Restoring Connection: Paul Nixon on Transforming Child Welfare Through Relational Practice

Transcript:

Paul Nixon  (00:00):

And in changing the way decisions were made, we started to change the outcomes for children, young people. And I started to believe that actually this was the way we should be working. We should be seeking to build on the existing strengths in a child’s living environment, their relationships, their culture, their identity, their connections, and find ways of building on that rather than separating them from all of those relationships and putting them in a brand new environment, which wasn’t working.

Chynah Boise (00:28):

I’m Chynah Boise, and you’re listening to the Social Work Lens, a podcast for child welfare workers, caregivers, and community partners. I am lucky enough to be in the studio today with Paul Nixon. Paul Nixon has achieved an international recognition in child protection, working across child welfare jurisdictions, advising and supporting child welfare agencies in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Europe, USA, and the UK to improve their practice and services to children and families. Paul is an independent social worker for his own company, providing expertise and support in developing practice in the field of statutory child welfare and youth justice services. His company has a particular emphasis on innovative child protection and family support strategies, restorative practices, children’s rights, kinship care, and the cross pollination of best practice ideas. Welcome Paul.

Paul Nixon  (01:28):

< Maori Language > Greetings everyone. Chynah, thank you so much for inviting me. I just mihi to the local people, the people of Vermont Colchester, Burlington places I’m at the moment. It’s our tradition in New Zealand to speak in Te Reo Maori first always in the first language of our indigenous people. And so in doing that, I acknowledged and spoke to the people of the land people who live here, people who visit here, and of course especially acknowledge the Abnaki and Mohawk people who have looked after this beautiful place for thousands and thousands of years. So I’m delighted to be with you today talking about social work and a bit of my social work journey that I’ve learned a lot from being in New Zealand. And for 10 years I was the chief social worker in New Zealand so learned a lot from Maori people and Maori culture and made me rethink and think again about how we do social work.

Paul Nixon  (03:17):

One of the interesting things about Maori culture is the emphasis on relationships and the quality of relationships. And not only our relationship with each other as people, but also our relationship with the land, the waters, the skies, and how important that is. And increasingly in our sort of highly technological world, we are learning the truth that relationships are incredibly important, whether that’s between humans or between us and the land or the seas the waters, the skies we have to look after each other. We have to look after the land. And if we don’t, it won’t look after us either. So and I suppose that’s right at the heart of my sort of thinking about social work is the notion of relationships and how we build and grow and maintain and nurture relationships in ways that nourish people and help people, you know, grow and develop and be happy and fulfilled in time on earth. So I suppose this conversation is gonna be quite about relationships. <Laugh>, I started as a social worker in 1990. So, 35 years ago I’ve been a social worker for 35 years and always learning. And the new places you go and the people you meet, you always learn new things from people. So it’s a privilege for me to be here in Vermont at the moment and catching up with old friends and, and new people too.

Paul Nixon  (04:45):

And I got in late last night, midnight on the plane and, and picked up by my old friend Gail Burford, who’s always been an inspiration and a mentor to me. And Gail is someone who’s worked in this State a long time, such a wise and kind and thoughtful and brilliant man. And my relationship with Gail’s pretty sacred. He’s taught me a lot and I feel very grateful for him. So to see him again last night, this morning was just a, a joy. So I started in 1990 as a social worker and I done my last placement in child protection team and, and realized I was interested in that work and, and I was 22 years old, so I was just starting out and didn’t really know social work at all I’d been trained about in education. But it’s quite different when you step into a statutory child protection agency and start doing the work and you learn that it’s not always what you expect. And I would say for two or three years as a social worker, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was trying really hard and, you know, trying to understand the role and watching more senior members of staff and trying to learn from them. But the situations you work with are so complex and there’s so much loss and grief and anger and distress. You’re dealing with that an emotional level, but you’re also dealing with it intellectual level and thinking, how do I make myself most helpful here? And in the first couple of years of working in Darlington in county Durham in 1990 we did a lot of work investigating concerns of, and child protection, a lot of time removing children. And, and I found myself in environment where we were doing these investigations removals, and that was seen as the way of best protecting children.

