CHILD
IN CARE
April 12, 2025
I was brought up in foster care from the age of 3 1/2. I have been researching my life as a child in care to understand why I have been able to challenge the dominant discourses on children in care by having a satisfying and useful life rather than the persistent narratives of children brought up in care having poor life outcomes such as prostitution, drug addiction, homelessness and prison.
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I have been working with a fellow Living Theorist, Robyn Pound, to develop a research method using Adlerian Early Recollections to help me understand what helped me to be the hope I want to see in the world.
ICASSI ROMANIA 2019
Overview
Robyn and I took a workshop to International Committee of Adlerian Summer Schools and Institutes (ICASSI) in Romania July 2019. The workshop was a great success in achieving our aims to introduce the use of Adlerian early recollections as a research method for practitioner-researchers. As two practitioner researchers working in community projects in the UK, we asked, ‘How can we understand, improve and explain what we each do to enhance wellbeing amongst people we meet?’ In reflective self-study using Living Educational Theory approach, we explore values motivating us in our processes of becoming. Sonia, researching for a PhD, is particularly interested in her self-created style to avoid usual statistical outcomes from being a ‘child in care’, to become the Chief Executive of a large charity supporting carers. Robyn, in post-PhD research, builds on her values of ‘alongsideness’ to support parents, children and practitioners in a therapeutic movement charity. Our presentation invites your help to develop your learning and extend ours in the use of Adlerian early recollections to find fuller meanings in the self-ideals underpinning values we claim motivate and improve our practices.