Food For Thought
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The document discusses the symbolic role of food in residential children's homes, emphasizing its importance in fostering relationships and aiding recovery from trauma. It highlights how food serves as a medium for belonging, identity, and emotional expression among children and staff, reflecting on the complexities of their interactions. Implications for practice include a shift towards understanding food as a therapeutic tool rather than just a nutritional necessity.
Food For Thought
- 1. Survival of the Self: the symbolic use of food by children and staff in residential children’s homes Dr Ruth Emond, Prof Sam Punch, Dr Ian McIntosh BASPSCAN Edinburgh 21st April 2015
- 2. Underpinning theoretical principles – The power of the ‘everyday’ in residential and foster care (Smith, 2009) – Everyday meanings of food beyond nutrition (Punch et al. 2010) – A symbolic medium through which relationships are played out – Complexity of residential/foster life (past, present and future colliding) (Redl and Wineman 1951)
- 4. FOOD AND CARE KEEPING SOMEBODY IN MIND SENSE OF BELONGING FEELINGS RESPECT TRUST GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER TESTING & SUSTAINING
- 5. Common responses to ‘trauma’ • Confusion • Regression • Sense of powerlessness • Denial • Intrusive memories • Developmental derailment (Winnicott 1963) • Projection of ‘intolerable, unspeakable and unthinkable feelings into another person who is prepared to receive and listen to them (Lanyado 2009)
- 6. Erosion of sense of self • Body boundary not known or respected • Messages from perpetrator • Messages post disclosure • ‘normal’ / ‘abnormal’ • Identity as victim
- 7. Food as vehicle to ‘Recovery’ from Trauma • Experiencing acceptance – food choices and practices (behaviour as function) • Controlling the pace – joining the table, eating with others, sharing knowledge and taste • The ‘ground has stopped shaking’ – routine and rhythms around food (‘punctuation points’ – predictable and reliable) • Having choice over the medium of expression – food as distraction, shared activity, sensory • Conscious and unconscious processes noticed and contained – food as a means of regression and denial
- 8. Belonging and Self ‘ … our sense of self is constructed in a relational process in our interactions with other people as well as in relation to more abstract notions of collectively held social norms, values and customs’ (May 2011:368) Our sense of knowing the world and our place within it is sensory; it is through smells, touch, sounds and movement through space and time that the world becomes familiar and starts to feel like ‘ours’ (cfe O’Neill 2001, Friedmann 2002)
- 9. The story of Ben and Judy • Belonging – to past and present • Sense of self – food as identity, testing and experimenting with ‘new’ selves.
- 10. Placement in Looked After Care • Out of danger • See ‘what could be’ rather than ‘just what is’ (May 2009) • New rules, routines and rhythms • New tastes, smells and rituals • New symbolism • New relationships
- 11. FOOD, FEELINGS AND RELATIONSHIPS ADULTS AND CHILDREN: – Managerialist/procedural culture – Relationships are messy and painful – Means of building and testing relationships – Links to recovery – Food as a safe ‘carrier of love’ – Food as a way of expressing and repressing feelings – I know you well/we are connected
- 12. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE – Moving beyond nutrition vs pressure for physical health – Window to the culture as well as the individual – Food as ‘therapy’/recovery – Link to ethos and aims of the service – The power of the everyday
- 13. RESOURCES FOR FOOD-BASED PRACTICE – Reflective Workshop: raising awareness (also an Interactive Introduction – online) – Reflective Tool: to think about the child you are looking after – JOTIT Notebook: for capturing reflections about food issues as they occur – Peer Support: using a specific group or staff meetings to explore these ideas and to think about intervention
- 14. Using the Resources Interactive Introduction Reflective Workshop Peer Support Interactive Introduction Reflective Workshop Reflective Tool Peer Support Reflective Tool JOTIT Notebook Peer Support JOTIT Notebook
- 15. FEEDBACK TO THE RESEARCH TEAM We would love to hear your views and experiences of using the resources – Ruth Emond – h.r.emond@stir.ac.uk – Samantha Punch – s.v.punch@stir.ac.uk – Ian McIntosh – ian.mcintosh@stir.ac.uk www.foodforthoughtproject.info