Sunflowers Don’t Bloom Overnight: A Therapeutic Journey
The profound wisdom shared by Richard Rowlandson in this episode offers a transformative perspective on therapeutic residential care that resonates far beyond institutional walls. With over five decades of experience at the Mulberry Bush School in Oxfordshire, Richard’s insights illuminate the essential elements of creating healing environments for our most vulnerable children.
At the heart of therapeutic communities lies a simple yet powerful concept: belonging. As Richard eloquently explains, the word “belonging” itself combines “be” (which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as a “defective word” requiring something else to make sense) with “longing” (a yearning for something unattainable). When fused together, they create something powerful – a sense of being part of something rather than apart from it. This fundamental human need drives much of the behaviour we see in traumatised children.
One of the most striking insights Richard shares is about children’s desperate need to be held in mind. He recounts a six-year-old girl who taught him that children who don’t feel held in the adult mind will produce behaviours to be “on their mind” instead – even when those behaviours lead to negative consequences. As Richard poignantly puts it: “If I can’t be in their mind, I better be on their mind, because if I’m not either of those places, I’m out of their mind and out of my mind.” This profound understanding explains why traditional behaviour management approaches often fail with traumatised children.
The Mulberry Bush School’s approach centres on creating an environment where children can “learn to live with yourself and other people.” This seemingly simple mission statement encompasses a sophisticated therapeutic practice that acknowledges how early trauma disrupts normal development. Richard uses the beautiful metaphor of “tempo rubato” from music – time that has been stolen. These children have had their childhood time stolen from them, and therapeutic communities work to give some of that time back, allowing for healthy emotional and social development.
Perhaps most relevant for mainstream education is Richard’s emphasis on the power of the word “we.” He laments that schools have a captive audience five days a week but rarely use that potential for building genuine community. By creating spaces where students can regularly reflect together on “how are we doing?” and “what’s going on?”, schools could transform their culture from one of compliance to one of belonging. This simple shift in approach doesn’t require turning every school into a therapeutic community, but rather introducing therapeutic elements that benefit all children.
The conversation also touches on the patience required in this work. Using a horticultural metaphor, Richard warns against forcing growth, which leads to weak roots. Instead, we must create the right conditions and wait, understanding that “the long-term hurt many of these children have suffered requires some long-term work.” This perspective challenges our results-driven educational culture and reminds us that healing happens on its own timeline.
Richard’s five decades of commitment to this work stand as testament to its value. The fact that former pupils still reach out years later, sometimes saying “you’re the only ones who didn’t give up on me,” speaks volumes about the lasting impact of being truly held in mind. For anyone working with vulnerable children, Richard’s wisdom offers both practical guidance and profound inspiration for creating environments where healing and growth can naturally occur.
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About Richard:
Richard has a long association with Residential Therapeutic Communities, having worked at the Mulberry Bush School for well over 20 years and where, from 1991 to 2001, he was its Director. He was also Director, Children and Young People, at the Peper Harow Foundation, from 2001 to 2005.
Richard qualified as a Social Worker with an MSc from Oxford University in 1983, following the then Part 1 training in Child Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Centre. In 2005 he completed the Ashridge MA and training in Organisational Consulting. He has been Chairman of the Charterhouse Group of Therapeutic Communities and for many years the Chairman of the Care Leavers’ Foundation. In 2014 he became Chair of Trustees at the Mulberry Bush School, only recently stepping down from that position, while remaining a Trustee with a special brief for the links and development of the contacts with and participation of former pupils. He has published numerous articles and continues to lecture widely across the UK and Europe.
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Transcript:
Colby: 0:01
Welcome to the Secure Start podcast.
Richard: 0:04
And one of the most powerful words I believe in therapeutic residential care is the word we we. So if we encourage the sense of belonging and it’s very strong it provides an alternative to presenting disruptive behavior. Hence we always talk about you. Come to the Mooribish school to learn to live with yourself and other people that they’ve had time stolen from them, the time to be a child, to be well-grounded and rooted, and we’re there to help give them some of that time back.
Richard: 0:48
The long-term hurt many of these children, young people, have suffered require some long-term work. I don’t feel held in the adult mind and because I can’t feel I’m in their mind, I produce behaviors continually to be on their mind, even though I know it has negative consequences. It’s better for me Because if I can’t be in their mind, I better be on their mind, because if I’m not either of those places, I’m out of their mind and out of my mind. I better be on their mind because if I’m not either of those places, I’m out of their mind and out of my mind, and we have to wait and give the child the space and the opportunity to make amends for what they do.
Colby: 1:42
Welcome to the Secure Start podcast. I’m Colby Pearce, and joining me for this episode is a long-standing and highly respected figure in the world of therapeutic residential communities and practice in the UK and beyond. Before I introduce my guest, I’d just like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands. I come to this podcast from the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains and I’d like to acknowledge the continuing connection the living Kaurna people feel to land, waters, culture and community. I’d also like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging. My guest this episode is Richard Rowlandson. Richard was, until 31 December 2019, the Director of the Planned Environment Therapy Trust and remains an independent consultant in the fields of therapeutic childcare, education and mental health across the voluntary, statutory and private sectors. Richard has a long association with residential therapeutic communities, having worked at the Mulberry Bush School for well over 20 years and where, from 1991 to 2001, he was its director. He was also director children and young people at the Pepper Harrow Foundation from 2001 to 2005. Amongst his activities in this field, richard worked for many years with the Department of Social Welfare in Portugal to support the development of specialist therapeutic residential communities across the country. He continues to work in a consultant role with several organisations in Ireland and Portugal.