Paul Nixon  (06:39):

But after two years of doing that, I thought, well, this isn’t working. I can see this is not working. I can see the children, I can see their lives, the placements they’re in and how they’re moving and how they’re so deeply unhappy about being away from their families and their communities, that I really wondered whether that was the right thing to do. Anyhow, just by coincidence, one of the team members said that there’s this group of New Zealanders coming to London to talk about a different way of doing social work, family group conferences and do you want to come down to London for a couple of days and get involved in this training? And so I said, yeah, I’d love to and went on the FGC training in, in London and, and and I sat there for two days in this training and thought, this is really interesting, but this would never work where, where I’m working in Darlington, this must be a, a New Zealand thing. And I went back to Darlington, of course, continued my work and I thought, well, this isn’t working. This what we’re doing is definitely not working, so we need to do something different. So I did two things.

Paul Nixon  (07:38):

The first thing, I wrote a letter to the government in New Zealand saying, please can have a job as a social worker. And they wrote back and they said, no, you can’t <laugh>. So I gave up on that. And then I thought about how do I try this family conference thing? But I couldn’t get enough support for that in, in Darlington. So I took another job down in, in the south of England, Hampshire, different environment where at my interview I said to the, the boss, if I get this job, could I try and develop family group conferences? And he said, yeah, you can. And there’s a guy here called Phil Tavner who’s been in New Zealand, and he’s a trainer and he’d be interested in talking with you. So I looked up Phil, we got together, we started to organize and we got going with FGCs in, in Hampshire. It was, we looked at the way of working, we read about it, we talked to people, we learned about it, and he knew about it ’cause he’d been in New Zealand and got really interested in how this might apply in a jurisdictional context at the other end of the world in, in England, where we had different laws and ways of doing things. And so we, one of the characteristics of these family conferences is you bring large groups of family and community together and it asks you and invites you to rethink your role as a social worker and how you work alongside people, how you work in partnership with people, how you share information and power and support and resources with people in different ways. But to facilitate that, you need a group of independent coordinators. So you need people who are not aligned with the department, but also not aligned with the family. So they are neutral in a way, if any of any of it are ever neutral. But they’re neutral in terms of their role and decision making. And so we went to the community and we, we held a couple of public meetings down in Hampshire talking about this process, saying, we want to get this conferences going, inviting people from the community in. And people came, a lot of people came and they, they they were interested in this role of not having to go and assess people, but to bring people together. And it resonated for a lot of people. So it wasn’t hard finding coordinators. It was quite easy.

Chynah Boise (09:42):

Wow.

Paul Nixon  (09:43):

We got ’em together, we trained them, and then we started to do these conferences and bring families together. And we were really excited to see so many family members come. And one of the objections as we were setting this up from other agencies and our people, we said, oh, well, families don’t exist in England. You know, like New Zealand, they won’t come. Well, actually, we had more difficulty getting the agencies to these conferences and the families members, the family members came, we invited them, we prepared them, and they came and just changed the way decisions were made. And, and in changing the way decisions were made, we started to change the outcomes between young people. And I started to believe that actually this was the way we should be working. We should be seeking to build on the existing strengths in a child’s living environment, their relationships, their culture, their identity, their connections, and find ways of building on that rather than separating them from all of those relationships and putting them in a brand new environment, which wasn’t working. So I got really interested in the families and communities and relationships and connections and how those things work. And, and it just grew and grew. It sort of got its own momentum. We, we started in child protection, then we started doing the conferences in Youth justice. The first conference we did in Youth Justice involved a young man who had stolen a car, broke into a car, and stolen a car. And we held a conference and the, the victim was a young guy in his car still and he came to the conference, asked, did the young boy’s family, he had committed the crime and they, they talked about what happened and who’d been affected and how people fell and what needed to happen to put things right. And at the end of the conference, the guy had his car still and had problems at school, and he talked about ’em at the meeting. And the young boy committed the offense, had exactly the same problem. So they made this connection. This guy had stole his car, he was making a connection with the guy whose car was robbed. And at the end of the conference, he drove the young man home and his mum home in the very car that he’d stolen, which I thought was an interesting, fascinating signal about how relationships are repaired and can be repaired really quite quickly if you set the right conditions for that.

Chynah Boise (11:59):

That’s really remarkable. It almost, it almost sounds like a Hollywood movie.

Paul Nixon  (12:05):

Yeah.

