*           An article provided by Greenlight on insurance for students at university.

*           Valerie Jackson has written about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, which could become on the UK’s scourges in the 21st century.

*           Kathleen Mulvey has given a personal account of how training has changed her professional life. If you are thinking of training, read this.

*           James Moran makes a powerful plea for children’s interests to come before their parents’ from the angle of foster care in New York.

*           Keith White considers the importance of faces to children.

*           The Editorial looks at faith (not faiths).

*           Robert Shaw’s Key Texts this month are Polsky’s Cottage Six and the Dartington Research After Grace, Teeth.

Finally, a diverse clutch of book reviews:

*           Research Methods in Early Childhood by Mukherji and Albon

*           Metamorphoses by James Rogers

*           Early Childhood Studies by Johnston and Nahmad-Williams

*           Changing Times, Changing Needs by Jim Hyland

*           Happy Kids Happy You by Sue Beever

 
We hope that you find a few things of interest.

There are two basic methods for arranging cover for a child going to university. They can either be included on their parent’s cover, or get their own policy. Also be aware that some universities already have cover in their properties, in halls of residence on or off campus. For instance, the University of Warwick provide wide-ranging cover through Endsleigh, so you won’t need to. However, universities will rarely, if ever, cover for private properties, so you’ll need to get this sorted out if you move into one.

Parental Cover

There are many home insurance policies that will cover students while they are away at university, whether they are in private or university owned accommodation. It’s important that you check your existing policy before your child goes to university or gets another policy. If they are included in your policy, then you won’t need to get student cover. If you want a more comprehensive home insurance policy, then take a look at Legal & General for a broad ranging selection of policies.

Tenant Cover

If your policy will not cover your child while they are at university, then getting tenant cover is recommended if they are going to live in private accommodation. Policies can be very cheap - just make sure you read the small print about exactly what you’ll be getting, and how long the student will be covered after leaving home. There will rarely ever be a need for buildings cover unless the parent is a landlord - this will nearly always be the responsibility of the private landlord.

Extra Cover

It’s possible that your insurance policy, even if it’s specifically for students, won’t cover everything. Make sure you know exactly what’s covered, or you could be empty-handed in the event of a loss or theft. The following need particular attention paid to them:

Digital Content

It’s not all about CDs and DVDs anymore; digital content is seeing them off, and it comes at a price. Downloading music from iTunes still costs money, so it’s important to see if this will be covered in the policy.

Bicycles

Not all student insurance policies will cover against bikes. It’s possible you may need separate bicycle cover.

Discounts

If accommodation will be fitted with burglar alarms and other safety features, then inquire with your insurer to see if there are any possible discounts.

Although the dangers of alcohol during pregnancy had long been suspected, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) was formally described in 1968 by P. Lemoine and colleagues from Nantes (France) in 127 children of alcoholic parents. Their report in a French paediatric journal drew little attention.

Focus on FAS only came after it was independently re-described in 1973 by K.L. Jones and colleagues from Seattle (U.S.) in eight children of mothers with chronic alcoholism. Their report in the British medical journal The Lancet triggered an avalanche of reports of FAS.

Alcohol is capable of causing birth defects. This capability classifies it medically as a teratogen - an agent that interrupts the normal development of a fetus resulting in evident birth defects. Alcohol is currently recognised as the leading teratogen to which the fetus is likely to be exposed. This applies only to societies in which alcoholic beverages are consumed. In these populations, prenatal alcohol exposure is thought to be the most common cause of mental retardation and limited growth.

What are the Signs?

Most of the features of FAS are variable and may or may not be present in a particular child. However, the most common and consistent features of FAS involve the growth, performance, intelligence, head and face, skeleton, and heart of the child.

-           Growth is diminished.

-           Birth weight is lessened.

-           The growth lag is permanent.

-           The face typically has short eye openings, sunken nasal bridge, short nose, flattening of the cheekbones and mid-face, smoothing and elongation of the ridged area between the nose and lips, and smooth, thin upper lip.

-           The skeleton shows characteristic changes such as abnormal position and function of joints, shortening of the metacarpal bones leading to the fourth and fifth fingers, and shortening of the last bone in the fingers.

-           There is also a small fifth fingernail and a single transverse crease across the palm.

The diagnosis of FAS must be based on solid evidence. This is because FAS is a diagnosis of great importance for the entire lifetime of the child, not to speak of its implications for the child’s mother and other family members. There is no laboratory test to aid the diagnosis it is almost always physical appearance and specific skeletal deformities.

Fetal alcohol effects (FAE) is a softer diagnosis than FAS. The diagnosis of possible FAE is considered when:

-           the person has some signs of FAS

-           the person does not meet all of the necessary criteria for FAS

-           there is a history of alcohol exposure before birth.

How Much Alcohol is Safe During Pregnancy?

Two approaches can be taken to this important question.

One is the rigorously scientific approach. It remains strictly within factual evidence.

-           Most children diagnosed with FAS have had overtly alcoholic mothers who drank at least eight to 10 drinks a day.

-           Children born to women who had four to six drinks a day have subtle signs of FAS/FAE.

-           Where mothers have had two drinks a day, the only indisputable effect noted has been subtly lower birth weight.

-           Where mothers have fewer than two drinks a day there is no concrete

evidence for an effect on the fetus. Therefore, from a strictly scientific viewpoint, one cannot say that one drink a day during pregnancy is dangerous to the baby.

The second and the more common favoured approach is ‘better-safe-than-sorry’. This position is promoted by public health experts. For example the warning label on all alcoholic beverages in the U.S. indicate that “According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects.”

This conservative approach is also followed by most individuals and groups concerned with preventing FAS/FAE. For example, the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome USA states, “No amount of alcohol has been proven safe to consume during pregnancy. FAS and FAE are 100% preventable when a pregnant woman abstains from alcohol.”

Alcohol and Pregnancy

The current UK guidelines state that women shouldn’t drink when trying to conceive or during the first three months of pregnancy. If you do choose to drink during pregnancy, you should limit yourself to only one or two units of alcohol, once or twice a week. Drinking heavily during pregnancy can result in premature labour and underweight babies - as well as FAS/FAE.

Most women, especially those who have never given birth, do not always fully understand that they are pregnant for the first couple of months of pregnancy or that this is a critical time in the development of their future child. This is when the danger lurks for the unborn child. I hear young women and not so young women state with an arrogance that I consider to be based on ignorance and lack of information that “I can drink like a fish and I don’t even suffer from a hangover.” Well goody! I hope their future children feel equally thrilled when they can’t remember things that they knew yesterday, or find that no one wants to play with them because they cannot understand the rules of social interaction.

Children with FAS or FAE struggle to make sense of facial expressions and often have no STOP button. They will continue to laugh hysterically over nothing at all or persist in teasing another child, adult or pet even when told in strong terms to stop.

My fear is that as more females consider that they are fully equal to men, even when it comes to drinking someone under the table, there will be more and more babies born after a drunken, oblivious weekend and more unwanted and unloved children desperate to find those special adults to love them and guide them to a successful future.

Caring for the Children

Raising a child who lives with the effects of alcoholic behaviours of their parents is not at all easy. It is difficult to convey the perpetual daily struggle to find the right key to open learning and interest. Every day is a huge challenge. Often every meal time becomes a battle ground where a very small yet determined child does not feel hungry, not because they have anorexia or any other eating disorder, but just because. Yet the parent knows they must eat as they have no reserves of body fat and no real resilience to the common infections and illnesses of childhood.

