Troubled Kids Podcast

BLOG PODS #38 - The Ammanford School Stabbings #2 - Musings After the Fact

INTRODUCTION

On 24th April 2024 at about 11am a 13 year old stabbed two teachers and a fellow pupil at Dyffryn Amman School in Ammanford in Carmarthenshire. Mercifully, none of the injuries were life-altering but one teacher who intervened suffered neck injuries which easily could have been life-threatening, if not fatal.

Despite admitting the stabbings, there was a trial because the girl denied intent to kill. The first trial was ‘irretrievably compromised’ and collapsed due to ‘a great irregularity’ with the jury, the Judge said. The girl was subsequently found guilty of all charges and was sentenced to 15 years. She can expect to serve 7.5 years in custody, the rest on licence in the community.

None of what follows here intends to take away one iota from the shock, suffering and fear the folk involved went through, or indeed what they will continue to go through as they strive to recover from these horrific events and get on with their lives.

But there are one or two observations I’d like to make, most notably the narrow, selective and spectacularly unhelpful emphasis the media always place on such tragedies.

Firstly though…

Raw facts

Here’re a few things that seem clear:

A child: As in the case of Axel Rudakubana, who was 17 when he killed three little girls in Southport in July last year, the girl who stabbed three people in Ammanford was a child at the time; just 13 in fact.

Weapons at school: A Freedom of Information request to Ysgol Dyffryn Aman said there were four incidents of weapons being taken on to school premises during the 2023/2024 academic year - the year of the incident - with two pupils permanently excluded (BBC).

Government awareness: A deputy head teacher from the school had written to the Welsh Government a number of times raising the issue of behaviour at the school, including the lack of clarity about powers to search pupils bags; the last of the emails was on the morning of the incident. He resigned following the stabbings (ITV-X).

Context on the day: One of the most frequently aired aspects of this case-aside from the phone footage of the incident itself-is a video from the school CCTV system showing the girl sat alone in a school hall stabbing the wooden floor next to her with a knife (YouTube), clearly something’s not right.

Near tragic outcomes: three people got stabbed, in public, by someone they knew while at work/school. No-one died, but it could so easily have been very different.

Emotional impact: Lots of others witnessed what happened, were fearful then and doubtless still are now; lots of parents waited in terror until the school came out of lockdown and they could be reunited with their children (BBC). The emotional impact will be long-lasting, especially for the three primary victims.

Lost youth: A child who was 13 when this happened will be nearly 30 by the time the custodial and community supervision aspects of her sentence are done.

What we are told about ‘the girl’

I’m a passionate believer in the need to keep such children’s identities out of the public domain; the one downside of this is the almost complete lack of ‘humanising’ information about them in the press and elsewhere.

We hear lots about the offence but next to nothing about the child behind it - except any salacious and incendiary details the media choose to share, thus fuelling the ‘othering’ of the child concerned.

Once an offence of this kind has occurred, the critical, ill- or partially-informed tropes of the press, become the received ‘truth’ about the child and linger long in the public mind.

Here are a few of the things that have appeared in the press about her:

- She’d made notes asking herself why she wanted to stab teachers

- She received a fixed-term exclusion in September 2023 for bringing a knife to school (on instruction from the local authority the school waived their right to exclude her permanently)

- She had interests in war memorabilia, Hitler and weapons (ITV-X) but was not referred to Prevent at that time.

- While still in Primary school (age 10) concerns were raised when she took a BB gun to school

- She’s described as ‘odd.’

Cause & cure: what we don’t know

Reading everything I could find on this case, I’m left with a pile of questions.*

As usual, media outlets focus on the impact on victims, bystanders and the community at large - that’s ‘news’ after all. But we’re not given even a shred of information that de-mystifies what happened, gives insight into ‘why’ or at least what might have been going on behind it all - there’s no vestige of explanatory value in any of it.

On the contrary what we are told is never balanced - it’s almost entirely negative or shocking. Thus the public bay for ‘justice’ without any relevant understanding of cause; without that, the route to any cure is obscured.

Here’s what I’d like to know:

What kind of girl was she?

What did a ‘good day’ look like for her?

Did she have friends; could she fit in or was she isolated?

Who liked her?

What was she good at?

Did she have aspirations or plans for the future?

Why was she bullied and what was done to support her?

Why might her father have refused an early help assessment? (having asked for help?)

When were her ‘unusual’ interests first noticed, by whom and what was done?

What aspects of her presentation caused others to think she was ‘odd?’

And, perhaps more importantly:

Had she asked for help? If so, what did she think would help her? Was any attempt made to get this for her?

Who did she trust at school? Were there adults she could speak to? Did she speak to anyone?

Why did she dress like she did? Did this provide any insight into her internal world?

What is her experience of ‘home’ like?

What do we know about why she took a knife to school on this and previous occasions? Has she said why?

Why was she not excluded and things escalated given the repeated nature of the behaviour?

What was the narrative in the school - playground and staffroom - about her as a person, pupil, friend…?

I wouldn’t mind betting…

Having spent the last 30 years dealing with youth crime in one form or another-youth justice social work, sex offending specialism, running interventions in a secure unit and more-I’d be very surprised if there weren’t a whole load of factors helping to fuel the kind of behaviour that exploded on 24th April 2024.

It could be any or a combination of a whole load of things: developmental issues, biological issues, neurodiversity (particularly this), learning disabilities, abuse experiences, social isolation, episodic or serial trauma…and on it goes. You get the idea.

I can count on one hand the occasions I’ve come across where a child has offended in this kind of way for no discernible reason - that number drops again after a thorough assessment and getting to know them a little.

And yet none of this appears in the press. So the pervasive stereotypes of lone, violent, antisocial teenagers continue to build in the public mind without challenge.

Final thoughts

My heart goes out to those affected by this terrible incident - I can only imagine how scary and deeply unsettling this must be for them. Only a fool would downplay the impact.

But there’s learning here for us all, surely?

What I really want to know is - what good the system thinks will come from putting a 13 year old child through two trials on the basis that there was intent, rather than just accepting the guilty plea for the violence and putting in place the right structures to understand her, understand what happened, where it came from and how best to help.

Unlike the current criminal sentence, that would ensure the lessons are learned, that she is treated as someone with needs that can be met and the public would be a LOT less likely to be affected by her behaviour in future.

One thing I’m sure about - if punishment doesn’t work in changing behaviour like this (and we know it doesn’t), doing so by denying a child her entire adolescence certainly won’t work either.

#helpnotpunishment

See you in the next one!

More information:

*Since this post was drafted the review report from the Multi-Agency Professional Forum (MAPF) has been published - a post coming on this very shortly.

MAPF REPORT: MAPF Incident Review – Ysgol Duffryn Aman (link) Blog post on this coming soon…

WEB ARTICLE: Case summary and sentencing - BBC article (link)

BOOK: Children As Risk by Anne-Marie MacAlinden (link) best book I’ve read on risk as it relates to children. It’s about HSB/CSE but the principles speak to ‘child crime’ in general, in my view.

PREVIOUS BLOG: Punishment Doesn’t Work for Troubled Kids - Do This Instead… (link)

PREVIOUS BLOG: The case of Valdo Calocane starkly illustrates the need for treatment rather than punishment (link)

LECTURE: Dr Gwen Adshead - Reith Lecture 2024 #1 (This is brilliant! (link)

BOOK: What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing by Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey (link)

BOOK: Working with Troubled Children and Teenagers by Jonny Matthew (link)

PREVIOUS BLOG: Avoidable Tragedy: What We Can Learn From Axel Rudakubana (and the Southport tragedy) (link)

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If you want these posts sent straight to your inbox, click the blue subscribe button below.

You can also “Like” this site on Facebook or connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter. The voiceovers (though not for this post) are also on YouTube and Spotify. (NB: my Pinterest account was hacked and is now permanently offline).

©️ Jonny Matthew 2025

BLOG PODS #37 - The Ammanford School Stabbings #1 - Learning from the review

INTRODUCTION

Despite being still in a period of suspension from my usual blogging schedule (ongoing family issues) I couldn’t resist sending something out following yesterday’s published review into the Ammanford Stabbings.

I have a more thoughtful opinion piece coming out in the autumn, but thought some of the info I put together yesterday might be useful to you guys.

So here it is…

There's a bunch of links and documents below, too, but here are the bits I found/made yesterday while trying to get my head around it all:

MAPF REPORT: MAPF Incident Review – Ysgol Duffryn Aman (link)

POWERPOINT summary of the main lessons to be learned (link) *

ONE-PAGE SUMMARY PDF of the same information (link) *

Where next?