Chynah Boise (12:06):

And I’m just, I, I’m realizing that you’re, you’re speaking now about the framework of restorative practice, having the, the victim and the, and the the person at the table. And I’m wondering for, for listeners who aren’t familiar with restorative practice, that might sound odd to them. Could you just for just briefly kind of explain that framework and what, what drives it? What makes it successful in these kinds of situations?

Paul Nixon  (12:34):

That’s a great question. So restorative theory, you could easily use the language of relational theory, but restorative workers are probably largely developed out of concerns around crime and harm and justice. But then it’s been developed and expanded to other areas of work. The principles and the principles are largely about relationships, how we build relationships, how we maintain relationships, and how we repair harm when harm occurs. So typically, if someone commits a crime, you know, the police arrest, they make a plea, they go to court, a judge decides what should happen to the young person some kind of punishment or in response to the wrongdoing with restorative theory, we actually seek to bring in the people most affected. So who are the people most affected? It’s not the judge. The judge is not most affected, or the cops, they’re not affected, but the person who’s been harmed is affected, and the person who’s committed the crime and their family is also affected deeply. So we bring those people together and if the victim wants to bring their own family or support person with them, they can do that. And so you prepare people for this type of meeting. You create the right conditions that people will be heard, that people can explain the impact of the crime on them and what how effect, how it’s affected them and what they want to see happen. And for the young person to talk about what were they thinking and why they did it. And it gets you to the why the much deeper level. And of course, once you do that, you get more understanding. Once you get more understanding, you get more empathy, and it leads you to a different conclusion. So people don’t have to participate in these processes. They’re not mandatory. They don’t have to show up big, but they’re given a choice. And in New Zealand, we do 10,000 family group conferences a year. We do,

Chynah Boise (14:27):

wow.

Paul Nixon  (14:27):

seven and a half thousand in care and protection, about two and a half thousand youth justice. And even for some of the most serious crimes apart from murder, we can hold a family group conference to make decisions about what should happen, about the crime, what should be done to put things right. Sometimes it’ll be referring the matter back to the court, and the court will make a judgment based on the decision of the family group conference, or sometimes the conference itself can make the decision and the matter is dealt with and left there. So the example I gave you, there were things for that young man to do to pay compensation for the harm it caused, and to do some chores in the local community center for the things he’d done. But what really caught our interest was how the relationship had been restored. And for the victim who’d just imagined this monster who had broke into his car and ruined, you know, stuff and stolen his car, he now saw a young person in a context of his family. He looked like a 14-year-old, which of course that what he was and doing daft things. And, you know, most young people grow outta crime. And if we take a different approach, we don’t have to draw them into the system. And we certainly don’t want to put young people in custody because if you want to guarantee someone a la lifetime of crime, you can do no better than lock them up in a young person’s institution. That just does not work. And we need more imagination about doing something different. So in New Zealand family conferences are our day-to-day work and bringing people together and building relationships and repairing relationships and repairing harm is our work. And it’s actually in our law in New Zealand. So the children, young people, and their families act now called the Oranga Tamariki Act, is our act which governs how we make decisions, how we involve family. And for Maori, that means whanau, which is your family connections, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunties, relatives your hapu, which is your sub-tribe, your local, your local community who’s connected to that whanau or your iwi, which is your tribe. Your word iwi means bones, literally the core of you, the core of your identity, and who you are, what you’re connected to. I forgot to mention in the mihi acknowledging people, I also did a peppeha, which was a description in excitement of being here in the studio. I forgot to mention Peppeha is about locating myself in terms of relationships to places and to people. So in New Zealand, the last thing you mention is your name, because you are the least important person in that set of relationships. So you talk about the mountain, the maunga that you are connected to. Conway Mountain North Wales, where I’m from, the wai, the river, you’re connected to where you are from and the importance of that river and that mountain and your identity and your place of being and rohe, which is the, you know, the area, the valley, the area, the people on, the people of Gwinnett North Wales. And then you talk a bit about, you know, your family and then finally you say your name, who you are, you are the least important person in that set of relationships. It’s not to say you’re not important, but you’re not. The mountain’s gonna be there far longer than you are, and many people will, you know, connect with that and the river will be outlive you. And that’s the nature of our relationship with the world. So when we introduce ourselves to New Zealand, we introduce ourselves in a connection to our relationships. And relationships are at the heart of what we do everywhere, ’cause relationships are the things that make us wanna live.