These children can cry and scream unaccountably for hours on end. They become exhausted by the sheer effort of it all. When the parent of such a child attempts to explain this to an outsider, the most usual response is “Well, most children go through those phases.” Or “Don’t you think you are just getting a bit paranoid about your child?”

In the UK, very little is known about FAS /FAE even by family doctors and health visitors. Until we are armed with more knowledge and begin an effective and, frankly, scare-led campaign in schools, there will be more children born to naïve parents who from the outset will not understand how this could have happened to them.

I remember clearly having a heated debate with my then manager which unusually resulted in my issuing of an ultimatum, “If you don’t let me do the course, then I’ll be looking for another job!”  Unusual in the sense that I’m not a confrontational or demanding person, and also I had up until this point avoided most forms of training with a reticent almost Bart Simpson-like approach.  Looking back, I was more intuitive of my own needs than even I was aware of; I was becoming stale in my approach and needed somehow to move through this.  I was 28 and had been working professionally with young people since 2001; some 6 years later I was a project worker in a resettlement unit for 16 - 25 year-olds experiencing homelessness and all its encompassing problems: drugs, alcohol, trauma, isolation.    Three months after this conversation I started my Higher National Certificate (HNC) Social Care through the Scottish Institute of Residential Child Care (SIRCC) at Langside College, Glasgow, completing in the November of 2008.

September 2009

Less than a year later I was walking through the doors of the Glasgow School of Social Work to start my BA Social Work full-time, funded and supported once again by SIRCC.  This wasn’t due to the Willy Wonka golden ticket effect; I hadn’t been uniquely selected and given a free ticket.  I am one of 24 students within a class of 54 who are undertaking the residential child care pathway on the BA.   This offers the same professional social work qualification but allows placements and certain assignments to be focused on children and young people who are looked after and accommodated.   Everyone on the course varies in age, experience, and outlook.  I stated pretty quickly to my fellow classmates that I have no intention of joining them in the field but that I want to remain within residential child care.  The responses varied from awe and wonder to “So why are you here then?”

I work part-time at Kibble not only to help financially but also because I am uniquely aware of my own need to avoid becoming too removed from the people that I am hoping this degree will benefit.  So many former colleagues have said, “How do you manage it?” “I could never give up full-time!” “Take my hat off to you!”  The same people are more than capable, and so I have wanted for some time to shed some light on the barriers to making that leap, and also reflect on what it was that transformed a reticent learner into a person now deeply rooted in the process of lifelong learning.

With the publication of Higher Aspirations Brighter Futures calling for all frontline workers in residential child care to be trained to degree level, I felt almost psychic and happily reassured.  This report, however, awakened this niggling feeling I had that I had to look closer at the whole of my experiences these last couple of years from workplace, to HNC, to degree, hoping that I could determine what the factors were that shaped and supported my experience and that allowed this transition.  Ultimately, if I could do this, then my responsibility would be to share this and hopefully others will benefit.

January 2010

How did the HNC help me within the workplace?

All throughout my HNC I felt that I was becoming rejuvenated again within my role. Key work and care plans were becoming more dynamic and personalised.  I felt I had a greater insight and understanding of my young people.  The feeling of constantly fire-fighting diminished. We - the team, the young people, - were working on solutions.  More importantly, I felt supported. I felt that there was this much bigger world of social care out there and that we could learn from each other and share in our practice.  While day-to-day decisions could be affected by management, workers or young people, we were also supported by a developing and experienced field of social care.

Why was the HNC not enough?

The HNC was the catalyst.  I didn’t become a person who started to prefer books to people but I liked the outlook that it gave me of the profession and the opportunities that were opening up.  As the HNC had become the benchmark for all workers it seemed inevitable to push to the next level and continue.  I also felt that I was a better worker because of the HNC and that the young people were benefiting just as much as I was.

Fabulous Fridays. (We were day release on a Friday)

“So why, with a workforce qualified to HNC level, are the doors of every school of social work not breaking under the pressure of residential child care workers fighting to get in?  Did Langside put something in the water to inspire the class of 2008?”

These were the two questions I posed to some of my former classmates who also felt that the year we had together was an awakening with regards to their careers.

In attempting to analyse both my own thoughts and experiences alongside their comments I can narrow it down to two factors - shared experiences and teaching that is rooted in practice and facilitated with commitment.

Shared Experiences

We all very much agreed that the commitment of the workplaces to release us each Friday to an external provider was crucial.  It was the ability to mix with people out with our own organisations and within similar disciplines and to share our experiences that opened up the learning to us.

Rooted in Practice

The vast majority of people within the field of residential child care, I believe, have not entered through an academic route.  We are caring people and more often than not it is our patience, intuition and capacity to support and encourage others that has led us to the workplace.  This does not make us naturally academic.

Within my HNC class the vast majority of us had not been in a classroom for at least 10 years and many did not enjoy the experience first time around.  This is why the teaching style at Langside was crucial for us.  This was rooted in actual experience and facilitated with a level of enthusiasm that at times, especially during the module on protection from harm and abuse, could best be described as passion.  It was in my opinion contagious.   All our assignments were linked to our own professional experiences both previous and current.  This allowed us to put our theory into practice and also reflect on our practice.

While we would all happily wave the flag of the fan club of our former tutor, we very much recognise that it was the combination of her teaching style, understanding and experience of what real life was like for us and support and feedback throughout the course that resolved our fears.

Me, Myself & I

Personally, I developed from that reticent Bart Simpson-like learner into a worker with a professional hunger to continue learning.  I have always underachieved and never lived up academically to expectations.  At least four months into the course the tutor had made a comment about her own spelling while writing on the white board.  The person sitting next to me said, “That’s because she’s dyslexic!”

I didn’t really think much about it at the time and it wasn’t until we got our feedback for our next assignment when I noticed the dyslexia and somehow that made me think more than the actual feedback to the assignment.  For me this was the turning point in my learning experience.  It really did blow me away.

I’ve worked in an education centre in the Lake District where every day I would facilitate sessions for up to 60 young people.  It takes a lot of commitment to teach and you learn to play to your strengths. It takes an enormous amount of dedication to do this to your peers and always have a weakness open for public consumption.  The fact that I didn’t notice for four months says more about the abilities of the tutor not only in turning a weakness into strength but in her commitment to professional development.  (She is a qualified and experienced social worker, teacher and childcare worker.)

My Barriers to Higher Education

My tutor’s dyslexia gave me an understanding of my own learning experiences and   my commitment (or lack of) towards my own development.  I felt that the only thing holding me back was me.  From that day I tried as much as possible to give 100% to the experience.  I had never cared enough or been inspired to care enough academically about anything.  I entered a brave new world where disappointment and failure were possibilities something that I had hidden from.

The main external barrier was financial and the fear of giving up full-time employment.   Some people say I am fortunate, as I’m a young(ish) 30-something with no dependents.  This may be a positive factor; at times it may not.  Many of my new classmates at the Glasgow School of Social work talk often about how supported they feel to have a partner and families and another wage. They also talk of the difficulties they face when trying to study when the kids are sick or having to sacrifice a play-day to get an essay done on time.   I do feel that there needs to be an increase in the availability of distance learning courses for front-line workers within the workplace as it appears to be mainly for managers at present.

