Making Records Meaningful: Creating an Identity Resource for Young People in Care

Abstract

The Who Am I? research was an interdisciplinary, action research project focused on the past and present record-keeping practices for people growing up in out-of-home care in Australia. This paper reports on two of the nested projects directed at current record-keeping practices. For the 100+ Points of Identity study, a tool was developed (the Document Accessibility Exercise or “Daesy”) to determine the number of personal records critical to identity that could be accessed by practitioners prior to a young person leaving a placement. The Backpack of Identity project developed a further iteration of the action research cycle, as the first project identified the vulnerability of the record when placements for the young person changed. A number of implications for practice arose, including the need for greater attention to the development of personal records (as against an administrative record) and the need for practitioners to understand their responsibilities for the story “of the record” as well as the story “in the record”.

“我是谁”属跨学科行动研究项目，针对的是澳大利亚过去和当今那些在非家庭抚养环境下成长起来的人的记录。 本文报道了两个针对记录实践的嵌套项目。“身份100分”研究搞了个工具来测定身份的关键个人记录的数目，实践者可以于年轻人离开某收容处前进行评估。年轻人的收容地发生了变化，第一个项目说明了记录的脆弱性。而“身份包”项目则推出了一种行动研究循环的迭代。本研究对实践的建议包括：要更加关注个人记录的完善（相对于行政记录），实践者要理解关于“记录”的故事以及“记录中”的故事。

Keywords:

• Action Research
• Out-of-home Care
• Records Management
• Identity
• Looking After Children
• Life Story