Faces, spaces, places... why we must cultivate belonging

At the age of 21, having left the care system four years previously, I began my degree in sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. 

Three years later, I handed in my dissertation. Its title was: Why the care system does not care: discussed with reference to five women’s experiences and their feelings of low self-worth.

The findings – which were deeply entangled with my own unexplored and unhealed experiences of having been in care – found that isolation from the lack of continuity of relationships was a key factor in feelings of low self-worth. 

What I took from that exploration was that while providing someone with somewhere to live meets a very basic practical need, if there is no-one that can be invited round for tea, it could be thought of as somewhat pointless. 

The human motivation to belong, to have relationships that bear witness to us, that help us need and be needed, must form part of the healing process after the trauma of coming into care.

Little did I know then that I would spend the rest of my career researching, training and consulting on how we think about belonging, relationships and connection for children, young people and the adults that they become, who have and are experiencing trauma. 

Unbelonging

The word ‘unbelonging’ is a fairly new word, first coined, it’s thought, by Germaine Greer. It’s a word I have used to help practitioners think about the experience of severed relationships, the continuous movement faced by children in care. 

Movement is unavoidable for children who come into contact with the care system: movement of homes, movement of schools, change of social workers, movement of communities, movement of the writers of the very documents that will be sought after one day to gather important information to make sense of a childhood lived and often also lost. 

Unbelonging denotes a sense of displacement, a feeling of being on the outside, a search for a home that cannot be assuaged. The work of cultivating belonging, of developing relationships that make a difference and have longevity, is often not the priority. 

In that regard, we might think that not much has changed since I wrote my first dissertation. Yet the word ‘belonging’ is in almost every conference title and features in service strategy documents.

Trauma-informed practice should, when done well, focus on relationships in ways that seek to mitigate the feeling of unbelonging. Relational practice is present in many children’s services around the country. Lifelong links considers relationships beyond the service in a bid to respect and build relationships which in many ways, but with far more sophistication and nuance than I was capable of at such a young age, responds to my dissertation findings all those years ago. So there has definitely been change. 

Intersectionality

My most recent research question asked How do care experienced adults who were also excluded from school make sense of belonging? The impact of not having relationships and how this showed up in adulthood came through for every single one of the participants. 

Being in care always intersects with something, whether it is race, neurodivergence, class, or gender, as examples which creates multi-layered ways of thinking about how someone is impacted by not having cultivating belonging as an intentional aspect of care.

Cultivating belonging

Developing a conceptual model that is simple and easy to understand creates a framework that ensures considering belonging is at the forefront of the minds of those working with children and young people in care. The concept of FACES, SPACES, PLACES was born out of my research. But before anything is worked with, we each also have to understand our own relationships with belonging and unbelonging. 

We each have to tap into that space of human need and spend time getting to know who we are. Practice must be focused on developing relational webs for those children and young people in a community, whether that is looking at extracurricular activities, involvement in the community, or through ensuring children are not bussed out of their community. 

In essence, the work must consider the adult that the child will become. Understanding belonging encourages an understanding of our fundamental need to connect, to feel safe and to be part of something where we matter. 

Dr Lisa Cherry is a speaker, trainer and author and the director of Trauma Informed Consultancy Services