what how that person had to work and and what they were dealing with as well and now I do know that I think oh because I've learned more and I have that you know and I have that understanding the same with carers and I think as I had come into work on this you know working the education for so long and you know I think I was quite you know I wasn't too bad at it but coming to work on this project for the last three years has really taught me so much and I just think oh I don't you know if I do go back into school I shall have understand and work in much better ways now for benefiting this and I've thought well if I've learned that then I hope what we're doing in what we're doing with people is helping them now currently you know in the roles that they're doing really so you're muted. That's that's brilliant isn't it yeah get me podcast host muted I was making a great point there too right so what was I going to say I was going to say obviously there's that feeling there and I think we always have this at every point in our life obviously we're learning all the time and if we could go back in time and talk to our younger selves and we would have advice our younger selves wouldn't necessarily listen to that advice very readily but I wonder if during these past three years is there anything you've learned that you think your past self would find so outrageously unlikely or surprising that they probably wouldn't listen what's really surprised you I don't know if it's surprised me but it's a lesson I should have learned a lot earlier I think and that is to really value parents and carers and there I think I don't think this is just a trait of teachers but we often think we are the font of knowledge we are the people imparting that we are the people who have the answers and often parents come to us and talk to you know and ask us to help and support about stuff in the home and that kind of thing but actually what I've learned from foster carers from working with our foster carers is that they are so full of insight and and their knowledge and and and they don't often think they are you know sometimes they think oh you're the person you know in this professional role but actually what I've seen as well what we've demonstrated and I'd like to talk about that in a minute so in some of our studies is that what has made the difference for academic progress has been the input of the carers and how that's been different and so I you know I often I can hold my hands up and I think anybody in schools would probably if they were being really honest say you know at times in my school career I've thought oh no I'm sure I know best and actually no I don't think that you know and I think I think I've got something to bring but I actually think I've got to listen to other people more and and I don't have to have all the answers and I think that's something that people if they catch on to that quicker they work better as a team really don't they? I think that that's a classic example isn't it of how you need to know a lot to realise that there's more that you need to know and I think yeah that's and again it goes back to as you're saying sort of Dan Hughes and pace really that curiosity and empathy always in your role so talk to us about the work that you did around how sort of academic performance was impacted on by what was happening in the home well we I mean as well as looking at all these kind of relationship based things and you know and behaviour and all those kinds of aspects we obviously we wanted to look at how can we make a difference in academic terms and progress and obviously a big area where there's a huge gap as it were where we want to narrow the gap is in the area of literacy reading English we found that's you know trend through a lot of our children in care and through the work of the virtual schools so we again we worked as part with UCL who run some great programs actually one of the things there on this Palak program which is promoting achievements of what's after children and we worked with them and we with the amazing lady Catherine Carroll and she as part of that and she we launched this program we've called it caring to read now which is about how to literacy intervention study really and in the first year we run it we run we work with five schools ten children from five schools all in primary in key stage two and the profile of the children we asked for where children who were significantly behind in literacy or in reading the sort of age expectation but who didn't have a sort of defined a special need or additional need so I suppose what we were trying to identify with children who were under achieving and who weren't where they should be really and and and then we so Catherine we again we brought together school staff and the care and carers and we work with our educational psychologists and Catherine brought that group together and we started off with all of the children had a full assessment led by education psychologists psychologists and that we tested them for their phonics knowledge their word reading and their reading ages and then we and then and the psychologists put together a really in-depth report about that individual child and then they work closely with the care and the school staff together to really look at what that report was telling them and then each group had to devise then a 10 week intervention that would be led in school and in the home but again we wanted to make the schools do literacy and reading interventions all the time and and children make progress and have one-to-one support and attention but we kind of wanted to move it away from all this is a separate intervention in school and we might send someone work home with a child to do a bit more or a worksheet or something else for them to practice and obviously schools were already asking children to do and families to do home reading but again we wanted to try and make it different so what we said was that the carers and schools had to plan closely together the action so if the child did say two 20 minute sessions a week in school they had to work with someone they already had an established relationship with so it could be a teaching assistant or a support teacher or if they had time and they could organise it the class teacher and then they would do two 20 minute sessions at home that mirrored