Managing unregulated contact in the age of new technology: possible solutions

Introduction

Contact between young people in care and their birth parents and other members of their extended family is one of the most difficult areas of child and family social work. Triseliotis (2010: 59) commenting on contact has written that it ‘remains a mixture of art and science, possibly more balanced towards art’. The significance of contact has been fuelled by the theoretical foundation of attachment as postulated by Bowlby (1969) and has in essence become part of the ‘collective practice wisdom of the social work profession’ (Biehal, 2007: 819). There is an almost unchallenged assumption among social work practitioners that contact can help and maintain secure attachments (McWey and Mullis, 2004), promote psychological well-being, encourage a sense of identity (Delfrabbro, Barber and Cooper, 2002) and sustain placement stability (Thomas, 2005). However, a review of studies relating to contact by Quinton, et al. (1997) concluded that findings to support either the negative or positive effects of contact were not as strong as is often claimed. Some of the research methodologies employed had fundamental weaknesses, such as low sample sizes or selectivity. In addition, the unit of analysis used and the failure to take into account the prior psychosocial functioning of the children and parents who were part of the studies raised questions about the validity of the findings (Quinton, et al., 1997: 395–396). Several years later, a review of fostering literature undertaken by Wilson and colleagues found that although there was a moral case for contact (Wilson, et al., 2004: 46), it was not entirely supported by empirical evidence.

Perspectives on contact and social media

Recent developments in technology, such as in communication devices, allow information to be accessible through a range of mobile and desktop web-enabled interfaces (Beer and Burrows, 2007). These have complicated the management of contact by allowing birth parents and young people in care to engage in unregulated communication because of the flexibility, choice and privacy offered. However, it is not only mobile technologies that afford such freedom; social media have, in the words of Fursland (2011a: 19), led to:

children and young people … using social networking … to connect with friends and strangers, near and far. They are putting themselves out there – showing and sharing their photos, their music, their innermost thoughts and dilemmas, what they love and what they hate.

Fursland (2011a), in the aforementioned BAAF publication, Foster Care and Social Work Networking: A guide for social workers and foster carers, warns that when the internet is used for purposes of contact between a young person in care and their birth parents, it cannot be easily supervised or monitored. She adds that in such circumstances the young people may not have any means of support to manage the possible emotional complications of such activity. She also provides examples of the risks young people may encounter in these circumstances. These include: physical harm to the child in care and/or foster carers, the possibility of him or her being subject to contact that is emotionally abusive and the possibility that incessant contact could undermine placement stability. It should also be noted that she agrees with the opinions expressed by Bowyer (2009) and Stephenson (2009) that social work practitioners are not necessarily conversant or familiar with the most recent developments and trends in mobile technologies and social media and the implications of these for practice.

As mentioned, the research by Schofield, Ward and Young (2009) highlights the perspective of both birth parents and children in care by identifying that where face-to-face contact is either limited or supervised, there is a tendency for birth parents to communicate with their children in the form of texts or mobile telephone calls. Their research also identified that the nature of this type of unregulated and possibly illicit contact was highly valued by birth parents and took place at significant times in their child’s day, such as bedtime. A further facet highlighted by this research was that it was not only the nature of the contact that raised problems but also its impact upon foster placements. This view is further supported by work undertaken by the Fostering Network which found that the impact upon foster carers is such that their emotional well-being, as well as the placement itself, can often be in jeopardy (Fostering Network, 2011: 3).

The Children’s Rights Director for England (2009) offers a broader perspective on contact fashioned directly from the experiences of young people in care. This study showed that some children and young people felt that they had too much contact with members of their birth family, while others valued the good fortune of being able to be in touch with relatives they did not already know. Other views captured by this study were that the ease of making contact with family and friends was a poor substitute for seeing them in person. Thus, the reality is that social work practitioners and foster carers on a daily basis are likely to be working with the challenges of unregulated contact. These may make it difficult to control the nature and level of contact, affect the mental and emotional welfare of the young person and increase the chance of placement disruption (Cooper, 2009).

Unregulated contact: fears and possible explanations

If it is the case that there are inherent dangers in unregulated contact initiated by young people in care with their birth parents, members of their extended family or friends and that this is perceived by social workers as potentially harmful, why do young people continue to actively engage in such behaviour? Immediate answers to this question could be that they are being manipulated or exploited, or are experiencing a conflict of loyalties between their birth and foster families. An alternative explanation could be that the young person is deliberately contravening the wishes of his or her social workers. Plausible though the above explanations may be, less obvious answers may be found in the neural and cognitive development of adolescents and the associated impact of attachment.

