A child-centred approach to digital life story work

Life story work helps children understand their past, make sense of their experiences and develop a coherent sense of identity.Yet across children’s services it is often difficult to deliver consistently in practice.Thread Together is being developed in collaboration with practitioners and care-experienced people, and informed by research to support more consistent, child-centred life story work.

• Let's talk

"Stories are sacred. They are the threads that hold us together"

-Lemn Sissay

Why life story work matters

Children who cannot grow up with their birth families often grow up with gaps in their understanding of their story.Without sensitive, ongoing life story work, children may be left to make sense of complex experiences on their own. The explanations they form can be confusing, painful, or self-blaming.When carried out well, life story work helps children:

• Understand why decisions were made about their lives
• Develop a clearer narrative about their experiences
• Build a stronger sense of identity and belonging
• Process complex emotions connected to their past

Many children in care report that no one has fully explained why they are in care, or that explanations were partial, confusing or not revisited over time.

(Staines & Selwyn, 2020; Booth, 2022)

The Challenge in Practice

Despite its recognised importance, practitioners across local authorities often describe similar barriers to carrying out life story work consistently. For example, information about a child’s life is often spread across multiple records and systems, making it difficult to bring together the materials needed to support life story work.Common challenges include:

• Limited time within busy caseloads
• Fragmented information held across different systems
• Staff changes that interrupt the process, resulting in duplication and restarting from scratch
• Uncertainty about how much information to share and when
• Life story books that are created once (if at all) at a fixed point in time
• Children miss out, waiting for a 'finished book' that may never come, arrives too late or becomes outdated.

Life story work is often delayed, incomplete or treated as an administrative task rather than an ongoing relational process.

(Hoyle et al., 2020; Booth, 2022)

Beyond storing information

Many emerging digital tools focus primarily on storing documents, photographs or records.While these can be valuable for preserving information, life story work involves much more than holding materials. It is about helping children understand their experiences and develop a meaningful narrative about their lives.Thread Together is designing a digital approach to support this process of narrative-building and meaning-making, rather than simply acting as a repository for memories.The aim is to support life story work that can be developed over time, in ways that are intuitive for practitioners and meaningful for children.

Children often revisit their stories at different points in their lives, asking new questions as their understanding grows.

(Watson, Latter & Bellew, 2015)

Our Approach

Thread Together is being developed to support life story work that is:Child-centred
Grounded in the emotional and developmental needs of children as they make sense of their experiences and identity.Practice-informed
Shaped through conversations with social workers, managers, foster carers and other professionals across local authorities.Research-informed
Drawing on established research and practice frameworks in life story work.Practical for real services
Recognising the realities of social work practice and the pressures on teams.

• Let's talk

About the founder

Thread Together was founded by Camelia Chowdhury Allen, a social worker with children in care, a published researcher and peer reviewer. Prior to social care, Camelia worked within digital marketing and media.Through practice, she understood the importance of life story work but was faced with the common barriers to completing this work consistently within the realities of frontline practice and the practical, technological and emotional complexities.Thread Together brings together research, practice experience, insights from people with care experience, and digital opportunities to design an approach that is pragmatic, accessible for practitioners, and engaging for children, while staying grounded in the essential principles of life story work.

Current Stage

Thread Together is currently in a learning and co-design phase as we prepare for development and early pilot work.This stage focuses on listening, learning and validating the prototype to ensure that any approach developed remains grounded in research, informed by practice and meaningful for children.We are currently offering early demonstrations of the concept and welcome expressions of interest from local authorities, practitioners and organisations who may be interested in contributing to advisory discussions or exploring potential pilot partnerships.

Get in touch

Find out more or book a demonstration.We welcome conversations with:- Local authorities interested in learning more or exploring potential pilot opportunities- Practitioners and service leads who would like to see a demonstration and share practice insight- People with care experience interested in contributing their perspective- Individuals with expertise in software development, data protection or digital security who may be interested in contributing to the project’s development- Researchers and practice specialists interested in contributing to the development of the project- Organisations interested in supporting development or pilot workIf you would like to start a conversation or arrange a demonstration, please get in touch.

• Email
• LinkedIn