the things they were doing in school or built on but they again it wasn't just a case of sending homework they had to be planned jointly between the school and the carer and the intervention had to be focused on the needs of the child through addressing things that came up in the report but they also had to address the interests of the child so it was really important to build on what the child was interested in and then it could also bring in some aspects of what they were currently doing in class their curriculum so the idea of pre teaching you know so they had to again link up with what was coming up in the child's work or curriculum and what could they work on and support so there's kind of three elements to it so for instance one child was mad on judo so everything was judo themed or football or the Arctic was one so everything was to do with that kind of thing so so that's how they worked and they did this intervention over 10 weeks and then over a sort of four to five months after a four to five month period and we checked in we worked with them periodically we obviously met at the start and then we met halfway to find out how things were going we shared some good practice but shared reading all kinds of some tips and resources that people had come up with but it was very much a bespoke intervention for that child based on relationships, on their need and their interests and try and try to replicate that three pronged attack that we have defined and but an amazing when they were tested again at the end as I say over a four or five month period and some of the progress we saw was absolutely amazing one child made five years progress in five years progress in a space of five months now he was identified as being a bright and intelligent boy but his reading was far behind some children met on average the children in the study and it was very small you know we acknowledge that but it but made two years progress in a five month period and all the interventions and work I've done is because I've never seen that much progress in a short time and out of those 10 children all children made some progress and half of them made huge progress and half of them made kind of general the type of progress we would generally see after an intervention and we again so we look closely at what was the difference between the ones that made the huge progress and the ones that just made sort of all care and it was really the the knowledge skills and involvement of the carers so all the carers for the children who made the most progress the self progress in years were ones who'd engaged with our with caring to learn from the start who'd been on lots of our workshops training programs and and been involved in lots of our events and things like that so kind of got where we were coming from and they were the ones who were most engaged with the school they had they had regular planning meetings they attended all our meetings they they worked as an equal partner as we're saying that planning process and they delivered faithfully their sessions every week and the the children who only made the okay progress they had some you know engagement from the carers and but they tended they tended to be more school led and the school would have to send home the ideas or would can you try this would you do this rather than it sort of being that equal partnership and so that came out really strongly actually that the involvement and the engagement and understanding of the carers really made a big difference and so we tried we did this we ran this same study with five new schools and 10 new children last year and it was all going swimmingly and we were look you know in our meetings and our quality finding so far with the children making progress it was it was following exactly the same pattern unfortunately then the first lockdown here and we couldn't carry out the final assessments so we didn't get the final data to get the you know the the quantity of results to see exactly how much progress they've made and that's a shame so but everything pointed to it was following exactly the same pattern the carers most involved and the children and the ones who took faith to the interest of the child the needs of the child and working closely and equitably with the carer were the ones that were making really really good progress again so you know that told us in many ways that there is important what is how the carers viewed are they an equal partner in this sort of process or are they kind of an additional peripheral kind of a person and how they understand the process what's going on and and you know and by that what I don't mean you know they weren't super academic and the carers or anything like that they you know they were just the ordinary ordinary people foster carers and one of our carers I know she won't mind me saying in particular said oh I'm terrible at reading my English is rubbish and spelling and rubbish at that but again her foster child made two years progress because she worked closely with that so so it's you know again we weren't sort of confirming that much in the midst of or you know highly educated or middle class parents you know the ones that get the results in you know in this case just people who were committed to the process and work closely with each other were the ones that made the difference really and and we called the children the children would were called junior researchers they they knew they were taking part in this study to help them improve their reading but they also knew they were taking part in this study because we were researching how we can help lots of children and how we can tell other children what works and how they can improve their reading so they were called junior researchers and they were really enthusiastic to be part of it as always they loved having one to one time so they you know that was not an issue for them they did love that and what was an issue as always was you know the time these interventions happened they didn't want to miss their favourite subjects or other school events that were going on and they but they were and they were really keen that about the stuff that they did at home coming into school and teachers really wanting to know what they were doing there and we're interested in that and how that translated into the classroom oh and the other finding