Lifelong Learning - L’s Service Provider Story
Lived Experts may interact with Service Providers in various roles at organizations providing various services. A comprehensive understanding of the living experience of child welfare systems and permanency journeys can help professionals do their best work. In 2024, we began to build on our work with Service Providers by creating a training and peer-support opportunities. L was part of a group of nine service providers from six different organizations that participated in the Service Provider Training Pilot.
This is an excerpt from our 2023 - 2024 Annual Report.
As someone who has worked in the child welfare field for a long time, L has a lot of experience and is familiar with many of the challenges of doing this work. Right now, she is an Adoption Worker that uses a child-focused recruitment model.
What does it mean to take a childfocused approach? L describes it as building a connection with that young person, “I think it’s about showing up and continuing to show up. There is longevity to it, it’s not overnight work. I work for years and years with some young people. And just grounding the process at the youth’s pace and consent. It’s them leading the journey.”
To focus on the relationship, L spends her times with the young people that she works with by doing things like going on bike rides, picnics, and supporting them through important life events. L expresses gratitude for being able to do those kinds of things and knows not everyone has the same support and resources.
Another important aspect of the work for L is trying to build the young person up to see their own worth and plan for the future. This means reflecting on the language she uses when having permanency conversations with young people, “I don’t really use the word adoption with my young people,” she explains, “I just think that it can be so triggering and have so many meanings. I use words like connection, and family and meaningful relationships, people who can be there to support them as they grow.”
For L, the highlight of participating in the Service Provider Training at Never Too Late (NTL) was learning from Lived Experts directly, “I crave hearing people’s stories because I can learn from those. For me I just think it was real, it was enriched, it was connected, it felt relevant. I wish every training could have that component.”
One of the more challenging aspects of L’s work is when the adults in a young person’s life all have a different view of what is best for that young person. It could be about a decision to tell a hard truth, change placements and in some circumstance the decision to explore permanency at all, “this is the young person’s life, but a lot of this gets blocked because people have fear and anger and power.”
Professionals in the child welfare sector are often faced with difficult situations and impossible choices. Which is why it is so important for them to receive the resources and support they need to do this deep and complex work. Without those resources, everyone suffers the consequences: professionals, families and caregivers and most of all the young people themselves.
Not everyone understands why permanency work is so important. We know that young people who are involved with child welfare systems often experience adverse outcomes such as mental health challenges, housing insecurity, justice-system involvement, and poverty, “I think that I used to hang on to that harder…” L tells us, but her experience in this work has shifted her focus, it’s become more seeing how permanency can provide “a sense of identity, a sense community, a sense of belonging, a sense of worthiness.” This aligns closely with what Never Too Late (NTL) strives to create for Lived Experts through connection with Humans, supports and our community.
Despite challenges still existing in permanency work, L is hopeful that things are changing, and that people are increasingly seeing the importance of permanency planning for Lived Experts. As our Service Provider community grows, we hope Never Too Late (NTL) will become a place where professionals who are passionate about permanency can connect with one another for support, resources and education. We look forward to building relationships with more Service Providers with a shared commitment to creating opportunities for permanency for Lived Experts.