Colby: 3:40
Richard qualified as a social worker with an MSc from Oxford University in 1983, following the then part one training in child psychotherapy at the Tavistock Centre In 2005, he completed the Ashridge MA and training in organisational consulting. He has been chairman of the Charterhouse Group of Therapeutic Communities and for many years, the chairman of the Care Leavers Foundation. In 2014, he became chair of trustees at the Mulberry Bush School only recently, stepping down from that position while remaining a trustee with a special brief for the links and development of the contacts with and participation of former pupils. He has published numerous articles and continues to lecture widely across the UK and Europe. Over 35 years he has undertaken numerous serious case reviews into the deaths of or serious harm sustained by children and adolescents, as well as service inquiries into organisations providing care and treatment for vulnerable populations. He was also involved in the Commission of Inquiry into Historical Child Abuse in Ireland and contributed a chapter to the final Ryan Commission report in 2009. Welcome, richard
.Richard: 5:10
Colby, thank you very much. I was just thinking I’d like to meet that guy sometime.
Colby: 5:14
It sounds quite interesting. Yes, Well, of course, our podcast guests will never know what a hash I made of some of those sentences. With the magic of recording and editing, I can make it sound perfectly seamless. And also I’ve just discovered that my editing software with AI involvement allows me to look as though my eyes are on the camera the whole way through as well. So that’s good as well. Yeah, Technology when it works it’s wonderful it is, it is. Was there anything else that you might wish to add to that bio?
Richard: 5:58
No, I think the bio is accurate and truthful is accurate and truthful. I think what it offers is a sense of structure that when going through it, living and working through it, sometimes didn’t feel that way. It sounds like everything was done and actually the experience is sometimes just getting on and getting on and other times the experience is sometimes just getting on and getting on and other times really just trying to survive and that sort of evens it out in a framework. So, while it’s true, the truth as anyone who’s involved in very close working with troubled populations and managing oneself in those can have a very different feel at times. So it is interesting to hear an introduction in that way and then have this sense of it was a very interesting journey, sometimes in the Chinese curse sense may your life be interesting look, as you were saying that I was just.
Colby: 7:04
I was also thinking to myself that about. You know, over a long career, we we becomes um immersed in what we’re doing in the here and now and we’re not necessarily uh spending a lot of time thinking about what’s gone before or what may come uh in the future. So my career hasn’t been as long as yours. I’m only in decade number four. We had a little catch up a few weeks ago before when we were talking about doing this podcast, and am I right in thinking that it’s been a 52 year long history of association with the cotswolds?
Richard: 7:49
not with the mulberry bush. Yes, I mean the cotswold, yeah, the mulberry bush. We always had good links with the cotswold community. And and of course, you’ve spoken to john whitwell already, someone who I greatly admire, and he was quite an important person to many of us in this sector.
Richard: 8:11
His capacity to contain anxiety really percolated through the community and went beyond the dispersal of Cotswolds people to other places. And of course the real link was Mrs Dr Drysdale, the founder of the Mulberry Bush was also the consultant for a number of years to Cotswold community too. So there are these links. But it’s right, yes, I arrived at the Mulberry Bush on the 8th of October 1974.
Colby: 8:50
51 years ago.
Richard: 8:51
Yeah, yeah, and I always remember that because it was a child who started that day as well.
Colby: 9:00
Yeah.
Richard: 9:00
And all these years later, we’re still in touch.
Colby: 9:03
Oh, really, that’s wow’re still in touch.
Richard: 9:08
Oh, really that’s wow yeah.
Colby: 9:08
Yeah so yes, it’s remarkable. Tell us a little bit about I mean, I’m sure many people who listen to this podcast will know something of the Mulberry Bush School because it’s had such an incredible history and long history, starting as it did by Mrs Drocker Drysdale and her husband. But perhaps if you could tell me a little bit about, or tell us a little bit about, the work at the Mulberry Bush School over these past decades that you’ve been associated with it, In many ways its emergence was out of a social and international experience of disorder and disarray and danger and risk, namely World War II.
Richard: 10:10
And at the start of World War II, very briefly, because it’s a long and interesting story Mrs Dr Drysdale, who was a housewife, opened up a nursery and playgroup for families in the locality in Oxfordshire urban centers. Because of the bombing, she found herself giving shelter to a good number of individuals and what emerged was the people who were organizing the evacuation, and Donald Winnicott was a consultant to that process, though she didn’t meet him, then consultant to that process, though she didn’t meet him. Then they discovered that Mrs D seemed to have a much greater ability to contain and maintain those children who found it impossible in many other places and had been moved on and moved on, and moved on, and even when they went home they weren’t able to remain there. The dislocation was so great and it really emerged from there. So that was during the war. But by 1948, she was left with 28 children, all of whom were not able to return home, either because there was no home to return to, or actually they just weren’t felt to be and didn’t feel to be a part of those home bases anymore, and so she found a place here in Oxfordshire where the Mulberry Bridge School is now, and so she found a place here in Oxfordshire where the Mulberry Bush School is now, and they moved sometime.
Richard: 12:25
A charity wasn’t even a charity then was from 1948. Though the story goes begins earlier than that, and the reason it’s a school is twofold, one of which is every child, wherever they are in the UK, has to be registered in a school. And so it was a school, even though it was a particular kind of school, and we’ll get to that, I’m sure. But the other thing was, instinctively and intuitively, mrs d knew that it would be of no help at all to children to become emotionally whole and wholesome, insightful, if they didn’t have the educational experiences and capacities that many of their contemporaries would have, and so she was very committed to that, but also committed to the particular nature of the school they needed. So that’s a bit of the history of how we got there.
Richard: 13:34
And right from the start, the educational experience was primarily emotionally led, with a population of children who had been so damaged by the presence of some treatments and the absence of others that they hadn’t been able to live with themselves or with other people. Hence we always talk about you. Come to the Moorooish school to learn to live with yourself and other people Living to learn learning to live. The words come easy, but it’s not glib. It’s a foundation to the reality of what children have needed and how they have to engage with themselves and being helped to do that and discover themselves as part of that process. So, as you can see, I can go on.
