Supporting the creative use of technology to improve life story work for vulnerable children- trove as a case example from REACT

Lead Research Organisation: University of Bristol
Department Name: Sch for Policy Studies

Abstract

This proposal is intended to enhance the value and wider benefit of the knowledge exchange originally funded under AHRC REACT- trove. Trove is a digitally enabled memory box that allows children to attach stories to their precious objects and to take control over the telling of their life story through their precious objects, underpinned by Watson's work on life story books for adopted children. The original REACT funding provided the opportunity to rapidly develop a prototype and to test it with a small cohort of children. The project gave a positive indication that this type of technology could have transformative potential. However, it became apparent that the potential of such a technological intervention would have an implication on social and family worker practice and their role in supporting children to construct their own identity narrative using trove. It also highlighted key concerns around such solutions, namely security and affordability.
Trove has the potential to inform more positive outcomes for society's most vulnerable children and young people but for it to become purchased and used the value it offers needs to be better understood by the sector. Such a change in practice requires an in-depth understandings of the importance of material objects to identity: how the technological life story solution might work in the most challenging social care spaces for children and what the barriers and therapeutic benefits are. This is why it is essential to widen the skills and knowledge in this creative economy partnership.
The proposal therefore combines new academic partnerships (with computer science and industrial design) and new sector partnerships (Mulberry Bush School and Bristol Children and Families Services) with existing sector partner Coram and creative partner Studio Meineck. The partnership will focus on addressing the known challenges for the prototype and further our understanding of the sector needs and route forward for this technology based intervention to be adopted. This intelligence will enable the creative partner to progress the prototype and position it within the social care market. The proposal is also supported with an in kind donation from the Hadley Trust and with academic and sector specific knowledge provided through the team's association with the Hadley Centre- world renown research centre on adoption and fostering. These partnerships would not be enabled through any other funding mechanism and represent an unparalleled opportunity to embed the technology within the sector and positively enhance the creative partner's ambition to get the trove solution to market.
The aims for the proposal are:
-To support children who have been taken into care to capture their early childhood stories and memories and to keep objects of meaning securely
-To support children to have advocacy over their story and to communicate and share this with their adopted families or carers where they wish to
-To support social workers and care organisations to best support children in care
-To create a sustainable business model and ensure the uptake of the solution
These aims will be addressed by 6 concurrent work packages with user centred design and co-production principles underpinning the work: Understanding system, mapping networks, and stakeholder needs; Developing Academic justification for technologies in life story work; Co-designed digital intervention development; User trials and analysis; Sector engagement event; Developed and extended evidence-based business plan including route to market. There are a number of planned outputs: a scalable, maintainable, secure and trial ready prototype; a short film dedicated to capturing trove developments and sector endorsements; a good practice guide for social workers; a toolkit for adults supporting children's use of trove; a policy briefing; a sector seminar in Bristol; a joint sector engagement event in the Foundling Museum or Coram Headquarters.

