I am an independent children and families social worker and trainer. My Fellowship explored kinship care, contact with birth family and life story work in Australia. These topics and the connections between them have been abiding interests throughout my working life. The three strands all relate to the ways in which children in care maintain connections with their families of origin and how they make sense of their history and identity.

I had been looking for some good practice examples but discovered a whole new way of thinking about life story through collaborative, creative practice led by care-experienced adults working as artists, poets, playwrights and historians using the places and records from their past as material for reclaiming their own stories. I also found practitioners who acknowledged the impact of state intervention in the lives of the families they worked with, across generations.

My learning has influenced my own practice and my work as a trainer. I want to explore how we can integrate a sense of collective history into life story work in the UK. I was inspired to return to study and am completing a MSt in history.