Colby: 14:32
Well.
Richard: 14:34
I was going to.
Colby: 14:35
I was going to look. I’m a history buff outside of psychology and I love hearing these, these stories about, and have done a little bit of reading actually about the history of the Mulberry Bush School and the work of. I’ve never heard her referred to as Mrs D before, but definitely as Mrs Docker Drysdale.
Richard: 14:58
Yes, yes.
Colby: 15:01
Rarely. I think I got corrected by referring to her as Barbara or gently corrected at one stage.
Richard: 15:08
Yes, yes, well, actually it’s interesting, cotswold, she was always Mrs Drysdale.
Colby: 15:14
Yeah.
Richard: 15:15
At the Mulberry Bush. She was Mrs D, but she was always the same person.
Colby: 15:21
Yes, yes, yeah. So you arrived in 1974, 1974, and over that time, that that span of involvement, which is, uh, 50 years, um how, how, what, how has it evolved as a school and as a mean? It’s really a therapeutic community with a worldwide reach these days.
Richard: 15:49
A colleague of mine and, frankly, one of the influences for me and on me of my work is Adrian Ward, and he was a colleague when I was teaching at university and for a brief interrenium in my time at the Mulberry Bush and we were reflecting upon what is the particular enduring nature of the Mulberry Bush and it really matched something that Mrs D and Winnicott were very keen on, this notion of always becoming. So the Mulberry Bush did not emerge you know who is it like? I’m trying to think of the God that sprang from Zeus’s brow, all fully armored and things, but it didn’t emerge fully formed, it was always becoming and it was opened to becoming and continues to this day to be open to becoming, which is not just keeping on keeping on, though that’s important it is seeing opportunities for further growth and development, not simply in service to itself, but in service to a commitment to a task to help other people who are troubled and at times troublesome, find a way through to a different way of being.
Richard: 17:23
And that’s the real continuity. And so it built up. Over times, and even during my tenure as director of the Mobley Bush, people would talk, sometimes in rather rarefied ways, ourselves included, about the therapeutic community and the therapeutic task.
Richard: 17:46
And that was important. But equally, there were times where I would acknowledge, look, if we were only to identify ourselves as a therapeutic community because things are going so well, I’d have to have a buzzer on my desk and press the buzzer sometimes to cease being that because we were in total chaos. That was part of the work. Part of the work was supporting functioning and development and managing breakdown, but in a way that made a difference, and so that’s really the task. And we would sometimes begin to go a bit off course and, in a culture and an environment where inquiry was at its heart, there was always, thankfully, someone to say hang on, I’m a bit concerned, what is it that we are doing? I’m a bit concerned, what is it that we are doing?
Richard: 18:45
And even the children sometimes would say to the grownups that’s not fair, we don’t do that. And we’d have to listen and we’d say yeah, okay, and we would think about what was going on. That was making us, you know, be a bit too controlling of things. So open communication and genuine discourse and dialogue was really, really important, and it could easily be quashed and squashed, not consciously, but with this anxious belief that everything had to be orderly. No, we don’t welcome breakdown and disorder the mulberry bush doesn’t do that even now but we accept it as part of the work that will help us regain an equilibrium where we are all together in our thinking and growing and learning, and not just the children in our thinking and growing and learning, and not just the children, I often say.
Colby: 19:50
People in my work. People talk about conflict as a bad thing and many of the children I work with they lose relationships where there’s conflict and conflict has been such a negative experience for them. But I’ve always held the view that conflict is really important, Disagreement is really important.
Richard: 20:14
And excuse me sorry. You can see I get enthusiastic. That’s all right.
Colby: 20:18
It’ll happen both ways, but how else will children learn that relationships will persist after conflict?
Richard: 20:30
Yes, exactly, and things can be mended with the commitment of all. And we’ve had a number of former pupils come back, sometimes years after, and and two themes, but really the same, one of which the communication is I don’t know how you ever put up with me. I was outrageous, I was this, that and the other. And you say well, actually you really weren’t as bad as you think you were. You gave us a run for the money. That’s fair enough, but there was always something about you that let us look after you and care for you, and you made good use of it. And the other one is and this is, you know, quite a sad observation a number come back and say I come back to you because you’re the only ones who didn’t give up on me yeah, that is a sad observation yeah yeah, it reminds me of a young person who said to me once Colby, do you know why I keep coming to see you?
Colby: 21:41
And I thought about it and I thought I said to them well, that would be because I guess you have the experience that I really understand you and I help you. Oh no, she said I keep coming to see you because you’re the only one who’s stuck around.
Richard: 22:05
Well, there is that, and really that’s such an important communication Stuck around.
Colby: 22:13
Absolutely.
Richard: 22:19
But not forcing ourselves on them, but them knowing they’re available. I still only live less than a quarter of a mile away from the Mulberry Bush, and that was my mistake.
Colby: 22:25
That was my mistake Earlier. For some reason I got Cotswolds stuck in my head instead of yeah, in Oxfordshire, there near the Mulberry Bush School. Yes, that’s what I was trying to say. You’ve been part of the community fabric as well as the community. Yeah, indeed, yes.
Richard: 22:46
Mind you, our son’s take on his childhood and youth was he was being held prisoner in a rural gulag because he was always a city boy, but actually he does. He did acknowledge that his childhood was okay. So it’s a lovely village and, if you like villages, and I grew up in new york city, so I’m quite happy having had my city time to be in a rural environment, so so how did you find yourself there, having grown up in New York City and people will notice the accent that has persisted.