Planned Impact

Direct beneficiaries will be children in care and adopted children. We will work with two distinct groups of children (approx 100) in very different care environments to test our assumptions, and feedback into the design process. We expect them to benefit from being part of the project, by giving them a chance to voice their experiences of life story work so far, by giving them independence and confidence by being our 'experts' whilst addressing the design aspects and functions of trove. Long term it is hoped that the benefits of technologically enhanced life story work and a focus on material objects will have impact on high numbers of children and young people in care and those who have been adopted. It is hard to estimate exact numbers of potential beneficiaries but there were 70,440 looked after children at 31 March 2016 (DfE, 2016) and over the last 12 years in England alone 40,000 children have been adopted. In addition 200,000 children are being brought up by relatives rather than birth parents. Such a product may also have huge benefits for asylum seeking children and young people who have experienced dislocation and loss. Latest figures for unaccompanied migrant children in the UK (BBC, September 2016) quote over 4000 yet recent arrivals from Calais will have inflated this further. These young people enter care and could potentially benefit a great deal from a product focused on re-constructing their memories and sense of coherent identity narrative.
Social workers will also be major beneficiaries in respect of the focus on an aspect of practice that currently has little training or resource afforded. Feedback so far from social work practitioners suggests that whilst they personally see the crucial role of good life story work (including production of a book and curation and storying of material objects) it is not a practice that is well understood or supported by managers when competing safeguarding demands are prioritised and staffing shortfalls are common. They will benefit from their contributions to the design process as well as to engaging in the sector seminar (Bristol) and the sector event in London where this aspect of practice will be foregrounded and supported with a good practice guide and toolkit for practitioners and carers.
Those caring for children in care will also be beneficiaries in respect of foster carers and adoptive parents who engage with the events and who benefit from the support provided by the associated toolkit and good practice guide. Initial consultations with parents and carers has raised concerns about the symbolism (pandora box) of trove and how they are to manage sensitive disclosures and the unfolding memories and understandings. The work with the residential therapeutic school is particularly important in this context as we need to better understand the risks and benefits of engaging with trove for children affected by trauma.
Our partners will also be key beneficiaries and their letters of support outline in what ways they feel participation in the project will enable them to foreground and improve life story work practice that engages with technologies to include children's material objects. Across the three partnerships this could potentially have impacts across 9 local authority children's services (Coram has influence in 7 + Oxford and Bristol) and disseminated across practice networks with national reach. This could potentially reach thousands of beneficiaries in the looked after and adoption sector.
Finally we expect our work to have impact on policy making decisions as one of our outputs focuses specifically on addressing policy makers, commissioners of services and research in the sector and academics. This could for example be through adoption of the trove solution as a therapeutic intervention that could be funded for children under the Adoption Support Fund or in recommendations for changes to initial social work training.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Title Product promotion film on YouTube 
Description Short promo film that consolidates design, user centred testing and academic justification for the trove bag 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2019 
Impact Yet to be realised as just been posted online 
URL https://youtu.be/42j-EJcyaN4
 
Description Key findings have been to emphasise and evidence from children in care and those adopted and social work professionals the value and potential of using children's material objects as part of their life story work to enable gaps in biographical memory to be addressed and to allow children control and agency over the construction of their life story. This is a fundamentally important finding in a sector that tends towards creating life stories FOR children and in a context where we know that the potential for long term harm of not understanding what has happened to you as a child in the care system are high. DfE (2015) statistics confirm that over half children in care have a diagnosed mental health condition and two thirds have special educational needs so an intervention such as trove that allows children some control over their life story is essential.
Beyond this finding has been the understanding that we have conveyed to the sector of the value of material culture in the everyday lives and memory work of children. This has involved extensive reviews of literature across many disciplines of knowledge (archaeology, anthropology, refugee, dementia and bereavement studies).
We also have developed key insights into the mechanisms of storying by children who often have exceptionally traumatic stories to share. This has led us to develop a multi-media storying app that uses NFC tech to enable stories to be attached to specific objects using photos, video, and audio.
We have a far better understanding of design needs across the sector and ways in which we can address security concerns for all stakeholders. This has resulted in developing particular encryption methods that are child friendly.
The trove project has led into an ESRC IAA project which is exploring and emphasing the need for training and support for adults working with children and young people whose life story has traumatic elements and we are considering with sector partners how to devise training that fills a much needed sector gap to enable children to be able to ask difficult questions about their past and in turn for the adults in their life to have the tools to be able to respond appropriately and truthfully in ways that support positive mental health and identity outcomes.
Exploitation Route There are commercial sensitivities around the trove bag and mobile app as these are integral to the business plans for Chloe Meineck, Studio Meineck who will be taking forward the next iteration of trove and looking for investors to realise the business plan that has been developed as part of this award and as such the trove prototype will be developed and she is seeking kickstarter or crowd funding to enable manufacture. The contract in place with Chloe provides her 5 years as the creative SME to exploit the IP of the design.

Other ways in which research will be taken forward are:
1. the app will be developed within the original trove prototype as well as adapted for research and possibly include translation into different languages. This is in collaboration with academics at Sheffield Hallam, Huddersfield, Tampere in Finland, Edinburgh and colleagues in Zambia and Vietnam.

2. The academic work on the use of trove, objects in life story work is all open access and is contributing strongly to sector knowledge and practice with vulnerable children.

