The Creative Life Story Work team asked local authorities across England how they approach life story work and whether they have a life story work policy in place. In this episode of the podcast, we talk to Blue Cabin's Director, Jenny Young, and Local Authority Specialist, Joanne Stoddart, to find out what they discovered and why a life story work policy is important. Hear a new episode of the Creative Life Story Work podcast on the first Thursday of each month, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Read Joanne's blog by clicking here

Click here to find out more about Creative Life Story Work membership.

We welcome to the podcast the brilliant Professor Richard Rose of Therapeutic Life Story Work International, to explore the topics of attachment and trauma. We find out how early experiences of attachment and trauma can affect children and young people later in life and how foster carers and social workers can recognise resulting behaviours and support the children and young people in their care. 

Richard will share more about attachment and trauma in our forthcoming Creative Life Story Work Live Classrooms - find out more and book your place here: https://creativelifestorywork.com/training/

What does 'good' life story work look like? We delve into this question with Polly Baynes, who has 36 years' experience in life story work with children. Hear Polly's advice for practitioners, the ground rules she agrees, and how she responds when children share difficult feelings and memories.

Find out more about Creative Life Story Work at creativelifestorywork.com

Hear a new episode of the Creative Life Story Work podcast on the first Thursday of each month.

Mentioned in this episode:

Find out more about our Creative Life Story Work membership offer!

Life story work ideas, tools and inspiration – all in one place

Creative Life Story Work wesbite

In this episode of our podcast we discuss creative, trauma-informed ways to support children and young people who are refugees or asylum seekers. Our guest is Cat Jolleys, who shares how she created a trauma-informed approach in a school with many languages, cultures and backgrounds, to help create a sense of safety and belonging for pupils and staff. 

How can we use music to help care-experienced babies and children develop and strengthen relationships? 

This special podcast episode shares learning from a music-making project in Darlington called This is The Place, and we hear from musician Eleanor Mooney, and Dr Ryan Humphrey who is a researcher in community music and cultural policy.  

How do adverse childhood experiences affect people's lives? And how can we support children and young people to recover and thrive? 

We talk with care-experienced teacher, trainer and speaker, Mary-anne Hodd, who shares her personal experience and her expertise on taking a trauma-informed approach to life story work.  

How can understanding the impact of grief help practitioners who work with care-experienced children and young people?

We talk with Ciara McClelland, a practitioner and a trainer with Trauma Informed Consultancy Services, who shares her personal insights and her expertise on how we can support children and young people affected by grief and loss. 

Back in episode four of our podcast we heard about a short film which was being made by a group of first-time filmmakers from Redcar and Cleveland. 

Now, we catch up with members of The Studio of the Fostered Heroes, and filmmaker Laura Degnan, to find out how they feel about the film they created together, sharing their own, personal stories of care-experience. 

How is therapeutic life story work delivered in different parts of the world? 

We chat with Professor Richard Rose from Therapeutic Life Story Work International on our podcast, and hear how life story work looks in places including the USA, Australia and Japan. 

We meet newly qualified social workers, Phoebe and Iona, who are in their first year of work at Gateshead Council. They've both taken part in Creative Life Story Work sessions as part of their ongoing learning, and in this episode they share how the child-led approach has influenced the way they work with children, young people and carers.