Transitions

In Scotland the Social Work degree is four years full-time and an HNC is viewed as being equivalent to having completed first year.  So why did I not enter directly into second year?  While elements of the course so far are similar and covering the same subjects, they are approached in an entirely different manner.  The HNC in Social Care is not, nor should it ever be seen as, the poorer little sister of Social Work.  The HNC has provided a backbone to a workforce striving for increased professionalism and to meet the evolving challenges.  It equips you to work within a team, to harness all of your experience and knowledge and apply that to your workplace.  To value the systems that are in place, understand and contribute to their development.

The Social Work degree, however, for a front-line worker is initially uncomfortable territory.  Promoting autonomy, responsibility for acquiring your own knowledge and stating quite clearly, “Challenge everything.  Do not accept anything as fact unless you have the knowledge that this is the case!”    While as workers we might be told at various times to be more autonomous, taking increasing responsibility within our working environments, the context is still very much in my experience service-led.  So far, my understanding of the degree course is that it is equipping me not only to work within the services but also, when necessary, challenge for change and facilitate the development.

SIRCC Funding

Personally, this was a godsend, as I was not eligible for funding for fees, due to a previous botched attempt at learning some twelve years ago.  This has saved me almost £8000.   I would like to see the funding options widened and developed along the lines of the nursing degree with bursary.  Specifically in relation to residential child care I feel that the only way to encourage more experienced workers to commit full-time to undertaking the degree is with increased financial backing.

Overcoming the financial barrier for me is ongoing. Part-time and relief work help, as does the student loan, but ideally I would like to get to a point where the loan doesn’t need to be an option.  Summer for us is very long (four months) and, since registered workers in Scotland are like gold dust for agencies, it shouldn’t be too hard between my part-time post, my relief post and agency to work as much as I can.

Work- Life Balance

It is true that life at present is a constant juggling act, and the main sacrifices revolve around a reduced social life, being limited financially, ability to keep up with the soaps, and not being able to plan too far in advance in case an opportunity for an extra shift comes up.  However, I’ve never been happier and surer that the sacrifices are worth making.

The Future

Residential child care has a purpose-driven need and desire for tacit learning. However, so much of what we do is part of the greater world of social care.  Policies and practice within our own units have been shaped by events in the wider world, government policies, research and also by the voices of the young people in receipt of care and stakeholders.  Our interventions and ability to offer personalised packages to our young people have been transformed by multi-disciplinary approaches to care.

All of this means there is now more of a need than ever to adapt, to holistically approach each day and draw on our experience but also to interpret our understanding of inequality, social policy, social sciences etc. in real life situations.  How best to meet this challenge may not resonate with everybody.  For me the challenge is being met through the degree course at the Glasgow School of Social work.

Within the field of residential child care there is among many people that intrinsic value of never giving up on our young people, so why do we limit ourselves as workers?  We know our young people are worth this level of commitment, and we also have a duty to ourselves to aim higher, our workplaces have a responsibility to help us achieve those goals.

Nothing will ever guarantee positive outcomes for every child and young person but a qualified workforce committed to a process of lifelong learning will ensure we try.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach then to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Kathleen Mulvey is a Residential Child Care Worker and Social Work Student

• SIRCC: Scottish Institute for Residential Childcare (www.sircc.org.uk)
• Langside College, Glasgow (www.langside.ac.uk)
• Glasgow School of Social Work: Joint School of Glasgow University and University of Strathclyde, to be run solely from University of Strathclyde from Autumn 2010 (www.strath.ac.uk/gssw)
• Kibble: Providing residential care to young boys aged 12 - 18 for the last 150 years. Secure, Open and Close support .(www.kibble.org)
• Higher Aspirations Brighter Futures: Document of the National Residential Child Care Initiative
• Changing Lives Review: Scottish 21^st century review of Social Work.
• James Shield Project, Glasgow. Residential project for 37 young people aged 16 - 25 experiencing homelessness run by Quarriers.(www.quarriers.org.uk).

I have been associated with the foster care system in New York for several years and it seems that there is a great deal of time spent on the rights of birth parents and not enough time on what is really right for the child.  There are many instances of birth parents that are known not to be able to provide and yet, the cycle continues.

I have witnessed judges in the Family Court system give countless chances to allow birth parents time to take control of their lives and possibly have their children return to the home.  I have examined many cases and most of the time, even when the children were returned to the birth parents’ home, it was only a short time and they wound up back into the foster care system.

The trauma a child feels when they are uprooted from their family and familiar surroundings is immeasurable and different with the particulars of each instance.  The age of the child is a major factor in the resiliency of the move.  When children are placed into good foster care situations, they have the ability of seeing that it can be different than they have known.  This new knowledge can create a certain amount of anxiety, and possibly fear, of returning to the birth parents’ home, and a desire to stay in the foster home, which may not be an option.

Two Years is a Long Time.

There seems to be an amount of time that is considered acceptable or expected by the professionals involved with the system.  The minimum amount of time for the termination of parental rights seems to be about two years.  There are many instances of birth parents that are known not to be able to provide and yet the cycle doesn’t change.

This two-year period can seem like a lifetime to a younger child.  The younger child develops very fast, with many changes in their thought processes and ability to reason.  With respect to the younger child, most of the memories they will have of family values, birthdays and holiday traditions will be those of a family not their own.

With an older child, they can feel very out of place because they don’t know the traditions that everyone else seems to know and it makes them very uncomfortable to see differences to what they may have been accustomed to.  The older child may make conscious decisions to not include themselves during family gatherings, or even act out to sabotage their inclusion.  Depending on the circumstances, the older child may never be able to develop bonds with foster parents and foster siblings, causing tension whenever there are gatherings of family or other groups that require both to interact.

The Risks of Attachment

When a potential long term placement is likely, there is a decision to be made concerning what type of placement is right for the case and it’s different with each placement.  These placements can become a double-edged sword, or so to speak.

1. On one hand, if you place a child with a loving, caring, nurturing foster family, you have the emotional attachments that a child develops with the foster family.  This is especially true for the younger child that’s placed into care.  Over time with the foster family, they develop bonds with new siblings and extended families as well as the parental bond that develops.  The child develops a strong sense of belonging to those new families, celebrating birthdays, holidays and other events that take place.  The longer this placement continues, the harder it will be to separate, and the anxiety from that will be greater and more damaging to the foster child.   There will also be some damage to the children and other family members of the foster family.  The foster parents know and prepare themselves for this separation anxiety and may be able to cope with the separation better.

2. On the other, if you don’t place the child with a long-term foster family and they begin the cycle of bouncing from one home to another, they begin to develop attachment disorders and become unable to develop those bonds at all.  These attachment problems can damage them for life and possibly hinder their ability to develop loving relationships with a spouse or possibly even their own children some day.

Case Study

I know of a case in which there is a male child that entered the foster care system at the age of five.  This child was placed in a group care facility with his younger brother, age four, because of a neglect accusation.  The boys were placed together in a foster care home within a few days.  The two boys were very primitive in their behavior and played very rough with each other.  The two boys played very different from each other and in just two days the new foster family was at a point where they felt they couldn’t care for both boys together.

