Building trust

Beth:

So The Promise talks a lot about the importance of building relationships and trust especially. What top tips would you have for professionals in schools to build that trust with care experienced young people?

Mr Murray:

That’s a very interesting question because trust with care experienced young people is probably one of the hardest things to build because they are probably the most untrusting community within the school place. What we’ve found is act like a human being and that’s maybe an alien concept for teaching staff, but showing a little bit about your personality, showing that you’re human, showing that you’re not just a lanyard and a professional. One of the bits of language that I really don’t like in the care experienced community is ‘corporate parent’ and I understand it and understand why we need it, but that word ‘corporate’ feels so cold and so industrial. So it’s showing that human aspect of it to the young people and showing that you understand them so you can speak to them.

But also one of the bigger tips here is minding your language with the care experienced young people. It’s been very, very careful. It’s one of the things that we’ve challenged in the school quite a few times. A lot of time coming back from a summer break, the real kind of push for teachers and one of the easy things to say, what did you do with your mum and dad this summer? What family holiday did you go on? And sometimes with the English department or drama departments it could be to write an essay on what they’ve done in the summer. And for a lot of our care experienced people that could be triggering, it could be traumatic.

So it’s minding your language, minding what you are speaking about there. And the last one is making sure you’re actually listening to their voice and properly listening to what they’re saying and acting upon it as well. They will really hold it against you, if you’ve promised them something and don’t act upon it. They will feel that you’re just one of the other professionals in their life who are ticking a box and not actually caring about them. So it’s really, really showing that you care.