This case, like many others of its kind, throws up all sorts of questions about what might usefully change to avert future incidents of this kind.

Among the initial things that struck me were:

A review of the Prevent referral criteria and what might be done with those people who don’t quite meet it but are nonetheless a concern. Or those that meet criteria but don’t consent to intervention

More intervention providers to be available to the Police and Prevent Panels to engage with people of interest - this may ‘allow’ more people to meet threshold and get the help needed

Appropriate increased funding to deploy such professionals who can build links with people of interest and help avert possible future incidents/offences

A review of when and how youth offending teams might usefully be deployed as intervention providers for sub-threshold Prevent candidates, even when no offence or previously recognised ‘prevention’ work is indicated

Provision of fast-tracked risk and ND assessments to be available for people deemed in need and who might also be in or on the cusp of Prevent, where their (suspected) neurodiversity may play a role, for example

Consideration of improved information-sharing between agencies… as always!

Please add your own thoughts in the comments!

FINAL THOUGHTS

Yet again, a young person with clear and evident needs has slipped through the net. Sadly, it’s often the criminal justice system that catches them, as it’s the system of last resort.

Learning the lessons such that we improve inter-agency working and the help available to people of interest-particularly children-as never been more important.

It beats why we are content to have a system that confines children to custody for crimes instead of changing things to get them the help they need. That would be a win/win - the public isn’t harmed and childhoods are not sacrificed on the altar of systemic inadequacies…

See you in the next one!

More information:

* I used ChatGPT to do the initial summarising, so this won’t entirely avert the need to read the report in full (but it’s quicker!)

See Jonny’s temporary website - here

MAPF REPORT: MAPF Incident Review – Ysgol Duffryn Aman (link)

WEB ARTICLE: Case summary and sentencing - BBC article (link)

BOOK: Children As Risk by Anne-Marie MacAlinden (link) best book I’ve read on risk as it relates to children. It’s about HSB/CSE but the principles speak to ‘child crime’ in general, in my view.

PREVIOUS BLOG: Punishment Doesn’t Work for Troubled Kids - Do This Instead… (link)

PREVIOUS BLOG: The case of Valdo Calocane starkly illustrates the need for treatment rather than punishment (link)

LECTURE: Dr Gwen Adshead - Reith Lecture 2024 #1 (This is brilliant! (link)

BOOK: What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing by Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey (link)

BOOK: Working with Troubled Children and Teenagers by Jonny Matthew (link)

PREVIOUS BLOG: Avoidable Tragedy: What We Can Learn From Axel Rudakubana (and the Southport tragedy) (link)

Subscribe & Follow?

You can join the email list for this blog publication here. Your information is safe and you can unsubscribe anytime very easily.

You can also “Like” this site on Facebook or connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter. The voiceovers are also on YouTube and Spotify - though not for this post.

©️ Jonny Matthew 2025

BLOG PODS #35 - When Children Blame Themselves - How to Help #1

Introduction

In the last post, we looked at the common phenomenon of self-blame - when children take on responsibility for the way others treat them.

We saw how abusive parenting and other such experiences can fundamentally skew the way a child perceives themself, through the development of a negative internal working model of who they are (internalised) and the dismissive, critical or blaming narratives of the adults around them (externalised).

Eventually, the child develops a sense of self that is self-blaming. This can remain the case throughout childhood and on into adulthood unless the right treatment is brought to bear and the right environment provided in which healing can occur.

So what can we do to help the kids we work with who blame themselves for other people’s sins?

Practical Strategies for Professionals

As always, not an exhaustive list by any means but some thoughts that might help us think about how to adapt practice to these kinds of children.

1. Create a Safe and Supportive Environment:

Establish Trust: Build a therapeutic relationship based on trust and safety, allowing children to express their feelings without fear of judgment.​ Only consistency can make this happen - kids have to believe we’re there for the long haul, that they have some agency in the process and that we believe in them and in their ability to move on - that they can do it! This sets the culture for whatever comes after.

Consistent Routines: Maintain predictable routines to provide a sense of stability.​ Meet on the same day at the same time each week, if you can. Use the same room, establish little routines between you that can act as markers of ‘how we do things’ when we’re together. On the TRM Training we call these ‘anchor points.’ This enhances a sense of belonging and ease that fuels honesty and encourages progress in the longer term.

2. Psycho-Education:

Normalise Reactions: Educate children about common responses to trauma, pointing out that self-blame is a common but unfounded reaction.​ Remember, most kids-particularly younger ones-have no idea that their struggles are as a result of what happened or that they are common reactions to difficult events. Gentle education can shine a light into these dark spaces, de-mystify some of the struggles and bring hope that progress is possible.

Clarify Responsibility: Reinforce, when the time is right, and always gently, that the responsibility for the traumatic event (one-off) or development (longer term) lies with others, not the child. ​’Others had control, you didn’t; so it can’t be your responsibility.’ Caution is needed here, of course, as children may balk at any sense that we’re blaming their parents - even the most insecure and damaging attachments retain great loyalty in many kids. So, while they may come to it eventually-hopefully they will-we need to be tentative and gentle as we introduce these ideas, allowing the child’s own presentation to signal their readiness.

3. Therapeutic Techniques:

Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TF-CBT), EMDR, etc: Evidence-based approaches can really help children process traumatic experiences, begin to express difficult emotions and reframe distorted beliefs related to self-blame. ​But this work is highly skilled and should only be attempted in a thoughtful way by those fully qualified to use them - none of us should use our work as an experiment or to ‘try out’ things we’ve learned on a one day course (yes, it’s unbelievable, I know, but I witnessed this recently!). So only work within your skillset as defined by your training and qualifications.

Play, Music, Drama, Art…: Again, these are the domains of the properly trained and qualified among us, but non-directive techniques can be valuable in allowing children to begin to express what may have been hidden inside them for years. On a less intense level, playing with kids while we talk can help them engage, do away with that awkward eye contact across a table and promote a sense of fun and relaxation. Learn what this child likes and go with that; harness their preferences to help them engage and use whatever props and approaches they respond to best.

4. Encourage Emotional Expression:

Creative Outlets: As above, incorporating activities like drawing, storytelling or role-playing to help children express and process their emotions can be a massive help. ​Depending on the age of the child, the more verbally oriented approaches may or may not be best suited to what they need. Be flexible and prepared to adapt to what they’re comfortable with and go with that - there really is no substitute for a bit of trial and error when it comes to finding out what works for each individual child - as long as we do it gently.

5. Involve Caregivers:

Parental Support: Educate parents/caregivers about the impacts of trauma and the importance of reinforcing the child's innocence regarding the causes of their difficulties. As in point 2 above (clarify responsibility), emphasise to parents/caregivers that the child may need to be told repeatedly that they are not responsible; encourage them to do this subtly and plainly, making sure they maximise natural opportunities to do so, rather than nagging the child with a trite message.

Family Work: Facilitate sessions that improve communication and support within the family unit.​ Again, if this moves beyond the realm of basic discussions and working with individuals, we may be straying into the domain of family therapy. So let’s not go there unless we’re qualified to do so. But most of us can usefully spend time with different people in the child’s supportive network, to lend our weight and encouragement to their efforts and help them stay on track. Creating a positive, attuned and attentive home environment where caring adults notice and spend time with the child, is more than half the battle when it comes to unpicking the damage done in hostile times and places!

FINAL THOUGHTS

None of this stuff is rocket science. We all know how to do most of this without having to revise it in advance. For most of us, it’s probably more about reminding ourselves that kids recover well in a safe and supportive context - then doing whatever we can to promote that, to tweak and adjust things to best suit this child.

With all that in mind, the next post will expand things further and look at the role we play-as people-in children’s recovery and some of the things we can do to improve our readiness and facility to help. It’s when a child finds themself in both in the right context and with the right people that the magic really happens.

See you in the next one!

Listen on SPOTIFY here

More information:

DOWNLOAD: Trauma Recovery Model Schematic (free download - link)

PAPER: A Concept Analysis of Empathy by Theresa Wiseman (link)

BOOK: Working With Troubled Children & Teenagers by Jonny Matthew (link)

Subscribe & Follow?

You can join the email list for this blog publication here. Your information is safe and you can unsubscribe anytime very easily.

If you want these posts sent straight to your inbox, click the blue subscribe button below.

You can also “Like” this site on Facebook or connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter. The voiceovers are also on YouTube and Spotify.