The boys were split between two families, with the four-year-old younger boy staying at the original placement and the older five-year-old boy being placed with a new foster family.  The placements continued for 18 months and both boys are beginning to express feelings of wanting to stay where they are instead of possibly going back to their birth mother.  The boys have a combined sibling visit with their birth mother every other week and get together with each other, separately, at least once a month with the two foster families coming together.

The birth mother has special needs of her own and has always shown signs of being unable to provide a safe, structured household that is capable of educating the boys.  The family history is such that neither boy knew their fathers, or had a male role model that was sufficient for them to learn acceptable male behavior from.  The boys did not have safe habits as far as strangers were concerned and were both very primitive in their behavior.  The boys could not eat with utensils, help wash or even dress themselves.  The older boy was unable to recognize any letters, numbers or even colors.

The court cases have come and gone for 18 months and they continue to speak of reunification with the birth mother and try to define classes and steps she should take to facilitate that.

When do the child’s rights start to take precedence over the birth mother’s rights?  The birth mother has been told at every hearing and before each bi-weekly visit that she needs to set up a household and begin skill-building classes to get the children home again.  The birth mother has never followed through with any of the plans that have been set up for her and avoids the services that are being provided for her to learn the techniques of providing a proper household.  She continues to ignore the orders from the court and adhere to the instructions and yet they are still talking about reunification.

It would be very disruptive for either boy to change their living situation now after living in the same homes for this amount of time at their respective ages, and it is becoming clear from the boy’s behaviors after visits with their birth mother that they are both concerned about having to go back.  The two brothers act very differently from one another and only play together for approximately an hour when they get together.  After an hour or so, they drift away from each other and begin to play independently.  The younger boy is very active and loud in his play and behavior.  The older boy is very calm and enjoys quiet play.  Although both boys suffer from ADHD, they are affected by the disorder in different ways.

The older boy is now seven years old and has been in school for two school years, developing an IEP and getting into a routine with respect to home life, child care and school.  This child is receiving individual counseling, OT, PT and private tutoring services and beginning to show significant improvement.  Academic testing was done during the second school year and his development status is bordering on the MR level, with significant deficiencies in basic pre-K knowledge.   There have been significant advances in his growth during the second academic year now that some of the pre-K basics are being learned and retained.

When do the Child’s Rights Supersede the Birth Parent’s Rights ?

Apparently in New York, they don’t really.   If they did, these two boys would not be worried about returning to a home that is “not capable” of teaching them life skills and educating them.  Remember at the beginning of the case study, it referenced that the birth parent had special needs as well and is not able, and is known not to be able to provide for the boys.

Two years in the lives of children at this age is a long, long time, and in my opinion, too long for the system to take, to make a formal decision about their disposition.  This is especially true when a major deciding factor was known at the onset, the inability of the birth mother to provide due to her own disabilities.

James Moran   5960 Bowman Road   East Syracuse, NY  13057

moranj@sunyocc.edu         315-436-1162

Drawn with a crayon on stiff yellow paper, the face is pear shaped (or, if you like, an inverted droplet).  There are two oval eyes, a nose and/or a mouth, and some hair on the very top of the crown. There are, I think, two ears, one attached to the side of the face, the other at the end of a curving line.  And there are two arms, loosely connected to the face, each recognisable by hands at the end of them. At the bottom of the face there is what is presumably a body and/or legs.

An Archetype?

No doubt a psychologist or therapist would intuit all sorts of inner feelings, projections and even personality traits from the way the face and its constituent parts are drawn.  That is not why I am describing it.  In fact I see it as an archetype rather than as a portrait.  As (I hope) all teachers and therapists know, the first representation of a human being by a child is usually a face to which other body parts such as arms and legs are connected.  There is no neck, torso: the person is essentially a face.

My granddaughter is not stupid, and she is highly aware of clothes and clothing.  She knows that you wear a hat on your head, vests and jumpers on your body, and trousers and socks or tights on your legs.  In other words she is aware that humans have a face and a body, but like nearly all children, she has elected to draw her first human form as a face.

And that raises for me the question as to why this should be so.  My hunch, developed over years of observation and pondering, is that the reason may be rather simple.  It is the face that matters more than anything else: it is in the face that little children come to see and recognise other human beings, to read their feelings, to notice their particular characteristics.  But more than that, it is in the faces of others that they see a reflection of themselves.  Faces are living, vibrant mirrors.  (Janusz Korczak wrote memorably, “A child can read his parent’s face in the same way a farmer reads the sky to predict the weather”. A Voice for the Child, ed. S. Joseph, London: Thorsons, 1999, page 29).

Attachment

In attachment theory the importance of attunement (a dance) between a mother and child has come to be accepted as fundamental to healthy human development.  It is a subtle process involving rhythms, holding, sounds and sensitive touch.  But for children who can see, it is the human face which is the focal point of attunement.  I don’t think it is putting things too strongly to say that every child is wired for, or born with the desire, to see a human face that looks at them, and looks back at them when they look, and smiles as and when they smile.  The faces of the mother and child are said to “light up” as they interact.  Something new has dawned in their relationship.

It is a human tragedy when babies and little children seek in vain for a loving, responsive, attuned human face.  Such tragedies occur for a variety of reasons: death and the absence of a mother; institutional substitute care where a succession of adults perform practical functions without genuine attachment or attunement; and, possibly as sadly as either of these, a mother who has such low self-esteem that she conveys to her child a feeling of worthlessness and alienation.

I have written before of my admiration for the work of Dan Hughes, notably in his book, Building the Bonds of Attachment (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004).  He describes in harrowing terms the feelings and emotions of a child who does not find attunement and bonding: rejection, contempt, disgust, shame, denial, rage, terror, despair, are some of the words he uses, and he concludes of a “path cut through a harsh and barren land…an infant lying among noise, cold and pain…tears that parched and cracked her heart but which caused nothing to grow in her land” (page 22).  It is an almost unimaginably bleak picture that he paints.

Conversely for those children who experience predictably and consistently that magical and pleasurable feeling where they are drawn to responsive eyes set in a smiling, playful face, there can be nothing safer, warmer or more satisfying and reassuring than this spontaneous emotional and physical dance.  No wonder children aged three begin to represent humans with the face!

A Place in the Universe

This leads us on to an even deeper question: what does this longing for a human face represent within the soul?  My sense is that it is to do with the desire (craving) in persons “for a cosmic ordering, self-confirming presence of a loving other that defines what it means to be human”. Built in to human nature and our ego structure is “a cosmic loneliness that longs for a Face that will do all that the mother’s face does, and more: inspiring trust and even worship because it will not go away even in the ultimate separation of death”. (James Loder, The Logic of the Spirit, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998, page 119.)

Something that strikes me about the picture I am studying is that it is symbolic and archetypal. This face represents all faces: the Face that we are born to seek because we are human beings. The great world religions have much to teach about a longing for such a Face.  Christianity sees the Face of God in Jesus Christ.

The purpose of this reflection is not to spell out a moral of the story: I am still wondering about what it might all mean.  Obviously there is a recognition of the significance of good-enough, attuned parenting (and a corresponding wariness of unfamiliar substitutes).  But I guess there is somewhere at the heart of all this a question about whether without traditional religion a child (and later an adult) is still left alone in the cosmos, bombarded with unsatisfying substitutes for this loving, faithful, eternal Face.

