Our findings

You might have thought of words like 'healthy' or 'tasty.' Or remembered types of food you enjoyed (or really disliked!). In our study we found that staff and carers were most likely to think about food from a nutritional point of view. As one of the residential staff in the study said:

'I didn't realise that there was so much to say about food, you know. I thought it was based around a healthy eating thing … but in the end I realised that there is a lot more to food and looking at the social aspects … it's something you don't think about, or maybe you do subconsciously.'

Our findings

In our study, we found that the simple act of being made a cup of tea could represent many things. For example, another person knowing just how you like your tea or even noticing that you need a cup of tea can really make you feel cared about and also that someone knows you well. It can communicate that other people think you are important and that they value you. Alternatively, having to ask for a cup of tea or having someone who knows you well giving you the wrong amount of sugar or milk can leave you feeling unimportant or disappointed. So, a simple cup of tea and the act of it being made can be infused with many levels of meaning and significance: care, belonging, being known, a closeness of relationship, rejection.

Our findings

Your answer might have included:

• I was thinking about you all while I was away
• I felt guilty about being on holiday
• I want to be reminded of my summer holiday
• I want to share some of my positive holiday feeling with you

This type of communication can be referred to as 'symbolic communication' which is very powerful but often unconscious. That is, we don't always think about the meaning and significance of the action as we give or receive it. We also assume that the other person or people will know what it is that we are trying to say. This knowledge comes from having shared experiences and social 'teaching' about, in this case, the meaning of food. One of the participants in the study said:

'People have been brought up in a certain way and have had certain values instilled in them so they use food the way they've been taught … so lot of the time it's done but they are not thinking that it's done.'

You can read more about symbolic communication of page 4 of The Resource Handbook. If you'd like to know more about how we make meaning from our experiences in care settings you can find that on the Child and Youth Care website.

Our findings

Talking with carers and children we found that food played a huge part in almost every aspect of care. Food was used in all of the seven ways listed above, and more. Food, and the practices surrounding it, was linked to all of the central aims of looked after care identified by staff and carers. For them, looked after care was concerned with; creating a home for the child, making relationships, recovery from past pain, developing autonomy, being cared for and managing control, experiencing structure and routine and being supported through transitions.

For more details, please see The Resource Handbook (p3-5). Also Dr Ruth Emond and Dr Samantha Punch talk about the research on:

• Iriss.fm episode, 'Food and food practices in residential care'
• The Iriss video, entitled 'The use of food and food practices in residential care in Scotland'

Our findings

The staff and carers in the studies explained that they often had to juggle the rules and expectations of wider systems or organisations, like social work or foster agencies. They worried about being 'good enough parents' and about getting things right. In relation to food, many of the adults told us that they had to make sure children ate a 'healthy' diet. For some children this meant that they were being monitored for being underweight or being overweight. Others talked about the importance of preparing children to be well mannered and socially skilled around food. Some staff and carers worried about giving children 'false' expectations about the quality, variety and choice of food. They argued that food in care was often not going to be replicated for children in their birth families or once they had moved on to live independently. The spontaneity and enjoyment of food was at times clouded by these types of pressures.

One of the food practices that both adults and children told us was most controlled by systems and by the expectations of adults and children was mealtimes.

Our findings

Many of the adults that we talked to said that sitting round the table for meals together was very important. They saw this as key to making children feel part of the 'family' or resident group. They also said that mealtimes could be a really hard time of the day. Mealtimes often involved adults having to set down rules (sit still, use cutlery, finish what you have been given, have a chat). They had to do this in front of other children and adults. It seemed that meal times could be both the highlight and the low point of the day. Sometimes in the same day! These were some of the ways staff in residential care described mealtimes. Do you share any of these views?

• An open welcoming forum
• Relaxed and happy times
• A stepping stone
• Themes of constancy
• Social gathering
• A process we go through
• Focal point
• A dot on the map of the evening
• A milestone in the day
• A point of stress; hotspot
• A goldfish bowl
• A flashpoint
• Theatre for conflict
• Spotlight
• A chimpanzees tea party
• Captive audience

Our findings

We found that in many ways, children and young people felt the same as the adults. They described times where they had really enjoyed meals together but at other points they had felt stressed and embarrassed. It was a time where there was nowhere to hide. They liked to be given occasional permission to be able to opt out of mealtimes. Sometimes it just felt too much to sit at the table and join in.

You can read more about what the adults and children said about mealtimes in The Resource Handbook on pages 6-11. u might also want to read Iriss insight Children, food and care on Food For Thought which includes research on mealtimes in looked after care, family homes and school.

Our findings

There seemed to be a tension between making day-to-day life predictable and consistent but at the same time thinking about the needs of the adult and the child at different points. Some adults were worried about stepping outside of the routine in case it affected other parts of the day. Many talked about the links between offering consistency of routine and research on attachment. Others argued that thinking about attachment helped them to be more attuned to what the child needed, rather than sticking to a rigid routine.