Chynah Boise (18:11):

Yeah.

Paul Nixon  (18:11):

You know, make us want to be joyful, connected to people we care about. We feel close to who support us, who encourage us. Like Gail, you know, I was just so happy. I was so happy, you know, walking out of the airport last night, and, you know, there he was in the car, took me home, put a glass in my hand, and we sat on the couch and chatted and all the energy from him just came back to me as it always does. And all his wisdom and knowledge and of course Gail went to New Zealand as well so that was another connection for us because he was very interested in family group conferences and did brilliant work in Canada with Joan Pennell and brilliant work in here in Vermont, getting family group conferences going. And and that’s super exciting. ’cause Now people are bringing that back and talking about, you know, getting people, families and communities back together again here in Vermont, which is really exciting for me. So just going back to the story. So I went to work in Hampshire and this thing grew and grew. We started to do it in youth justice care and protection for older people with mental health problems to help return them back to the community for young carers, for foster carers. And it was a rocky road, you know, because it was a different way of working. So people had to change their way of thinking and their way of behaving. And a true partnership, we change our behavior because of the other person we’re connecting to. I don’t mean we lose ourselves, but we are responsive to them.

Chynah Boise (19:34):

Right?

Paul Nixon  (19:35):

So rather than trying to fit them into our system or process or method, we are listening and responding and learning from them and adapting our behavior as a consequence of that. So it makes you rethink the nature of partnership. How we share power, how we share information, how we change ourselves. And I always see that as a measure of true partnership, is how much work am I doing to change what I do to be responsive to this child or this family or the situation? And, and, and that’s what family group conferences do. I’ll tell you the story that I’ve been working in South Australia and some fantastic people down there leading conferencing and a brilliant aboriginal leader called Sarah Decrea is Torres Strait Islander, actually. And and she just got this team of coordinators going, doing really radical things with decision making and fascinating to see. And we had this one conference up in the APY lands, the a APY’S really hot part of you know, Australia’s in the desert often at 40, 45 degrees. You know, it’s really hot. An aboriginal family had a conference and they asked for their conference standing in a river.

Paul Nixon  (20:45):

So when the social workers and the education professionals showed up for the conference, they literally had to get their pants off, not their underpants, but their pants off to get in the river and stand in a circle in the water with the Aboriginal family talking about their concerns, their worries, and what’s possible. And that’s changing our behavior. So the reason the family wanted standing in the river, ’cause when you live in the desert, there’s not much shelter. If you want to keep cool for any length of time, you stand in the water. And that was their tradition. There was a little island inside, inside the river. And after a bit of time that everyone climbed on the island, sat in the dirt and sat in a circle and just talked about what we need to do to help these children. And I think that’s an illustration, quite a visual illustration of us changing what we do, right? So those sorts of practices go on all the time is invites you into a space to do something different and change the way you make decisions. So we got, going at Hamshire, I got a lot of interest and that’s how I met Gail, was I learned about what was happening in Canada. And they just invented this thing called email at the time, which we were getting used to.

Chynah Boise (21:51):

<Laugh>.

Paul Nixon  (21:51):

That’s how long ago it was. So I was like sending emails to people that type with one finger and, and just seeing what happened. And I got Gail’s email. So I wrote to him, assuming he wouldn’t write back to me, you know, because he’s his sort of leading academic, doing all this amazing stuff and I’m just sort of some, you know, social worker shuffling around in Hampshire trying to get stuff. And he wrote back to me and, was just lovely. And we started a conversation and, and since that time we’ve been become really close friends and he’s always sort of mentored me and supported me. And I would say to any social worker starting out if you can find people who you find inspiring or who you know, who can help you and teach you and help you reflect on what you’re doing, then take that opportunity. Because, because you learn so much. And then when you get older and a bit more experienced as I am now, you can mentor people yourself and help people and you hand it on, you pass it on, that sort of, and Gail just said to me, come to America, you know, come to America and come and give a talk. And the first time he invited me, we’d just had a baby. My partner Nikki and I, and you know, didn’t have any money. And I said to my partner, I’m thinking this guy in America’s invited me to come and I think it’s like an opportunity. So can I get a ticket? So I got this ticket that just about flew across the Hall of America and ended up landing in Portland. And there was Gail standing in the airport one o’clock in the morning to pick me up and ever since that time we’ve just been really close friends and, and I’m just delighted to be back here in Vermont now with him and, you know, still learning from him and stuff. So I’m here for a week and very excited about that.