Just in case you were wondering what will happen to the picture: it is going back up on the dining room wall where it belongs, alongside several other paintings and drawings by my granddaughter and her brother.

As a coda to this piece, here is a poem that for some reason has resonated with tens of millions around the world.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew -
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

-    John Gillespie Magee, Jr

-

Is it, I wonder, that it symbolises and articulates a universal human longing, not just to see, but to touch the Face that we are looking for?

At last year’s NCERCC conference there was talk of hope. Barack Obama had just been elected President of the USA, and (as we reported at the time) most unusually for a British professional child care conference, one speaker after another spoke of their delight at the outcome. It was like a new dawn, with the promise of a fresh day. In chairing the afternoon session, Ian Milligan spoke about the importance of hope for children in care - that there could be something better for those who have had miserable childhoods, suffering abuse and neglect. Whatever the past, hope is a real gift: we can survive our past and present misfortunes because we envisage that things may get better, and that it is worth investing in the future.

When we lose hope, things can look bleak. The danger then is that we sink into despair. But that is where faith comes in. At this year’s NCERCC conference, one of the speakers emphasised the need to have faith in children and to inspire faith in them, that they can achieve despite their past experiences, and that they can develop an understanding of their experiences which can bring them through into happier, more fulfilling times as adults.

This may be hoping against the odds, and against the indicators. The signs may all point to further failure and unhappiness. Indeed, hope may be replaced by despair. Faith at this point is vital, to help people persevere and win through. For this, children need someone who has got through to them and won their trust, and who then sticks with them and displays faith themselves that the children can succeed. In the same way that children need to be loved before they can love others, they need someone to have faith in them, whom they can trust and who can offer them a rock on which they can build their own self-confidence.

Children need to experience not only love and hope but also faith, and this is more important than any of the measurable inputs, processes, outputs and outcomes which are gathered in the statistics.

Howard W Polsky (1928–2003) obtained his BA from Chicago University before studying for an MSW in group work and a PhD in social psychology at the University of Wisconsin. He was then funded by the Russell Sage Foundation to undertake the research which, when published as Cottage Six, became and remained his most celebrated work. He joined Columbia University’s School of Social Work in 1961, remaining there until his death in 2003.

Key Ideas

-           The institution is more important to the residents than to the staff.

-           Staff behaviour can reinforce a resident culture.

-           The behaviour of the members of a culture does not always reflect the values of the culture.

-           Changes of personnel do not always involve changes in culture.

-           “A neutral stance is impossible in a delinquent society”. (Polsky, 1962, p. 117)

-           The stages by which residents and staff are acculturated into a social system are similar.

-           The victims within a particular social structure find ways of taking out their feelings, if necessary on inanimate objects.

-           Major disruptions do not change the social structure because those that threaten it are expelled.

-           The staff operated separately in two distinct cultures whereas the residents integrated meeting their psychological needs with the social structure.

-           “Inner growth does not come in a social vacuum”. (p. 175)

Content

In Chapter 1 Orientation, Howard Polsky describes the cottage homes founded in the first decade of the 20th century to serve as a custodial institution for delinquent Jewish boys. A psychologist had been appointed in 1917, a psychiatrist in 1926 and the first psychiatric social worker in 1928. When in 1934 the homes had been re-organised as a single institution with a child guidance clinic for boys and girls, there had initially been resistance to the concept but gradually an open community had developed with several children attending local schools and some older adolescents going out to work.

At the time of his research, there were about 195 residents, 140 boys between 8 and 18 in three junior, two intermediate and three senior cottages and 55 girls between 12 and 18 in three cottages; they were mostly Jewish children, less than 10% being non-Jewish. Referrals came from welfare agencies, private sources and the courts, the latter accounting for about 50% of referrals. The institution only accepted those for whom a non-residential placement was not viable and only when there was a place in the cottage assessed as best meeting their need.

Each cottage was run by a married couple and children were expected to go to school or work and do chores; each saw a social worker weekly and had an individual education programme which emphasised vocational as well as general educational subjects. Treatment plans focused on individual psychotherapy offered through a team of psychiatrists and psychiatric social workers. However, the senior cottages were seen more as a holding operation and lots of the ‘rule-breaking’ that took place would have been better seen as normal adolescent behaviour; the institution discouraged punishment.

He concludes with an account of current thinking on the concept of a delinquent subculture, noting that there were few data and nothing to show whether what people said correlated with their actual behaviour. He observes that the cottages were more important to the residents than to the staff, who had other allegiances, and sets out his assumptions going into the research.

In Chapter 2 Setting, he observes that the boys came from families whose values were not necessarily shared by society as a whole and that there was a cottage tradition that boys were always up to no good chasing the girls.

The administration saw Cottage 6 as the end of the line for tough boys and this was expressed in exaggerated displays of masculinity, aggression, hardness and wisdom. Among the problems were that staff knew there were problems relating to relationships with girls but provided few chaperoned events to enable positive relationships to develop while the boys rationalised the girls as ’sluts’ to justify their attitudes to them. Cottage 6 was also seen as the non-academic cottage.

The married couples were left largely to run the cottages. The social workers’ focus on individual work left little room for group awareness and recreation was not used for its therapeutic potential. An O.D. (Officer of the Day) was responsible for daily discipline.

In Chapter 3 Techniques of participant observation, he describes how the seating in the dining room expressed the hierarchy in the cottage with Table III accommodating the leadership clique and, if that was full, one member would move to Table I; similarly, one member moved to Table V when Table I was full. When someone at Table III wanted something, he called for it but, when someone wanted something from Table III, he went to collect it. The houseparents did not interfere in this. ‘Inferior’ boys displaced their feelings on other ‘inferior’ boys rather than attacking the leadership clique.

In Chapter 4 Deviant processes, he describes how the aggressive culture was reinforced by aggressive discussions led by the dominant boys, which did not necessarily result in any action, and by periodic beatings of ‘inferior’ boys which might be started by the leader and carried on by his lieutenants.

The culture was expressed in deviant activities such as gambling, threatening gestures, ranking of boys in various ways including their perceived sexual prowess and scapegoating. Each resident had to find their own way of coping with this.

In Chapter 5 The cottage social structure, he notes that Cottage 6 had fewer interactions with the other cottages. There was a correlation between the bedrooms and the dining tables and consensus about status among boys and staff. Boys tended to have one of five roles: toughs, con-artists, quiet types, bushboys (that is, the more childish) and scapegoats. The last tended to be a long-term role from which it was less easy to escape. Compared with Cottage 7, in Cottage 6 status was more likely to be defined by aggression and fights.

In Chapter 6 Social change, he describes the data collection process and what happened after there was a turnover of boys in Cottage 6, focusing on the ‘careers’ of four boys within the social structure and observing that the overall social structure remained while individuals changed their positions in it.

In Chapter 7 The participant observer in a deviant subculture, he describes how, as part of the deviant subculture, he had to go through an initiation ceremony in which he was made to observe and then invited to do something illegal. He reports that he took some time to find the correct ‘pace’ for participant observation, had to undergo a long period of testing and continued to be used as a scapegoat by lower status boys.

He continued to be a focus for delinquent seduction and had to avoid both delinquency and the observation of it as well as being drawn into aggression and hostility. He concluded from his own difficulties about recording his reactions that “A neutral stance is impossible in a delinquent society” (p. 117).