©️ Jonny Matthew 2025

BLOG PODS #36 - When Children Blame Themselves #3 - How To Help #2

INTRODUCTION

In the last post and the one before that, we looked at the common phenomenon of self-blame - when children take on responsibility for the way others treat them.

In the first post we examined the issue itself, asking why kids blame themselves when, to us, it’s obvious that what happened wasn’t their fault. In the last post we began looking at what we can do to begin supporting kids to work through this and get things in a better perspective.

Today, I want to change the focus of ‘how we can help’ from the kids themselves on to us as individual professionals.

Practical Strategies for Professionals

As always, not an exhaustive list by any means but some thoughts that might help us think about how to adapt practice to these kinds of children.

1. Foster Resilience and Self-Compassion:

This first section is about the kids, but I felt it was also about us as people and how that goes on to impact the efficacy of the work - so I’ve included it here (rather than the previous post):

Strengths Identification: Help children recognise their strengths and highlight past instances of overcoming challenges.​ Often, we are so (rightly!) focused on the problems and associated safeguarding tasks that we miss the strengths in the child and their network. Helping kids to gain insight into how they’ve coped well, what this says about their ability to adapt and what it’s taught them, is a great way to rebalance the equation in their favour.

Self-Compassion Exercises: Teach kids practices that promote kindness toward themselves; counteracting feelings of blame and guilt in this way can really help. Reframing those negative verbal narratives that the child may have absorbed is a good place to start. For example, you could think through how the child speaks about themselves and notice the words they use; then reframe them gently to draw out and emphasise the good stuff! Do exercises that explore what the child can do, what they’re good at generally and take opportunities to offer gentle praise whenever you can.

N.B. Be sure to offer praise and encouragement in small doses and without language that is too exuberant! Remember, this is a kid who blames themselves for the awful stuff others have done. Their negative internal working model and critical self-narrative will over-power our efforts if we’re too lavish and over-the-top. Gentle, subtle, consistent positivity will eventually win out; but the winner is the one who can play the long game - so stay tentative and gentle and keep going.

2. Develop Your Own Knowledge - Reading & Review:

Read: Staying in touch with the latest research and practice thinking on child trauma is important if we are to stay current and offer kids the best chance of recovery. When training professionals I often ask therm, ‘when did you last read a book or research paper that relates directly to the work you do with kids?’ The averted eyes and sideways, downward glances give people away - for most of us it’s far too long ago. Why not resolve to read a bit more? Set yourself an achievable goal and give it a shot - if my experience is anything to go by, you’ll find it stimulating and thought-provoking, not to mention the evident improvement in knowledge and practice confidence. Go for it!

Review Practice: After a tricky session or one that’s gone well, take time to review what happened, why it did/didn’t work and what you can learn from it and/or improve next. Dan Hughes’ PACE idea is great structure for this, I find. Or you can use the TRM (pdf link) to check the alignment of the child’s needs with your practice focus.

3. Develop Your Own Knowledge - Training:

Courses: There are loads of good training and learning opportunities available these days. Even if your employer has a limited budget, many online courses are now half a day or a couple of hours long and therefore more affordable, If you’re really committed, you could consider paying for some of this yourself. Try places like Slide Share for PowerPoint slides shared by others for free. Or Eventbrite and other training platforms where professionals and agencies give access to training and learning opportunities.

Investment Mindset: Training is pricey sometimes. And while agencies should be picking up the tab for the essential stuff we need to do our jobs, they rarely go beyond that - budgets just don’t allow. So, a long time ago now, I took it on myself to pay for training I felt would help me do a better job. Paying for a course yourself is one thing, but using your annual leave to attend is another thing altogether - so I also took to asking my employer to allow me the time-off to attend - so I pay for the course and they let me have the time; that way there’s no impact on my annual leave. Yes, it costs; but in the end, it means I’ve had some fantastic training I never would have had if I’d waited for someone else to pay! Give it some thought…

4. Look After Yourself:

Three things here:

- Recognise the Potential Toll: Helping children come to terms with and start processing their traumatic histories can have a real impact on us - those trying to help. Recognising this is a valuable safeguard against secondary trauma and the deleterious effects it can have…

- Try My Little Online Self-Care Course: I wrote a little book on self-care after a serious brush with burnout. This developed further into an online course during lockdown when it was in high demand. If you want to know more about the pitfalls of vicarious trauma and the solutions that can help avert it, check it out here.

- You Matter! We can’t be optimally effective in helping others if we neglect our own needs and take home the stress and trauma of the kids at work. Most of the progress these kids make will happen in the context of positive relationships - that’s you! So the need to stay strong, avoid burnout and be on your best game is imperative - so be sure to look after yourself, too.

Instilling Hope: The Path to Recovery

It's imperative to convey to both children and their caregivers that recovery from trauma is not only possible but probable with appropriate support and interventions. Children possess remarkable resilience and, with the right guidance, they can navigate through the pain, shed the toxic self-blame and emerge stronger. As professionals, our role is to encourage this process, offering tools, empathy and unwavering support along the way, to facilitate their healing wherever we can.

By implementing these and other strategies and fostering an environment of understanding and compassion, we can make a profound difference in the lives of children burdened by self-blame, guiding them toward a future is more hopeful and offers possibilities that wouldn’t otherwise be available to them.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’ve always struggled with seeing kids blaming themselves for the toxic horrible-ness others have inflicted on them - it both maddens me and saddens me.

It is an incredibly liberating realisation, though, that most kids will find their best chance of recovery in the context of safe, consistent and caring relationships. The solutions lie less in clever techniques and fancy new-fangled approaches, but more in the reliability and skill of someone who really cares - I can do that. And so can you.

So maybe the best way to really help troubled kids - whatever the problem - is to get better at our jobs and release more of our raw human kindness into the mix?

See you in the next one!

Listen on SPOTIFY here

More information:

DOWNLOAD: Trauma Recovery Model Schematic (free download - link)

PAPER: A Concept Analysis of Empathy by Theresa Wiseman (link)

BOOK: Working With Troubled Children & Teenagers by Jonny Matthew (link)

Subscribe & Follow?

You can join the email list for this blog publication here. Your information is safe and you can unsubscribe anytime very easily.

If you want these posts sent straight to your inbox, click the blue subscribe button below.

You can also “Like” this site on Facebook or connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter. The voiceovers are also on YouTube and Spotify.

©️ Jonny Matthew 2025

BLOG PODS #34 - When Children Blame Themselves #1: Understanding Self-Blame in Childhood Trauma

Introduction

Have you ever wondered why some people blame themselves for things other people did to them; things that are just not their fault? Yeh, me too!

I’ve long since lost count of the number of children I’ve worked with whose lives continue to be blighted, not only by the awful things done to them by others but by an additional burden of blame they lay on themselves.

From the viewpoint of someone who hasn’t suffered in this way, it seems nuts - why on earth would you even think you were responsible for what they did to you, never mind form your self-identity around it and live like you’re doing penance!

But that’s the point - it’s neither a logical response to the trauma nor something our imagined objectivity can help us understand.

Origins of Self-Blame and Internalised Anger

Troubled kids almost always grow up in situations that skew their development. In other words, what ‘happened’ to them is much more than a one-off or episodic event. More usually it’s something that sets and effects the very context in which they grow.

It effects everything.

So a child growing up in an environment lacking in empathy, for example, will develop coping mechanisms to the current situation that persist right through into adulthood. They won’t develop empathy itself in the way children in more stable and loving environments will.

Two problems ensue:

1. The child lacks the huge benefits that empathic parenting affords - for example, good co-regulation, a positive internal working model that they’re valuable and loved, trust for other people, etc.

2. The child doesn’t learn to be empathic towards others. Empathy is not something learned cognitively, like facts or information; it is felt. If you haven’t felt empathy you’re unlikely to develop and be able to show empathy.

Negative narratives of the child

Parents and others who ‘care’ for kids in ways that are abusive, neglectful, inconsistent, etc. often add to their woes by speaking negatively to the child about the child. In other words, parents/carers say things like:

‘You’re a pain in the…’ (fill in the blank)

‘I wish you’d never been born’ or ‘Why were you born?’

‘Can’t you just shut up and leave me alone’

‘I hate you, you make life so…’ (fill in the blank). etc.

You get the idea.

In other words, the child’s narrative of themselves, given to them by the parent, is a blaming narrative in which the child is cast as the protagonist; the problem is not the abusive or inadequate parenting, it’s the child themselves.