Existing research into the behavioural manifestations of neural development in adolescents characterises them as having a limited ability to exercise self-restraint, a propensity towards risk-taking in terms of being impulsive, engaging in experimentation and lacking good decision-making skills (Bessant, 2008; Galvan, et al., 2007; Partridge, 2010; Romer, et al., 2010; Steinberg, 2007). Moreover, adolescence is not just identified by the behavioural manifestations described; there is also the added dimension of a greater inclination to seek experiences that create a heightened sense of emotion, based on an appetite for excitement, intensity and arousal (Dahl, 2004). Although this is a fairly new branch of science, this inclination, according to Romer, et al. (2010), is based on the release of dopamine to the sub-cortical reward centres of the brain which, in turn, encourages attraction to strange and exciting experiences. If so, it could be argued that unregulated contact for some young people in care is a type of strange and exciting experience that leads to communication with others in a fashion that is not hemmed in by spatial location, time or social conventions.

So far the explanations relating to adolescent brain development have mostly focused on a homogenous account of adolescence and little attention has been paid to the impact of abuse and neglect. David Howe (2009), in his extended discourse on attachment and its impact in terms of nature and nurture, comments that the maltreatment of a child results in the deficit of key nurturing experiences that are influenced by factors such as age, severity, duration and type of abuse and/or neglect. He expands on this by going through the behavioural manifestations displayed by children who have been abused. It is his description of the child whose attachment figure is not available at times of distress and who represents the person who is the source of fear that is relevant to the subject of this article. He goes on to paint a picture of a child who experiences a behavioural and emotional dilemma in the form of wanting to be close to the caregiver while at the same time wanting to escape, and concludes by saying that these ‘incompatible behavioural responses run counter to the biological imperative to seek proximity with primary caregivers at times of need’ (Howe, 2009: 50).

Howe’s hypothesis is echoed by the founder of Kids Company, Camilla Batmanghelidjh (2009), who argues that adolescents who are traumatised get stuck in attachments that function around the need to survive. The attachment figure does not get internalised, but is constantly needed externally to help handle threat. Such a threat may constitute a new placement and ‘affiliation may be sought not for enrichment, but for a sense of safety that “the known” may bring’ (Batmanghelidjh, 2006; 2009: 180).

It would, of course, be naïve to ignore simpler explanations of young people’s behaviour, such as the enhanced opportunity available for curious and confused children to seek clarity about their family circumstances, but if the findings about the neurological development of the adolescent brain and attachment theory hold water, another explanation as to why young people in care continue to pursue unregulated contact emerges. If this is so, there is a need for social workers to acquire better knowledge regarding mobile technologies and social media, an awareness of the decision-making skills of young people, a reappraisal of how to assess risk, and to participate in a series of practice-based interventions that can be actively applied.

Towards a different mindset

This article thus far has examined the phenomenon of unregulated contacted and young people in care. It has been argued that with the emergence of mobile technologies and social media, the opportunities for young people to engage in such communication has grown disproportionately, and that the response of social work practitioners has been, in more cases than not, to see it as a very real threat. Such a position is confirmed by Adams (2012: 59), who states that social media present ‘significant challenges to contact planning and that it is not possible for social work practitioners to go back to the way things were before social networking sites existed’. He goes on to exhort social work practitioners:

… to make sure that they fully understand the implications of social networking for contact so that planning takes full account of the possibilities that might develop, and ensures adopters and foster carers fully understand the issues.

Another way in which social work practitioners could think about social networking sites in particular is provided by Boyd and Marwick, who comment that a way to comprehend social networking is through what they call ‘the lens of networked publics’ (2011: 7). They explain that networked publics represent a highly accessible space where many people gather together around a shared interest, identity or understanding of the world. More importantly, networked publics are not defined by or confined to a set of people or physical space, rather they are an ‘imagined community that emerges as a result of people, technology and practice’ (Boyd and Marwick, 2011: 7). The example given is Facebook which is identified as serving a networked public, i.e. its users, who then gather together in a number of differentiating groups to express a range of thoughts, opinions and emotions within their own unique networked publics. Unlike no other mode of communication, the way in which social networking has been designed means that adults and young people as they communicate do not fully appreciate or understand to what extent they are being observed by other individuals who make up the networked public. The above explanations indicate that if social work practitioners are to meet the challenges posed by unregulated contact, there is a need for them to go beyond their limited understanding of mobile technologies and social media which is likely to be based on their own personal experiences.

Implications for social work practice

Having presented one aspect of a possible solution, the next step is to consider what is known about the decision-making skills of young people. Earlier in this article it was suggested that the adolescent brain and its development are typified by slower reasoning, poor logic and inadequate problem-solving abilities, all of which it can be argued, are necessary for effective decision-making. However, Dahl (2004) provides contrary evidence making the case that adolescents appear to be relatively good at making decisions; this is also confirmed by Reyna and Farley (2006) in their review of the research literature on this topic. Dahl states that when an adolescent is met by a situation that has a low level of arousal and emotional engagement is cool, this represents ‘cold cognition’, and under such circumstances the level of decision-making is equal to that of an adult. However, the opposite is true for situations where there is a high level of arousal and emotion, described by Dahl as ‘hot cognition’. The implications of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ cognition, if acknowledged and understood by practitioners, could be profound in the sense that the view and opinions of young people in care would carry far more weight than possibly hitherto – particularly so if they have been elicited in conditions of ‘cold cognition’, i.e. low arousal and cool emotion. One could go as far as to argue that where it is necessary for a young person in care to make decisions relating to their contact, social work practitioners should make every effort to ensure that an environment is created and maintained that would support ‘cold cognition’. Unfortunately, the opposite tends to be the case; a young person in care is likely to be making a series of short-term decisions with little reference to the long-term consequences, on the back of a crisis-ridden situation such as placement breakdown.

