The Trust Bank

A reflective practice resource designed to explore how trust is built, maintained and repaired through everyday interactions with children, young people and families.

The Trust Bank uses the idea of deposits and withdrawals to help practitioners reflect on the small interactions that can strengthen trust, as well as experiences that may reduce it. It encourages curiosity about how we communicate, follow through on what we say, respond when things are difficult, recognise power and uncertainty, and repair relationships when trust has been affected.

Rather than treating trust as something that is either present or absent, The Trust Bank supports reflection on how relationships develop over time and how our own actions can influence a person’s experience of working alongside us.

The resource includes:

• Trust Bank overview
• Reflective practice tool
• Conversation guide
• Team discussion and supervision sheet

Using the resource

The Trust Bank can be used for individual reflection, supervision, team discussion, professional development or to support thinking about relationships within direct practice.

It may be useful across social work, education, foster care, family support, pastoral support and other settings where professionals are working alongside children, young people and families.

Professional guidance

The Trust Bank is a reflective practice resource rather than a measure of the quality or strength of a relationship. Trust is individual and contextual, and professional curiosity and judgement should guide how reflections from the resource are understood and used.

Trust is rarely built through one big moment. It grows through the small interactions that show someone they can rely on us.