What are the benefits? and Preparation

There are many benefits of doing this with children in your care including:

  • Can help children develop a sense of self (identity) and increased self-esteem through learning and accepting their past
  • Working together and developing a life story book (see our life story booklets for ideas or to get started) or memory box can help to create a bond and develop trust between children and their Kinship Carers.
  • Can help children distinguish between reality and fantasy.
  • Life story books can allow children to ask questions they may not have felt safe of comfortable to ask beforehand.

Prepare for discussion

  • Be prepared for difficult questions; do not shy away from important facts and prepare yourself with clear and thought-out answers that are the truth but are given using language to reduce any upset or anger the children may experience
  • Also be aware that this conversation may also be difficult for you, as you will be talking about a relative or friend and possibly sharing some of your own personal story.
  • Try not to criticise parents and be as factual as you can be. If you do not know the answer, just say that you do not know but can try and find out.
  • Life story is to be facilitated by you but carried out at the children’s pace.
  • Check how you are both feeling. Memories may make us feel uncomfortable and sad, while others make us feel happy. Encourage children to talk and explore these feelings if they want to and you can share how you feel about it too.
  • By sharing the information you have, you are helping them make the links between the past, the present and the future.
  • It would be helpful if you have someone you can talk to before and after to reflect on how the session went and talk about your thoughts and feelings.

Gathering information which can be used to create a book:

  • Collect photographs from special events, occasions such as birthdays and first day of school etc. Some Kinship Carers told us about free story books you can order online via several sites including FreePrints Photobooks
  • Keep records of what happened for when they get older
  • Allocate enough time at regular intervals to update the “My Life Story book” if you decide to do one. A copy of a prepared booklet can be requested from KCASS, this can be sent out for each individual child in your care.
Kinship.scot
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

Cookie Policy for kinship.scot

This is the Cookie Policy for kinship.scot, accessible from https://kinship.scot

What Are Cookies

As is common practice with almost all professional websites this site uses cookies, which are tiny files that are downloaded to your computer, to improve your experience. This page describes what information they gather, how we use it and why we sometimes need to store these cookies. We will also share how you can prevent these cookies from being stored however this may downgrade or 'break' certain elements of the sites functionality.

How We Use Cookies

We use cookies for a variety of reasons detailed below. Unfortunately in most cases there are no industry standard options for disabling cookies without completely disabling the functionality and features they add to this site. It is recommended that you leave on all cookies if you are not sure whether you need them or not in case they are used to provide a service that you use.

Disabling Cookies

You can prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser (see your browser Help for how to do this). Be aware that disabling cookies will affect the functionality of this and many other websites that you visit. Disabling cookies will usually result in also disabling certain functionality and features of the this site. Therefore it is recommended that you do not disable cookies.

The Cookies We Set

  • Email newsletters related cookiesThis site offers newsletter or email subscription services and cookies may be used to remember if you are already registered and whether to show certain notifications which might only be valid to subscribed/unsubscribed users.
  • Forms related cookiesWhen you submit data to through a form such as those found on contact pages or comment forms cookies may be set to remember your user details for future correspondence.
  • Site preferences cookiesIn order to provide you with a great experience on this site we provide the functionality to set your preferences for how this site runs when you use it. In order to remember your preferences we need to set cookies so that this information can be called whenever you interact with a page is affected by your preferences.

Third Party Cookies

In some special cases we also use cookies provided by trusted third parties. The following section details which third party cookies you might encounter through this site.

  • Third party analytics are used to track and measure usage of this site so that we can continue to produce engaging content. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site or pages you visit which helps us to understand how we can improve the site for you.
  • From time to time we test new features and make subtle changes to the way that the site is delivered. When we are still testing new features these cookies may be used to ensure that you receive a consistent experience whilst on the site whilst ensuring we understand which optimisations our users appreciate the most.
  • We also use social media buttons and/or plugins on this site that allow you to connect with your social network in various ways. For these to work the following social media sites including; {List the social networks whose features you have integrated with your site?:12}, will set cookies through our site which may be used to enhance your profile on their site or contribute to the data they hold for various purposes outlined in their respective privacy policies.

More Information

Hopefully that has clarified things for you and as was previously mentioned if there is something that you aren't sure whether you need or not it's usually safer to leave cookies enabled in case it does interact with one of the features you use on our site.

However if you are still looking for more information then you can contact us through one of our preferred contact methods:

  • Email: advice@kinshipscot.org