There was often a mismatch between a member of staff's intention for an action to be caring and in children's best interest, and a child's interpretation of events. For example, many staff tended to think that regular mealtimes provided looked-after children with structure and stability that had perhaps been lacking in their lives; a caring gesture. Yet some children perceived rigid and inflexible mealtimes as too controlling, especially if they were going through a difficult time. There was often a fine line between care and control which could be interpreted differently by adults and children.

You can find out more about attachment, relationships and routines on the Iriss podcast episode 'Why attachment matters in helping children to resolve trauma'.

Our findings

We found that for some children, food was a vital way of connecting to the past as well as connecting to the present. How food was done in the residential and foster placements was often very different from life with birth families. Here are some of the things that children said about the past:

'We had a wee table in the living room, but it was only to put your keys on so we used to have it (food) on the floor or we had it on our laps.'

'I didn't even have tea. I just had a packet of chips, then went out.'

'I've never really had any time for lunch.'

Often talking about food from the past was a safe way for children to talk about their family life or their earlier experiences. It was a way of sharing the past or sometimes of rejecting it (by rejecting the food the child was able to reject the symbolic connection). Food was very evocative and could stir up very powerful feelings and memories for children. Sometimes, this could be a shock for the adults who were unaware of what the food might remind children of. It seemed that food could be a safe way of connecting to children that was perhaps less threatening than talking directly about the past or physically comforting them. Food could be a stepping stone to this.

To read more about the role food played in forming and maintaining relationships read page 18-20 of The Resource Handbook.

For more on the challenges of making deep relationships with children in looked after care listen to this Iriss podcast 'Why attachment matters - please touch' with Laura Steckley

Our findings

Your answer may have included an event which was important because of the people that you shared it with as well as how it made you or others feel. The way that the food is prepared, who makes it for us, or the feelings that we attach to it, can be a very powerful symbol of deeper social, emotional or behavioural aspects of our selves or of our relationships. Children who need to be looked after away from home have often experienced events which are deeply painful and have had a significant impact on their on-going lives. Caring for children who have experienced these types of emotional pain also affects those who provide the care. At times even reminding carers of their own childhoods.

For more about how your own childhood might influence your experience as a carer, listen to this Iriss podcast 'Ghosts in the nursery: The implications of adult attachment' by Sally Wassell.

Our findings

Food was used by many of the adults to help children manage feelings and to equip them with new ways of coping. As one staff member explained:

If somebody was really angry and upset or whatever you could obviously try and spend some time trying to defuse that and then it's like 'do you fancy something? Do you want a drink? Do you want a bit of toast or something?

Some of the carers in our study explained that they sometimes forgot to think about what children were communicating about their feelings through food. Instead they were worried about making sure their children were eating and learning how to behave in ways that were expected. However, we found that when adults thought about what else a child might be trying to say by refusing food, hiding food, eating too much, making a mess, they often discovered that children were telling them about their feelings and memories.

To find out more about how food was connected to feelings see pages 15-17 in The Resource Handbook and read this:

• Punch, S., McIntosh, I., Emond, R. and Dorrer, N. (2009) 'Food and Relationships: Children's Experiences in Residential Care', in James, A., Kjørholt, A.T. and Tingstad, V. (eds) Children, Food and Identity in Everyday Life, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.149-171. https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/handle/1893/1981

Our findings

Food and the practices around food can be a really useful tools in helping children recover from past pain and to develop their own resilience. However, if food is being used as 'intervention' planning is vital. Most importantly, we need to make sure that what we want to communicate is being understood by the child.

A good example of this is baking. This is something that children and young people often enjoy doing with adults.

For more about resilience see the Iriss learning resource Understanding Resilience.

Our findings

Baking a cake might be used:

To give a child a sensory experience:

Children in care may have missed out on the sensory experience of mixing and playing with goo. Making a mess may help children relax. It can offer them a symbolic means to illustrate the messy feelings that they have inside or show how they see the outside world. What do you need to do as the adult supporting a child to bake in this way?

To help develop a relationship with the child:

Sharing tasks (deciding which cake to bake, getting the ingredients and equipment) and sharing in the success can be a great way of bonding with a child in a safe way. You can support children when they get things wrong and show them that you accept their mistakes or their mess. Presenting the cake together can be a way of letting the world know that you have done it together and that you have a relationship. This might be a first for the child you are looking after. What do you need to think about?

To help the child do something for another person:

Baking for his/her parent, the child might start to talk about what their parent is like, what she/he enjoys to eat etc. This is a great way for a worker or carer to gently explore how the child understands the relationship with his/her parent and how the parent views the child. This can sometimes be painful if the child starts to use the cake to talk about him/herself ('she won't like this cake' or 'I hope she thinks this will be the best cake in the world').

The act of baking a cake may represent many of the key aspects of looked after care; helping children recover, supporting them to make sense of the past, making secure and meaningful relationships, experiencing someone enjoying and delighting in them, learning ways to manage and express feelings, developing social, practical and emotional skills. All of these are embodied in food and what we do with food.