So as the child begins to develop language, which in turn drives cognition, they ‘learn’ a sense that they are the problem. They begin to adopt the parent/s narrative for themselves. Some kids will begin to say the same things about themselves that the parent does or, more often in my view, they internalise it, adding to the negative internal working model they formed in the pre-verbal phase of their development. All the self-focused negativity just keeps on being confirmed and consolidated.

So far, so bad

For a child to accept that their caregivers—supposed sources of love and protection—are instead sources of distress can be overwhelming; it’s just too much to take on. To survive emotionally, they may internalise the idea that they are at fault, finding this less terrifying than facing the reality of unsafe family members or caregivers.

As time progresses, this imbibed sense of the self as the problem, will begin to emerge in speech and behaviour that makes them stand out - and not in a good way.

Key points so far:

1. Empathy-Lacking Environments: Children in emotionally dismissive, abusive or hostile environments often resort to self-blame as a coping strategy. They inherit this from the poor attachment piece (internal & non-verbal) and from the caregivers’ overtly negative narrative - what they say about the child (external and verbal).

2. Denial of Emotional Needs: Accepting caregivers' narratives helps children avoid confronting the painful reality of emotional neglect or abuse. Arguably, it’s ‘easier’ for the child to accept themselves as the problem than it is to confront the fact that they have abusive parent/s. This suppresses the child’s emotional need for love and affection from those closest to them.

3. Misplaced Control: Self-blame provides a false sense of control, as children believe changing themselves can prevent further harm. They may become labile, suffering swings of emotion, all the time striving to capture some sense of agency over how they feel and how others treat them - with the obvious problems this brings.

Adaption - The Mechanism Behind Self-Blame

For vulnerable children, realising their powerlessness is unbearable. Self-blame offers an illusion of understanding and control: if they're at fault, they can potentially ‘fix’ themselves and fix ‘it’ (the situation) to avoid further abuse and garner the much sought-after affection.

This flawed mechanism makes ‘sense’ to the child trying to adapt to survive and to curry the favour of those closest to them; it provides a semblance of relative safety in an unpredictable environment.

In this situation, the child has no time or opportunity to settle and become the person he or she really is!

💡 "The child has a primary need to be regarded and respected as the person he really is at any given time, and as the centre—the central actor—in his own activity. This highlights how self-blame arises when a child's authentic self is not recognised or respected.” Alice Miller - Psychiatrist

Consequences of Self-Directed Anger

While self-blame helps the child avoid the realities around them and hold on to the illusion of loving parents, it misdirects anger and confusion inwards. This misdirection leads to a cycle of self-directed aggression, shame and maintains a negative and distorted self-perception.

- Now and later on:

Left untreated, a child in this situation will adapt to survive, but will form a skewed sense of self, believing they are to blame for problems, constantly falling short of expectations and feeling unworthy or unlovable. And so the cycle goes on…

The child takes on the narratives of the abuser/s, both internally and externally.

Some will kick against this toxic mix and display anger, aggression even violence towards others (our prisons are full of people like this).

Others will develop chronic low/negative self-esteem and the internalising of constantly disparaging narratives takes root and bears the poisonous fruit of self-loathing

Later on, these kids become adults who self-blame and may take on excessive responsibility in relationships, accepting blame for issues beyond their control: ‘it must be me’; ‘it’s probably my fault.’

FINAL THOUGHTS

If you work with troubled kids, whatever the setting and whatever your role, you will doubtless recognise many of your service users in this account.

Breaking free from self-blame involves reclaiming your life narrative from distortions sown in the throes of trauma and abuse - no easy task. While challenging, this process can lead to self-understanding, compassion and a more fulfilling life, it can be a long and difficult road to travel; one most people will not achieve without help.

For those of us working with troubled kids we do well to remember the power of active, respectful listening and tons of empathy in gaining trust and gaining permission to help kids along their healing journeys.

Next time, we’ll look a bit more closely at what we can do to help.

See you in the next one!

Listen on SPOTIFY here

More information:

PAPER: A Concept Analysis of Empathy by Theresa Wiseman (link)

BOOK: Working With Troubled Children & Teenagers by Jonny Matthew (link)

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©️ Jonny Matthew 2025

BLOG PODS #33 - Object Permanence #2 - Some Strategies to Help Children & Teenagers

INTRODUCTION

In the last post, we began looking at Object Permanence (OP) - the understanding that objects (including people) continue to exist even when they are not visible.

We said that it’s is an early, fundamental milestone in cognitive development that infants largely acquire in the months before they can speak - usually by the time they’re around 8 months to a year old.

We looked at some of the problems this brings with it if a child doesn’t develop OP in the usual way: these include various things that roughly fall into the areas of emotional and cognitive development - see last week’s post for more on this if you missed it.

Today, I want to shift things a little more positively and look at some ideas of things to do and ways of being when we’re working with kids, that can help them recover some of the lost ground around object permanence.

Strategies for Supporting Teenagers with Delayed Object Permanence

Teenagers who did not fully develop object permanence may be more clingy, insecure or demanding of attention than their peers - in some cases, to the degree where they behave more like a child who is much younger. But there are things we can do to support these kids:

Consistent Communication:

Regular Check-Ins: Maintain frequent and predictable communication to reassure the teenager of your presence and support. This is particularly helpful in residential or foster care settings, where the presence of the adult/s may need to be reinforced - sometimes constantly; at least for a while. Being especially live to this issue is important when children have just moved home and may need more grace than most kids their age (e.g. who are just moving house with their family) to get used to a new place and new people.

Clear Expectations: Set and communicate clear plans and routines to provide a sense of stability - and then stick to them; following through with the plan is key! Involve children in decision-making as much as possible, don’t change things without warning (especially at the last minute) and if you do have to change things, don’t dismiss their reactions to it - it feels genuinely unsafe! Lean in, empathise and be kind.

Use of Visual Aids:

Calendars and Timetables: Be creative with visual schedules, calendars and/or routines to help them anticipate events and understand timeframes. Pictures work better than words for some kids, so adapt to suit them. It’s a lot easier to drop in a gentle reminder about something visible and explicit, than it is to verbally keep cuing them up - the latter relies on them holding things (appointments, etc.) in their heads, which they may not be great at if this has been an issue for a long time.

Photographs: Use pictures of family members, friends, carers and familiar places to reinforce the continuity of people and places - these little visual cues being constantly on display can help keep kids settle and remind them that things continue even when not immediately and obviously present. This can work well is residential and foster care settings, too, especially at the beginning where kids are trying to familiarise themselves.

Jean Piaget, 1975. ©FARRELL GREHAN/CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES

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Gradual Separation Practices:

Short Absences: Practice brief separations followed by returns to build a sense that absences are temporary - leave the room but keep talking as you do so - this can show kids that you are there, even thought they can’t see you (because they can hear you). Or just say, ‘I’m nipping into the kitchen to… I’ll be back in two minutes.’ Just make sure you do come back in a timely way - don’t be distracted or let things drift. Don’t respond negatively if they follow you, though; they may need to do this for a while before they can handle the visible separation - but it’ll come. Let them determine the pace of things.

Transitional Objects: Encourage the use of items like a favourite object to provide comfort during separations or leave something of yours with the child while your away - a hanky, a pen, anything; it’s the fact that it’s yours that matters, not what the thing is. Photos in their bag or wallet or on the home screen of their phone can help, too (though teenagers will want to be cool, so they might resist that last one!). So something of the person, place or whatever goes with me - I don’t need the present visual reality to be with me because I have this representation of it, to help me build and maintain a mental representation.

Positive Reinforcement:

Practice Independence: Gently praise and encourage independent activities to help build confidence - don’t be too lavish, though; little and often is good. By focusing on independent play, kids can start to physically and cognitively (consciously-mentally) disconnect from the parent/s or carer/s, before reconnecting again when the the adult is present or they resume a joint activity. This repeated cycle of ‘leave and return’ can help build a sense of safe absence from the parent in a context of constant reconnection.

Celebrate Progress: Recognise and reward efforts in coping with separations or changes. Simple behaviourism still has a place! Caution is needed here, though, to avoid linking any reward to subjective feelings of distress or toxic disconnection. Again, just gently encouraging progress of this kind helps to underline to the child that being alone, playing independently or just being OK while the adult is absent, ends in positivity - not only does the adult return but they do so with praise and encouragement.

