Life Story Work
Fostering First Ireland’s Life Story Work is built upon the theory of:
“It is difficult to grow up as a psychologically healthy adult if one is denied access to one’s own history.”
Vera Fahlberg
In essence, this means that children who do not live with their families of origin, and who may have had multiple moves, often lack information about their personal histories. This can lead to difficulties in their development of identity, self-esteem and sense of ‘self’. When a child or young person loses track of their past it can make them feel unimportant.
How FFI Life Story Work helps
Through Life Story Work, FFI encourages children and young people we look after to document their time in care.
This is achieved through an ongoing process of building a substantial record of their time with FFI, including information about their Support Workers, carers, their time in Respite Care, photographs of themselves and other significant people and places, activities they have done, anecdotes, carers/staff members’ thoughts and memories of them, achievements, and schools they may have attended.
Life Story Work helps children to make sense of their past, gain a balanced understanding of their present and, as an ongoing process, plan for a healthy and stable future.
Addressing the needs of every child or young person
Life Story Work further exemplifies our commitment to producing successful outcomes for children and young people looked after by FFI foster carers. It also highlights that when defining outcomes, we don’t limit ourselves to the success at the end of a placement – we measure the opportunities we provide to looked after children and young people for the rest of their lives.
Are you interested in learning more about Life Story work? (Click on the following links)
Content © Fostering First Ireland 2012