More Than A Tool:
A Child + Family Therapist’s SI path
By: Kelly Raudenbush, Executive Director, The Sparrow Fund
I was leading teams of volunteers into orphanages in China when I discovered Simple Interactions in the mid 2010s. I had visited a specific orphanage several times. We had come as “foreign experts,” according to the paperwork, but we came with humility and a genuine desire to follow the caregivers’ lead and join them. Over time, trust grew, and the administration felt comfortable asking boldly for what they wanted, needed, and thought we could provide. And, they wanted training. What could we offer them? I was an adoptive parent who cared deeply, and I was a child and family therapist who only spoke English. Online searching led me to something Junlei Li had written in which he referred to work he had done in orphanages in China. That led to a conversation and a personal introduction to something called Simple Interactions.
I loved it. The tool looked a little different then than it does today. But, I loved it for many of the same reasons people just discovering it today love it. It was simple—one page, not largely dependent on words—and, those little heads were so endearing! The Simple Interactions tool created a way for us to notice, describe, and appreciate the good things the orphanage caregivers were already doing for vulnerable children and, in so doing, grow good things. It helped us and them pay attention to what we wanted to pay attention to.
The team all took video clips during the day, which I gathered and edited long into the night in preparation for that first SI workshop. The workshop was far from perfect–speaking through a translator is not easy!–but it was good. The seconds-long video of two caregivers feeding toddlers, often played in slow motion at SI workshops today, was one of the clips we captured that week and used that day. Another video featured a caregiver who had grown up at the orphanage herself and remained now as staff. She had been born with no legs but moved skillfully around the building on her hands. When I invited her to share the context for the clip I had played, the caregivers beside her in the very back of the room physically lifted her so that she could be seen and heard above the crowd, and the leaders in the front physically turned around in their chairs to listen. Turning the attention to what the caregivers were providing - and noticing and describing their good work as the "training" - flipped the power in the room. Those caregivers left the room differently than how they had entered it. The good that we were noticing and describing seemed to grow bigger at every level of the system. And, it started something that I loved offering.
I loved it. The tool looked a little different then than it does today. But, I loved it for many of the same reasons people just discovering it today love it. It was simple—one page, not largely dependent on words—and, those little heads were so endearing! The Simple Interactions tool created a way for us to notice, describe, and appreciate the good things the orphanage caregivers were already doing for vulnerable children and, in so doing, grow good things. It helped us and them pay attention to what we wanted to pay attention to.
The team all took video clips during the day, which I gathered and edited long into the night in preparation for that first SI workshop. The workshop was far from perfect–speaking through a translator is not easy!–but it was good. The seconds-long video of two caregivers feeding toddlers, often played in slow motion at SI workshops today, was one of the clips we captured that week and used that day. Another video featured a caregiver who had grown up at the orphanage herself and remained now as staff. She had been born with no legs but moved skillfully around the building on her hands. When I invited her to share the context for the clip I had played, the caregivers beside her in the very back of the room physically lifted her so that she could be seen and heard above the crowd, and the leaders in the front physically turned around in their chairs to listen. Turning the attention to what the caregivers were providing - and noticing and describing their good work as the "training" - flipped the power in the room. Those caregivers left the room differently than how they had entered it. The good that we were noticing and describing seemed to grow bigger at every level of the system. And, it started something that I loved offering.
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A few years later, my work in China abruptly ended. Policy became stricter, and the pandemic solidified the limitations. I continued my everyday work leading The Sparrow Fund, a nonprofit serving foster and adopted children and the grownups around them. I looked for opportunities to stay involved with Simple Interactions in various ways and do Simple Interactions as I had done it before.
Somewhere along the way, I realized I was using Simple Interactions—doing Simple Interactions—all the time.
When a 7-year-old girl in my practice shared that she felt mad that her birth mom took medicine without a doctor’s help when she was pregnant, and I told her that made sense and prompted her mom to join her and me, I was doing SI (connection, opportunity to grow). When I described ping pong to an 8-year-old boy and his mom to help them understand communication better, and he said he feels like he often serves the ball and it bounces right off the table, I was doing SI (reciprocity, opportunity to grow). When I was engaging with a child and noticed her mom tearing up and paused to ask the child softly what she noticed and prompted her to ask her mom what was happening for her, I was doing SI (connection, reciprocity, inclusion, opportunity to grow). When a teenager crossed her arms in hurt and frustration when our facility dog didn’t stay next to her on the couch, and I pointed out what his body language was telling us and imagined with her how we might make it easier for him, I was doing SI (connection, reciprocity, inclusion, opportunity to grow)—with humans and a golden retriever.
Therapy models matter. I need to know what to do and keep learning and growing my expertise and skills – that’s important. Sometimes Simple Interactions is part of that directly. Sometimes I use the one-page tool with a family. I enjoy that and want to do it more (I’m dreaming of a 6-week Simple Interactions experience for kids!). But, far more often, Simple Interactions is part of my therapy practice indirectly, as it has become a language that describes things typically hard to name and a lens through which I practice all the skills I know and am learning.
I had experienced Simple Interactions as a tool and a workshop—a very helpful tool and workshop that made a way for grownups to notice, describe, and appreciate good relational care for children in group contexts such as schools, daycares, orphanages. All of that is true. But, Simple Interactions is more that just a tool or a workshop; Simple Interactions gives us a way to notice, describe, and appreciate our own everyday practice—in my case, as a child and family therapist, as the director of a nonprofit, as a mother—and grow into the grownup I want to be in all my different roles.
Somewhere along the way, I realized I was using Simple Interactions—doing Simple Interactions—all the time.
When a 7-year-old girl in my practice shared that she felt mad that her birth mom took medicine without a doctor’s help when she was pregnant, and I told her that made sense and prompted her mom to join her and me, I was doing SI (connection, opportunity to grow). When I described ping pong to an 8-year-old boy and his mom to help them understand communication better, and he said he feels like he often serves the ball and it bounces right off the table, I was doing SI (reciprocity, opportunity to grow). When I was engaging with a child and noticed her mom tearing up and paused to ask the child softly what she noticed and prompted her to ask her mom what was happening for her, I was doing SI (connection, reciprocity, inclusion, opportunity to grow). When a teenager crossed her arms in hurt and frustration when our facility dog didn’t stay next to her on the couch, and I pointed out what his body language was telling us and imagined with her how we might make it easier for him, I was doing SI (connection, reciprocity, inclusion, opportunity to grow)—with humans and a golden retriever.
Therapy models matter. I need to know what to do and keep learning and growing my expertise and skills – that’s important. Sometimes Simple Interactions is part of that directly. Sometimes I use the one-page tool with a family. I enjoy that and want to do it more (I’m dreaming of a 6-week Simple Interactions experience for kids!). But, far more often, Simple Interactions is part of my therapy practice indirectly, as it has become a language that describes things typically hard to name and a lens through which I practice all the skills I know and am learning.
I had experienced Simple Interactions as a tool and a workshop—a very helpful tool and workshop that made a way for grownups to notice, describe, and appreciate good relational care for children in group contexts such as schools, daycares, orphanages. All of that is true. But, Simple Interactions is more that just a tool or a workshop; Simple Interactions gives us a way to notice, describe, and appreciate our own everyday practice—in my case, as a child and family therapist, as the director of a nonprofit, as a mother—and grow into the grownup I want to be in all my different roles.