3. The ESRC IAA project will take findings from the project into sector specific training around how social workers, adoptive parents and foster carers can enable difficult conversations with children about their reasons for being in care and their care journey. This will directly utilise learning from the project and enable translation to frontline practitioners and family members. In order to do this I will partner with a training professional who is both an adopter and extremely experienced in disseminating and facilitating conflict based training.
4. There are a series of academic and sector facing outputs as well as training tools planned from the ESRC award above- to be developed in 2020.
Sectors Communities and Social Services/Policy

Creative Economy

Education

Healthcare

URL http://studiomeineck.com/trove/
 
Description Impact on practitioners and delivery of professional services The underpinning research has resulted in numerous invitations to keynote key social work, adoption and foster carer conferences and training events to disseminate and raise awareness of the importance of life story work for care experienced and adopted children and young people (London, Kent, Gloucester, Somerset, Southampton). Integral to the dissemination in stakeholder groups has been the production of two short films about trove that have been funded by AHRC REACT and AHRC Creative Economy follow-on. These are on YouTube where they have combined views of 908: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kQJiE7IdJs 483 views https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42j-EJcyaN4 425 views Watson et al's work has been cited and influenced thinking on life story work in Governmental reports in the UK (DfE) and Europe (Germany and Denmark). In the UK Watson et al (2015b) has been cited as a source in terms of arguments for open understandings of adoption and the impact on identity in a Department for Education report: 'Cornerstone Adoption Support Programme Evaluation Report' (Lucock et al, 2017) where the authors critique the Cornerstone programme as not addressing research evidence outlined in Watson et al's (2015b) paper: 'the significance of research findings on effective and promising approaches to enabling children to develop narrative coherence about their life story' (Watson et al., 2015) Other governmental citations include a report for the German Research Center on Adoption, part of the Government's Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (Germany): 'Post-adoption support and intervention for adoptive families: Best practice approaches' (Selwyn, 2016) which refers to Watson et al (2015a) to confirm the absence of research on life story books. Watson et al (2015b) is cited in a report for the National Research and Analysis Centre, a Governmental research centre in Denmark 'Growing up as adopted in Denmark' (Pedersen & Olsen, 2017) where the article is used to justify the need for open communication in adoption in order to have a 'positive impact on the identity formation of adopted people' (p.17). The adoption and fostering sector have also acknowledged the impact of this underpinning work. Director of Policy, Research and Development of sector leading adoption agency CoramBAAF, John Simmonds has commented: 'Debbie's publications have been a very important part of the evidence base with a clear description of the issues and processes, what is being tested and what outputs, outcome and impact looks like. It is changing the sector's perspective on what matters and what influences positive outcomes for children who have a very difficult start in life. Overall, we would not be in the positive and hopeful place we are if it were not for Debbie's significant contribution over recent years. I hope that more is to come' (John Simmonds, testimonial, 29.07.19) These impacts are echoed by Deputy CEO of voluntary adoption agency Coram who notes the importance of Watson et al's theoretical work in providing justification for their intuitive practice incorporating objects into life story work (Renuka Jeyarajah-Dent, testimonial, August 2019). Testimonial evidence from the CEO of Mulberry Bush Therapeutic Residential School who partnered on the trove project, confirms the impacts of trove in a therapeutic context: 'one helpful idea that has emerged from the project is that of attaching stories to things i.e. children take photos around the school that represents feelings they have e.g. ''Safe' reminds me of my bedroom because I feel safe in there'. We then reflect on this and think of the word 'safe' in relation to their early years before coming into care. This was a concept developed from speaking with the trove team' (John Diamond, testimonial, 2019). Whilst the benefits of using digital approaches to life story work has influenced a Regional Adoption Agency manager: 'The trove project has made us think about other ways to keep not only information but objects and memories alive for young people in an accessible format. Whilst we have still focus on providing a life story