Paul Nixon  (23:29):

But I carried on doing the work in UK and family conferencing and restorative practice grew and grew. And then after 20 years of working in the UK I got this phone call from New Zealand saying, would I be interested in applying for the job of Chief Social Worker? So I did, I applied and I had to do an online interview ’cause they were gonna fly me out for an interview and wanted to see me on a screen first and talk to me. So the children’s commissioner and the head of the department interviewed me and one of the senior managers and I, so I spoke to the kids about it, like, ’cause I had three by by then. And I said, you know, I need some advice. We’ve gotta do this interview in New Zealand online, and what should I do? What should I say? And I’ve got the three Caris, Hayden, and Rihanna. And, and Rihanna’s the youngest. And she said, oh, speak clearly dad ’cause It’s gotta go a long way. It’s like, it’s gotta go all the way to the other side of the world. And Hayden,

Chynah Boise (24:20):

That’s precious.

Paul Nixon  (24:21):

Hayden said to me, sit up, dad, like you always slack, try and sit up a bit and you seat, you know, you’re always slouching such good advice. And Caris is the eldest said, I dunno, I dunno what to say, dad, really. And so I said, what do you think children in New Zealand would think about having a chief social worker from Wales? And she said, I don’t think they’d like it.

Chynah Boise (24:45):

<Laugh>.

Paul Nixon  (24:46):

<Laugh>. And then she said, actually, no, that, that wouldn’t matter to them. What would matter to them is how their social workers worked with them and how their social workers spent time with them and looked after them. So if you helped the social workers, then they’d be happy wherever you were from. And so that’s what exactly what I said in my interview. I sat up straight, I spoke as clearly as I could, and I told them that I’d been advised by my daughter to help the social workers do a good job. And so they offered me the job. So, you know, if you want any advice on anything going talk to children ’cause they’ll always give you great advice, really great advice. And then we moved out to New Zealand and, and I spent, you know, 10 years working there and really enjoyed being the chief social worker. And I was very conscious of the fact that I was, you know, white, British, Welsh social worker coming to this land. The world being colonized by Europeans and so much damage and harm had been caused. And so I spent a lot of time just going out to practitioners, social workers and listening to them and learning from them and about what was working, what wasn’t working, what they wanted to change, what they wanted to do differently. Spending time with Maori leaders, understanding their concerns and how they thought we should be practicing and working. And really thinking about how we could be responsive to Maori through government because we’d sort of failed in the past and still, still struggling really to do that well. But there was some brilliant stuff that happened there.

Paul Nixon  (26:13):

We tried advertising for Maori social workers and people just didn’t come. I mean, we had Maori social workers, but not that many. And people didn’t really come because they saw the government as oppressive and coercive. So I was asking Maori staff about who should I speak to? And they gave me some names of people I should, I should go and see. And and to those people really stood out to me. Leland Ruwhiu, who was a non-government social worker and the first Maori PhD and a brilliant, brilliant social worker and thinker, and a very formidable character. And Moana Eruera, who is from Ngapuhi Iwi. And Moana was also a, you know, independent, she was a leader, very clear to her tribe of people really influencing thinking and practiced. I went to see them and talked to them and they came and did interviews and we got, gave ’em the job and a job that did that together, man and woman. And, and worked brilliantly in that sort of dynamic of different iwis, different histories, different paths, but utterly committed to Maori leadership and changing practice. And so it was just a joy to work with Leland and Moana and learn so much from them. And what they did was they built a indigenous bicultural practice framework, which involved eight key principles. And those principles came from wide consultations with social workers with Maori people around the country, Maori elders leaders. And started to build a model for practice based on Maori values and Maori beliefs and Maori ways of working. And that became, that was named te toka tu moana. Te toka tu moana is the rock in the ocean. So it’s a metaphor of a navigational metaphor about when you get lost in sea or you’re in trouble in the sea, then you’ve got this rock as your guiding principle to get you home, back to land safely. So te toka tu moana is the rock in the ocean that guides you to be true and straight and effective in what you do. And, and there were eight principles that they developed with with the staff and developed a structure, local structure and a national structure to support Maori staff and Maori language and Maori leadership. So I’m just gonna tell you those eight principles, ’cause they’re interesting, and as you hear them you’ll think, oh yeah, that, yeah, that applies to all cultures. And we should learn so language te reo Maori, te reo Maori is the, is the Maori language. And you learn Maori when you work in New Zealand because if you learn a language, you learn a world view. And so words don’t translate straight to English. They have their own meaning and resonance, and you learn the importance of those words and why they’re there.

