{"id":31,"date":"2013-05-09T14:29:23","date_gmt":"2013-05-09T13:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sightandsoundproject.wordpress.com\/?page_id=31"},"modified":"2019-06-12T15:43:27","modified_gmt":"2019-06-12T14:43:27","slug":"objects-and-belonging","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.researchunbound.org.uk\/young-people-creating-belonging\/the-complex-nature-of-belonging\/objects-and-belonging\/","title":{"rendered":"Objects and belonging"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Charlie
Charlie on my gaming chair. Penfold<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The importance of \u2018transitional\u00a0objects\u2019 has long been recognised in social work practices\u00a0such as \u2018memory boxes\u2019 and \u2018life story work\u2019. Our\u00a0questions around \u2018important objects\u2019 produced a wide\u00a0variety of responses. Teddies and other soft toys were\u00a0often identified as important, even by older respondents,\u00a0as someone to talk to and as sources of cuddles\u00a0and familiar smells. They were also important visual\u00a0mementoes of significant people, as were many other\u00a0objects including photos (of birth family members, former\u00a0foster carers, siblings), guitars, a family tartan, scraps of\u00a0wallpaper and several (sometimes broken) clocks. Tiger\u00a0had few things from before his placement but had taken\u00a0up his \u2018adoptive\u2019 brother\u2019s hobby of collecting animal\u00a0ornaments:<\/p>\n

I just like lions, I like big cats as well, ..all\u00a0animals really.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Participants\u2019 histories of moving between\u00a0numerous placements over time, or between points in a\u00a0network of places, made objects- which could be moved
\n\u2013 especially important. Reggie didn\u2019t even like to have\u00a0too many things:<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s partly to do with the moveability..\u00a0Having too much just slows you down.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His tattoos\u00a0which he saw as permanent, visual representations of his\u00a0life story can be seen as the ultimate portable object.<\/p>\n

Many objects identified initially seemed less personal;\u00a0however the importance of often multi-functional\u00a0technologies (mobile phones, computers) became clear.\u00a0Computer games were often used to calm down and to\u00a0socialise (often over the net). As Penfold (14, foster care)\u00a0explained:<\/p>\n

you don\u2019t need to think of anything that\u2019s \u00a0worrying you, just get on Xbox and it\u2019ll calm you down\u2026\u00a0I play people from China, people from America.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mobile\u00a0phones allowed contact with siblings living elsewhere\u00a0but also stored photos. Toni (16, part time foster care)\u00a0emphasised that her phone allowed her to carry family\u00a0photos around with her as she moved between foster\u00a0care and home each week. Access to TV programmes,\u00a0youtube, music and books, was also important.<\/p>\n

Five\u00a0respondents were passionate readers, using books as a\u00a0means to escape or as a way of processing experiences\u00a0through empathy with the fictional characters. One girl\u00a0(13) in foster care emphasised:<\/p>\n

I was always thick \u2026 I\u00a0couldn\u2019t read for anything until I was nine, and.. I got\u00a0given this book by .. my therapist.. and I was like .. ,\u2018wow\u00a0I want more\u2019, so I ended up getting addicted.. I felt like\u00a0I was so there ..part of the family and I knew it all..they\u00a0have to move away cause the dad\u2019s abusive and that\u00a0happened to us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Books
Books offer a means of escape<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Similarly, music was very important<\/a> to most participants as a source of encouragement,\u00a0to cheer\u00a0themselves up and blank out upsetting thoughts, but also to explore complex experiences or feelings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The importance of \u2018transitional\u00a0objects\u2019 has long been recognised in social work practices\u00a0such as \u2018memory boxes\u2019 and \u2018life story work\u2019. Our\u00a0questions around \u2018important objects\u2019 produced a wide\u00a0variety of responses. Teddies and other soft toys were\u00a0often identified as important, even by older respondents,\u00a0as someone to talk to and as sources of cuddles\u00a0and familiar smells. They were also … Continue reading Objects and belonging<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":10,"menu_order":19,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.researchunbound.org.uk\/young-people-creating-belonging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.researchunbound.org.uk\/young-people-creating-belonging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.researchunbound.org.uk\/young-people-creating-belonging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.researchunbound.org.uk\/young-people-creating-belonging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.researchunbound.org.uk\/young-people-creating-belonging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.researchunbound.org.uk\/young-people-creating-belonging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.researchunbound.org.uk\/young-people-creating-belonging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.researchunbound.org.uk\/young-people-creating-belonging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.researchunbound.org.uk\/young-people-creating-belonging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.researchunbound.org.uk\/young-people-creating-belonging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}