that came out of that is that class teachers reported a massive increase in confidence in class in other you know in other areas so for instance one teacher reported that a child who had never in the time she'd had him in a class he had never voluntarily put his hand up and answered a question started to do that and again that was the link from having the confidence some of the pre-teaching that was helping him oh I've already talked about this you know earlier this week in my study session and so he started to do that so confidence in the class grew as well and so that was another really good byproduct of what we found in this study and I think you end up in a very rapid cycle of positive reinforcement when that happens don't you I know certainly so I have two daughters one biological one adopted and the adoptive daughter has struggled with maths particularly and that's been a real challenge and she'd got to the point where even just knowing she was in a lesson that was called maths before anything was said or done she went into that kind of fight flight freeze and she's had really really brilliant input just recently one to one with a really great support staff member and the difference that we've seen in her all throughout everything that she's doing and her confidence at trying new things and speaking up and it sounds it doesn't sound silly it won't sound silly to you but to me it was surprising I suppose things like engaging in debate around the dinner table which has nothing to do with maths but I'm sure is related to she doesn't feel stupid anymore exactly yeah that is exactly it because these you know small steps of success we just build on them don't we are feeling confident or believe in ourselves we have success in one area and then you start to believe don't you actually yeah I'm you know I'm not as that as I thought I was or I think you know I can do it and yeah we really see that actually so that again asking people to you know a solutions focus approach really interesting that we've looked at kids skills which is Dr Ben Furman and it's not well known in this country actually but it's grown out of a solutions focused approach he's a psychiatrist in Finland and sort of developed this work over many years but it's again it's strength based so it so often you know children are referred to him to with problems and be problem behaviour and issues and things like that and but because of how solution focus stuff works you don't talk about the problem you know it's problem free talk you talk about what you want to learn or what your current skills are and you build on those so it's really interesting we a kids skills has developed this into a 16 step program that sounds challenging doesn't it but it flows really well and anyone listening out if you know if you work with children in any way you can use it in the home or school I would I would recommend you do a kids skills and have a look at it because it's about how you turn the problem into a skill to be learnt and so rather than saying all this child is aggressive we again it asks about what it asks the adults to be curious and beyond the presenting behaviours as to what it is and then it asks you to work together on how you can turn that into a skill to be learnt so for instance a child who was having lots of meltdowns and was really you know I want I want to I want that toy well just you have to wait a minute because someone else is playing with it ah you know big meltdowns kind of thing or can I have a biscuit now well we're going to have our tea in five minutes so you can have a biscuit later ah you know and those kinds of things but actually that was translated into this this child is not very good at being patient and waiting so the skill that they need to learn is wait and and and we've got a great example of Vostick here who worked with a child a four year old on this and so they again they did that step by step let's learn to wait for ten seconds let's wait and she got some timers and all kinds of things like that and a big clock with a big ticking hand and let's go we're going to wait for we're going to practice waiting in all kinds of scenarios context let's just practice waiting now for ten seconds oh shall we go and do that yes but let's practice waiting before we do that so not talking about the issue at all although you have big emotional outbursts or you know you've no patience or any of that kind of thing you can't share you did let's just focus on learning this skill and and we say oh that's the skill we're practicing at the moment and the child talks about the skill they're practicing and shares it with others and you know we bumped into this child at a foster care conference we were queuing up for the buffet and he was with the foster care and it was a long queue and he turned to Rebecca my colleague and said oh I'm practicing he said he was kind of oh I'm practicing waiting this is waiting for a long time isn't it and he also said oh I've got to get good at waiting because when I start school soon there's a lot of waiting that goes on there and it was just a whole different way of thinking about something that moves away from the child being the problem the you know the behaviour in sight or how do we you know work on that or how do we get them to stop doing that thing and and then you move on to what are they going to learn what are they going to develop it's almost you know we talk about teaching reading don't we we teach that in stages and steps and we kind of keep moving forward but we don't really teach behaviour as such in the same way and kids skills talks about that but I'm going I've just remember what my original point was going to be and because you build on skills sometimes with older children in this process you say what's the skill you want to work on you try and get you know give them control of thinking about that and you might think oh it's I want you to stop hitting people every time they call near you you know but they might say oh I want to I want to get better at reading and you might be thinking that's not the skill I want you to work on but you know you don't do that you work you think about and and and to be fair someone said oh I want to grow I want to stop vitamin L grow my fingernails and again you're thinking oh that's the least of the problems we want to work on you know but they worked on that and miraculously because they get success and achieve in one area just as you've described they say find that they then improving lots of other areas and Dr Geoff James who I know you've talked to and one of your podcasts you know massive solution focused advocate he tells about a young boy and no said about a a boy in secondary school who was on a risk of being excluded I don't know whether he spoke about this but he worked with him about being a better rugby player and you know and the school staff are thinking what's going on here this boy's about to be permanently excluded because he can't stop fighting you know and and that kind of thing but he worked with him on an eight week program about how to improve his rugby game and and he didn't and again he that massively improved his behavior and the issues that they were seen in school he didn't he didn't get permanently excluded he didn't you know his amount of conflicts and physical altercations and things he got into draft dropped dramatically and and so again for me that says that you know building success in one area focusing on achievement in one area and and showing children the belief that they can achieve can be massive widespread impacts really I think it goes back to what you're saying before about relationships building as well there isn't it because I think when we hear a child and we allow them to set the agenda a bit then it does build that that trust and that connection doesn't it the Geoff James podcast I'm trying to make a note of the things that you're mentioning so I can link out to them in the show notes but the thing I remember most vividly from that and I've talked about a few times since was a girl who he worked with when asked you know what did she consider herself to be good at and it was making mashed potato and and he and he talked about how yeah he used that as a jumping off point and it felt like a very unlikely one but actually it was something that meant something to her and I wanted to just come back on the reading intervention briefly because I think there will be people listening in thinking I need this program for the child I'm caring for or in my school is there a program that people can sign up to or will it be published or how does we yeah we are what we're really hoping to do you know depending on circumstances and restrictions and all this kind of thing is is is again launch this study again to get sort of wider results and we do want to publish it then because we've got a report that is published from the first study as part and I think it's probably available on the UCL website the Palak resources web page I think that details this and the results that we're gaining that and Catherine Carroll has worked on and hoping to pick this work up soon and sort of a guidebook for this really yeah because it's a it's a it's almost and she talks about it is a no intervention intervention you know we'd love to get those off the shelf interventions to our oh good a big folder and it's got session one session two and all that kind of thing in it but and I think this does have real input in implications for tutoring and then you know this whole national tutoring program which is sort of you know obviously you know children do need to catch up and we do need to help and support them and often on a one-to-one basis but what is the way that works best really and and my feeling from working in this is that and not the tutors of you know about but going away and working with tutors completely separate from the school or you know doing completely different program of work or that's not linked and doesn't make the links between them and what they're doing and you know I don't know it just it doesn't ring with what we found in our intervention that it has to be about and I suppose particularly for the kinds of children we were working with particularly that it didn't it you know it doesn't have those things in place about does it work from the strengths or from you know from certainly from their specific needs does it work from their interest and and is it led by someone they've got a trusting relationship with already so that they can kind of get straight into the focus of the work you don't have to spend five weeks or six weeks or however long it takes building up a relationship with someone and before you can actually get down to the work and that you know that's hard as well so I think it has got some really good implications like we'd love to you know we yeah that's one of the things we do want to do publish this further and work and create this kind of guidebook or you know what we think would be a really effective way to run an intervention like this but there's nothing and we do list kind of things that have worked and good ideas and resources that people have used over the past two interventions but there's no kind of oh you must do this and this is the sequence you've got to follow because again we found that you need to be personalised for the child for the individual and and and and schools and carers and having that that additional input from someone like a specialist teacher or a ed psych it was also really key there as well and so yes currently as I say yeah we're we're a bit we're only halfway through that work really and we do want to move that on so I've moved that on and we're hoping you know to launch who knows from September we'd really like to run this study again on a wider scale and and have some more results that we can really show people and but yeah that first year Palak intervention is is is part of what UCL have already published. Okay that's really helpful just I think yeah it sounds so good I'm sure people want to do it but I think it sounds then it's it's as much as anything a kind of an ethos and a and a culture of reading and sharing and that people can do that right away but we can keep in touch and maybe we can support with a sharing some of those ideas and be then you know if you do roll that study out further we can help with with recruitment and things like that. I had one kind of final fairly gnarly question which I think you saw coming on Twitter which was really what is the role of the social worker in all of this. Yeah, well I think that when I saw that that is a great question here because but I think it goes back to that whole idea of corporate