Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care vol4(2) August/September 2005

Contents

Guest Editorial Sandy Cameron

Creating a safe place to sleep: an analysis of night care staff interventions to reduce evening and night-time disturbance in a residential care unit

Margaret Conlon

A restful night’s sleep is known to have pronounced and positive effects on emotional and physical well being. Children’s sleep is significantly influenced by many factors including parenting style, the quality of the attachment relationship, as well as through the immediate sleep environment (Meijer, Habekothe and Van Den Wittenboer, 2001). Behaviours and internal constructions regarding the meaning and purpose of sleep are established very early in the infant’s life and continue through adolescence to adulthood. A sensitive and attuned caregiver will initiate interaction and be responsive to the infant’s needs. It is within this relationship that the child learns to regulate his or her own feelings and behaviours (Sadeh, 2001). Sleep behaviours are, in many ways, the external representation of the young child’s internal working model. Howe, Brandon, Hinings and Schofield (1999) describe the internal working model as a set of expectations and beliefs about the behaviour of self and others, self worthiness as well as the emotional availability of others.

Creating stimulating environments for young people in residential care: the Israeli youth village ‘ecological’ model

Emmanuel Grupper

In many industrialised countries, the use of residential education and care for children and youth at risk has decreased over recent years (Knorth &Van de Ploeg, 1994). There are many reasons for this; however, some are certainly related to the negative stigma attached today to any kind of institutionalised setting. Such programmes are now considered in many European countries as a last resort used only when all other interventions have failed. In addition, the ever-increasing cost of treating a child in a residential care therapeutic programme is encouraging policy makers to look for less expensive solutions, even though their effectiveness has not always been proven (Grupper, 2002).

These preliminary comments are important because in Israel, although residential care is decreasing, it is still used for approximately one in ten of young people aged 12 to 18 years old. These young people come from a wide range of cultural and social backgrounds.

Three strong women: from care to university

lan Milligan

The poor educational ‘outcomes’ of looked after children have been a matter of increasing concern for a number of years (Jackson & Sachdev, 2001). The very low achievement of the average young person in care has been an issue at government level, with demands being made for improvements in this area (HMI & SWSI 2001, Scottish Executive 2003). In England, Wales and Scotland the government has set academic achievement targets at secondary school level for children looked after by local authorities. It has also required that all schools appoint a ‘designated teacher’ to act as a ‘champion’ for all looked after children in their school. However, the progress of looked-after children into further education (FE) and higher education (HE) has not received the same attention from the government, especially in Scotland. In England, however, over the last four years, a major research project has been following the progress of a cohort of young people from care who have entered university (Jackson, Ajayi & Quigley, 2005). The research is identifying the issues facing young people from a care background and monitoring the experience of the group as they progress through university. It is also examining what supports the young people should be receiving from their local authorities in terms of their responsibilities as ‘corporate parents’. The study by Martin and Jackson (2002) also identified the factors which assisted looked after children and young people to achieve educational success. In Scotland, while there has been a concerted push by central government to improve the school education of children in care by requiring local authorities to report on attainment at Standard Grade, there has been no similar concern about the progression of young people to further and higher education and how best they might be prepared, encouraged and supported.

The good goodbye: helping children through transitions using storytelling

Claire McNicol and Ruth Kirkpatrick

Storytelling is an age-old tradition in Scotland and indeed throughout the world. Macintyre’s (2003) work on Mull, for example, documents how storytelling grew and developed more strongly as the traditional communities declined. A growing interest in storytelling as a possible technique to help children deal with many life situations has been emerging in Scotland, and indeed in other countries, over the past few years. Books to facilitate storytelling such as Keding’s (2004) excellent Stories of Hope and Spirit are appearing in bookshops, heralding an upsurge of interest in this skill. So it appears that even today, in a society obsessed with high-tech communication, storytelling can perform a valuable function. It is so valuable that it is being used to help vulnerable children increase their self esteem and confidence, improve their educational attainment and build resilience in those who have suffered childhood sexual, physical and emotional abuse or family breakdown. Lamwaca’s (2004) paper given at the 29th International Congress on Books for Young People outlined the healing power of storytelling from children traumatised by war in Uganda. The universal themes and rich metaphors in traditional stories resonate powerfully for children and adults in their own lives.

Looking after children without parents and encouraging their social integration: a Latvian perspective

Inese Jurgena and Zigurds Mikainis

The accession of Latvia into the European Union has had many implications for the country, as it works to integrate European policies and legislation with its own systems. In the case of children and young people, key discussions have focused around forms of substitute parental care such as guardianship, foster families, and adoption. These discussions have assumed a high degree of importance because many children have been left without parental care, either because they have been orphaned or because their parents cannot be traced. Attitudes to all children should be based on the principles of international human rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). However, compared to other social groups, ‘orphans’ and children left without parental care in Latvia are at a higher risk of social rejection and of having their rights denied. This is demonstrated by the fact that child mortality is increasing, the birth rate is decreasing, criminal behaviour is quite frequent and the number of people addicted to drugs is growing. This group of children constitutes the most vulnerable social group in Latvia.

Two days in Carberry

Laura Steckley and Max Smart

Meaning-making goes to the very heart of good residential practice.(workshop participant)

How does one build community? How can a community of practitioners come together in a way that builds on the strength of commonality? These were the types of questions which led us all to an old estate: one hundred of us, from diverse locations and services coming together, searching to find a connecting link which would help us in our quest to become a ‘community of practice’. 

Such a gathering needs a focus and the organisers (Max Smart and Linda Cullen) decided that one way to help us all come together was to focus on some aspect of our helping philosophy which we might share across areas of practice. It was hoped that, by coming together around some common values and beliefs, this divergent group of professionals might find a common link which would move us a step forward in becoming a community of practice. So, for two days in September, 2004, residential care workers, managers, Who Cares? Scotland workers, and academics gathered at Carberry Towers to participate in a workshop facilitated by Thom Garfat. This was the first time in recent memory, an perhaps the first time ever in Scotland, that a workshop of this size was conceived and delivered at a grass roots level.

The two days centred on the concept of ‘meaning-making’, or more specifically, how young people and staff make sense or meaning of their experiences. As Garfat (2004) has argued, perhaps ‘there is nothing more important than this process of meaning making,’ for ‘it is only when the worker attends to how meaning is construed… that she can begin to understand the young person and his or her behaviour’(Garfat, 2004, pp.9-10).

Book reviewLeaving care: throughcare and aftercare in Scotland

Max Smart

Leaving Care: Throughcare and Aftercare in Scotland. Jo Dixon and Mike Stein, London, Jessica Kingsley, 2005, 192pp, ISBN 1-84310-202-1 (Pbk), £19.95.

It is good to come across a book about leaving care written in a Scottish context. Dixon and Stein’s Leaving Care gives a ‘warts and all’ look at the experiences of young people leaving public care in three differing authorities in Scotland, referred to in the research as City, County and Shire. These authorities were markedly different in regards to demographics, social, economic, and geographical situations, and therefore reflect Scottish life more broadly; not just the circumstances for young people in the central belt of Scotland.

The book is well written, readily accessible, thorough in its analysis, and draws upon current and previous research by the authors. It demonstrates many parallels between the experience of Scottish young people and their counterparts across the UK; drawing a picture of patchy support services and equally patchy outcomes for young people embarking on the challenge of early adulthood. Dixon and Stein highlight pertinent messages and emphasise for readers and policy makers alike, those services and circumstances which are more likely to lead to positive outcomes for young people.