When was the last time you went somewhere for the first time? Or you went somewhere that pushed you out of your comfort zone? How did you feel before you arrived? Perhaps you didn’t really want to go but you went anyway because it was the responsible thing to do, or you knew it would be good for you despite your feelings about it.
There are many churches, community centres and charitable organisations that have opened their doors this winter to offer warm spaces to their communities as part of the Warm Welcome Campaign. Kids Matter has had the privilege of providing resources for children and families who may be using these warm spaces (all of which can be found on the Warm Welcome website). But there is more to ‘welcoming’ than offering things to do; to be truly accessible, it’s important for us to have a greater understanding of the barriers a child or parent may face to simply turn up to a warm space.
Threat processing
Visiting a new place with new people can be overwhelming and will trigger different responses for people – children and adults. Some of us will revel in the excitement of the unfamiliar, others will regulate discomfort and fear through rational thinking and learned coping mechanisms… but what if adverse experiences in your childhood trigger responses that make it difficult to overcome fear or anxiety?
Research shows that if you’ve experienced prolonged periods of stress, your ability to deal with everyday events can be impacted. People who’ve experienced adversity at home or live with high levels of stress can become hypervigilant – which is when our brain is heightened to the possibility of threats, triggering a fight, flight or freeze response. These are all natural responses and are helpful in a volatile home situation, but not useful in a safe space. Our hypervigilance (as a result of childhood trauma) can lead to a mismatched response in a safe environment because our brain is struggling to work out if someone is safe, dangerous or life threatening.
Understanding hypervigilance
We’ve thought about how visiting somewhere new or being pushed out of our comfort zone might affect us in some way, but what if we’re the ones hosting an event or welcoming people in, and someone experiencing a hypervigilant response arrives at our door?
For example, you may have welcomed someone in with your biggest smile and warmest greeting, and yet said person looks like they’re about to bolt out the nearest door (coat on, sitting on the edge of the seat, facing the doorway). This is hypervigilance – a physical outworking of someone trying to feel safe, remain calm and present. When someone feels scared or anxious, their brain is filled with stress hormones, these are cortisol and adrenaline which are acidic and when released are like giving the brain an acid bath – this is where the phrase ‘seeing red’ comes from.
Dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin are the alkaline or “happy” hormones, which counteract the effects of the stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline) that pump through your body when under stress. Someone who has experienced past trauma will have higher doses of cortisol and adrenaline in their bodies, causing them to be triggered more easily and they will have a slower response to the positive neurochemicals. What this means is that someone arriving to your warm space may have had to overcome a rush of stress hormones to be there. They might struggle to feel safe in the space, resulting in them seeming more distant, uncomfortable or cold towards other people.
Thinking about how we welcome people, the type of space we create and how we respond to people’s behaviours will be essential to creating a safe space for all those that come. Our aim is to love people unconditionally, offering a space and building relationships that are honouring and respectful. So, how might we do just that?
How do we welcome people well?
When we create welcoming spaces for people to come into, we are creating ‘Homes Away from Home’ – a place where people might want to linger and where they might feel at ease. You’d create a space that’s warm and comfortable (chairs, cushions, well-lit) and you’d offer a drink and/or some food. There would be no expectation on your guests other than to make themselves comfortable.
You’d want your guests to feel so welcome and at home that they’d come back soon, very soon.
Four areas of welcome we’d love to see warm spaces across the country prioritise are:
Safety: if we put in the care and effort to ensure our policies and procedures (child safety policies and risk assessments) are in check, we show value to those that we welcome – that we care about their safety.
Radical hospitality: this is all about how the space itself adds to that feeling of being at home. Has care been put into how a place is laid out, the décor? How does the environment make you feel? How can we show radical hospitality to those we see? How does the space welcome them?
Relational welcome: how we, and those on our teams, come alongside people; put them at ease. How are we modelling healthy family dynamics amongst ourselves as the leaders? How do we make sure that our relational welcome is a warm one?
Setting a relational culture: the way an environment feels will affect how someone might experience their time with us. Setting a relational culture, where choice is encouraged, provides opportunity for relaxed conversation and interaction. There is an informality that puts people at ease. We create this culture in our spaces when we model it, thus creating space for relationships to thrive. This means steering away from front-led large group activity, and gearing more towards activities that share a space and build relationships.
Be prepared
A signposting station (a notice board or table) with information about local events, provisions like food banks or other warm spaces, can be a great tool to help engage people with other community activities. As you get to know the people who come along to your warm space you can customise the station to the needs of the group.
What if your warm welcome doesn’t work?
You might have created the warmest, friendliest, most comfortable space with the best cookies in the UK but… a dad and a child walk in and walk straight out after five minutes. You don’t know why.
Firstly, don’t take offence and don’t despair. This dad and child may have been triggered into a fight, flight or freeze response that does not match the safe space you have created. Of course, this may not be the case at all, but it’s important to remember that when you offer a space that is truly open to everyone, where people are able to be themselves and their behaviour is not judged, you invite in the complexity of human experience and circumstance.
Maybe that dad and child will come back another day and stay a little longer; maybe you will have a chance to ask their names and invite them back…
…and maybe the next time, they will sit and have a chat with you, and you can ask them how they’re doing.
Grow in relationship
The point of the warm space is to provide a warm welcome for those struggling to heat their homes this winter but what an amazing opportunity to grow in relationship with one another; to build community in the truest sense of the word – sharing life together, supporting one another. We do this by showing up, caring, respecting and trusting, even when it’s difficult.
To find out more about the Warm Welcome Campaign visit https://www.warmwelcome.uk/
For more information about Kids Matter’s parenting programmes, visit https://kidsmatter.org.uk/our-programmes/
For more top tips on how to make your warm space kid and youth friendly, visit https://www.relationalhub.org/
Head to https://thirtyoneeight.org/ for advice on creating safe spaces