Can we find the Courage to Embed Love in Policy?

Recently I received an acceptance for an abstract that I submitted for the Interweaving Conference at the University of Edinburgh on 6 September 2017. This will be the first time I actually have to speak, the last few have been poster presentations. The challenge I have is to condense all of my thoughts on my research into 5 minutes. Yikes! So being at a place where I have now gathered my data and I am contemplating how to begin the laborious task of analysing it all. I have my thoughts about where my data is directing me and themes are beginning to emerge.

My first round of interviews focused on identifying personal values and professional values of the Lead Practitioner. I also asked questions to get them thinking about what the “softer outcomes” were that the Care Inspectorate look for. Initially, I was looking at these in order to find a way of making my research have an impact upon policy. These interviews, although a good place to start, really didn’t feel like I was asking the right questions for the research question that was in my mind. I was trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. So about half way through my first round of interviews I began to reflect upon what it was that I really wanted to find out. My interest lies in looking at how love impacts upon the professional identity of the Lead Practitioner and also upon the profession as a whole.

Work by Dr Jools Page led me to re-structure the plan I had for my second round of interviews. I took the research diaries which I had asked the participants to keep and looked at the content of their first interviews. At this stage it is purely a rudimentary analysis of the interview transcripts. I could see three themes developing from the interview transcripts and the diaries. The first being a need for a definition of love that makes sense for early year’s practice, the second being individual values/  personal experiences of love and the third being Professional Identify. This felt like a breakthrough in terms of my thesis and the chapters I would begin to build upon. Making this breakthrough has really freed up the way my mind is working in terms of my research. I can see now where I might go with the findings I have.

I was very focused on trying to understand love and focused on the work of Page, looking at Professional Love. However, when I realised the questions I asked in the first set of interviews didn’t quite meet my research intention I started to think about why. Firstly, I needed to build on the work of Dr Page, not simply agree with it. Because I don’t completely agree with it. I believe her theory is a good place for practitioners to start thinking about professional love, but I don’t think her idea of “de-centring” is quite right. I wanted to find out if love is something that is borne out of personal experience and if that can be brought to the childcare setting. Practitioners I spoke to kept telling me that the love that they experienced in the setting was somewhere in between Professional Love and Family Love. One said “oh for goodness sake, let’s just call it love”. So in my second set of interviews I focus on the Lead Practitioner’s own experience of love. Using the Duplex Theory of Love by Sternberg I was able to look at the discourse of love and how Lead Practitioners understood love in the childcare setting. Many talk about practitioners having “it”. When pressed on what “it” is, I began to see a pattern of different skills and knowledge.

Then came my second breakthrough. I had a really interesting second interview with one of my participants (P8). She has taken a 180 degree turn from saying “no” to love as a professional standard to saying “yes”. She said that practitioners should say that they “love” children and that “it” is made up of lots of component parts. When I pushed her on what to call this love she just said “Oh for goodness sake, let’s just call it love” but that we had to tell people what we meant by love. I returned to Dr Page’s research which created a model for Professional Love and how to help practitioner’s practice it. The model encourages the practitioner to de-centre, to remove all personal needs for love in order to start to build relationships with the child. My research, however seems to suggest that personal experiences perhaps have an integral part to play in how a practitioner practices “love” in the setting (find examples). It would therefore seem remiss to have the practitioner step away from their needs and personal experiences but rather have them be reflexive in their practice in terms of love. I am not altogether convinced that having the practitioner de-centre is a good thing to do. Being aware of their own experiences is a good idea but putting their own needs to the side might not be. Many of the participants talked about reciprocal relationships with the children and staff being really important, also the relationships between staff and staff as being crucial to loving relationships between staff and children.

I sent out a pre-interview questionnaire based on the duplex theory of love which examined the language of love and also I asked how might love be shown in practice. This proved a really useful tool in deciding what questions to ask the participants for their second interview. Further examination of both of these in the interviews set me thinking about how to come up with a way of illustrating “love” to show parents and practitioners what early years love looks like. P8 talked about how she wanted to see a “loving setting” and be able to include that in the setting’s ethos. This questionnaire also encouraged a dialogue about words such as intimate and passionate, participants considered their meanings in relation to their own personal relationships and those of the children and colleagues they work with. I then read in Dr Page’s research findings report that she felt that Sue Gerhardt (2004) said “defining love in professional roles is problematic because there is no skill set that can be applied, taught or measured”.  This struck a chord with me because on one hand I felt that it seems a shame that such a basic human emotion needs to be re-defined into a skills set in order for it to be seen as an acceptable practice for a professional child carer to demonstrate but on the other hand, my participants were definitely breaking down “it” into a set of skills and knowledges.

At this point there was a pattern emerging to the way that participants looked at the practice in their settings and how they could see love. One participant even took me through an issue she was having with one room in her setting where she could see that there was no love in the room, and on a tour of the nursery without her saying it was very evident which room it was. She said the staff functioned well enough, did all that was required of them, but “it” was just missing. Clearly there is a skills set, but what is “it”? Many of the participants talked about “it”. This is something that was examined in the second interviews.

 Professionals were all clear that love probably did exist but in a variety of forms. But the word “love” as a concept was deemed unacceptable because of the connotations derived from the language and society’s understanding of love (sexual, romantic). I am working on developing a matrix which  strives to bring “love” right back into the discourse of childcare by showing the skills set which is already in place and practice, therefore freeing professionals to simply demonstrate love freely without concern for what people might think they are doing.

I agree with Gerhardt saying that perhaps love cannot be taught however looking at the skills set love clearly can be applied and if not taught in a classroom perhaps it can be learned through vocational methods (I had an interesting discussion with P7 regarding this). The matrix will also allow for the further development of monitoring and evaluation tools therefore making love a measurable skills set. This is turn means we can bring what is a basic emotion, love, into the professional identify by turning it into a skill which can be applied, learned and measured.