book, we are beginning to explore more modern ways of storing and accessing information and objects. This is work in progress but has been stimulated by the work of Professor Watson and her colleagues' (Heather Freeman, email 29.07.19) In a fostering context, trove was a news feature on the DfE funded Fosterline website delivered by FosterTalk. This is a confidential, impartial, advice information and signposting on the broad range of issues of concern to foster carers and those interested in fostering, in order to support them in their role, aid retention and encourage recruitment of foster carers: http://www.fosterline.info/trove-storytelling-bag-for-children-in-care/. The impact of trove in improving life story practice in agencies and local authorities has been articulated by many professionals, but it has also been recognised that the methods, the focus on children's objects and the use of digital technologies can also be applied to other social work interventions such as Signs of Safety - an innovative strengths-based, safety-organised approach to child protection casework which is being used extensively in Local Authority teams (Ann James, testimonial, 30.07.19) -so the impact goes beyond children in the care system to a much bigger cohort of children as Signs of Safety is used by practitioners who are concerned about any child in need. Clearly funding a digital intervention such as trove for children is a challenge and one means of unlocking DfE funding is to be listed in the Adoption Support Fund's list of fundable interventions and treatments. This allows money to be drawn down by Local Authorities, Regional Adoption Agencies and families to support therapeutic interventions for children of upto £5000/ child. We have been informed that trove has been listed in 'an audit of adoption support practice and plans in the newly established Regional Adoption Agencies (RAAs). This includes showcasing exciting practice, products and innovations' (Mark Owers, independent government adviser on children in care and permanence who assembled the list of adoption support practices to be funded, email 07.06.19). This is an incredibly important outcome as this will allow trove to be funded for adopted and special guardianship cared for children by the Adoption Support Fund under their classification of: Life story work with a therapeutic intervention. Impacts on cultural industry and business The research underpinning this case has also been used in the establishment of Studio Meineck Ltd: Company number 10885137. https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10885137. This is based on two key 'technology for good' products designed by Chloe Meineck the company's founder and director: Music Memory Box and trove. In the initial AHRC REACT project Chloe brought her design expertise and entrepreneurial experience, whilst Watson provided the underpinning research and sector understandings and research access and secured research funding to co-design and test trove and it is this body of work that has provided a strong academic case for why trove is needed, how it will impact children's lives and what the risks of using trove are. See company website: http://studiomeineck.com/ Within the creative industry, trove has been recognised as an inspiring example of how technology can transform lives by being selected to be listed on the Social Tech Guide, by the Nominet Trust which compiles the most comprehensive collection of inspiring examples of technology transforming lives and communities for the better. https://www.socialtech.org.uk/projects/trove/ The training resources and website that have been developed as part of the ESRC IAA funded Difficult Conversations project are just being piloted and I will be collecting impact evidence of their use through website metrics and a training evaluation which all users need to complete. Hard launch of this was delayed due to technical difficulties and access to funding, but we have now Beta tested the website and resources and are ready to do a full launch. We currently have about 20 social work colleagues accessing the resources as part of training they are providing but we have not been collecting the evaluation data in this testing phase. We have also made a new collaboration recently with a young people's arts charity in Glasgow who are keen to test trove with their children and young people. We will be doing this in a residential in Inverness in April 2023 and the hope is that the charity will take on further development of the trove app and have funding from the Scottish Government to do so. We will be putting in place a no cost exclusive licence to use the trove IP and to develop the app within their organisation. The work with Articulate has developed as planned and we have a paper out for review on this as reported under partners section. the Difficult Conversations website has over 40 registered users of the resources we created.
First Year Of Impact 2019
Sector Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education
Impact Types Cultural

