Vulnerable and capable, at the same time

‘Vulnerable and Capable, at the same time’ blog article was written by Lauren Thomas, Director of the International Childhood Trauma Conference and Senior Project Lead of Child and Youth Participation and Engagement at the Australian Childhood Foundation.

There is a problem facing workers trying to facilitate Children’s and Youth Participation in statutory spaces. The problem does not lie in the theory or notion that these are good ideas. Nor that they lack a rights basis, for indeed they do. The problem lies with our societal and cultural ideation or ability to hold in tension two things: vulnerability and capability. 

Children and young people have the right to have a say in matters that impact them, doing so is important to their development. Similarly, the insight, experience and expertise they can bring to our Systems, Policies and Organisations is critical.

And yet, what I hear from children and young people in consultations and focus groups, also echoed in research, is that when they are given these opportunities, time and again, they face paternalistic views from well-meaning workers.

Views often intended to support them with their perceived additional needs. Unfortunately, it seems that we can be so focused on the vulnerability of the child or young person that we inadvertently hamper or encroach on their capability. 

It seems there is a set of metaphorical scales, as it were.

Vulnerability sits on one side, and Capability on the other. And as workers, we tend to identify with one more than the other. But both sides can lead to challenges for those with lived experience of childhood abuse and trauma. 

If, when engaging with children and young people, we place too much weight on either side of this set of metaphorical scales, we can create problems in the participatory opportunities we offer that will ultimately prevent all of us from getting the benefit. 

If we lean too strongly on the vulnerable side, we consider that children and young people, along with adult survivors, have suffered already and need our protection, which may be true.

But should needing and deserving protection mean that they forgo the opportunity to participate, too? Being vulnerable, especially where that vulnerability is human-made – the emergent property or result of one right having already been breached – shouldn’t result in the removal of another.  

Alternatively, if we lean heavily on the capability side, championing the right of people with lived experience to participate and share their voice whilst not acknowledging the impact of their trauma, there are also risks we create.

The closeness in time for children between when they experienced the violence of abuse and that of their participatory opportunities means that the impact on their nervous systems and the neuroception of safety must be considered and planned for, or we are failing in our duty of care as trauma integrative organisations, systems and workers. This does not mean that we avoid the opportunities in the meantime.  

At a human level, all of us are capable of being vulnerable and capable simultaneously.

We all experience incredible loss and hardship, and yet, we still go to work and wish to do our jobs; in fact, the satisfaction in achieving tasks is often what helps keep us moving – helps us on the road to recovery. The meaning found in work, at least for me personally, has drawn me through incredible times of personal trauma. The responses of those around me can either define me by what has happened or empower and support me to continue on.  

Children and young people deserve these same opportunities.

They need us to allow them the opportunity to grow and experience being both vulnerable and capable. To know the strength of feeling in being capable, as well as the knowledge of being vulnerable. Those who have a lived experience of trauma, especially those growing up in therapeutic care, will have lots of adults in their world organised around their vulnerability – echoes of their past abuse and reminders of what has gone wrong.

Perhaps there is also an opportunity for those same workers to change the tone of their interactions with children and young people. By engaging them in the therapeutic journey and empowering them to join in with the many adults who are now part of writing their narrative of recovery.  

In addition, by building empowered relationships with young people in this way, we also create connections between our services and systems. Connections that allow young people, in turn, to share their living experiences intour own service and system development, helping us to transform practice. 

As Tucci, Mitchell, Tronick and Porges argue in The Handbook of Trauma-Transformative Practice:

“The ambition of trauma transformative practice is its integration into existing and new service and system design… Using human-centred design thinking (Ructtinger, 2015), we need to privilege the expertise of lived and living experience and practice wisdom. By including a diverse range of perspectives, participation and co-design strategies help to generate trauma transformative solutions that are culturally and contextually relevant, inclusive and for which there is a shared sense of trust, confidence and accountability.”

It is difficult to imagine how we will improve our systems and service design without the expertise and voices of our service users and the experiences of those most affected by the policies we are writing.

But similarly, it is not possible to work in trauma-transformative ways if we don’t remain empowering as we support children and young people when they engage with us. And to remain empowering, we have to keep the scales in balance. Put it as the header of your page, of your case notes, of your file; wherever you need it as you start your engagement.

We can be vulnerable and capable, at the same time.  

Bibliography:

Tucci, Joseph., Mitchell, Janise., Porges, Stephen., Tronick, Ed. (2024) The Handbook of Trauma-Transformative Practice. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. ISBN: 9781787755772 

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