Professional Support:

Experienced Input: Consider engaging with a child psychologist, psychiatrist or psychotherapist specialising in developmental delays and attachment issues; your local GP should be able to point you in the right direction or check out the British Psychological Society website ‘find a psychologist’ tool for somewhere to start. Even a short consultation with someone familiar with and qualified in child development like this could yield some useful practical advice to get you started.

Support Groups: More informally, you can connect with community groups for caregivers and children facing similar challenges to share experiences and strategies as well as to not feel alone in the struggle. The major fostering organisations would be a good place to start - see the links below for some pointers.

By implementing these kinds of strategies consistently and patiently, we can provide the necessary support to kids struggling with object permanence, fostering a more secure and confident developmental progression.

Final thoughts

I was practicing for many years with troubled kids before I cottoned on to the concept of OP and how important it is in child development - it took even longer to think through and learn from others what can be done about it. But once you see it, it can be really helpful in understanding what’s going on for some children and in steering our work to encourage recovery.

Of course, OP is part of a broader, more complex developmental picture; but thinking through what it feels like to be a child who struggles to hold people and things ‘in mind’ is a valuable insight, I believe.

In the end, as always, if you don’t entirely know what to do: lean in, empathise and be kind!

See you in the next one!

🎧 Listen on SPOTIFY here 🎧

More information:

PREVIOUS BLOG: ‘Object Permanence: what it is, why it matters and how it can go wrong (link)

WEB PAGE: The Fostering Network - providing advice and information to prospective and approved foster carers (link)

WEB PAGE: CoramBAAF (formerly the British Association for Adoption and Fostering - link)

WEB ARTICLE: Simply Psychology article on object permanence and Piaget’s blanket and ball study (hidden toy) - (link)

Subscribe & Follow?

You can join Jonny’s mailing list here. Your information is safe and you can unsubscribe anytime very easily.

If you want these posts sent straight to your inbox, click the blue subscribe button below.

You can also “Like” this site on Facebook or connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter. The voiceovers are also on YouTube and Spotify. (NB: my Pinterest account was hacked and is now permanently offline).

©️ Jonny Matthew 2025

BLOG PODS #32 - Object Permanence #1: What It Is, Why It Matters & How It Can Go Wrong

INTRODUCTION

A 13 year old anxious toddler?

I recently observed a young man in a residential setting who seemed genuinely unable to leave his carers alone.

If they got up to go into the kitchen (or anywhere else for that matter) he followed.

When they went to the bathroom, he would stand outside and talk to them through the door!

He stood uncomfortably close during conversations or even if there was no discussion going on at all - often just standing with the side of his body right up against the adult’s body, rather than at a discreet distance or across the room.

He did lots of hugging, including spontaneously walking across a room to hug a person who’d been there the whole time, as if physical contact was necessary to convince him they were there and all was well.

He is a ‘school-refuser’, (not a term I like) preferring to stay at home. When the home tutor comes to work with him he likes a member of care staff in the room, too. And on it went…

My conclusion? That (among other things) he had not properly developed what psychologists call ‘object permanence.’

What Is Object Permanence?

Object permanence (OP) is the understanding that objects (including people) continue to exist even when they are not visible. It is an early, fundamental milestone in cognitive development that infants largely acquire in the months before they can speak - usually by the time they’re around 8 months to a year old.

If a child’s development is such that they are not able to acquire object permanence - at least not fully or in a balanced way - this can lead to problems later. In a general sense, this may leave them insecure, anxious and/or with memory or learning problems. More on this later…

The Development of Object Permanence in Infants

Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to ~2 years): According to Jean Piaget, infants develop object permanence during the early part of the sensorimotor stage, which lasts from birth to around two years of age. More recent studies suggest OP may be at least partially developed as early as 3-4 months old (e.g. Baillargeon & De Vos, 1991). Whichever is right, there is wide agreement that it’s development is early - within the first year.

Progression:

Birth to 4 Months: Infants primarily interact with people and objects through reflexive actions and do not yet understand that they exist before and/or after that immediate moment. So we may be playing with a teddy bear: the child has little or no sense of the teddy existing (or had ‘being’) before the play began or after it ends. It’s here now and that’s all there is.

4 to 8 Months: Babies begin to recognise that objects have continuity; they may reach for partially hidden items for example, indicating an emerging awareness and the beginning of cause and effect reasoning (i.e. ‘I can’t see all of the teddy, but what I can see suggests there’s more there that I can’t see’; ergo the whole teddy exists).

8 to 12 Months: Infants start to actively search for completely hidden objects, demonstrating a developing sense of object permanence - e.g. the pre-verbal equivalent of, ‘I can’t see the teddy but I think it might be in this toy box.’ The teddy popping up and making the child jump - i.e. during a game of ‘peekaboo’) is no longer funny when the child knows that the teddy is being held behind the parent’s back; that knowing is object permanence.

In other words, at this point, the child’s reaction - or lack of it - is a clear demonstration that they have attained some mental representation of the teddy (it’s not a visual recognition because the teddy is visible, but it is now held in mind - a mental representation), despite not being able to see it. That’s why the teddy’s reappearance during peekboo just isn’t funny any more!

OK, so that’s broadly what OP is. Lets look at what it’s absence might bring

Impact of Not Developing Object Permanence

Though on it’s own, object permanence is just one aspect of child development, failure to develop it can contribute to challenges in cognitive and emotional development, for example (as always, nowhere near an exhaustive list!):

Attachment Issues: Difficulty in forming secure attachments due to an unstable perception of the caregiver's presence. This can then extend into later development, bringing with it relationship difficulties like problems with trust, a tendency not to ask for help or perceiving adults (particularly in caregiving roles) as unreliable.

Separation Anxiety: Without understanding that caregivers continue to exist when out of sight, infants may experience heightened distress during separations. Again, it’s the absence not only of the adult themselves (physically and visually) but of any mental representation of the adult, that leaves the child that bit more bereft.

Cognitive Delays: Children may experience delays in the development of memory and perception of the environment. Difficulty in forming and retaining mental representations of objects and people can hinder problem-solving skills and abstract thinking later on. It can also impact the development of working memory - if a child struggles to form mental representations of things and people, then keeping them in mind - remembering - can also be affected.

Learning Difficulties: In extremis, a chronic lack of object permanence (and associated attachment and other issues) may contribute to learning difficulties, such that they struggle with tasks which relay on working memory and/or spatial awareness. These are likely to be less obvious at first - than separation anxiety, for example - but may develop over time and become apparent later on. If you can’t employ working memory very well, then your ability to take full advantage of learning (both at home and in school) is also compromised, potentially.

So, those are some of the broad areas that can be affected if the milestone of object permanence isn’t achieved in a timely way. Now to look at a few ideas for what we can do to support children and caregivers where this might be an issue - with a particular emphasis on teenagers (cos that’s my thang!).

Final thoughts

Separating out one aspect of child development like we have here isn’t ideal because children develop across a range of domains all at the same time. But understanding single aspects, like OP, can help us to help kids more effectively.

Another of my conclusions from observing the 13 year old toddler I mentioned in the introduction, was that his behaviour was absolutely exhausting for his carers - they got very little peace and neither did he. But understanding his needs in a developmental way like this, meant they were more able to remain patient and put in place some strategies to help him recover the lost ground from his early years.

To this end, in the next post, I’m going to share some ideas and strategies we can use at work or at home, that can help kids to recover some of the ground they’ve lost or missed around this.

See you in the next one!

🎧 Listen on SPOTIFY here 🎧

More information:

MORE ABOUT PIAGET: …from Wikipedia about the man(link) …and his theory (link)

PAPER: Object Permanence in Young Infants: Further Evidence by Baillargeon & De Vos (1991 - link to abstract)

BOOK: What About Me - Inclusive Strategies to Support Pupils With Attachment Difficulties Make it Through the School Day by Louise Bombèr (link)

WEB PAGE: The Fostering Network - providing advice and information to prospective and approved foster carers (link)

WEB PAGE: CoramBAAF (formerly the British Association for Adoption and Fostering - link)

WEB ARTICLE: Simply Psychology article on object permanence and Piaget’s blanket and ball study (hidden toy) - (link)

Subscribe & Follow?

You can join Jonny’s mailing list here. Your information is safe and you can unsubscribe anytime very easily.

If you want these posts sent straight to your inbox, click the blue subscribe button below.

You can also “Like” this site on Facebook or connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter. The voiceovers are also on YouTube and Spotify. (NB: my Pinterest account was hacked and is now permanently offline).

©️ Jonny Matthew 2025

BLOG PODS #30 - The Case for Abolishing Youth Custody: Harmful, Expensive and Criminogenic.