Though the boys’ suspicions turned into toleration and finally acceptance as an insider/outsider, they never understood the ‘observer role’ and, in any case, he had to become involved to achieve anything.

In Chapter 8 Cottage parents, he notes the difficulties the institution had in obtaining competent houseparents; the existing houseparents had gone through the same phases of testing, engaging and then obtaining control by becoming part of the boys’ control system which new boys had to navigate. They had engaged primarily by focusing on physical care and confronting boys in these areas but ultimately they were pragmatists, partly because they knew they lacked the professional status to enforce things.

In Chapter 9 Double standard complementarity, he notes that 55 professionals left the campus every day, leading to very different staff-resident ratios in the evening and at weekends and to problems being ignored because the disappearing professionals ignored them.

There were many examples of deviant behaviour with, for example, the weaker boys taking their feelings out on animals, other boys or the fabric but none of this disrupted cottage or institutional rhythms unless there was a major disruption. Staff accommodated to the deviancy but didn’t deal with it; for example, boys would go through an induction process which failed to mention the boys’ initiation ceremonies.

The staff responded to major incidents of disruption according to the boys’ status with beatings by higher status boys tolerated but not by lower status; when boys were expelled, it normally preserved the status quo. These attitudes carried over into school and work with the outcomes of absconding or absenteeism dependent on the boy’s status.

In other words, the boys created a structure to which staff accommodated; when boys became victims to it, staff resolved their feelings by

• denouncing destructive relationships
• partially accepting the deviant subculture as beyond their control
• periodic cleanups.

The way disruption was resolved reinforced deviancy while collective punishments were used as a way of allowing staff to control the aggressive boys.

In Chapter 10 Cottage culture and therapeutic milieu, he notes that the social workers who did the individual interviews were the most removed from cottage life and from the boys’ backgrounds and that the culture tended to prefer specific solutions to problems from within a limited range.

Among the boys their relationships with others tended to be hierarchical and individualistic and their activities to have little connection with anything else; their view of human nature was that everyone was rankable within a structure.

By contrast, the staff tended to have individualistic, future-oriented relationships and to have a mastery-over-nature orientation.

From the perspectives of sociology and psychotherapy it was interesting to see how the boys accommodated their psychological needs to the social structure. But both staff and boys verbalised democratic values while blaming provocation for anything non-democratic in their behaviour.

While the structure remained the same and the same deviant values persisted over intakes, different leaders would have different styles though they all tended to use repeated criticism of the ‘inferior’ boys to inhibit their collective action. In effect, there were two separate societies in the institution: the professional and the cottage.

In Chapter 11 New perspective on sub-cultural deviancy and treatment, he summarises the project, noting that the successful boys succeeded in both the professional programme and in the cottage culture, while the unsuccessful succeeded in neither.

He argues that the decline in a group focus has been paralleled by a rise in individualism in society which has left a gap in deviant subcultural theory because the research to date had focused on the links between a deviant subculture and its external culture and the total working of an internal social system had never been analysed.

There is a need to consider social relationships as well as individual psychotherapy. “Inner growth does not come about in a social vacuum” (p. 175).

As a result of his research, the institution planned to attach social workers to the cottages, get the psychiatrists working alongside the houseparents and develop an integrated structure.

In the Epilogue, he reveals that 17 of the 28 boys had settled in community, mostly near home, nine were continuing to commit offences and six of them were in jail while five were in mental institutions. These outcomes generally reflected the social status the boys had had in the institution.

Discussion

The nearest parallel to Cottage Six is Mr Lyward’s Answer (Burn, 1956), another exercise in participant observation, which took place in the same decade. But the differences rather outweigh the similarities with Michael Burn clearly a staff member who did not disclose his true role to the boys. Also, as a journalist, he did not come to his work with the academic background which Howard Polsky was to bring.

Though unremarked at the time, his observation that “A neutral stance is impossible in a delinquent society” (p. 117) is significant in the wider context of debates about the nature of science. While social scientists often strive for ‘objectivity,’ natural scientists (Capra, 1982; Prigogine and Stengers, 1984) have recognised that this is unachievable, not just in specific situations but in any scientific endeavour. Those who affect neutrality in their dealings with children are deceiving themselves.

Interestingly, A.S. Neill (1962), George Lyward and the unnamed Jewish institution had all started at around the same time from the premise that individual psychotherapy was the way forward, the difference being that A.S. Neill and George Lyward quickly abandoned it, preferring to rely instead on the milieu for the therapy. Later Millham et al. (1975) were to find that the only schools with a significant boy culture or one hostile to the staff were those that sought to be therapeutic communities, suggesting that the culture found in Cottage Six was an artefact of the institution: “Troublesome behaviour in an institutional setting is produced by the institution rather than being an attribute of the individual” (Cawson and Martell, 1979, p. 37). Polsky’s comment that “Inner growth does not come in a social vacuum” (p. 175) is central to Wolins’s analysis (1973) of the relationships needed by people at different stages in their cognitive development.

At the time, Cottage Six tended to be picked up by those who were anxious about group care as an example of everything that can go wrong in an institution, ignoring the fact that this was one particular cottage in eleven whose culture was not representative of all the cottages. Now it would be clearer that the institution’s initial reaction of re-organising the professionals within the institution would be unlikely to succeed because the system that needed changing was the social system of the cottage which did not disadvantage the high status members of the system but did nothing for the low status members. Skeels (1966), for example, had taken a disadvantaged group, children who were unlikely to be adopted, and changed the system to benefit them while King et al. (1971) were to show that the relationships between the heads of the units and the children were the key to quality care, not the professionals.

Burn, M (1956) Mr Lyward’s answer London: Hamish Hamilton See also Children Webmag May 2009.

Capra, F (1982) The turning point: science, society and the rising culture London: Wildwood House

Cawson, P and Martell, M (1979) Children referred to closed units DHSS Research Report No 5 London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office See also Children Webmag December 2009.

King, R D, Raynes, N V and Tizard, J (1971). Patterns of residential care: sociological studies in institutions for handicapped children London: Routledge & Kegan Paul See also Children Webmag April 2009.

Millham, S, Bullock, R and Cherrett, P (1975) After grace, teeth: a comparative study of residential experience of boys in approved schools London: Human Context

Neill, A S (1962) Summerhill: a radical approach to education London: Victor Gollancz Originally published 1960 Summerhill: a radical approach to child rearing New York: Hart See also Children Webmag July 2009.

Polsky, H W (1962) Cottage Six: the social system of delinquent boys in residential treatment New York: Wiley

Prigogine, I and Stengers I (1984) Order out of chaos: man’s new dialogue with nature London: Heinemann

Skeels, H M (1966) Adult status of children with contrasting early life experience: a follow-up study Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 31 (3), 1-65 Extracts reprinted in M Wolins (Ed.) (1974) Successful Group Care Chicago: Aldine See also Children Webmag June 2009.

Wolins, M (1973) Some theoretical observations on group care In D M Pappenfort, D M Kilpatrick and R W Roberts (Eds) Child caring: social policy and the institution Chicago: Aldine

Following his successful collaboration with Royston Lambert, head of the Social Research Unit at King’s College, Cambridge, in a sociological study of boarding schools (Lambert and Millham, 1968), Spencer Millham accompanied Royston Lambert and Roger Bullock in the move to Dartington in 1968, where they were invited to undertake a similar study of approved schools whose future was very much bound up with the Labour government’s plans, set out in Children in trouble (Home Office, 1968), to reform the child care system.