Richard: 23:18
Indeed. Well, you’ll probably have to buy the first 14 volumes of my autobiography for the full story. But briefly, and this is relevant, ultimately, I spent four years in a seminary studying to be a priest. Thankfully, I was rescued by two Susans from a life of celibacy and I left the seminary and I was rather wandering while being a perpetual student. And I was rather wandering while being a perpetual student and I saw an advert for study abroad, in the UK at City University of New York.
Richard: 24:06
I thought well, long story short, suddenly, in the September 1970, I was over there in England and I liked it so much, I asked if I could stay and they said yes, there in England, and I liked it so much, I asked if I could stay and they said yes. And in fact, my girlfriend then, who’s now my wife? She had heard about the mulberry bush and in 1974, I drove her down for a visit. I was signed up as a PhD student and we visited it for a weekend and it was fascinating. It was much more interesting than social and economic history, and we both ended up staying 52 years ago 54 years ago.
Colby: 24:47
Say that again 52 or 54 years ago, 54. 52. No, it’s 74.
Richard: 24:53
Yeah, 74, yeah 74 74 sorry, yeah, yeah it was a long time this is not the maths podcast and, as they say, and the rest is history and hysteria but uh yeah, it was just so interesting and I hope this isn’t premature I always puzzled over what attracted me so much to the Mulberry School the day I walked in to it, and it is a very lively environment and it was very different from any other space I thought I’d encountered, from any other space I thought I’d encountered. Only after it’s really only been within the last 10 years, I realized what the connection was between being in a seminary and being at the Mulberry Bush, and it’s not a religious or belief-based thing, it’s the actual experience of living and working, not just in a group but as a group. That’s the link. And while the religious vocation wasn’t there, there was some kind of call.
Richard: 26:05
I felt to be a part of a culture and an environment where really living, to learn and learning to live as a group was important. And, as we know, learning can be sometimes painful, certainly for the children. But there are a number of cringe occasions in my own experience where I had to see myself as others saw me and it wasn’t quite the image I like to have of myself and I said, oh yeah, did I do that? Did I say that? Oh god, so it is really about learning and being open to it.
Colby: 26:48
Yeah, so and you you mentioned earlier when I, when I botched um the, the locations of, mentioned the cotswolds, but you did mention john whitwell as um, a colleague and and someone that you, um drew, had tremendous respect for, and and um yes drew inspiration from, and were there other along the way? You also mentioned another fellow who Adrian Ward. Adrian Ward, yeah. Have there been others as well?
Richard: 27:23
Yes, and in fact I mean the Cotswold community is quite significant and when I was still green behind the ears, or whatever the phrase is, I visited the Cotswold for the first time when Richard Balberny, its founder, was there and he was totally terrified and intimidated by the force of himself and his personality. And Mike Jenks was the deputy at the time and he took me under his wing, so to speak, on that occasion. We kept in close touch and he and several other people were quite instrumental in supporting my learning and understanding and my leadership. He was very key there. He passed away some years ago now and I was really really saddened by it because he was such a fine person. John, who had succeeded as the leader of Cotswold community, was there as well. So these were key people.
Richard: 28:29
But I was very well looked after in my early times at the Mulberry Bush by some of the staff there. John Armstrong, who was the head, was very clear you know real Scots clarity who was very honest with the children and very committed to them, and many of them still hold him in very high regard. But there was the deputy Roger and there was this occasion and I think it was about the first month that I was at the Mulberry Bush and breakfast was at 8.30, and at 8.29 and 30 seconds the group of children I was working with I think one had a sock on. The others were frankly, to use the clinical term, bare ass naked and bouncing around. And Roger came through and he said is this the way you’re treating Richard? You know he’s new. That’s no way to treat him. Come on, you guys. You know breakfast is downstairs. Now Get ready.
Richard: 29:36
I didn’t know whether to hug him or punch him in the nose for making me look bad you know, but it was those kinds of experiences of communication, naming something, and I thought I’m never going to be able to do that. How do they do that?
Colby: 29:50
And I thought I’m never going to be able to do that? How do?
Richard: 29:52
they do that. What I learned over time, thankfully, is the children need the grownups to be direct and honest with them, to name things, not blame. To name things and say this is not how we do it, and on they go. So it’s. You know, there is a period of survival, but while you’re surviving I think it’s a much more widespread experience than simply my own we’re learning to use ourselves, including those occasions where we do have to see ourselves as others see us for better or worse.
Colby: 30:29
So that’s the real culture of inquiry that is sometimes talked about yeah and in, and one of the things that I’ve been quite interested in on this podcast has been the conversations that I’ve had with leaders talking about the importance of having mentors whilst they’re leading organisations.
Richard: 30:54
And.
Colby: 30:55
I noted in there that you did mention that you had people who, even through those years that you were leading the Cotswold community, who were really important to you as mentors.
Richard: 31:11
Yes, well, I was leading the mulberry bush linked to the Cotswold community. But yes, they were there.
Colby: 31:18
Did I say the Cotswold community again you did yeah.
Richard: 31:22
But they were readily available and it felt collaborative. But there were times where I could honestly have my L plates on. You know, the learner driver, the learner leader, and it would be okay because they were recognizing that you know from their own experience the experience one goes through through. And you know, yeah, yes, I’m very grateful, which is why in more recent years, I’ve been very committed to supporting other people doing this work, you know, here in the UK, in Portugal and in Ireland, because I felt so well supported in doing the work and continuing to do the work. And you know what’s that word Bearing the unbearable, because it can be, as anyone in the work knows. It can be unbearable For us, just as for the children, the young people, the adults in any environment that seeks to be therapeutic. You don’t quash the feelings and squash them.
Colby: 32:38
You inquire, but it’s easier said than done and you need someone to hold space for you.
Richard: 32:44
Yes, yeah, hold space for you, just as as we hold space for the children well, it’s interesting you say that, because it is exactly the same thing and let’s see, I’ll use it. Kirstie, I’ll call her. If I use another name, ignore it.
