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NCERCC Practice Guide “Talking Together”

Inspiration is everywhere.

NCERCC were listening to the programme Word of Mouth on Radio 4 with Michael Rosen, the more than children’s author, and Anna Sutter, a phonologist from Reading University (Professor Jane Setter – Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics)[1]. It was so fascinating we had to stop the car to listen intently.

Afterwards we were left thinking, what are the implications of what we had heard for residential child care workers speaking with children who come to their children’s home?

Children in residential care often come from backgrounds of trauma, abuse, or neglect. How residential child care workers listen to them, and how they use their own voices, directly impacts a child’s sense of safety, authority, and emotional stability.

The programme highlights how society holds negative attitudes toward vocal traits perceived as female, and others, such as vocal fry (a low, creaky speech register) and higher pitches.

How could we get the message across to residential settings everywhere?

We could write a practice guide. There’s a link at the bottom of this blog.

Setting the scene – read and reflect

The Impact of a Worker’s Voice on Trauma-Affected Children

The way a residential worker uses their voice serves as a primary tool for emotional regulation and de-escalation.

  • Conversational Entrainment: Children naturally adapt their speech patterns to match the adults around them. By maintaining a steady, warm, and regulated vocal delivery, workers can naturally help an escalated or anxious child mirror that calmness and calm down.
  • Pitch and Safety: Higher-pitched voices can sometimes be misjudged as less authoritative, while overly deep or gravelly voices might accidentally trigger a child’s trauma responses related to past male aggression. Children’s workers should practice a calm, stable, and neutral “modal” register (ordinary conversational voice) to project safety.
  • Resist pressure to artificially change the way you speak: An often referred to example is Margaret Thatcher, a Prime Minister in the 1970’s, altered her voice to sound lower, to project power. Residential workers are in the parent role, and, learning from NVR, (Non Violent Resistance (ideas and practices common now across many homes) parents exercise their authority through connection, empathy, understanding and a clear position on expectations around behaviour. The emphasis is on mutual respect and collaboration. “You don’t have to show authority with power.” Learning here is that female residential workers should never feel pressured to artificially lower their pitch or alter their natural speaking voice to command respect or authority from residents.

Guarding Against Bias in How Children Speak

  • Avoid Tone Policing: Care workers need not to dismiss, penalise, or misinterpret a child’s concerns based on how they say something rather than what they are saying.
  • Understand “Vocal Fry” as Expression: In young people, vocal fry or a lower, flatter pitch can be an indicator of emotional intensity, exhaustion, or conversational copying (entrainment). Workers should treat it as natural communication rather than a sign of “disrespect” or “boredom.”
  • Challenge Peer Misogyny: Since children mirror societal biases, workers need to actively intercept and challenge gender-based vocal bullying or misogyny among the young people living in the home.

 

Having set the scene let’s go further – click here for the practice guide

You will find

  • Training Objective
  • Core Modules & Exercises
  • The acoustic pillars – auditory bias, intentional delivery. deep listening
  • A De-escalation Blueprint
  • House policy document
  • Restorative Intervention Protocol
  • Four realistic role-play scenarios designed for a staff team meeting including Common Phrases to Avoid (and What to Say Instead)
  • An introduction for children to their new home
  • A Pledge from the Grown Ups to Every Child in This House

Also don’t forget the great books by Faber and Maslish

  • How to talk with kids will listen and listen so kids will talk
  • How to talk so teens will listen and teens will talk

 

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