Spencer Millham and Roger Bullock remained with the Dartington Hall Trust until their retirements, contributing in numerous studies to greater understanding of residential care.

Key Points

-           Apart from their offending and greater physical and mental illness in their

families, most approved school boys came from similar backgrounds to working class boys.

-           While well-provided for during the week, there was minimal staffing and activities at the weekends.

-           Alongside the traditional training schools, nautical, campus style, family group and therapeutic community schools offered widely differing approaches.

-           The schools largely used utilitarian controls and the boys preferred staff who were strict and fair.

-           There were wide variations between schools in the availability of pastoral care which was used more than in ordinary boarding schools but less for private than for family or small problems.

-           Teachers were, with exceptions, regarded as unfair and uninterested and little advantage was taken of the small teaching groups.

-           While the trade training could result in some impressive work, the techniques taught were mostly outdated.

-           There was wide variation in transfers between schools, with schools where the boys were happier having fewer transfers.

-           There was little of the underlife that characterised ordinary boarding schools.

-           A federal organisation tended to decrease deviant activities.

-           Relationships between the head and staff tended to be formal and there was little contact with the outside world.

-           Aftercare had no impact on re-convictions, which tended to be lower where the boy had a good work record, good family relationships and a favourable peer group on release.

-           Even taking these factors into account, four isolated, total and controlled but happy schools had significantly better outcomes.

Contents

In a Foreword Richard Balbernie comments on the increase in re-conviction rates of approved school boys from 25% in the 1930s to 66% in the 1960s and mentions some of his own experiences of the approved school system which differed somewhat from the findings of this study.

In Chapter 1 Introduction, the authors explain that the book is a summary of two research reports into eighteen approved schools in the south Midlands and south west of England, or about one sixth of all approved schools. They studied just over 1,100 boys in visits between February 1969 and March 1970 and followed them up between November 1971 and May 1972.

During this period the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 began to be implemented and local authority assessment centres began to send boys directly to approved schools rather than via Kingswood classifying school; also following the implementation of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 many local authorities were unable to provide post-discharge information for the study.

They used participant-observation, interviews, questionnaires and standardised tests but they were not able to use diaries as in the boarding school study because of the boys’ literacy levels.

Boys in junior schools tended to stay for the longest periods and those in senior schools for significantly shorter periods. Boys in junior schools tended to be placed closer to home but over 50% of those in intermediate and senior schools were more than 50 miles from home.

In Chapter 2 Characteristics of the sample of approved school boys, they report that, though most boys were committed for offences of larceny or breaking and entering, most had committed more than one offence and most had been on probation. The offence might not be the reason for making an approved school order.

Boys from middle class areas were more like to get an approved school order for a first offence whereas that only happened to 7% of boys from working class areas. Most were not members of a stable group of adolescents and only 40% of offences had been committed with others, in the case of junior boys mostly with siblings. Most boys came from large families and nearly all, but especially junior boys, had more brothers than sisters but their family patterns were no different from other working class families, other than that there tended to be greater physical or mental illness in their families. A lot had suffered paternal deprivation but less than a quarter had rejected, or been rejected by, their parents, though a third of the senior boys had been rejected by their fathers.

Senior boys were either concluding a history of approved school orders or were older offenders from non-criminal families; over half the junior boys had one convicted parent compared with a third of the senior boys.

Though their measured IQs were only slightly below average, their attainments were below what would be expected for their IQs. Truancy was not a significant factor compared with the impact of a move from primary to secondary school; very few were antagonistic to teachers but they had few friends. More able boys tended to have psychiatric recommendations whereas the less able were ignored. In practice, the researchers observed more disturbed behaviour in the schools with fewer boys recommended for psychiatric oversight.

Only 12% were highly institutionalised and few junior boys had previous residential experience; the juniors tended to be more attention-seeking at classifying school while the seniors needing affectionate relationships were not provided for in the senior schools.

A comparison with a 1962 survey (Field et al., 1971) showed that the juniors were less criminal while the intermediates were the same.

In Chapter 3 The goals of the approved schools, they describe how the previous goals of readjustment and social education were being challenged by developments in the 1960s, in particular by the confusion of the deprived and depraved which had prompted the Home Office to begin to view delinquents as social casualties.

Approved school managers had much wider functions than the governors of ordinary schools but were generally more conservative. Though many had not visited the schools as required, the voluntary managers brought a compassion and dedication that was lacking in local authority managers.

Classifying the goals of approved schools as instrumental, expressive or organisational, the junior schools tended to focus on education and were more likely to stress expressive goals, the intermediate schools organisational goals and the senior schools instrumental goals with a focus on vocation. They tended to reject the custodial goals of the managers and were generally less hostile to the 1969 Act than the managers were. The instructors tended to share the goals of the house staff while the teachers decried any move away from education.

The approved schools shared aspects of other institutions such as a centralised structure, defined roles, limited consultation and decision-making from above with the hospital model originally outlined by Mary Carpenter (1853) which had led to the children being seen as patients who had little choice in what they could do. This meant that they could only express their feelings through absconding, difficult or withdrawn behaviour, though their behaviour was less extreme than that of boys in ordinary boarding schools. Parents had little influence on what happened.

Staff had little experience of alternative residential schools and little understanding of the positive elements in them; their job was really to prepare the boys for work in low status jobs with occasional social welfare and child protection responsibilities.

In Chapter 4 The different styles of approved schools, the authors describe how the senior schools were more like industrial and reformatory schools, often with block structures, little individuality and generally poor living facilities. However, they often had swimming baths, gymnasia, TV and snooker rooms and superior workshops.

At weekends there was minimal staffing and, after cleaning the place, there might be occasional trips out, but most of the weekend was spent watching TV and films with a trip to chapel on Sunday morning and the afternoon for visiting. Only in the nautical schools did the staff have status and only the naval captains were positive. Female staff had little influence and said that male staff caused more difficulties about their role than boys. The senior boys were overtly inadequate, more attention seeking, often rejected and generally homeless.

Three of the junior schools were training-orientated but they had superior accommodation and good recreational facilities during the week, though minimal at weekends when there would be two chapel services and a Sunday afternoon walk.

The family group schools laid a lot more stress on affective relationships and pastoral care. The house units were autonomous, with high levels of personalisation, informal meals and greater contact with the local community and with parents. However, with less emphasis on the classroom, teaching was more orthodox and unimaginative.

Two intermediate schools adopted a campus style with autonomous house units, a unit for boys working outside and excellent facilities with greater emphasis on pastoral care. They had boy committees, though the head still took key decisions. There was a high emphasis on sport and the arts but that led to high fabric maintenance. There was less family contact, little freedom outside the school and less personalisation of space with personal expression restricted to specific lessons/activities. But they were able to hold absconders and had high staff consensus, with frequent staff meetings and higher calibre education.

Schools that described themselves as therapeutic communities tended to be more like 1930s progressive schools but with strong informal pupil worlds; control was exhausting to staff and a strain on staff-pupil relationships.

In Chapter 5 Control in the approved schools, the authors note that staff were controlled through appointments and promotions and that most control of the boys was utilitarian, through loss of pay or points; only four schools had prefects. There was regular caning in two schools and occasional in two; elsewhere it was rare.