Colby: 33:04
I can do some fancy editing.
Richard: 33:07
She taught me at the age of six a very important thing, which is I said to her social worker oh, I’d like to see her and speak to her to see if she wants to come to the Mulberry Bush. And the social worker was horrified why do you want to talk to her? We can’t get any sense out of her. That’s why we’re referring her to you. I said, well, okay, but the work has to start here and so I’ll do it. And she told me this very convoluted story, kirstie, and it involves snakes wrapped around ankles and things.
Richard: 33:46
But in the end, when I thought about it and reflected upon it, when I thought about it and reflected upon it, what she was saying was I don’t feel held in the adult mind and because I can’t feel I’m in their mind, I produce behaviors continually to be on their mind.
Richard: 34:13
And even though I know that has negative consequences for me, I mean I’m interpreting it. She was only six, but this was the message that she needed me to hear. Even though I know it has negative consequences, it’s better for me, because if I can’t be in their mind, I better be on their mind, because if I’m not either of those mind, I better be on their mind, because if I’m not either of those places, I’m out of their mind. And out of my mind, no mind, no minding. So it’s quite interesting that we have this role in the UK called childminders, and it’s just used as a term and it’s sometimes a very undervalued and always underpaid role. And yet childminding holding the child in mind, is the real important dimension of all the practical ways we have to go about making sure that children are well fed, well cared for, well looked after and all those things minding the child.
Colby: 35:22
Yeah.
Richard: 35:23
Yeah.
Colby: 35:24
As we were just speaking about beforehand.
Colby: 35:30
Being held in mind as a practitioner in this space is very important, and it reminds me of something a previous guest on the podcast, simon Benjamin, said.
Colby: 35:48
Now, you may or may not remember him, but Simon actually worked at the Mulberry Bush School for a period of time around 2010. And I think I might have mentioned this to you in our previous conversation, and he is an Englishman. He came and worked in Australia for a while, from memory, went back to the UK, worked at the Mulberry Bush School. While he was there, he met Adela Holmes and Susan Barton and they’re two people of high repute in the therapeutic communities sector in Victoria our adjoining state, communities sector in Victoria our adjoining state and he met them and showed them around and ultimately came back to Australia and worked for them separately, separately, at the two organisations they came from. Anyway, simon does works as an independent consultant these days, but he said something which I think um which I think captures at this little part of our conversation, and that is, he said, what we do, um for the children we need to be doing at all levels of the organization.
Richard: 37:05
Yes, Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yes, I look forward to meeting him sometime.
Colby: 37:15
You can watch his podcast at the very least.
Richard: 37:19
Yes, yes, I’m trying to think of you know, there are some. I think it was Goethe who called them eternal verities, mm-hmm Goethe who called them eternal verities. And you know, what Simon is saying is very, very true and it has been long recognized, even if not regularly or sufficiently honored. But I’m trying to think of the Latin phrase. I studied Latin for 11 years and it’s quis quis custodes custodiet, who looks after those who are looking after, and and that’s really so, you know, we’re talking about over a millennium or two millennia of human existence. It’s recognized and still sometimes ignored or honored in the breach.
Colby: 38:14
Yeah, that’s another goodness, richard, you’ll get me off on tangents as well. Another I was speaking to another person from just having conversation with him last night, from the UK, paul Van Heeswijk.
Richard: 38:31
Oh, yeah, I know Paul.
Colby: 38:33
Yeah, who also worked at the Cotswold community as a consultant after Mrs D, and yeah, anyway, I’ve lost it. It came and it went.
Richard: 38:46
Well, it was something about providing, making provision for the adults in the work in ways that supports them, so they are able to support, within that fashion, the children and young people or the prisoners in TCs, within prisons together. It is something about having the experience and the discipline. You know we’re talking about something about having the experience and the discipline. You know we’re talking about something about naming things and inquiring into them, as if this is such a wonderful thing. It’s the best thing to happen to be faced with a space inhabited by others, together with them, to look at what they’ve been doing. And you know, occasionally at the Mulberry Bush, you know, I would say to a child Do you see what you did? Did you realize that Ricky’s crying because you hit them and they give you that look, the look. What’s the look the look is? It encapsulates communication. Why are you bothering me talking about this? Yeah, I hit him. Where was anybody when I was being beaten to within an inch of my life? Where was anybody when I was being neglected? And now you’re picking me up because I smacked ricky, who probably deserved it. Forget about whether he deserved it or not. No, if we got what we deserved, god help us.
Richard: 40:34
However, you could understand these children saying it’s a completely alien culture. We’re inviting them to join because they need it, but we ain’t going to be thanked straight away. We’re certainly not going to be thanked. But we ain’t going to be thanked straight away. We’re certainly not going to be thanked. The amazing thing is how often we are 10, 15, 20, 30 years later which is good and still taken to task on occasions for things we did or didn’t do in a way. But it is that thing that we need to recognize how much we are asking while trying to give something that will be essential, and we need the space to name things, to reflect on things, and hopefully we have enough of capacity to do that.
Colby: 41:28
So I think that continuity and what you’re saying from simon is is really quite key yes and I and um, which led you into to the, the quote in uh latin, which led me to reflect upon um, uh conversation with paul van heswick, um, last night.
Colby: 41:49
But also it’s something that Patrick Tomlinson and I have talked about a number of times, which is, I guess, one of the themes that really underpins the reason for this podcast, which is the number of times, after a long career or at least you know, a longish career that we, we realize, we come to a realization that where we were, where we are now, others were at that same place at some point in time before us.