parenting you know that term. It's so horrible. I hate it. But what that actually means are you know but and what the person with parental responsibility is their role really and often that is the social worker isn't it you know they hold this that kind of specific thing of parental responsibility within this wider idea of for children in care. And obviously depending on how they're in care as it were and corporate parenting but it really makes me basically I think they should that the parenting parties that is the role that now they're not replacing families and parents, but let me say talks about it brilliantly and you know he talks about if the social care system was was fully functioning was amazing was working so well for our children in care. We know what is no he he's made he's been flippant and he's making a joke as Lindsay say does but he says, and you know if we measure of how we know it was really working well was that middle class parents would want to get their children in care because they were getting a better deal and they were. You know, and that's that's his joke to say though is, you know, are we are these children getting the, you know, the advantages, you know, we call them disadvantaged children don't we. How are we ensuring that they are, you know, being given the same advantages of other children with with supportive families pushy parents you know all that kind of thing that want that constantly I kind of pushing in the very nicest way I don't want him to misinterpret I'm saying here but pushing their children to the front of the queue as it were getting those advantages for their children and and making sure they're not missing out on things and all that. And that is for me what you know I was in our corporate parenting role should be about really we, if that's not there in a child's life for whatever reason. And you know I was not been there in the past and we're taking on that role then we need to be you know I was think you know we need you need to think like a. You know, a stereotypical pushy parent or whatever. Again in the nicest possible way, but you know we need to be there advocating for that child for their whole lives for their future for you know for now and for the future as well and I think. In that question going back to that question I'm saying it's not just about finding them a safe place to be and to live it's about everything isn't it and so we do say to social workers and we you know we want people in wider roles to see that we want people in wider roles to accept that corporate parenting role. And in Lincoln show one of the things we've done is you know stop talking about, I mean I've said it a few times this morning and you have to train yourself don't you but rather talk about looked after children. We talk about our children. So using this word our children. And we use it in a lot of our documentation or, you know when we're talking to groups of people. We're talking about to foster care is our social workers are other, you know, children services teams we say about our children because the hours, and we want for them the same that we would want for our own children as it were. And that's kind of, I suppose how I hope that answers that question really because yeah they've just got to think like that think wider than move on as I said move on from safeguarding move on from surviving to thriving. I think why to think about our children and what they need and what we would want for them. I love that phrase our children and I remember when I spoke at the virtual schools network event in Lincoln show. That was one of the things that I think I ended up getting on my soapbox about because the differences in terms. And it's, it's difficult because looked after children or children looked after is a term that people understand, and in a slightly wider context if we say our children, then we can't differentiate that particular that we're talking about, but actually that's kind of the point here isn't it, we want all of our children to just be our children but sometimes we need to be able to give them that extra bit of support, but I love it I love our children. And what, and what thought would you like to kind of close with what's the thought that you would like to leave in people's minds as we wrap up what's been a thank you for such a great conversation. Yeah, I don't know what you you asked me and I went out to fill in my little thing about you know some books that I really influential for me and I waved this book, I love this but this is the book of my life as it were not my life because I've lived this life, but tell the listeners what book it is because I'm waving it about you. Classic and a kestrel for a name, Barry Hines or if you've seen the film Kez you know you'll know that story. And I pinned this tweet to the top of my sort of timeline really because when I think about that and I've, you know, think I used to think about that with as a teacher you know about children and learn, learn when they are loved, you know, and, and they, because they love and then they love what they learn. And, you know, and, and he is classic example of that, you know, all disadvantage and, and, and, you know, growing up in a scene with early on caring home and public future and all that kind of thing in school and, but, and written off you know as a troublemaker and as a, as a, you know, not going to achieve anything. And yet, you know, he, he found this love of this kestrel and he went to the library and demanded books about Falconry and he read them and, and he'd never read a book before you know and all that kind of thing because he loved it. And, and also when someone took interest in him you know that one teacher that did take some interest in what he did and realized gosh he's got such ability there and skill and strength and and, you know, so he loved, he, you know, if we had children that felt loved and felt supported how much better they would do. And, and when they love what they're doing as well that they how much better they do. So, not to finish on a negative but you know, teaching about fronted adverbials doesn't inspire love of learning does it. But you know finding out what children love or are interested in I would really want to know about that's what brings love of learning I think that's, that's the key to a lot of it really as well.