After retiring from a long career in children's services, Chris felt he had more to offer.
Having practiced as a social worker since 1987, Chris started working in a children’s home in Surrey at the start of the COVID pandemic.
Chris didn’t plan his career journey. Before he trained as a social worker he worked in the adventure playground movement, a job he also fell into.
"I came to residential work by accident. Like most of my jobs in my whole career, I can't ever remember there being a plan. I'm now approaching my 69th birthday. All those ideas of retirement have been parked because I get a lot out of this role and I’m not quite in the mood to give it up just yet!"
As a social worker, he was responsible for children placed in residential homes, but he never worked in one himself until he retired. When Covid hit, he got in touch with a children's home with a manager he had worked with in the past, to see if they needed help with staff sickness. Chris had decades of experience in children's services behind him when he started. He expected that experience to carry him through.
"Looking back, I may have arrogantly thought that I know a thing or two about working with children, having done it for years in a variety of roles in children’s services. Fairly quickly I realised that it was quite a humbling experience, and that this was going to be a journey of fresh learning about children, their various quirks and challenges. I’m up close to them every day in a way that I never was as a social worker."
A different kind of role
Chris talks about the licence his age and history give him in the home. He is not trying to do the job the way he did his senior leadership roles.
"I think my experience is teaching me something about having a particular role to play…as a kind of ‘corporate grandparent’! It feels like I have a character part in a play, 'A Day in the Life of a Children’s Home', where we don't all have to bring the same things. The role gives me more freedom to be myself, more playful and silly than in my previous leadership roles. It's a beautiful thing to be able to go back to the front line and just spend time with children without some of those bigger corporate responsibilities."
Compared to social work
Chris draws a line between the relationships he had with children as a social worker and the ones he has now.
"It's a different approach to building relationships with children as a social worker, when you see them so infrequently. Daily contact with children in a children's home environment is so much more conducive to developing strong and trusting relationships."
He believes that the less regimented approach of working means that you can build a stronger, familial, bond when you work in a children’s home.
“It really feels like it's family, you're not interviewing the kids, not having an appointment that lasts an hour, but spending a full day with them."
A day on shift
Chris doesn’t work full time and has a casual ‘bank’ contract that suits him at this stage of his life. The home he works in supports five children. A typical shift would see him work from midday one day, sleep overnight, then work the following morning, before handing over to the next people on shift. He notes some of the main jobs he has.
"A normal day involves taking and collecting children from school, helping them to their appointments, or to the clubs that they are a part of. Meal times are always busy. Sometimes we might have key worker sessions where we make special time for children, where we're going to make time for important conversations that we might need to have with them."
Chris has also become the home's handyman.
"I'm the dedicated handyman as well. So when a lock breaks, the door handles come off or we need to decorate, those jobs come my way. Where we can we'll do those things with the children–it takes longer when you do it with them than if you did it yourself, but it's all part of the work!"
The team
Chris works alongside people with very different levels of experience, and he sees value in that mix. Some colleagues have been in residential care a long time and are deeply committed to it. Others are newer and younger, and Chris sees them bringing a different kind of relationship to the children, one shaped by their own age and background rather than his. He is candid that residential work does not always keep people for the long term.
"It's a job that some people might do really well for a time, then need to move on to something different. It's a good starting platform for people who want to develop their careers in other roles in children's services. So, we get some turnover."
Turnover aside, the team's real strength shows up when things get difficult with the children. It's less about individual skill and more about how the group behaves together, in front of the kids, day after day.
"Our superpower as a group is that when the going gets tough with the kids, as it will do from time to time, we can model what loving, mutually respectful relationships between adults look like. When we do that effectively and relentlessly in front of the kids, there's a chance it becomes infectious for them over time."
He's clear that this only works if the team actually holds itself to that standard, because the children are always watching for whether it's genuine.
"We're very conscious as a group of how important it is, the way we show up and how we are with each other, because the children spot it. We'd be kidding ourselves if we thought they didn't notice how we work as a group."
Patience and small changes
Many of the children who come to Chris's home have had multiple foster placements break down before they arrive. Some carry significant trauma, and have developed the belief that adults tend not to stick around.
"They arrive expecting that we are not going to stand by them and stick with it. We have to brace ourselves for that, play the long game, stick in there. That's one of the really satisfying things about the work."
The change he sees rarely happens quickly, and when it does happen, it's often small.
"If we're patient enough, if we give it enough time, we'll start to see quite small changes. Some of those little changes tell you you're on the right path. If you keep going, you can get to a place where these children start to feel safe and behave in much more pro-social ways than they did when they first turned up."
For Chris, that slow, close-up change is what makes the work feel worthwhile.
"It's very satisfying to see that change close up, and to know how consequential it is. The work is enormously consequential for the futures of those children. So it matters."
When asked what he would say to someone considering residential care, Chris did not oversell it.
"I'd say don't go into it thinking you're going to have a nice, easy time. But go into it knowing that if you work well as a group, watch out for each other and do the right things, it can be really rewarding."