Colby: 42:28
Yeah, and so it’s. It’s kind of like the way that, uh, I put it in to words is we, we already knew that, or we always knew that. So you, yeah, and you were saying you know, back in 2000 years ago, people knew that about needing to look after those who look after, and I think, um, that that’s really part of why this podcast, you know, one of one of the main reasons for this podcast, in a way, is because I think, if we spend as I have on my first, I’m the first to put my hand up and say I’ve spent 30 years getting to this level of understanding that I am at now, yet only to find that, you know, there were a plethora of other people who reached that level of understanding before me and that’s in the end.
Richard: 43:21
It’s reassuring because one of the Mobley Bush trustees, early on when I was the director, he had been there for a while. Uh, ian blair his name was and he he gave me two phrases. One of them was people need reminding much more often than they need telling, and I I’ve never forgotten that because it’s something about recognizing that and how it opens communication If we are reminded. Let me remind you of something. I know, you know it, but let’s remember together and I think too often telling people can be experienced as telling off.
Richard: 44:17
And Mrs D was very, very keen. We never had a culture where we would impose acts of restitution on children, because she made very clear she said too often restitution imposed by adults is really retribution by adults and we have to wait and give the child the space and the opportunity to make amends for what they do. And I remember I’ll call her Lulu again if I say a different name but totally chaotic behavior, this, that and the other thing. And in the end I said okay, time to go back to the house and she said you’re not going to make me do anything.
Richard: 45:13
And I said no, no, I mean, the important thing was we interrupted what you were doing. That couldn’t happen, but you know it’s down to you to think about what you might want to do. And a couple of days later she said would anybody like a cup of tea? And you know there’s four or five people. Yeah, ok, she made a cup of tea. And you know there’s four or five people. Yeah, okay, she made this cup of tea.
Richard: 45:35
Meanwhile my heart is in my throat because she was a slight thing and she’s carrying this tray. But you know you have to tolerate anxiety and uncertainty sometimes. And she brought it out and really that was her way of making her own restitution for having undone some things. She now did something for others and you know it’s a small everyday thing but it’s hugely significant. That’s why living to learn, learning to live in and as a group, offers these opportunities through the ordinary unfolding of a day, a week, a month, australia with a profile. Their grasp of time and its passage is very often, for some time at best, tenuous, and the structure and routine of a day can be a a very, very therapeutically powerful feature that gives some sense of the structure of the day. It puts a boundary around things and defines space. It’s not a barrier, it’s a boundary that defines space. And I remember after I’d been there God, it was at least a year.
Richard: 47:11
Anthony comes up to me, one of the children. He says Richard, are you a grown-up here? I said yeah, anthony. He said oh sorry, I thought you were a student. Why are you here? Why don’t you just go get a job? I said Anthony, why should I go get a job? I mean, I’m here at the Mulberry Bush, we have great times together, playing, we have fantastic meals and everything. I’m not going to go out and get a job, I’m going to stay here with you guys. Oh, okay. So you know the nine-year-old child catching up something and said oh, that’s what we’re here for. It’s not work, mind, we are doing hard work, but uh, it’s.
Richard: 47:56
You know, it was good to know that he had this sense of people being together.
Colby: 48:00
That was a task you’ve talked about, um, so the outcomes, when I when I was going to ask you about a question about outcomes, but you’ve talked about the importance of learning to live with yourself and with others as an outcome, and do you think that that’s something that was regularly achieved?
Richard: 48:30
I think there are always differences in degree, always. And there was a very famous beer commercial years ago for Heineken, and it was Heineken reaches the parts other beers don’t reach. And I have to acknowledge, for some children they didn’t have the Mulberry Bush equivalent of the Heineken effect. I don’t think many children went away feeling entirely unhelped, but you know, quite a few children were able to do dare I borrow a phrase good enough, good enough for yeah. And it gave it gave them the capacity, two things to do more than just survive, having moved on, as I had to, eventually. But also it opened them up to an understanding that, you know, their life doesn’t have to be the reproduction of sameness. In other words, the traumatic experiences and events that they suffered in the past and that overwhelms them in the present does not necessarily have to be sorry, have to be the outcome of their future. It gives them a hopeful expectation, yeah, that things can be different and a bit better, and that they’ve had an experience of being able to use other people to assist them to learn, change and grow. So I think that’s really an important change. So, even for some of the ones that we didn’t quite do, good enough for, a number of them have been able to make future use, yes, of people and service.
Richard: 50:45
And and again it’s going back to that thing about mind. There is a healthy mind available if one can can find it, and sometimes not easy in our society. The dangerous mind of the street is much more prominent. I mean, over here in the UK. It’s hilarious. There’s regular things about, oh, these out-of-control youths and things. In the last 15 years over 80% of youth services has been closed down. I’m not making a particular political thing, it’s just the reality. It’s all closed down. And what’s available? What’s available, much more available, is the dangerous mind of the street to belong somewhere. And so those people who you know they’re not going to fall down and bow down and say, oh, richard, thank you so much for all that you did for me. I’m waiting for that to happen someday. It hasn’t yet, but there are ways of recognizing that they experienced something that gave them at least, as I said, a hopeful expectation that things for them can be different, yeah, yeah.
Colby: 52:04
So there’s a bit of belief and you do do, as I mentioned in the opening, you do do the follow-up contact you with, with former pupils and, yes, um, and you also have former pupils who initiate contact, uh, with the school and reconnection with the school.
Colby: 52:31
And one of the things I’ve noticed about my own work is that it’s not always the case that the outcomes are achieved. You know, in the time that the young people are engaged with the service, the young people are engaged with the service, but those, as you have rightly put it, it is introduced possibility to them and that can be realised years down the track. Yeah, and I think that’s. Do you think that, given that not all children who have experienced relational trauma, trauma in the home, can be in a therapeutic community like the Mulberry Bush School and are, in fact, still trying to find their way in mainstream education settings, and mainstream education settings are trying to respond to their needs as best they can, do you think that there’s anything particularly that was able to be delivered at the Mulberry Bush School that could be rolled out in mainstream education settings to support these children?