Paul Nixon  (29:04):

And you get an insight into a worldview. So the language is really important. Whakapapa. The word whakapapa, WHA whakapapa is all your connections and relationships to people, to places of identity, to places of belonging. So it’s your family, it’s your mountain, it’s your river, it’s your community, it’s your iwi, it’s your tribe, it’s your church, it’s whoever you are connected to, your whakapapa. Tikanga is the third principle. And that principle is around patterns of engagement. So how we engage with people, what are the processes we use and the methods we use to really engage effectively with people. And thinking about how we do that in all cultures, all cultures have a tikanga way of connecting and meeting together and then resolving together Whakamanawa is is a process of lifting people up. People’s mana, their inherent worth and value, lifting people up against the forces of oppression or whatever forces they represent, whether that’s a relationship or a context or a political environment, or even a countries.

Paul Nixon  (30:12):

How a a mana is to lift people’s manner and lift their sense of value and worth in the face of that harm or that oppression. Arahitanga is leadership. So rangatira is a leader. How we enable people to lead solutions in their own lives. How we enable people to take control over their own lives and show is the way they wanna live and how they what they need and, and create that condition for them to lead solutions and find answers. Manaakitanga is the principle of care and looking after people and nurturing people and finding ways to make people feel respected and valued and, and cared for. So how we look after people, manaaki is our commitment to caring for people. Kaitiakitanga is responsibility. So how we understand responsibility and the care and the protection of children and family and community, kaitiaki is to protect. So how do we build that notion of responsibility and build on people’s sense of responsibility for their family, their community, and really lift that up and support that.

Paul Nixon  (31:22):

And wairuatanga. Wairua there’s two words there. Wai is water and rua is two. So wairuatanga is a sense of knowing. So two waters, the the visible world that you can see and touch and feel and is obvious to you. And then the second water, which is something you sense and know, like spirituality or sensing deeply or knowing something deeply and tapping into that. And people they know instinctively and feel and sense what matters to them and wairua is that spirit, that feeling, that second water. So those principles governed, governed our practice and people took them and applied them in their day-to-day work with families and children in the context of child protection, which was just, you know, transformative, radical.

Chynah Boise (32:13):

And also like a no-brainer, like you said. Like I, I hear that and I’m like, yeah, the, this makes so much sense. The other thought that I had Paul, while you were talking is I’m gonna set an intention now to make sure that I get those notes from you and put them in our show notes so that listeners can, can see them. I am sure that there are people like myself who will be listening to this and going, I need to dig into this more. So I’m gonna get that from you and add that to our show notes. Thank you so much.

Paul Nixon  (32:43):

Oh, brilliant. I think that’s brilliant. And Maori culture is such a strong and powerful culture, beautiful culture. Very, it does affect you like, like so much indigenous culture around the world. And first nations people here, I’ve always found their ideas and their ways of living and working, really, really inspiring. So it’s just, you know, learning so much from those people and how important that learning is. So the, so the patterns changed and we ended up, we ended up with the social work workforce being 29% Maori.

Chynah Boise (33:13):

Wow.

Paul Nixon  (33:14):

People came not because of fancy adverts or more money, but they came because they wanted to work in ways that they believed in that thought were valuable for their culture and valuable for their people, and feeling that they would have a voice and a way of changing its system. And, and then eventually last move, the chief executive of the organization is Maori too.

