Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care vol 5(1) February/March 2006

The National Care Standards: hearing the voices of young people in residential careIrene StevensLecturer, Scottish Institute for Residential Child CarePauline BoyceNational Advocacy Manager, Who Cares ? Scotland

IntroductionThe National Care Standards describe what each child or young person can expect from their residential care home. They focus on the quality of life that the child or young person actually experiences (Scottish Executive, 2002, p. 4). The need for Standards has became apparent as research raised concerns about the level of abuse and neglect of children in residential and foster care (Kendrick, 1998; Thomas, 1995; Doran and Brannan, 1996). Government inquiries also highlighted abuse in care (Levy and Kahan, 1991; Kirkwood, 1993; Waterhouse, 2000). The general reviews of residential child care (Utting, 1991; Skinner, 1992), and the safeguards reviews in Scotland and England (Utting,1997; Kent,1997) also highlighted the need for Standards. Giving young people the opportunity to present their views is an increasingly important aspect of service review. In her review of research on the involvement of children in planning their care, Sinclair (1998) commented that children ‘offer…great insight into the process of planning’ (Sinclair, 1998, p.140). Sinclair and Gibbs (1998) put this principle into action in their study examining children’s homes in England. The study by Berridge and Brodie (1998) which reported on their research into 12 children’s homes identified much of importance and relevance in the field. In this study, however, children’s views were confined to a relatively small section on residents’ views. Emond (2003) in her study of two children’s homes in Scotland, used participant observation to explore the experience of children. This study gave a fascinating insight into the care experience but was a much more holistic and qualitative piece of work than would normally be found in the literature. Other studies have set out to elicit the views of children about their overall care experience, such as the work by Ward, Skuse and Munro (2005); however, this study did not exclusively focus upon residential child care. Morgan (2005) elicited the views of children in care concerning the inspection process in one area of England; however, it focussed upon the inspection process and not on the experience of care. Dixon and Stein (2005) explored the views of young people; however, the remit of this comprehensive piece of work focussed on throughcare and not on the experience while in care. The Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care (SCRC) has the responsibility for registering and inspecting children’s units in Scotland. They use the National Care Standards as their baseline. They also have a duty to take account of the views of service users. The SCRC invited SIRCC to carry out a study eliciting the views of young people. This enabled the SCRC to ensure that the views of young people in care were directly represented in their Review of the quality of care homes in Scotland (SCRC, 2004).The study was carried out between February and March, 2004 (Stevens 2007). This paper will present a selection of the findings where young people gave their views about the Standards.

Improving outcomes for care leavers : evaluating a care leaver’s assessment of need tool.Wendy Harrington

IntroductionCare leavers’ poor outcomes across a range of areas have been well documented since the 1980s. Their vulnerability to homelessness, poor educational achievement, mental ill health and offending (Biehal, Claydon, Stein and Wade,1992; Stein and Wade, 2000; Scottish Executive, 2002a) is well understood but this understanding has not necessarily led to improved practice.

The reason for lack of progress is unclear. There has been a suggestion that local authorities fail to meet their corporate responsibilities. Research shows only 39 percent of care leavers receive a Throughcare Service; 40 percent have no formal leaving care review; 40 percent leave care with no information on education, employment and training and evidence suggests many leave care prematurely as well as ill equipped (Scottish Executive, 2002b).

Poor outcomes may also be due to lasting effects of childhood trauma that can be resistant even to concerted efforts by dedicated social care agencies (Department of Health, 1995; Lakey, Barnes and Parry, 2001). Influential attachment theorists, such as John Bowlby and Kate Cairns, have emphasised the long term impact that separations and rejections can have on children’s cognitive, emotional, physical and social development (Bowlby,1979; Cairns 2002). 93 percent of children in care have experienced more than one placement (Scottish Executive, 2002a).

The document Supporting Young People Leaving Care in Scotland: Regulations and Guidance (Scottish Executive, 2004) outlines concern over this waste of human potential. It gives local authorities additional duties and responsibilities including the duty to improve service provision through regulated assessment practices by providing a ‘framework’ for minimum standards. How ‘regulation’ will actually lead to improved outcomes is not explained, although it clearly must include a consideration of young people’s ‘need’. This paper outlines the evaluation of a tool which was developed by the author to assess the needs of care leavers. The tool, called Looking Forward, aims to understand the way a young person interacts with their environment and in their relationships, by considering how and whether developmental needs have been met. To be effective, however, any tool must be more than the sum of its parts. Comprehensive information is useful only if it leads to inclusive practice and better care planning decisions. If used wisely, such a tool may lead to better planning and outcomes for this group. It was the aim of this small scale study to investigate this.

The Homes from Hell? Media Perceptions of Residential Child Care

Anne Clackson, Sheryl Lindsay, Alan Macquarrie

IntroductionFor the vast majority of the population, residential child care is not an area of direct personal experience. In Scotland, fewer than 1600 children are in residential accommodation (Scottish Executive, 2002), representing 14% of the population of looked-after children, and only about one child per 730 of the under-eighteen population.(Scottish Office, 1996) For most people, impressions and opinions about residential care will tend to be shaped by the popular media rather than by direct knowledge.

It is widely recognised that the media have a tendency to categorise and stereotype that which is unfamiliar: The world presented by the popular Press, like the world we feel we live in, is a culturally organized set of categories, rather than a collection of unique individuals…. In so far as we regard the category of person as displaying strongly predictable attitudes or behaviour, the category may harden into a stereotype, an extremely simplified mental model which fails to see the individual features, only the values that are believed to be appropriate to the type. (Fowler, 1991, 92)

There has long been an impression, on the part of those who work in the field, that the British press presents a hostile picture of social work, including residential care for children and young people, which is reflected not only in the tone of presentation of reports, but also in the choice of stories which receive coverage. (Franklin, 1998; Aldridge, 1994) Some writers, however, have argued that the impression of unfair press coverage of social work is more illusory than real, and that other professional groups also feel that they are unfairly treated. (Aldridge, 1990, p.611-12) Children and young people who are looked after also feel a sense of stigma from the press(Who Cares? Scotland, 2001). Since newspapers are commercially driven, they give prominence to stories which will sell papers – ‘to entertain and titillate’ a large audience (Aldridge, 1999, p.102) – rather than report positively on a sector which has only a small impact on society.