Richard: 53:44
Yes, and not only just support these children and I understand there’s a particular population but support all the children and young people in school. It is an enduring source of regret to me that schools state schools, private schools have a captive audience five days a week, for I mean, god, I don’t know how many weeks they’re in education, but you know what I mean 40 odd weeks, yeah.
Richard: 54:17
And they’ve got them there. And that potential capacity is rarely used. Too much is focused on the over concrete performance. And look, I’m a big fan of reading. I always struggled with maths but I knew it was important. My father was an accountant. I mean, he was happy with me. In a lot of ways he must have been disappointed with me about math. So all these educational dimensions we’ve already covered. We recognize them and it’s important.
Richard: 54:48
But, my gosh, surely you’ve got an environment where people can be together once or twice a day, three times a week, where you know the real focus is how are we doing, what’s going on? And one of the most powerful words I believe in therapeutic residential care is the word we, we, how are we Actually? What’s going on? We don’t usually do that. We don’t need to do that. When things are difficult we can do it a different way. That’s readily transferable to schools, not just for behavior management, but for that sense of being a part of something rather than a totally reluctant, you know, dragged in for what they have to do and create disruption there’s something about. Is this how we want to be here? It is so grossly underused in our culture of education, and I don’t mean turn every school into a therapeutic community. That would be perverse. But it is providing a space where people can be together and just think together about how we are.
Colby: 56:12
Yeah, and it’s, it’s a very powerful thing, readily transferable and it highlights the importance of the language that we use.
Richard: 56:21
Indeed yeah.
Colby: 56:23
And also to me. It sends chills down my spine when I think that often one of the more common ways of schools where I am and I’m presuminging in many jurisdictions, if not all around the world is is when children, when the school is having significant deal difficulty with managing a child, then they exclude the child from the. We yes and and, and they set them apart as a child, apart, and then, of course, if they don’t feel part of the community, then they won’t conform to the standards of the community.
Richard: 57:13
Yes, it’s this sense of belonging, yeah, belonging. And what’s the word um? Unconditional, but not necessarily uncritical. You know, we will name things, we will, you know, call some things out if we need to, but it is all in service to belonging, which is, you know, one of those interesting words of mine. My favorite book is the Oxford English Dictionary based on historical principles, and I have to have a real copy of it because it’s online now, but I have to have it. And the word be is a very interesting one. A defective word is the definition, the first definition of the word be in it, and because it needs something else, it’s incomplete. It needs something else to make sense, even to be or not to be.
Richard: 58:14
It is very explicitly present the presence of hamlet in that thing for me to be or not to be, and of course, longing, which is a yearning, usually after something or someone, that is unattainable. If not ameliorated, it will become. I’m trying to think of the right word now. I’m having a senior moment, but it makes it worse and worse till you just become depressed and disconnected. But if you put be a defective word and longing together, you create something, you forge something, and it’s about belonging, being a part of something and some others, rather than apart from. So, as we know, in atomic theory, fusion, putting things together creates a very powerful bond, and fission breaks the bond and creates terrible things. So if we encourage the sense of belonging and it’s very strong it provides an alternative to presenting disruptive behavior that reproduces the same thing. You’re out.
Richard: 59:38
Not for the first time in your life. Probably, and probably not for the first time in your life, probably and probably not for the last time. It continually happens because there’s never been enough space to hold the presence and make someone feel they belong and, as you will know from attachment and attachment disorders, it is sometimes you can get in too close as well as other times far away. So it’s about emotional and social distance regulation a good enough connection, as winnicott says look, I could speak to you for hours.
Colby: 1:00:17
We, we just had a a bit of a break at this end, uh, in transmission.
Richard: 1:00:23
Um, oh, that’s okay, um I thought you were looking at me with complete puzzlement because I was going off on one.
Colby: 1:00:32
No, um, actually the internet’s been pretty good for most of these podcasts, so, um, look, I could. So, look, I could sit here and talk to you for hours, but perhaps we don’t have hours, at least this time. There’s a couple of things that we’ve been trying with the podcast. I usually give my guests an opportunity to ask me a question without notice, and we’ve also just started to bring in the notion of the current guest asking a question of the next guest. So we’ve got three parts here We’ve got. Is there a question you’d like to ask me? I’ve got a question from my most recent past podcast guest and there’s an opportunity for you to pose a question that I can ask my next guest. And given that time might be a little bit against us now in in those, those seminal words of meatloaf, two out of three ain’t bad. I wonder if we go with two out of three of those, because I’m wondering if we just perhaps unless have you got a burning question you’d like to ask me, or shall we save that for another conversation?
Richard: 1:02:04
well, look, let’s save that for another. You know, there’s always things I can be curious about, but I think in the context I’m happy to save it. It’s not burning.
Colby: 1:02:12
Yeah, yeah, yeah the, the my most recent past podcast guest. Podcast guest was a fellow named Andrew Isaac, who I’ve known for more than a decade and he heads up BSN, social Care and the Children’s Services Development Group, and his question was is there a tipping point or is there something that you notice while working in a therapeutic school that really gives some sense of the capacity to reintegrate into a mainstream school or back into family successfully, or are they going to be um reliant on on a kind of a congregate environment for their care and schooling going forward?
Richard: 1:03:12
what kind of environment I missed congregate or a congregate or group group environment. Oh right, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, um, oh right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Self and engaging with them about you know, here’s the now and what about the future, and they will find ways to let us know. So it it really is. The whole of the treatment experience is geared for not just being here but actually being elsewhere. But we’re here for now and I guess, from my experience, my counsel would be let’s not be too quick to jump to a decision either way, and it’s always well.
