residential care – Comment and analysis

In light of how vulnerable looked-after children are to abusers, it’s time to rethink our approach to residential care, argue Tom Rahilly and David Berridge

Tom Rahilly is Head of Strategy and Development, NSPCC, and David Berridge is Professor of Child and Family Welfare, University of Bristol

Not that it has ever gone away, but the government’s recent intervention in Rotherham council brought back into the public eye the horrendous events in which a reported 1,400 children were sexually exploited. The serious case review into sexual exploitation in Oxfordshire shows the problem is not restricted to one area alone. Alexis Jay’s report into Rotherham showed widespread failures. While there were many individual practitioners trying their best, they came up against a wall of denial.

It’s clear that we urgently need to find a better way of safeguarding our most vulnerable children. Children who were abused included those living at home with their families as well as children in care. However, there seems to be a pattern in abusers targeting those who are particularly vulnerable such as in residential care.

Challenge

No-one should under-estimate the challenge of tackling this. Children may yearn for adult affection and be less adept at recognising true motives and exploitation. Numerous girls made comments such as, ‘I know he really loves me’, or, ‘I was special to him’. It is harrowing when individuals will settle for so little, or feel that they are entitled to no better.

Residential care is often misunderstood and most homes work hard to provide stability and boundaries for young people who have led unsettled and troublesome lives. Children arrive with established harmful patterns of behaviour and undesirable contacts. Dealing with this in local, open units is a challenge and residential workers have to be very creative in gathering intelligence, fragmenting social groups and offering alternatives.

Under-professionalised

Despite these efforts, it is clear that there are long-term and structural problems with residential care in England. These relate to role and status. We still expect our most troubled children to be looked after by an undervalued workforce that is the least well qualified, lowest paid and not given the support it needs. In other words a workforce that is ‘under-professionalised’. It doesn’t need to be this way. It is different to this in much of continental Europe.

The government has taken action to address some of the shortcomings. Attention has focused on children placed long distances and the problem of residential homes located in unsafe areas.

There has been a debate about responses to children who go missing. A new set of quality standards is planned. And whilst we need to go further, useful steps have been taken to tighten-up qualifications for the residential sector. This is a reasonable start but, alone, none of this will resolve current problems.

Rethink the nature of residential care

We need to develop a more nuanced, and individual approach to safeguarding children in care; a relational approach. Research shows that it is the relationship that children have with the carer and other professionals that is critical to effective safeguarding. Children need someone they trust; someone that they turn to for support. Alongside improving qualifications – which is critical – we must focus on supporting the quality and stability of the relationships that young people in care have with those there to support and protect them.

Achieving this requires us to rethink the nature of residential care. We must ensure the management of residential care build a positive culture in the home where children and young people know that their needs are understood and that their views and experiences are valued and listened to. We must, for example, eliminate inflexible shift patterns and ways of working that mean that children cannot develop meaningful, trusting relationships over the longer term.

Residential children’s homes as anomalies

Though it may never be the same, residential care should resemble family care as closely as possible.

Most human service professions are now graduate entry: children’s residential homes are, therefore, anomalous. Some councils pay and perceive heads of homes at social worker team leader-level, which seems more commensurate with the level of responsibility and expertise required, but practice remains variable. We are now dependent on a large independent residential sector and the economics of care are a problem.

Hopefully the next government will continue to develop the children’s residential sector, building on the work that has started and based on what we know works. How all this squares with a five-year, average, reduction in council budgets of 37% remains to be seen.

But as the messages from Rotherham and elsewhere have shown us, we cannot afford not to act.

This piece is based on chapter three from the NSPCC’s book, ‘Promoting the wellbeing of children in care’, which was launched om 6/3/15.

This piece was first published on communitycare.co.uk

David Berridge reflects on some older and newer research that he has undertaken on children’s residential care

Over my research career I’ve undertaken several studies of children’s residential care in England. Like others, I sometimes wonder why I select the topics that I do, although research funding being as it is, you often have to take the opportunities as they come along. As a young graduate my first jobs in the late 1970s were in residential settings with teenagers. I’m not sure that we were particularly effective; we didn’t know exactly what we were trying to do and the knowledge base was much less developed than now. At least I tried to offer professional friendship (there’s an interesting concept, similar to what continental European social pedagogues aspire to) as well as introducing young people to a wider range of interests, sports and situations.

On becoming a researcher, my first main study of children’s homes in 1985 (long out of print) entailed me undertaking fieldwork and living for a week in 20 different homes. All this happened in the first year I was married, which didn’t make me especially popular. Others have followed (studies rather than marriages). Residential care is now a small service in England compared with many other European countries but caters for a very troubled minority. It continues to attract negative publicity, including the sexual exploitation of residents by groups of local men. Whatever its other shortcomings, to its credit the current UK Coalition government is taking some positive steps to strengthen children’s residential services.

The latest project that I finished recently is a somewhat unusual one – Driving Outcomes: Resilience, Learning to Drive and Young People Living in Residential Care. It entailed a small pilot which offered driving lessons to a group of six older adolescents living in a group of residential homes in Bristol. Raising funding took time but the project and a qualitative evaluation proceeded thanks to the generosity of the AA Charitable Trust, British Academy and University of Bristol. Readers can find out more about the research here but it is interesting to reflect on some of the issues. A journal article should be available later in the year once it grinds its way through the academic peer review process.

In a nutshell, although only one of the six young men had so far passed his driving test, pupils, professionals and heads of homes interviewed felt that the initiative had been very successful. The person who passed said that it had changed his life. For others, there were perceived benefits in raising self-esteem and self-confidence, as well as in encouraging close relationships with supportive adults. These stand out in the resilience literature as important in helping young people overcome the effects of early adversity, including abuse, neglect, family breakdown and parental rejection. Learning to drive may help combat some of the stigma associated with being in care and social exclusion, as well as an important symbolic transition to adulthood, which children in care may otherwise find difficult. I keep explaining that you wouldn’t expect driving and cars to be a panacea (‘silver bullet’) for complex personal, social and structural problems. However, the limited evidence, and theoretical justification, suggest that driving may be of disproportionate benefit.

Furthermore, it is often commented that it is unacceptable that the State doesn’t provide for children separated from their families and living in care in the same way as we would for our own children. Examples include the low educational attainment and the inadequate support (‘accelerated transitions’) for care leavers. The statement is rarely (never?) questioned. How realistic is it? For example, our son or daughter may ask us to look over and help with a school essay; would we do so with the same commitment and conscientiousness as a foster carer, residential worker or social worker? This is one reason why adoption works particularly well as parents are more likely to provide the limitless support or ‘unconditional love’ that children need. How else can the State replicate this in more temporary legal and social work circumstances? How can it be expressed for adolescents in care? What is a close approximation? A useful article helps unpick some of these issues.

On reflection, starting off the driving lesson initiative was one effort in this direction. Providing opportunities is no doubt more straightforward than guaranteeing care and emotional support. We often arrange driving lessons for our own children, so why shouldn’t we do the same as ‘corporate parents’? In England at least, this has so far been unusual for residential settings, although foster carers may have made their own arrangements. What other experiences might there be that could have a similar effect to strengthen resilience? High educational attainment is probably best. No doubt sports, caring for animals, music and drama work for some. Another might be seeking part-time work, which is very uncommon if not unknown from my past residential studies. Getting involved in advocacy work for children in care/Care Councils could work too.

It would be interesting to know what others think.

David is Professor of Child and Family Welfare in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol.