There’s a large area of common up the hill behind my house, where Cotswold stone was once quarried – ideal for dog walking. I was out there this morning and looked down to the floor of one of the quarries, about seventy feet below me; someone had collected stones and small boulders and laid out the message, ‘You’re loved’.
It was a drizzly day, I am recovering from flu and feeling not the best, but this message made me smile. It must have taken quite some time to gather the stones and compose the message – a real labour of love.
It reminded me of another message that someone had sprayed on the side of a bridge over a road that I used to drive down quite a lot. It said in huge, graffitied script, ‘I love you, Lyd.’ Whenever I drove under the bridge I would reflect on how fortunate Lyd was to have such a devoted admirer (how did he manage to hang down from the top of the wall – suspended over the road – and spray his message so legibly?). It was several months before the powers that delete graffiti removed this declaration.
Both of these are bold statements, impossible to ignore. They would be powerful messages for some people – and yet leave others untouched; they’re not intended for them.
The Quiet Acts That Speak the Loudest
However, the quiet, unobtrusive ways of proclaiming love are just as powerful in their own way: the hot water bottle in their bed when the teenager returns late on a wintry night, the favourite meal served after a child returns from family time, dispirited and distressed – and so many more.
Why Love Matters in Therapeutic Parenting
When I am delivering courses in therapeutic parenting I stress the importance of building a secure and loving relationship with a child in care; only thus can a child or young person who has suffered significant maltreatment or neglect begin to rewire their brains to a pattern where adults are seen as safe and the world is not such a dangerous place after all.
But for that relationship to be as secure as it needs to be, the carers need to make a significant investment of love – the tough, determined sort of love that will go through thick and thin to achieve the necessary good outcomes. And it should surely extend beyond the duration of the placement.
A Call for Lifelong Connections in Care
It was stated in a government report (Children's Social Care: Stable Homes, Built on Love. Government Consultation Response September 2023) that it was their ‘aspiration that by 2027, every care-experienced child and young person will feel that they have strong, loving relationships in place’.
As a result of a large study to ascertain young people’s feelings on the subject, a lifelong guardianship order was proposed, as a way for care-experienced people to legally formalise a lifelong bond with someone they cared about. Respondents to this question were largely in support of lifelong legal bonds with over two-thirds either agreeing (215 out of 524, 36%) or strongly agreeing (217 out of 524, 37%) that a care-experienced person would want to be able to form such a bond, typically with a foster parent (page 38).
That was in 2023 – and I have heard nothing since. Have you? I can imagine that when someone did the costings of such a proposal the idea was allowed to sink into the murk of oblivion. And yet it’s what young people need to feel they have a secure future and some light in their tunnel.
Christmas, Care and the Love That Lasts
The message of Christmas has always been about love – whether focused on a baby in a manger in a stable or on the gifts that people give to each other. Our foster children understand the gifts – and often measure love by the amount of money spent on them. But what they need is the other sort of love, the love that extends beyond their eighteenth birthday and is quietly extraordinary in its depth and breadth.
About Martha
Martha (not her real name) is a senior member of the Flourish training team. She started blogging for Flourish just over four years ago. Her special interest is in developmental trauma and how parental figures can support children and young people in creating the attachments necessary to overcome the injuries inflicted by early adversity. If you are interested in promoting the therapeutic skills essential for this work in your own setting, please contact talk@flourish.co.uk
