On Friday, my group and I were asked to role play a meeting, each of us received a piece of paper with our character and some extra information on it. We were role playing a meeting about a child called Jack who has various issues and we had to try to find a solution to. The characters were:
- Jack’s Mum
- Jack’s Dad
- The Head Teacher
- The Class Teacher
- The Health Visitor
- Jack’s Mum’s Social Worker
It was really interesting to watch the scene play out. I was Jack’s Dad and I knew that Jack was not receiving enough care from the mother, that the mother had lost her job and that this was for stealing.
Among all the other discussions I found myself focussing in my head that the mother was clearly not capable of looking after Jack and, as one of Jack’s issues was stealing at school, I thought this behaviour had been learned from the mother. In the end it turned out that the mother had not been stealing but had lost her job due to too many absences because she was not coping. This really got me thinking, and what I realised is that nobody in that group had all of the information. Because of this, there was not an easy way of making the necessary decisions.
If this was a real-life meeting, I would imagine that the mother would feel ganged-up on by the father and all of the various professionals. Our group decided that Jack should go to stay with his dad to allow his mum to get back on her feet, but I know that in reality this would not have been so easy a decision and the mother would not have let this happen so easily.
What I have learned from this activity is that there are always two sides to every story and we need to be able to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. Another observation I made was that Jack was not included in any decisions we made, and it seemed that none of the adults had even asked him his opinion. This shows that there is a real need for childrens’ voices to be heard by those who hold the power to make huge changes in childrens’ lives. I will keep this in mind when it comes to my own practice, and in the classroom while teaching.