A further step towards a solution may be found by returning to the Rubix Cube metaphor used by Carrick-Davies (2012), which would seem to indicate that the approach that social work practitioners take to the risks associated with unregulated contact cannot simply be confined to negative consequences. As recognised by Adams (2012: 53), it is extremely difficult to keep control of contact plans and it is at this point that an argument needs to be made for a more balanced approach to risk. Borrowing from Kelmshall (2007: 162), risk and rights need to be balanced and it is essential to ensure that any actions taken do not discriminate disproportionately against an individual. An example of this is whether or not it would be appropriate to use the same assessment of risk if a young person in care began unregulated contact via a social networking site with a long-lost cousin from Australia, as opposed to an abusive parent. Both examples include unregulated contact, but they are more than likely to require different approaches in terms of risk assessment. Therefore, what underlying principles related to risk should be adopted by social work practitioners regarding unregulated contact? The answer would seem to be an initial acknowledgement that risky behaviours like unregulated contact can have positive as well as negative outcomes. This recognition should then be followed by a thorough consideration of the possible consequences (positive and negative) and the factors that are likely to be influential. In summary, the assessment of risk when dealing with unregulated contact will require a balance of possible outcomes, the use of professional judgement and a systematic approach (Titterton, 1999: 219).

To summarise the solutions that have been identified thus far, it can be argued that if social work practitioners are to manage effectively unregulated contact by default, this will demand that they appreciate and give due consideration to the wishes and views of young people in relation to their care and with whom they want to remain in contact. This will involve discussing what aspects of a relationship with particular individuals constitute a risk of harm, what the level of this risk poses and how it can be managed effectively. Furthermore, the discussion ought to take place in an environment where the young person can exercise ‘cold cognition’. Additionally, the discussion will entail taking account of the foster carer’s role, level of expertise and the additional support that may be required. This type of discussion must include safeguarding strategies in the form of facilitating and reporting concerns and specifying the nature, level and type of intervention that may be necessary (Fostering Network, 2011: 5). Moreover, efforts should be made by both the social worker and the foster carers to reduce the sense of anxiety that the young person might have by promoting contact with other key people using a wide range of methods, such as text, face-to-face, email and social media, in the hope that this will reduce the need to maintain contact with those individuals deemed undesirable.

One could argue that the solutions presented thus far are confined to the field of social work. However, other answers may come from colleagues within the educational psychotherapeutic field. Arguably, it is within this discipline that much empirical work to date has been undertaken to explore the nature and manifestations of attachment-related difficulties, particularly through the work of practitioners such as Geddes (2006), Bomber (2009) and Sunderland (2006). In particular, Bomber identifies that the key to effective support of young people who are experiencing attachment-related difficulties is through the process of emotional scaffolding that involves demonstrating to them that they are ‘kept in mind’, particularly during their numerous transitions.

If this approach is useful, how might social work practitioners usefully employ the process of emotional scaffolding? First, by promoting the emotional secure base to which the young person can return (the base being a key adult who will keep the young person ‘in mind’). This could be interpreted as allowing the young person to continue with the unregulated contact, secure in the knowledge that he or she has a secure base in the form of the foster home and an emotionally secure base in the form of the foster carer. Second, by demonstrating daily continuity and certainty. This could take the form of social work practitioners encouraging foster carers to verbalise their understanding of the young person’s need to stay in touch with certain people while emphasising that the carer can offer the young person acceptance, support and join with him or her uncritically in estimating the potential risks around the process and the nature of the contact that has been made. Finally, and possibly most importantly, is the promotion of the young person’s dignity so that responses to incidents or events involving unregulated contact, which might lead to feelings of intense shame and/or conflicting emotions, can then be reframed positively by foster carers and others involved in his or her care and emotional support. This type of intervention requires additional training for foster carers, which will enable them to understand that the behaviours exhibited by a young person in care are, in fact, a survival response and that the decisions at the time of the incident or event were probably made in an environment where there was a heightened sense of arousal and when, in terms of decision-making, ‘hot cognition’ was operating.

Conclusion

This article began with a description of the phenomenon of unregulated contact and the ways in which it has been reported in the social work press. Consideration was then given to the reasons why young people in care engage in continued unregulated communication. A case was made for social work practitioners to acknowledge that the challenges of unregulated contact are here to stay and that as part of the complexities that arise, there is a need for them to have a greater knowledge and understanding of mobile technologies and social media. A number of solutions have been proposed. These include greater awareness of the decision-making skills of adolescents and interventions developed in the field of educational psychotherapy, recognising that what has been presented does not lessen the complexity of contact; rather it adds a little more science to the mix of elements discussed by Triseliotis (2010).