Track our platform evolution, content releases, and strategic developments
"The Epistemology of Safeguarding: What We Know, How We Know It, and Why It Matters" - A comprehensive 5,482-word philosophical examination exploring how knowledge is constructed across safeguarding systems. From untrained teaching assistants making initial observations to social workers deciding child removal under conditions of irreducible uncertainty, this essay interrogates the epistemological challenges inherent in child protection practice.
Drawing on phenomenology, epistemic justice theory, and complexity theory, this essay argues for epistemic humility as both an intellectual and ethical necessity in safeguarding work. It connects to companion essays examining truth, deception, and institutional responsibilities across family and professional contexts.
Since launching YoungFamilyLife in August 2025, I've been building a substantial evidence-based platform exploring family development, professional practice, and systems thinking. My December newsletter "The Journey" detailed that first year - the pivot from planned courses to prolific content creation, and the establishment of a foundation now spanning 30+ essays.
But I wanted to share with you what's been happening behind the scenes through December...
I've been working on something new: HWTK - "Hey!, Want To Know"
This is YoungFamilyLife's accessible content stream. Where the main Repositorium essays are academic and comprehensive (often 14,000+ words requiring serious reading time), HWTK takes those complex topics and makes them accessible - typically 10-13 minute reads, written for your curious mind without requiring specialist knowledge.
Think of it as translating research-backed insights into "street-shout" content: compelling enough that you'd stop if I called it out, accessible enough that you can engage without prior expertise, but still grounded in the evidence that makes YoungFamilyLife credible.
Each HWTK piece connects back to the larger academic work it emerged from, creating pathways between accessible entry points and deeper exploration if you want it.
The platform architecture is now in place. Content is ready. Over the coming days I invite you to explore what's actually there - and I think you might find it worthy of 10 minutes of your time if you have it to spare.
"When Abstraction is Out of Reach: How Limited Early Experience Shapes Thinking, Planning, and Action" - A 4,820-word exploration examining how concrete versus abstract thinking develops through early play, relational engagement, and imaginative experience. This essay demonstrates the paradox at its heart: understanding concrete thinking requires abstract thinking to grasp. Drawing on developmental psychology, neuroscience, and attachment research, it explores what happens when the developmental bridge from concrete to abstract reasoning never fully forms.
"The Journey: My YFL Start-up Year Reflection" - A comprehensive 14,000-word reflection documenting YoungFamilyLife's first year from June incorporation through November 2025. This transparent account explores the pivot from planned courses to prolific content creation, discusses AI collaboration in professional writing, analyses the threading complexity of the Changing People series, and includes verbatim excerpts from 2008 BSc dissertation demonstrating philosophical foundations.
"Beyond Compliance: Transactional Analysis and System Proximity in UK Child Protection Meetings" - Our largest essay to date at 23,000 words applies Berne's TA framework directly to UK child protection practice. This work introduces the novel "system proximity typology" categorising families by their lived experience with statutory processes, examines how meeting structures create predictable transactional patterns, and draws on evidence from Glasgow's successful reform model to demonstrate what effective practice requires.
"Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis: From Freudian Theory to Observable Interaction" - Building on yesterday's Freud essay, this 20,000-word exploration traces how psychoanalytic insight evolved into practical tools for understanding family support dynamics. From Freud's intrapsychic model through Klein, Bowlby, and Sullivan to Berne's observable ego states, discover how Parent-Adult-Child frameworks illuminate the transactional patterns, stress dynamics, and systemic games that frontline workers encounter daily.
"Freud's Structural Model for Frontline Family Support: Understanding the Unintegrated Legacy of Early Infancy" - Our most substantial academic essay to date explores how early ego formation in adverse environments creates lasting patterns resistant to therapeutic intervention. Using the accessible "gingerbread metaphor" alongside contemporary research, this 60-minute read bridges psychoanalytic theory with practical application for family support practitioners.
"Syntropy and the Tag: The Accidental Prophecy of the Awful Popcorn Movie Hackers" - Our latest addition to the Systems Thinking, Cultural Commentary & Reform section explores how a terrible 1995 film accidentally encoded truths about technology, identity, and culture that keep finding new receivers thirty years later.
October newsletter marks a significant strategic shift: postponing November workshop and January Foundation Course to March and post-Easter 2026 respectively, allowing October-February focus on content development and organic platform growth. From 19 essays in September to 24+ now, with new Check-in Cards, Young Thinking section, and Living Emergence enhancement.
New 5,000-word essay exploring how feedback requests reveal organisational deafness rather than openness. Through Macnamara's research on organisational listening, discover why formal feedback signals absence rather than presence.
August-September marked YoungFamilyLife's foundation period: website launched 5 August, reaching 100,000+ words by month-end. September Newsletter inaugurated (8 Sept), Check-in Awareness Cards and Young Thinking sections launched (27 Sept), and the monumental 6-part "Changing People" series completed (58,000 words).
17 essays published spanning community guides (4-part Bungay series), professional practice (collective intelligence, safeguarding), and family development (attachment, play, stress). Platform reached 100,000 words milestone.
Major infrastructure added: Check-in Awareness Cards framework, Young Thinking personal reflections, monthly newsletter launch. Changing People series completed demonstrating consistent character threading across 58,000 words.
With strategic focus shifting to content development through February 2026, expect continued essay expansion, Check-in Cards collection growth, Young Thinking section development, and organic platform growth. Workshop and Foundation Course launch March/post-Easter 2026.
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