Societal

 
Description 'Difficult Conversations: developing research-led training in dealing with looked after and adopted children's difficult life story questions'
Amount £15,638 (GBP)
Funding ID ES/M500410/1 
Organisation Economic and Social Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2019 
End 07/2020
 
Description Difficult Conversations impact project 
Organisation CCS Adoption
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution We are bringing research expertise and developing with partners training outputs that they can deliver to foster carers and adopters
Collaborator Contribution Organising workshops; recruiting participants; providing support to participants; free provision of training rooms and staff
Impact Papers in process
Start Year 2019
 
Description Difficult Conversations impact project 
Organisation CoramBAAF
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution We are bringing research expertise and developing with partners training outputs that they can deliver to foster carers and adopters
Collaborator Contribution Organising workshops; recruiting participants; providing support to participants; free provision of training rooms and staff
Impact Papers in process
Start Year 2019
 
Description Difficult Conversations impact project 
Organisation Gloucester City Council
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution We are bringing research expertise and developing with partners training outputs that they can deliver to foster carers and adopters
Collaborator Contribution Organising workshops; recruiting participants; providing support to participants; free provision of training rooms and staff
Impact Papers in process
Start Year 2019
 
Title miine app 
Description In development/ prototype stage this will be a story app that works alongside the storage box 'trove' and uses NFC technologies to enable children to attach stories to meaningful objects. Prototype phase at the moment. 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2018 
Impact In development so will add as we progress 
 
Title trove bag and integrated android app 
Description The next generation trove prototype- developed as a soft children's bag made from felt with an integrated android phone which has a bespoke multi-media storying app. This uses NFC technology to enable children to add stories to specific objects using NFC tags and we have developed 5 prototypes to be tested in further research/ marketing as part of the ongoing business plan. 
Type Of Technology Physical Model/Kit 
Year Produced 2018 
Impact Yet to be realised as prototype only just developed 
 
Title trove memory box 
Description Physical storage box designed with looked after and adopted children and carers under AHRC REACT but next phase prototype underway. Utilises Raspberry pi and RFID but being re-coded for NFC tags 
Type Of Technology Physical Model/Kit 
Year Produced 2018 
Impact In progress and will add detail 
 
Company Name Studio Meineck 
Description Studio Meineck designs healthcare products which are meant to enhance mental health & well-being, its products include the Music Memory Box which is designed to allows dementia patients to recall memories via music. 
Year Established 2017 
Impact Studio Meineck will be continuing to attract funding, test the new prototypes and scale up the ambition for trove. But this is early days as the project is only just coming to an end. As a result of the Studio being part of the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol we have developed our impact reach to include creative industry and are hosting an additional showcase event there on Monday 26th November 2018.
Website http://studiomeineck.com
 
Description Invited keynote at BERA Childhood SIG conference, Huddersfield 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Invited keynote presenting creative and participatory methods in trove and Life Chances projects. Addressing possibility for these methods in research with children.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://www.bera.ac.uk/event/digging-into-data
 
Description Keynote for British Psychological Society conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact British Psychological Society Annual Conference (2018) Enhancing Wellbeing in Education (2018) 14-15th September 2018, 'Supporting Looked after and adopted children's wellbeing in schools', Wolfson College, University of Oxford.
The lecture focused on the importance of life story work and narrative identity for looked after and adopted children, raising awareness of needs of these populations in schools amongst Educational Psychologists, teachers and academics. IN particular it focused on discussion as trove as an intervention that could support this work in schools.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www1.bps.org.uk/events/conferences/psychology-education-section-annual-conference-2018-enhan...
 
Description Keynote for Third Sector conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Releasing Potential (2018) 11th July 2018, 'Children telling their stories of care and adoption: co-designing a technologically enhanced memory box', Southampton. Keynote lecture given about the need for looked after and adopted children to engage in life story work, the mental health risks associated with being in care and trove as a possible solution to encouraging greater engagement of children in life story work through objects.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www.releasingpotential.com/institute/conference-2018/
 
Description Keynote speaker for Adoption conference, Cardiff University 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Invited keynote at Adoption conference with an audience of PhD students, academics and other stakeholders in adoption.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://sites.cardiff.ac.uk/adoptioncohort/files/2017/05/CARC_Publicityv2.pdf
 
Description Ofsted training for social care inspectors 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact I provided a training session for Social Care Ofsted inspectors on trove, life story work and the need to include a focus on narrative identity in children's homes and residential care inspections for children in the care system. This was about hilighting a need in the children's social care arena and these were senior inspectors who have a SW and Midlands remit to inspect children's homes, residential schools and secure homes.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description trove project showcase event 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Project end event at Foundling Museum in London in partnership with CoramBAAF. About 60 attendees including many social workers, adoption and fostering agencies and adopters. Resulted in at least two Local Authorities wanting to pilot trove bag with app and possible follow on funding interest from a social business entrepreneur who was very interested. An attendee posted this blog post after the event: https://howtobeadopted.com/home/2018/whats-life-story
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://howtobeadopted.com/home/2018/whats-life-story