Paul Nixon  (33:32):

So you see this change in the organization, this sort of brilliance of Maori culture influencing and shaping how the government works and how the government changes things. And there’s a story in the data. So if you look at the data around the numbers of children in care, there is international reporting on that. And Canada has about 80 per, for 80 per 10,000. So for every 10,000 children in the population, 80 are in care, Australia has a rate of about 90 per 10,000. Scotland has a rate of about 93. France has a rate of 120 per 10,000. New Zealand has a rate of 40 per 10,000.

Chynah Boise (34:14):

Wow.

Paul Nixon  (34:15):

So it has at least half and in some cases a third of the numbers of children in care that are the jurisdictions. And there’s a reason for that. The reason is they’ve changed the way you make decisions about children’s lives.

Paul Nixon  (34:29):

They’ve changed the way you make decisions about child protection. And in changing that way you change the outcome. And it’s very, it’s very clear in the, in the evidence, you know, the numbers as well as the, the sort of qualitative feedback and data we’re getting. The numbers tell a very powerful story. And if you have less children in care, then you have more resources. ’cause care is a very expensive endeavor. You have more resources to spend in families and communities and supporting them to do their job, you know, which is look after their children well and support the, support the parents to do that, and the wider family to do that. So it, it is transformative and, and right now it’s, I sort of to come full circle right now in England and Wales, literally right now it’s been through the House of Commons and it’s now in the House of Lords to propose to put family group conferences in the law in England and Wales. So 35 years on the influencers come, come now to England in a profound way. And, and they are changing the law to say that before there can be any application to a court, a family must be offered a a family group conference.

Chynah Boise (35:38):

Wow. How does that feel to you?

Paul Nixon  (35:40):

Very exciting. And, and to see that sort of shift in the jurist in a very big jurisdiction. I mean, you know, England, Wales, that’s, you’re talking about 60 million people to see that coming to England and, and Wales and being put in the law there and the opportunity for children enhancing their right to their family, their community, their culture, and making sure we do everything we can to help those children and their families resolve problems before we take, you know, their children away when, when there might be a different way of keeping the children safe. So it feels very exciting and it, and it’s just a whole lot of people, you know, working on that for many years they’ve been doing lots of conferencing in England, not mandated by law, but not, not excluded by law. So they’re able to do those conferences under the current law.

Paul Nixon  (36:31):

But now the difference is it’s been putting in put into law as an entitlement for children. And I think that’s really exciting because.

Chynah Boise (36:38):

It is exciting.

Paul Nixon  (36:38):

It protects children’s right. So seeing all that happening is very exciting and, and and as a social worker, you know, working in England and New Zealand to see that happening is, it just fills me with hope. There’s the usual problems around the quality of implementation and the funding and all those things that wrestle with government over, but just the fact that they’re putting that in as an entitlement to children really protects children from the over intervention of, of the state. And I think it’s really important that, you know, in all child protection work, getting the balance right is so important and we can over intervene and we can under intervene. But I think historically we’ve over intervened and over removed and actually we need to think differently about how we do that.

Paul Nixon  (37:17):

And so it’s exciting, exciting to see. And now I’m here in Vermont and, you know, supporting the government here to think about how it changes relationships in three main areas we’ve been talking about and thinking about. One is in our practice how we connect with children and families and communities in the business of keeping children safe and using things like conferencing and using relationships and rethinking how we practice. And the staff have been brilliant here. They’re really enthusiastic and very engaged and I’ve been, you know, it’s been inspiring to be with them and, and learn from them and see what they’re doing. And there’s a real appetite to think critically about practice, how we change those things. So practice is the first area. The second area is then our partnerships. So how we partner with other agencies, non-government agencies, government agencies, community groups and different people who are all in some way involved in the lives of children and wanting to help.

Paul Nixon  (38:11):

And there can be diff difficulties in those partnerships. People don’t understand their roles and they have different views about how we do things. So we’re using restorative, relational theory to help people think about those partnerships differently and to use some of the methods and processes to get people together and, you know, resolve conflicts and build agreements and find ways of working together more effectively. And then the third area is about organizational culture and leadership. So how do organizations think critically about relationships inside the organization and look after relationships in all its dimensions so that people feel supported and safe and happy to work. And that’s just so important. If we can really create those environments and people feel heard and like they have a role in leadership and a role in changing things, then they’re gonna be happier at work and more effective and and and more likely to stay and more likely to bring their energy to the work.