INTRODUCTION

The very first paper to drop into my inbox in 2025 was this one, from Kathy Hampson about why locking up children is a bad idea and needs radical change.

I loved it!

Why It’s Time to Abolish Detention and Training Orders in Youth Justice

When children and young people come into contact with the criminal justice system, the focus should be on rehabilitation, support and creating opportunities for positive change. Yet, in England and Wales, Detention and Training Orders (DTOs) remain a common sentencing option, despite mounting evidence that they are harmful, expensive and largely ineffective in reducing reoffending.

In this post, I’m using Kathy Hampson and Anne-Marie Day’s paper to summarise the harm caused by DTOs, suggest why they should be abolished and to look at how youth justice and other practitioners can advocate for better alternatives.

Firstly, the basics…

What is a Detention and Training Order (DTO)?

DTOs are short custodial sentences given to children aged 12–17. They can last between 4 months and 2 years, with half the sentence served in custody and the other half under supervision in the community.

Introduced as part of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, DTOs were intended to combine detention with education and training, to prepare young people for reintegration into society.

However, the reality is far removed from this. Research has consistently shown that the educational and rehabilitative provisions during DTOs are inadequate and the custodial experience often exacerbates the difficulties these children faced in the community, rather than resolving them.

THE CASE AGAINST DTOs

As always, this is not an exhaustive treatment of the subject, but just some thoughts springing from Kathy and Anne-Marie’s paper and more than a few years of working within a very frustrating youth justice legislative framework.

The title of the paper gives away the essence of their argument, namely: that DTOs are ‘harmful, expensive and criminogenic.’

1. A Breach of Children’s Rights

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC - article 37) is clear: detention of children should be used, "only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time." Despite this, DTOs are frequently handed down for relatively minor offences and many children remanded in custody do not go on to receive a custodial sentence at all. This highlights a clear failure to apply the principle of ‘last resort.’

Indeed, the current sentencing arrangements allow for custody to be a first resort in the youth court, if the offence is serious enough.

Furthermore, children with neurodivergent conditions, special educational needs and those from minority ethnic backgrounds are disproportionately affected by DTOs. While all children should have access to assessment of their capacity to participate in the court process, this rarely happens and, in my experience, is often ridden rough-shod over even when requested by professionals.

The system is not only failing to protect vulnerable children—it’s actively compounding their disadvantages and, at times, flagrantly contravening their rights.

2. The Moral Argument

Children’s brains are still developing, particularly in areas related to decision-making, impulse control and emotional regulation (i.e. ‘top down’ executive functions). This means they are more likely to make poor decisions, or react reflexively without ‘deciding’ anything, without fully understanding the consequences. DTOs fail to account for this developmental reality.

Additionally, many children in the youth justice system have experienced significant trauma, neglect and/or other adverse childhood experiences. Placing these children in punitive environments can deepen their trauma and lead to further behavioural difficulties.

In my view, this is particularly the case where a child has suffered disrupted attachment; to then be cut off from everything familiar can further the damage and significantly limit the hope of rehabilitation, at least while inside.

For girls, the situation seems to be even more concerning. Though they represent only a small percentage of those in custody, the rates of self-harm and use of force against girls in detention are disproportionately high. This, along with the earlier point about attachment, means that DTOs are not just failing—they are actively harming some of society's most vulnerable children.

Source: YJB Stats. p6 - Flows Through the Youth Justice System year ended March 2023

3. Ineffectiveness in Reducing Reoffending

One of the primary goals of the youth justice system is to prevent reoffending. For the first time in 8 years, the overall re-offending rate increased in the last year - though only by 0.9% - to 32.2% (the first time since 2014. YJB Stats. p51)

For custody the picture is bleaker still - much bleaker - at 70.3% for sentences under 12 months and 56.4% for sentences of 12 months to 4 years (UK Post p13). So, overall, children leaving custody have some of the highest reoffending rates of any sentencing outcome, with nearly 60% reoffending within a year of release.

Custody disrupts education, fractures family relationships, isolates children from positive influences and often induces negative-even traumatic-effects. It also exposes them to environments where negative behaviours can be reinforced. In contrast, community sentences have been shown to be far more effective in addressing the root causes of offending and reducing reoffending.

I summary, short term custody doesn’t address reoffending effectively in children - it’s practically useless in terms of rehabilitation and in lots of cases makes the situation worse, not least around the mental health of the kids themselves.

4. The Financial Cost

Youth custody is staggeringly expensive. A place in a Young Offender Institution (YOI) costs around £130,000 per year, while Secure Training Centres (STCs) and Secure Children’s Homes (SCHs) cost significantly more. Despite this immense financial investment, the outcomes remain poor.

Community-based interventions, on the other hand, are not only more cost-effective but also yield better results in terms of reducing reoffending and supporting positive child development.

According to the figures from the MoJ (Hansard) the costs for children and young offenders are considerably higher (brackets mine):

- Young Offender Institutions (YOIs): £129,333.58 per year (£354.33 p/day; £2480.37 p/week )

- Secure Training Centres (STCs): £305,892.40 per year (£838.06 p/day; £5866.42 p/week)

- Secure Children's Homes (SCHs): £299,459.47 per year (£820.43 p/day; £5743.05 p/week)

So neither we (society) or the child and their family are getting any value for money from putting kids in custody - at least not on short sentences. Also, just think what that kind of spend could do to support families in the community if it was routed to services based in the community.

5. A Contradiction of ‘Child First’ Principles

The Youth Justice Board’s ‘Child First’ approach emphasises treating children as children, focusing on strengths, collaborative working, and minimising stigma. DTOs are fundamentally at odds with these principles. They prioritise punishment over rehabilitation and reinforce the very stigma the Child First approach seeks to avoid.

WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES TO DTOs?

The good news is that effective alternatives already exist. Youth Rehabilitation Orders (YROs), with options such as Intensive Supervision and Surveillance (ISS) or Intensive Fostering, offer robust community-based responses to offending.

These approaches allow children to remain in their communities, maintain family connections, continue their education and receive tailored support from youth justice professionals. Countries like Sweden, Denmark and Japan have shown that it’s possible to reserve custodial sentences for only the most serious offences while prioritising community-based interventions for others.

What Can Youth Justice Practitioners Do?

Youth justice practitioners play a critical role in advocating for change and supporting children within the current system. Here’s what they can do:

Advocate for Legislative Change: Speak up about the harms of DTOs and push for policy reforms that align with ‘Child First’ principles.

Promote Community-Based Interventions: Work with courts and local authorities to champion Youth Rehabilitation Orders and other community alternatives.

Provide Trauma-Informed Support: Recognise the trauma and vulnerabilities many justice-involved children face and ensure interventions are sensitive to these experiences.

Build Strong Relationships: Build trust with children and their families, focusing on strengths rather than deficits.

Collaborate Across Services: Work closely with education, health and social services to provide holistic support.

FINAL THOUGHTS

DTOs are a relic of a punitive youth justice approach that has long been discredited. They fail to respect children’s rights, exacerbate vulnerabilities, cost enormous amounts of money and do very little to reduce reoffending.

By abolishing DTOs and investing in community-based interventions, we can create a system that truly prioritises the welfare, rights and future prospects of children in conflict with the law. For youth justice practitioners, policymakers and advocates, the call to action is clear: it’s time to move beyond DTOs and build a system rooted in care, compassion and effectiveness.

Let’s ensure custody is truly a measure of last resort—not a default response. If I had my way, we'd get rid of it altogether…

See you in the next one!

More information:

PAPER - Kathy Hampson & Anne-Marie Day’s paper: Harmful, Expensive and Criminogenic: The Case for Abolishing Detention and Training Orders in England and Wales (link)

PREVIOUS BLOG - Youth Justice - A Way Forward (Oct.2024 - link)

WEBPAGE - The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (link)

PAPER - see UN General Comment 10 (link)

WEBPAGE - DTO Case Management Guidance (link)

WEBPAGE - Youth Justice Statistics for England & Wales 2022-23 (link)

WEBPAGE - UK Parliament Post: The use of short prison sentences in England and Wales (link)

WEBPAGE - Parliamentary question and answer about the costs of youth custody (link)

Subscribe & Follow?

You can join Jonny’s mailing list here. Your information is safe and you can unsubscribe anytime very easily.

If you want these posts sent straight to your inbox, click the blue subscribe button below.

You can also “Like” this site on Facebook or connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter. (NB: my Pinterest account was hacked and is now permanently offline).