This matrix is the beginning of my thought process on this, and it will be developed further. I have handed out to a small sample of parents, a questionnaire which seeks to get their input into love in the early years setting and profession. Early results from this include comments such as: ”I think the feelings of the staff are easily detected by the child and love creates a warm and supportive environment”; “”I wouldn’t be upset if someone else loved my child”; “”I certainly believe the staff are incredibly fond of my child…if fondness and affection translates to love, then yes I guess one could say they love them”; “if they (the staff) did not in practice show “love” my children would not be asking for their teachers on days off”; “yes I feel that when I leave they almost take over my role as parent, it is important that they care for my child in a way that resembles home”; “I feel with love for the children and their job our children are safer”. There are a number of questions on the questionnaire which I will analyse, and still have some questionnaires to collect, but first impressions are that the parents clearly want their children to be loved and are happy with the idea, which is something that the practitioners were at odds with. This will be interesting to examine further.

In trying to define love it has become clear that a number of different elements are already evident. None of this seems new, so I still question why practitioners seem so reluctant to use the word love in their practice? Conversations I have had that child carers already, embrace all the practice of loving the children but they are still reluctant to say that they do. My first and second round of interviews have attempted to examine why. And hopefully asking the parents/carers will shed some light on this also. P8 suggested the love for your own children/family is forever but for the children in your care it is only for a short while, I for one, am really impressed by a professional who can reach that level of passion, intimacy and love for the children that they work with in such a short space of time. That is a real skill, and I think that is why we should recognise it as a professional value/standard.

The interviews provided data which supported each of the areas in the matrix. Participants talked about how they were able to identify “it” at interview stage, how the language of passion and intimacy was difficult but clearly something that they did in practice. They talked about issues such as child protection, adult safeguarding, parental interpretation of love. They spoke about how important love was in terms of the relationships that they had in their teams. And also the importance of reflexive practice in terms of recognising how love impacted upon the children and the other relationships in the setting. All of which helped develop the matrix. I have hopefully asked questions in the second round of interviews which help build on the three themes which in turn lead to the development of the matrix.

Suzanne Zeedyk (Hassan and Barrow, 2017) implores the Scottish Government to have courage and embed love into relationship led policies which impact directly upon outcomes for children. The current policy to increase the number of funded childcare places for children aged 3 -5 aims to support parents back into work, but Zeedyk warns that "childcare operates during the most critical period of human development, laying down the physiological foundations that the individual will draw on for the rest of their life". She goes onto say that if childcare isn't of high quality then potentially these policies could damage children. She cites two authors who warn that "nearly all daycare settings provide inadequate care for babies" (Narvaez, 2014) and Mate (2010) who contends that "emotional nurturance is disrupted by Western Society".  

I find all of this quite sad, what has happened to our society that we find it hard to 'love' the children that we care for? I recently spoke with a friend who works in adult social care. She too was researching emotional labour. Her research looked at "friendships" between carers and adult recipients of that care. Her observations showed very similar results to my findings. Practitioners in social care responded in a number of ways ranging from the view that you could have friendships with clients to stating that it was definitely not appropriate for carers to hold those friendships. This pattern is also reflected in my questions to childcare professionals. They either felt very comfortable with demonstrating that they loved the children to those who said that they felt uncomfortable and that it wasn't professional to show or say that you loved the children you cared for. There are quite compelling arguments from the world of science stating that love and attachments are important for children's brain development. So why do we find it such a challenge to see love as part of our professional identity? 

Zeedyk challenged a group of delegates at the Parenting across Scotland conference in 2015 to have courage to talk about love in practice. Lead Practitioners need to find the courage to give their staff permission to deliver "it" and to give the parents courage to know that the love that their childcarers are showing their children is a love comparable to their own parental love but not a replacement for. Children will thrive if they are shown love on a natural, regular basis and policy needs to reflect this, policy makers need to have the courage to embed love in professional practice within childcare. They need to acknowledge but not be bogged down by fear, fear that every adult who comes in contact with a child will cause them some harm. This fear is depriving children of much needed love for their emotional and brain development. If we could find the courage to love the children we care for and if the Scottish Government could find the courage to embed love into the early years sector then we truly would be providing services that hold children at the heart! Let's be brave.

Am I any closer to condensing all of this to 5 minutes, probably not! But hey, all you need is love. All together now.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5ze_e4R9QY

References

Dr Jools Page (2017) Professional Love in Early Childhood Education and Care. (accessed 11 August 2017,  http://professionallove.group.shef.ac.uk).

Sue Gerhardt (2004). Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain. Taylor Francis: East Sussex and New York. 

Zeedyk, S (2017) The Early Years Agenda. Hassan, G and Barrow, S (2017) A Nation Changed? The SNP and Scotland Ten Years On. Luath Press Limited: Edinburgh. 

Zeedyk, Suzanne (2015) Parenting Across Scotland Conference Key note speech, Our human need for love: why it is the problem and why it is the solution. (can be accessed via Youtube).

Navaez, D. (2014). Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom. W. W. Norton & Co. cited in Zeedyk, S (2017) The Early Years Agenda. Hassan, G and Barrow, S (2017) A Nation Changed? The SNP and Scotland Ten Years On. Luath Press Limited: Edinburgh. 

Mate, G. (2010). In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. Knopf Publishers. Cited in Zeedyk, S (2017) The Early Years Agenda. Hassan, G and Barrow, S (2017) A Nation Changed? The SNP and Scotland Ten Years On. Luath Press Limited: Edinburgh.