YOUR CHRISTMAS INSIGHTS
Christmas and New Year is a time to rest and recharge and for most, COVID-19 border and gathering restrictions aside, about spending time with family and friends whether at home, or in the case of those of you in Australia and New Zealand, outside or at the beach.
Some of you will already be on one, two, three of even four week’s annual leave. Others will be working right up to Christmas, and especially so if you work in residential care, likely all the way through Christmas and New Year and/or on-call. While there have been many positive highlights, this has been another challenging year for out-of-home care.
But in much the same way as COVID-19 has been a massive natural experiment, the researcher in me also can’t help but see Christmas and New Year as a long-standing natural experiment too (while almost all of you are from Anglo-American or Scandinavian countries, the same would apply to other festivals in other countries). How will children, young people and their families fare when workers that they know and trust are not available or able to be contacted, and what will happen if carefully negotiated plans need to be changed? And how well do those who are having to work through this period manage, when virtually every other service around them is shut? As such Christmas and New Year offers a very valuable opportunity to gain insights about the health, quality and resilience of our out-of-home care systems.
So in the ‘wind down’ to Christmas and during the ‘wind up’ on your return, maybe try and find some time and space to take a step back from the madness, engage your curiosity and observe what has been happening beyond any of the crises that you may have to deal with. Some possible questions for you:
Before:
How exhausted are staff?
Are children, young people, and care leavers looking forward to Christmas and New Year, or are they stressing out about it?
Who are they going to spend Christmas and New Year with and why? Were they wanted? How happy are they with those arrangements?
After
Did children, young people, and care leavers manage just fine without you or others in your organisation?
Did plans work out as expected and if not why not?
Who else, whether extended family and/or friends, were they in touch with by phone, text or video?
Who did and did not give them a gift and who did they give a gift to?
Did they enjoy Christmas Day and to what extent did they feel loved and that they belonged?
Have they built positive or negative memories?
How refreshed are staff on returning to work?
Does staff (and foster carer) turnover increase or decrease in January and February?
What else have you learnt?
What might you do differently or the same next year?
Meri Kirihimete (Merry Christmas).
Iain