Supporting more consistent, accessible and child-centred life story work practice

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 for children in their care.Thread Together is a software platform being developed in collaboration with practitioners and care-experienced people, and informed by research to support more consistent, child-centred life story work and maintaining important connections over time.

• Let's talk

The story is more than what happened - it’s how the moments, once lost or scattered, are gently gathered and woven into something that makes sense.

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• Children miss out, waiting for a 'finished book' that may never come, arrives too late or becomes outdated.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

Some digital approaches focus primarily on storing documents, photographs or records. Life story work involves much more than holding materials.It is a relational process 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, meaning-making and ongoing life-story work as a relational process, 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, supporting overall identity coherence and connection.

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.Empowering Local Authorities
Supporting practitioners to confidently undertake life story work as part of their statutory responsibilities.

• Let's talk

Our Team

Camelia Chowdhury Allen
Founding Director

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.

Ciarán Stone
Fractional CTO

Technical development is led by Ciarán Stone, Founder and CEO of Square Root Solutions, an award-winning mobile and web app development company based in Ireland.Through his work with startups and organisations, Ciarán has supported the development of a wide range of digital products, with a focus on understanding user needs and translating ideas into practical, scalable solutions.His involvement brings technical leadership and build experience to Thread Together, supporting the development of a platform that is robust, secure, and grounded in real-world use.

Current Stage

Thread Together is finalising the co-design phase as we prepare for development and early pilot partnership.The prototype has been validated and shaped with care experienced adults and young people, social workers, Local Authority leadership, life story practitioners, therapeutic practitioners and academics to ensure that it is 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 are interested in future pilot or partnerships opportunities.

Get in touch

Find out more or book a demonstration.We welcome conversations with:- Local authorities and service leads interested in demonstrations or co-production-care experienced individuals who would like to contribute their perspective.- Researchers and practice specialists interested in supporting the project's development- Organisations interested in collaboration or partnershipsIf you would like to start a conversation or arrange a demonstration, please get in touch.

• Email
• LinkedIn