Paul Nixon  (39:08):

So we’re looking at all that, all those relationships, you know, quite systemically really, and thinking about how can we support the month to build there. And I’ve been really impressed with the leaders and the practitioners and just getting stuck into this and, and it’s a delight to be here. So we’ll see how we go. There’s a conference on Wednesday, a youth justice summit. The judges will be there. Community will be there. Other agencies will be there. It’ll be fascinating to see where the conversation goes. Gail will be there, my mentor and friend and the brilliant Jennifer Lu Ellen from Dalhousie University in, in Nova Scotia will be there who’s really astonishing brilliant leader in this relational, restorative field. And always listen to Jennifer and always learn from her. And it would be exciting to see her again. But I I, people often ask me as a social worker, you know, why do you think that you know what really works in social worker?

Paul Nixon  (40:05):

Why do you think you’re making a difference? And I say, well, you look at the relationships and the quality of relationships you build with people and then the effects on their lives. It’s not just what you do, it’s what people and families do and communities do and other agencies do. But you can start to create the right conditions for change. And I know that some social workers leave the profession ’cause they feel like they’re not enjoying it or not making progress. And I would say that the solution really is in relationships, is find ways to express your skills and your abilities and your ideas through relationships and and you will enjoy the work and you will make a difference in the lives of, of, of children and their families. And we’re now starting out, there was a series, you know, 35 years ago, there was a series of research studies done in the UK called Messages from Research.

Paul Nixon  (40:54):

And 19 different universities did these sort of long-term studies and outcomes in child protection. And we’re looking at what makes it work or what’s not working or what do we need to do differently. And it was consolidated into a single report, which is published in 1995, so a long time ago now. But the findings have been durable and they remain and they persist because we are finding out that relationships are critical. And, and what that report said was the single most important condition for success in child protection was found always to be the quality of the relationship between the child’s family and the responsible professional. So if you are looking for something that works, that’s what works. And I remember I was walking through, darling, I went back to Darlington years ago where I did my first social work job and this young man came pelting up to me, I didn’t know what was going on.

Paul Nixon  (41:46):

Came pelting up. Paul. Paul, Paul and I looked around, it was this young guy called Damien, who’s now in his twenties, but I worked with him when he was 14 and he was a, you know, he was quite prolific offender. I said, Paul, Paul, Paul, what you doing? Like he just came to say hello. And I was quite shocked, you know, but he remembered me and he came up to me and he said, I just wanna say thank you for all the help you gave me when I was, you know, in trouble. And I, I smiled, I said, Damien, that’s really sweet of you. But honestly, I, I don’t think I was that helpful. Like, I didn’t know I was doing really, I was just trying my best. He said, yeah, yeah, but I know but you really stook, you really stook up for me.

Paul Nixon  (42:19):

You really stook up for me and, you know, stood up for me. And, and, and that made a difference. No one else was doing that. And and I didn’t realize that sometimes little things can go a long way. You know, I didn’t realize that just sometimes the small things we do as social workers can go an awful long way. And so never underestimate that. Never underestimate what you can achieve through a relationship. And at the time it might not feel that much, but he remembered. You know, at 15 years on he remembered, you know?

Chynah Boise (42:48):

Yeah.

Paul Nixon  (42:49):

So I think it’s I think social workers can take heart from the evidence and from their experiences. And I would encourage any child protection agency to think about relationships and any social work service to think about relationships and the quality of relationships because that’s where you make the biggest difference. That’s where you feel fulfilled in your role. Like, I understand this and how it’s working, what I’m doing, and I think that is what social work is. Yeah.

Chynah Boise (43:16):

Beautiful. Wow. What a powerful message to, to end on. Thank you so much for your time, Paul. This has been a really incredible conversation and I hope that your, your conference on Wednesday goes well.

Paul Nixon  (43:30):

Thanks so much. It’s been lovely to be here. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Cassie Gillespie (43:37):

The Social Work Lens is produced by the University of Vermont’s Child Welfare Training Partnership and the State of Vermont. Our theme music is composed and performed by local band Brick Drop, and our sound production and engineering has been brought to you by Egan Media Productions. We’d also like to give a special thank you to our in-house administrative production assistant Emma Baird. For the Social Work Lens, I’m Cassie Gillespie, and we’ll see you next time.