Richard: 1:04:22
It can often be a finely balanced decision and we have to be opened to what the child or young person is telling us in words and also in the way they behave. Yeah, I’m sorry, andrew, I can’t. There’s much more we can say and I just think the lived experience and the relationship we have with the children and young people will help us support the other thing Ultimately, the mulberry bush doesn’t decide, it advises, and often the advice is heeded and acted upon. Sometimes it isn’t, and sometimes it goes quite badly wrong. Other times it seems to have gone well enough. So we have to do the best we can, or, given all that we know, think we know and hope for this person and never send somebody to something that we know is going to be a total breakdown. But you know it’s we got to let go sometimes.
Colby: 1:05:39
I’m reminded of the conversation I had with John Whitwell, and I believe he was quoting Winnicott when he was talking about Winnicott seeing children as like bulbs. Okay, you know, the growth is within them.
Colby: 1:05:57
They just need the right environment to thrive. And I think and then linking that up with what we were touching on earlier, which is sometimes, we see, let me backpedal one little bit is that I think part of being a parent, part of any caregiving endeavour, is a bit like being a a farmer who raises crops, yes and uh. So as a farmer, you prepare the growing environment, you till the soil, you, you remove the weeds, you, you then seed the field and you pray for rain and you wait. And of course, part of the growing environment is you have fences and other things, but every now and then pests get in and other adverse influences get in that we would prefer didn’t.
Colby: 1:07:05
But the main thing is that parenting is a bit like that we put in what we put in and we wait, and sometimes in an ordinary family environment, we wait nearly two decades in many respects, to see the outcome of our endeavour. So I do think in this space, of course it’s fantastic if you can see and people always want to see, they want to see progress, they want to see outcomes achieved, they want to see results. It’s fantastic if you can see progress. I want to see outcomes achieved, I want to see results. It’s fantastic if you can see them. Yes, but you have to remember that children are like bulbs.
Colby: 1:07:47
Yeah, and you know, the growth is within them, in the right environments for them. And, yeah, and the growth can happen at any time, and that’s often enough our experience, is it not? When we hear from people that we’ve worked with in the past that things have clicked at some point? And, as I was saying to you earlier, I only had a lad ring me today. I crossed his mind and he thought I must ring colby. He thought I was retired. I might have been retired already, uh, but he rang and uh, he just rang to let me know how he was going. And when I first met him I won’t, yeah, when I first met him he was in a very bad way and, yeah, his life, he’s doing very well in his life now.
Richard: 1:08:46
Oh, that’s good, that’s fantastic. And I think what you talk about you know, that kind of horticultural, if you would. To broaden the thing perspective, it’s terribly important. The long-term hurt many of these children, young people, have suffered requires some long-term work and a lot of it is not forcing growth. So my eldest granddaughter, when she was three, nana went with her and they planted some sunflower seeds and for the whole of the rest of the weekend she would go out squatting over the pot waiting for it to grow. You know, a bit like Jack and the Beanstalk and you know how to be explained to her. It takes time and it will come up and you have to nurture it in the way you were talking about Colby. But it is also true If you force growth, you know the sunflower will shoot up but it won’t have a well-grounded rooting system and it’ll be too thin because it was forced and it will fall over. It was forced and it will fall over. So we have to do just as you say and create that horticultural mind.
Richard: 1:10:10
And you know, I like music. I’m not very good at it, I’ve never played a musical instrument but I I learned a bit from others about it. And there’s this phrase tempo robo in music, in a piece, in a conductor, and they’re not there to tell the score it’s to interpret and they do it. And sometimes, if they pace things up, what a good conductor recognizes is they’ve stolen some time. A good conductor recognizes is they’ve stolen some time and the piece has to be given it back so that it is a full, complete, healthy and helpful expression of the musical score. And it’s the same with these children, young people. Yeah, they’ve had time stolen from them, the time to be a child, to be well-grounded and rooted, and we’re there to help give them some of that time back. So we’re conducting something as well and again, to be good enough.
Richard: 1:11:14
It might not be the most beautiful sunflower in the world, but it’s well-grounded and it has the potential to come out with that beautiful sunflower head, and this is what we have to wait some time for.
Colby: 1:11:30
We do yeah, yeah, we wait. But what? While we wait, we hold, we hold space for that.
Richard: 1:11:37
Yes, yeah yes, yeah, I could say more, but I absolutely we’ll have to.
Colby: 1:11:45
We’ll have to do part two and part three at some point. I I’d be very um keen to have you back for another chat if, if you feel like, feel up to doing it, I’d be up for it.
Richard: 1:11:55
Yeah, you’ve been very kind and uh, warm and you know listening to me.
Colby: 1:12:01
Well, you know what I like talking to adults, because I talk to children all day. There you go, I do talk. I talk to their carers as well. So you know, the podcast has been a fantastic experience for me too.
Richard: 1:12:21
I have a wonderful quote from Václav Havel, who who spoke about hope, and you know the challenge and the opportunity of it. And I guess I’d be curious of her, about, you know, in the current circumstances globally UK and Scotland based. Where is she feeling hopeful? Yeah, as general as that, in terms of the world of work that we’re doing and the vulnerability and the potentials for young people.
Colby: 1:12:52
I think that’s a great question, yeah, yeah, well, thank you for that, richard, and thank you, yeah, thank you again for being on the podcast and uh, you mentioned me, uh providing a relaxed space for you, and, of course, you’ve tolerated some of my a couple of my own uh gaffes, uh, along the way, and uh, I’ll do, I’ll do my best with the editing that’s fine I I felt.
Richard: 1:13:23
I felt very, very, very positive throughout.
Colby: 1:13:27
Yeah, thank you and thank you to you too, and uh, yeah, good luck to you and, and maybe we’ll yeah, it would be fantastic to speak another time.
Richard: 1:13:36
Good, and all the best to everyone. Cheers, thank you.