Securing safer care staff: a model for the assessment, selection and training of staff to work in residential careJohn Watson Janice Gould Gerry Sullivan Jayne Cockerill

IntroductionThe recruitment of staff into residential child care presents an ongoing challenge for organisations. Methods of recruitment in the past have been criticised in a range of government reports. Skinner (1992) and others have highlighted the need for better preparation and training of residential workers. At a national level, the Care Standards and the establishment of registration for residential staff have prompted a re-examination of selection and training practices. Cora Learning supports four independent schools for young people in care in the West of Scotland, and provides a centralised training and assessment function for staff across the schools. With the expansion of the secure estate in Scotland, two of the new secure units (St Philip’s in Airdrie and The Good Shepherd Centre in Bishopton) fell within the remit of Cora Learning. The organisation was given the task of undertaking the recruitment and training of new staff for the two new units.

The two new units were designed to provide secure care for 48 of Scotland’s most troubled and troublesome young people. To support this aim, each unit needed to recruit at least 50 residential care workers with the potential to offer the type of support needed for this group of young people. Cora had experienced difficulty in recruiting care staff and this was echoed by Scottish Executive figures (2004) showing that social services, including residential child care, are currently running with a high number of vacancies. It was clear that there was a shortage of candidates who were both registrable and who had secure care experience. It was therefore necessary to develop a strategy to achieve the volume and quality of staff required by the new services. A decision was made to recruit and train 50 trainees who wished to have a change of career, equip them with an HNC in Social Care and an SVQ 3 in Health and Social Care (Children), and to provide them with experience of secure care through a work placement. This group of trainees would then be eligible to apply for the posts in the new units. If successful, it was also hoped that the model for selecting the trainees could become the normal practice for recruiting staff within Cora schools. This paper seeks to outline the model and builds upon a presentation given to an international child care conference in Sydney (Watson, 2005).

Residential child care and the psychodynamic approach; is it time to try again?Charles Sharpe

Introduction Therapeutic approaches to residential child care in the UK have been greatly influenced by the psychodynamic theories of D.W. Winnicott (1965), Klein (1998), Bowlby (1965) and Bion (1970), among others. The psychodynamic model of residential child care stresses the importance of understanding the emotional development of children and young people. It places particular significance on the anxieties and fears which arise for children when healthy emotional development is disrupted in early childhood. These theorists acknowledge a debt to the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud which he proffered as an explanation of human development and behaviour. Freud (1977) proposed that painful inner conflicts borne out of unresolved developmental issues during infancy, though repressed in the unconscious, struggle for expression in our conscious behaviour throughout our lives. These expressions coming as they do from the individual’s unresolved infantile inner conflicts were, according to Freud, manifested in behaviours or defences which were socially harmful to the individual. Research such as the work done by Berridge and Brodie (1998) indicates that the vast majority of children in residential care have had early childhood disruptions or traumas such as physical or sexual abuse. Hence it would appear that this group of children could be helped by the use of psychodynamic approaches. Yet recent reviews such as that by Maher (2003) seem to indicate that the influence of psychodynamic approaches on residential practice is on the wane.

This paper is based on the premise that psychodynamic approaches still have a great deal to offer residential child care and that the time has come for all involved in this work to look again at the potential of such practice. Following an examination of the historical reasons why these theories are resisted by the mainstream of residential child care, the paper will use a case study to illustrate the use of one particular psychodynamic approach, based on the work of Klein and Winnicott.

The participation of children and young people in therecruitment of residential child care staff in Scotland

Helen KayIrene Stevens

IntroductionIn the wake of a number of high-profile cases of the abuse of children and young people in residential child care, there have been several calls to improve the safety of children in residential care in Scotland (Kent 1997; Marshall, Jamieson and Finlayson, 1999) and indeed throughout the UK (Warner, 1997; Utting, 1997; Kendrick 1998). One strand of policy identified as relevant to this issue is the prevention of unsuitable people from being employed (Gallagher, 2000). There have been repeated calls for the improvement of recruitment and selection of residential child care staff. Inquiries into abuse have consistently highlighted that selection processes were lax and inadequate, and that there were concerns about references, police checks and other vetting procedures (Levy & Kahan, 1991; Williams & McCreadie, 1992; Kirkwood, 1993; Kendrick, 1997).

Following the publication of the Children’s Safeguards Review (Kent, 1997), the Scottish Executive funded the Scottish Recruitment and Selection Consortium (SRSC) to contribute to the safeguards for children in residential care by developing a ‘Toolkit’ of guidance for the safer selection of staff. The Toolkit identified 18 elements which should be included in a safer selection process. The 18 elements were capabilities, job description, person specification, advertisement, application form, short-listing, equal opportunities, screening interview, identity check, verification of qualifications, reference request, criminal records check, client record checks, personnel records check, selection process, assessment, panel interview and personal interview. The document entitled Safer selection and recruitment for staff working with children; a toolkit (SRSC, 2001) was launched across Scotland by the Scottish Executive in 2001. The SRSC recommended that young people should be involved in the recruitment of staff, advocating for their participation within some of the 18 elements.

Book Review Adrian WardTavistock Clinic, LondonFacing Forward : Residential Child Care in the 21st Century