Sri had a few children living in a group home (some were recently removed). 1 was in foster care and 2 young ones were living with her.
Patience and positive regard was appreciated by her. We noticed that after meeting, she would have much energy and her children were attending childcare/school regularly and she would seek employment. However, as the next review was up, the attendance and employment would wane. I volunteered to facilitate weekly family access sessions at the children’s home, and keenly took photos and observed the interactions. My supervisee assisted me with some of these sessions too, and we gathered what the children appreciated about their mother.
When the review was coming up and the child protection officer was gathering information for it, it was clear that the case conference with all the various parties including Sri would focus on the missed sessions. I visited Sri’s house and researched about the reasons for the missed sessions and other initiatives she had taken in the last few weeks. I also called up the childcare for their observations which they generously gave to me. I gathered all this, as well as the photos and the observations of my supervisee and i into video presentation. This showcased Sri’s skills in guiding her children, caring for their emotional, developmental and safety needs, the very real practical and legitimate challenges she had as a single mother. Even in the session that she did not turn up, the observations of her children’s skills and qualities, were linked to her skills as a mother to raise these children.
When the case conference started, my co-worker had to go back to the office to get a laptop. The session started with the child protection officer speaking about her disapproval at the poor attendance at the access sessions. When the laptop and Sri finally arrived, we watched the video together and there was a great shift in the attitude of team. They were obviously touched by this side of Sri’s story. They started to affirm her and we started discussing about the next steps of the plan. They also requested for the videos to be sent to them so that they can share it with the children. I made a hard copy for both the children and Sabrina to keep.
This “ceremony” helped to build Sri’s reputation not only with the other professionals in the team but herself. Instead of a mother who constantly failed to perform her parenting duties, we re-authored together to see a mother who faced real challenges and did her best for her children.
*Recently Sri was having a difficult time and i designed and printed "Precious family scrapbook" (refer to 23 Feb 2017's blog entry) with some outsider witness responses and stories gathered in other re-authoring sessions.