©️ Jonny Matthew 2025

BLOG PODS #30 - Children at the Margins #2 - What Practitioners Can Do

INTRODUCTION

To save you some time, last week’s post about this latest report on marginalised children, summarised the content and recommendations.

This week I want to focus on what I think you and I, as practitioners with troubled kids, can do to lend our shoulders to the plough in effecting change.

This, of course, could easily fester into a book all on its own, so I’ve limited myself to things that came to mind as I read the report; those ‘yes, but what about…’ kind of moments. So, as always, it’s not an exhaustive list, but I did enjoy letting the brakes off a bit on these - I hope they encourage you!

Here goes.

3. What Can Practitioners Do to Help Marginalised Children?

Practitioners play a vital role in facilitating meaningful change with kids at the margins. Here are a few associated thoughts, provoked by the report (though not attributable to it) that might help to improve frontline care and support for these children (in no particular order):

1. Build and Maintain Trust:

Trust is foundational when working with marginalised kids.

Practitioners should demonstrate reliability, follow through on promises and show genuine care in their interactions. The idea of consistency, predictability and reliability (what we call ‘CPR’: in our TRM training) is key to this.

Consistency builds trust which gives us the ‘in’ we need to really help kids.The trouble is that lots of services simply don’t allow the time it takes for us to demonstrate consistency, which in turn means the kids don’t get to see us being consistent for long enough to allow trust to develop.

Putting an end to short term and/or time-limited interventions would help with this.

2. Active Listening:

Listening isn’t just about hearing; it’s about making children feel heard, valued and understood.

Create safe, non-judgmental spaces where children feel comfortable sharing their experiences. Making an effort to be proactive and visibly/obviously looking like we’re listening, can massively help with this, too.

One thing I often say when I’m teaching professionals in training on college or university courses is, ‘before you see the child, take a moment to think about what it would be like to see you coming’ - to a meeting, session, home visit, etc. - see yourself through their eyes. Then ask yourself, ‘if I were this child seeing me today, what would I want from me?’

I also think it’s useful to bring to mind briefly what we know about the child’s history so we go into the interaction in the correct mindset.

Getting back to a nationwide, community-based, fully-funded Youth Service would massively help towards this, in my view.

3. Adopt a Trauma-Informed Approach: (my soap-box issue, sorry!)

Understand how trauma shapes child development, fuels negative emotional states which, in turn, often underlie and drive behavioural problems - including crime (to name one of many).

Menu-based, off-the-shelf, manualised, generic, short-term interventions do NOT constitute TiP, in my view. There needs to be a clear and agreed philosophy-a model-that drives policy formation, funding allocation and service provision - our Trauma Recovery Model is one example.

I fear without a clear model to act as a reference point, a theory of change and an axis around which policy and practice can cohere, TiP will degenerate into just another catch-phrase bandwagon without soul or substance.

4. Prioritise Self-Care:

Supporting marginalised children is emotionally demanding. And so is working with them; but other than some of the health-professions (where it’s mandatory), there is no expectation of, or provision for professionals to receive support in the work. Certainly there’s nothing beyond a pastoral element to case management supervision which, though infinitely better than nothing, is not what we’re talking about here. This needs to change and has clear funding implications if/when it does.

In the meantime, practitioners probably need to invest in their own well-being, where necessary to prevent burnout and compassion fatigue wherever they can but, ultimately, this should be part of employers’ obligations and built into the system.

So, be kind to colleagues, look out for each other, opt out of macho working culture wherever you see it and, where you can, advocate for some form of reflective (if not clinical) supervision.

5. Advocate for Change:

Use your voice to highlight systemic barriers and failures. Practitioners are the best people to speak to power about what needs to change and to suggest alternatives, in my view. Data and research have their part to play, of course, but nothing beats getting up close and personal with kids and their families for giving a truly real world perspective.

Collaborate with other professionals to push for policy improvements. Make suggestions and communicate these up the food chain - as far up as you can. Make the arguments for practices that will do a better job for these kids, think creatively, identify good practice, get involved in research and lobby for more innovative practices that constantly improve outcomes.

In my experience, such interventions are nearly as always cheaper in the long run - but unless we make the arguments from a practice perspective things will change only very slowly.

6. Encourage Personal Development in Children:

Help children set realistic goals and develop their sense of agency. Interventions and outcomes that kids are invested in themselves, are far more likely to work. Kids are very good at knowing what they need (with obvious exceptions, of course) so harnessing that insight can really help us to formulate successful plans.

Foster resilience through small, achievable successes; learn to notice little-often minute-changes for the better, and point them out. Incremental changes are more tricky to notice and so often happen without fanfare. But if we can learn to notice these, bring them to the attention of the kids themselves and, where necessary to colleagues, everyone is encouraged. This in turn helps us persevere in the work. More importantly, it can give kids hope that even though change may be slow at times, it is happening!

7. Embrace Relational Practice:

Build authentic relationships as the basis for all interventions. I love this quote from Bruce Perry:

Remember, the major tool you have in helping others to change - is you. Relationships are the currency of change (Bruce Perry, What Happened To You, 2021)

Show consistency and commitment, even when progress feels slow - especially in the early stages of getting know a child when trust-building is everything. Hang in there, don’t give up. Let the kid know you believe in them and their ability-with your help-to push through to better things. Your hope gives them hope - if they know you and believe that you believe in them.

Back to my constantly repeated maxim of what to I try to do when you don’t know what to do: Lean in, empathise and be kind.

8. Provide Creative Outlets:

Use tools like art, music and play to help children process trauma and build confidence. Let them see your incompetence in things, have a laugh, try something new together - all the while using these opportunities to cross the bridge of your relationship to effect change.

Do all this carefully, of course, and stay in your professional lane (i.e. don’t experiment or dive into areas you don’t feel qualified or equipped to deal with) but think outside the box. Think about what the child likes, how they communicate, what kind of learner they are and so on. Then find new, creative and different ways to spend time, build relationship and help them develop.

9. Take Action:

Avoid getting stuck in bureaucracy—prioritise tangible action over endless discussion. I could seriously rant for a few thousand words here, but that’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid! Tick the boxes as quickly as you can and get out there with the child and do stuff.

Be proactive in finding solutions, even when challenges seem insurmountable. Push hard when you need the help of others. Make the arguments with managers and funders; basically, wherever possible, focus on the stuff that will move the dial, not on admin, process and talk. Action always speaks louder…

I’m mindful of the quote from Mark Twain used in last week’s post:

‘Actions speak louder than words but not nearly as often.’ (Mark Twain)

These strategies remind us that while systemic change is necessary, individual practitioners have immense power to make a difference in a child’s life.

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What’s missing?

Here are three quick things that stood out for me as being missing from the report that, if they were addressed, would go some way to bringing change on these issues (most of these are Wales specific but have currency elsewhere, too):

1. Get on and implement the Youth Justice Blueprint (in Wales)

This was first adopted in 2019 and is still largely caught up in the usual inertia that kills good policy. The blueprint would help bring youth justice further in line with recent science and effective practice for kids with complex trauma histories who find themselves on the wrong end of the law. It would also begin to address the nonsensical lack of appropriate secure accommodation for those kids in Wales who don’t neatly fit into the health, welfare or criminal secure categories - or skip between them without finding real help.

2. Stop messing with the private residential sector!

Local Authorities for years have tried and serially failed (for the most part) to provide long term, effective homes for the most complex children. That’s why they have turned to the voluntary and (more often?) private sector for help. Now the Welsh Government seems hell-bent on undermining this through some outdated, anti-profit idealism that owes more to an anachronistic, quasi-socialist view of the world than it does to modern, creative social policy. Of course, excessive profiteering from public money on the back of troubled kids is a disgrace. But we all know who the main culprits are and what to do to stop them. So don’t throw the good quality residential ‘baby’ out with the profiteering bath water, or there’ll be a lot of very vulnerable kids with nowhere to live.

Instead, listen to the sector - again, we all know who’s doing it right and who’s taking the proverbial - be creative, work out a better way, but do it with those who have expertise in the field.

3. Sort out services for neurodivergent kids

In my area the stated waiting time for children needing an ADHD assessment for example, is 3 years. 3 Years!

Information gathered in 2022 showed there were over 9000 children on the waiting list for an autism assessment. Given that these conditions can undermine a child’s confidence, relationships, ability to engage in education, etc. this is a priority.

