On the 16^th of January the 'Building Relationships' Advisory Group met for the first time.

The Advisory Group will guide the development of Staf's Scotland-wide 'Building Relationships' project, which is creating a resource to help organisations and the people that work within them to create environments in which relationships thrive.

The first Advisory Group meeting was about getting everyone together and deciding on the themes for the future meetings - with young people and workers from across Scotland joining forces to shape its direction. Group members include representatives from secure care, local authority throughcare and aftercare teams, and both private and local authority residential homes. 

At the start of the meeting everyone introduced themselves with a drawing, which was a fun way to learn something about each other.

Yesterday was the first Advisory Group meeting for Building Relationships, and it was such a success! The dynamic group is made up of YP and practitioners from across the sector, and we honestly can't wait to see what they achieve. To get involved contact @Papoulapr 🥰 pic.twitter.com/A88V2iwOYZ

— Staf (@StafScot) January 17, 2020

When asked about expectations for the meeting people said, among other things:

• Making the future better for care leavers or young people still in the system
• Share experience
• Listen to different perspectives
• Better understanding of what the resource will look like
• To be heard

Asked about the expectations for the group in general people said they wanted:

• Discussion, ideas, experience,
• To be brave
• To hear opinions
• Feel confident
• Listen to experience
• Honest, Equality, Respect

With these expectations and values in mind we started with a little team-building exercise: Building spaghetti towers.

After the team building exercises we tackled the important question. What needs to be included in this resource?

The aim of the resource is to guide organisations and the workforce to centre their practice on relationships.

There were many things that came up in the discussions. Broadly they can be grouped in two big categories:

1. What can the individual (frontline) worker do?
2. What can the organisation do?

If you have an answer to those questions, why don’t you get in touch to share it?

You can reach Papoula per email ([email protected]) , per phone (01414657520) or on Twitter (@Papoulapr).

'Building Relationships' is a Staf project focused on improving relationship-based practice across Scotland, funded by The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. The project's initial phase, 'Mapping Relationship' was completed in 2019 and involved extensive consultation in person, in workshops, online and at our focus groups. You can find out more about the background to the project here.