Children who are properly assessed, diagnosed where necessary and in receipt of treatment do better - funnily enough! These kids are over represented in those known to have been exploited, notwithstanding the well documented mental health challenges that run alongside. So let’s have a concerted effort to implement some of the good ideas already in the public domain to fix this situation.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

A lot of work has been done-including this new report-to articulate the problems. For me, the job now is to get on and do some fixing!

Final Thoughts

The Children on the Margins report is pretty good, as it highlights the plight of groups of kids who often fall through the gaps. The recommendations have merit, too. But one things kept striking me as I read them - if the recommendations of previous investigations had been implemented-even partially-we wouldn’t need this report at all.

So, until the change we all want to see actually materialises, we have to crack on and do what we can do to effect change. We may be limited by our roles, by budgets, by systems and processes, but we can lean into kids, build relationships, listen to their needs and fight for their rights to have those needs met.

Decades ago when I did my training, that’s what social work was all about. I, for one, haven’t given up yet.

See you in the next one!

More information:

WEB PAGE: Children on the Margins - report download & information page (link)

WEB DOWNLOAD: A No Wrong Door Approach to Neurodiversity - Children’s Commissioner for Wales (link)

BOOK: Working With Troubled Children & Teenagers - my book on the values of good practice (link)

WEB DOWNLOAD: Youth Justice Blueprint for Wales (link)

WEB DOWNLOAD: Waiting Times for Assessment & Support for Autism, ADHD & Other Neurodevelopmental Conditions - England Children’s Commissioner (link)

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BLOG PODS #29 - Avoidable Tragedy (republished on the 1st anniversary of the tragedy): Lessons From Axel Rudakubana

Context

Just before midday, on 29th July 2024, three little girls were killed while attending a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga event in Southport, North West England. Two adults were very seriously injured and eight other children, five of them critically.

Introduction

The sentencing of Axel Rudakubana this week has provoked the usual pantheon of incredulity and rage - and all points in between. Of course it did. The utter tragedy his actions visited on three little girls, their families, injured and traumatised friends, teachers and neighbours echoed around the nation.

On hearing what he did, it felt like the whole country took a sharp intake of breath - it was so crass, pointless, alien to our humanity and utterly devastating.

Understandable Outrage

As always in such cases, the media, justice system and public ‘vox pop’ focus is on the killer, the killings themselves and whether or not he got what he deserved.

On this last point, with tiresome inevitability, the broad conclusion is that he…

…deserved to be sentenced as an adult, but wasn’t

…deserved a whole life sentence, but only got 52 years, and

…he deserved to die, but he didn’t

And on it goes.

The anger is completely understandable; as is the need to find some semblance of meaning and to comprehend who would do such a thing. Sadly, all of this also drives the need for revenge - or, as people prefer to call it, ‘justice.’

Aside of whether it actually is justice that we seek, we all want to feel the episode is somehow closed with as much dignity and fairness as possible, given the horrors involved.

Othering

Axel Rudakubana’s actions on the 29th July 2024 were characterised by a lethal insanity of the sort that addles the minds of ordinary humans. It’s the very inhumanity of it that forces us to see him as ‘other’ than us - different, alien, ontologically distinct; a species apart, if you like.

Understandably, we want to make the chasm between how we see ourselves and someone ‘like him’, as wide as we can. We need to feel some distance between him and what he did, and us - because we’d never do that.

Of course we wouldn’t.

Any sound-minded decent person would agree, not least because we can’t get our heads around why someone would set out to kill children. But that’s exactly my point; our shock and outrage at what he did means we have to take refuge in believing that someone like that can’t possibly be anything like us; ergo, he must be something or someone other.

But I don’t think it’s good enough to dismiss what he did, to dismiss him, with sneering and contemptuous assertions that he’s mad; to ‘monsterfy’ him, if you will. Or even to simplistically depict him summarily as a ‘knifeman’ on a ‘rampage.’

The most published image of Rudakubana - taken after his arrest by Merseyside Police* - is one that seems to visually confirm his otherness and, perhaps incidentally, helps to justify the derision. Anyone looking like that, clearly isn’t anything like me.

We need to do this distancing. We need the space between us and him. The dissonance between what he did and how we see ourselves as people, is too great, too unbearable; so we widen the gap by othering. For all it’s tragic sadness, this is a natural and necessary psychological heuristic to keep us from being tarnished by anything we and he might share.

The elephant in the room

But obviously, there’s a lot more to it than that. Once the media hype and tabloid sensationalism has died down and the press wagon has moved on to the next thing, something will have to be done.

Even a cursory reading of the press coverage, highlights enough markers of concern for us to ask wider questions about ‘why’ it happened and what might be needed to improve responses to similar situations in future. But also on an individual level, we need to know what might have helped this boy such that the events of last summer were averted.

The presence of so many markers of concern should energise us to question not only the subjective chaos of a very troubled mind, but why we couldn’t prevent their escalation into such an unmitigated tragedy.

For example, things known about Rudakubana include:

Anger issues

Agoraphobia

Selective mutism

Obsession with homicidal dictators (Hitler, Genghis Khan)

Thinking, talking about and studying violence

Calling Childline

Being a victim of racist bullying

Feeling frightened and carrying a knife

Being ‘immediately and permanently’ excluded from school for admitting he carried a knife

Returning to school two months later to assault another child

Living with an autistic spectrum condition

Being referred to the Prevent programme - 3 times

Previous convictions for assault and possession of a bladed article

Local YOT involvement

Several incidents of Police involvement between May 2019 and October 2022…

…including his parents calling the police due to concerns about his behaviour…

…including a near miss when he tried to return to school with a knife

Assaulting his father and damaging the family car when his parents took his computer away

Numerous police calls to the multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH)

And on it goes

Clearly this is not a child (and he was a child) that just upped and did something terrible out-of-the-blue. There was a long, clear and checkered history that led up to it all.

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Avoidable, but not yet…

The murders of Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice da Silva Aguiar were unspeakably tragic and desperate. Perhaps the most irksome and utterly frustrating thing for those of us who work with serious crime involving children, is that they were avoidable, too.

‘The amount of information known before the murders about Rudakubana's violent obsessions has prompted serious questions over whether more could have been done to stop him.’ (BBC 22/1/25 - link)

Most weeks, my colleagues and I come across children who, if they aren’t contained, assessed and treated could very well go on to harm others - some of them very seriously.

The problem is, it seems to me, that there just isn’t the provision in our system to do the containing, so that the necessary stability, safety and professional expertise can be brought to bear.

Where do you contain, assess and treat a child who:

Has not (yet!) committed an offence serious enough to be remanded, but might harm others if they’re not helped?

Is not obviously mentally ill such that a section under the Mental Health Act could apply? Or

Who wouldn’t pass muster in the Family Court for a secure welfare order?

Many very troubled kids just fall between the stools of criminal, mental health and welfare responses, and so can’t be secured for the necessary stability to be put in place to allow a good assessment and planned response. There just isn’t the provision - legal or financial - to safely and securely hold kids like this so they can be properly assessed for the help they need.

So, just like Axel Rudakubana, there can be a pantheon of issues, concerns, markers and risky features on display, but there is no provision to address them.

Sorting THAT out is the priority - perhaps the most pressing social policy issue for troubled kids in the UK right now.

FINAL THOUGHTS

For what it’s worth, I don’t believe Axel Rudakubana was a monster or a born killer.

More likely, this was an extremely troubled child, seemingly for most if not all of his childhood, who didn’t get the help he needed, when he needed it - in time to prevent the catastrophe in Southport.

While we grieve with the victim’s families and deal with our need to ‘other’ the killer lest we’re tarnished by our shared inhumanity, let’s ask the question that really matters and seek to change the system to answer it:

Why was a child this troubled not able to get the help he needed to fulfil his potential?

And, at the same time, let’s hope that if we ever get desperate, really desperate, we get the help we need. Because I suspect that if I’d lived the childhood that he lived, with the problems and challenges he faced, I might not be that different after all…

See you in the next one!

More information:

WEB ARTICLE: BBC Online article about ‘red flags’ being repeatedly missed (link)

LISTENING: The BBC Reith Lectures 2024 by Dr Gwen Adshead - Lecture #4: Can We change Violent Minds? (link - the entire series is quite superb!)

PREVIOUS BLOG: Imprisoning Kids: Why Do We Punish When we Could Help?? (link)

PREVIOUS BLOG: Punishment Doesn’t Work…For Troubled Kids. Do This Instead (link)

* I took the decision not to publish the image here - it felt like I’d be playing into, even encouraging, the ‘evil’ mythic status and associated othering of a very needy 17 year old boy.

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