Institutional control was used more in the junior training, senior and campus schools while control by orientation, for example, to work or a trade, was less used than in ordinary boarding schools. The Church of England and Methodist schools were more oriented to religion than the Roman Catholic ones.

The boys preferred adults who were strict and fair and preferred controls that had already failed with them. Loss of home leave was the most unwelcome sanction followed, a long way behind, by not being allowed out, the cane or loss of privileges.

The authors suggests that the sorts of controls proposed by the Advisory Council in Child Care (1970) will involve a significant move towards the use of expressive controls.

In Chapter 6 Pastoral care in the approved schools, they report that pastoral care was used mostly for family or small problems rather than private problems but there was great variation between schools which was not linked to the style of the school. The boys’ use of pastoral care was generally higher than in ordinary boarding schools and was associated with their commitment to the school’s goals but declined with length of stay except in junior schools. Overall, there was a gap between the pastoral care the boys needed and what they received.

In Chapter 7 Boys’ day-school experiences and the contribution of the approved schools’ education and training departments, the authors report that the boys’ general view of teachers as unfair and uninterested masked different opinions of individual teachers. However, the advantages of small group teaching were not exploited - there was often a contrast between good workshops and poor classrooms - and there were poor educational expectations. Some trade training had resulted in buildings being built by boys but the trade techniques taught were outdated and, though senior boys were often treated as adults in workshops, this was not extended outside the workshop. Most used maintenance departments for the unemployable, disturbed or recalcitrant. The trade training was isolated from the education system as a whole.

In Chapter 8 The impact of schools on boys’ commitment, the authors set out the boys’ accounts of the goals of the schools; these did not correlate with staffs’ emphases nor with background factors, as Clarke and Martin (1971) had also found. Boys valued a wide range of things and were, apart from the senior nautical school, happiest in campus, family group and junior training schools.

In Chapter 9 Boys who were transferred from the schools before completing their training, they note that one in eight were transferred, of whom 80% were recommitted after a court appearance. However, there was a range from one third in one school to none in another, with campus schools having the least transfers, junior training schools the next least and seniors the most.

Boys who enjoyed the school, had no previous convictions and were committed to the organisation were transferred least and those with a long institutional history were more likely to be transferred but the schools with the lowest transfer rate also had the lowest recommittal rate.

In Chapter 10 The boy world, they note that the boys were not backward at disclosing adverse aspects of regimes. There was very little underlife and nothing of the emotional homosexual world found in ordinary boarding schools, and only a few schools had an elaborate system for bringing in contraband.

There was wide consensus on norms across schools and low consensus on anti-school norms. Delinquency reinforcement varied between schools but small activity groups, though not always used successfully, and a federal system of houses tended to decrease deviant activities/associations.

In Chapter 11 The staff world, they note that the staff were the long-term inmates with many heads in post a long time. There was more delegation in family group and campus style schools but most contact with staff was formal; there was little of the informal contact in ordinary boarding schools.

There were few single staff compared with ordinary boarding schools; most were married and had little contact with the outside world. There were few opportunities for developing informal norms, though they tended to resist the emotional demands of children, and dependent relationships were mostly made with marginal staff and occasional visitors. Many were caught in the salary and accommodation trap and had few alternative job opportunities.

In Chapter 12 Following the boys on release, they note that, by the time of the follow-up, one third of the boys had been out over two years and one sixth were out of local authority supervision. Only eight schools were able to get follow-up documents from the local authorities, four schools got telephone reports and for six schools they only had staff information; in the cases of 42 boys they had no information at all, other than that they were not on the Criminal Records Office files.

In Chapter 13 Boys’ criminal activities after release, the authors begin by cautioning about the limitations of criminal activity as a measure of success but note that the schools with high recommittal rates also have higher rates of failure. The schools which the boys enjoyed tended to have less delinquency; they tended to be effective over time and to be unaffected by a change of headmaster. Boys with previous residential experience tended to have a higher re-conviction rate as did those with psychiatric oversight in the junior and senior schools, though not in the family group schools.

There were no associations with boys’ backgrounds except poor relationships with peers at day school or truancy but a lower re-conviction rare was associated with a good work record and good family relationships on release.

Even taking these factors into account, four schools had significantly better outcomes; they are “isolated, total and controlled. But they are happy places, with high levels of staff involvement and pastoral care” (p. 229). With high expressive control and boys committed to a wide range of goals these “successful schools tend to shelter all types of boys successfully” (p. 230).

In Chapter 14 Boys’ release to work and school, the authors describe the rather haphazard way in which boys were encouraged to seek employment, mostly in working class occupations and mostly in downwardly mobile jobs though a fifth, especially from the campus style intermediates, were upwardly mobile.

Though 27% took advantage of their trade training, 90% had moved to a non-related job in their first year. There were high failure rates in apprenticeships and, though they changed jobs more often than ordinary children, two thirds received favourable comments on their work standards. Boys released to day school were reported as badly behaved though less so than before conviction.

In Chapter 15 Family and peer group relationships, the authors consider the impact of relationships following release. While 15%, mostly seniors, did not go home on release, only those who had been to campus schools experienced improved family relationships, with 53% experiencing serious disruption in the family within two years of release and many deteriorating family relationships which doubled the re-conviction rate. A poor parental situation was more likely to lead to delinquent associations but favourable peer groups led to a lower risk of re-conviction. Being isolated was, however, not significant for success or failure.

In Chapter 16 After care, the authors point out that the 1969 Act had removed the obligation on aftercare officers to report to schools and half the boys had only had one aftercare visit in 18 months; 15% had had none. However, most boys were indifferent to aftercare whether from the school or the local authority and there was little association between aftercare and further criminal activity.

In practice there were wide variations in the attitudes of schools and in their responses to boys’ requests for help and in the approaches of the aftercare officers

In Chapter 17 Research conclusions and a model of care for young offenders, the authors summarise their findings and recommend that approved schools should follow the patterns of the successful schools, offering education and vocational training with the option to attend local day schools. They should be organised into diversified sub-units with clear rules, pastoral care and greater participation by children and parents.

Radically different provision is needed for the high-risk older boys, possibly on the lines of outward bound, but they add that there is “little in the presenting behaviour of many children now being recommended for security which would suggest that they could not be contained in more open environments” (p. 295) .

Discussion

The most striking result of this study was that isolated institutions, the very ones assumed to be most damaging, could in fact be the most effective, provided they pursued a wide range of goals, the staff were united and the children supported them. One explanation is that, like successful adoption and fostering placements, the high levels of staff involvement and pastoral care, combined with the lack of arguments among themselves, meant that staff had more time to devote to the children. Polsky (1962) found that changes of staff do not change the culture of an institution and this may go some way to explaining the long-term success of these schools.

Though the authors describe parental involvement as limited, it is worth noting that the boys rated loss of home leave as the most severe sanction and that most returned home, suggesting that most of the boys had retained stable adult relationships throughout their times in the schools. The study may provide indirect support for paying more attention to family involvement, in that those who experienced deteriorating family relationships on return home were more likely to be re-convicted - though this could be overridden by attending one of the four highly successful schools.

The finding that the children preferred staff who were strict and fair suggests that most were at the dependent stage (Wolins, 1973), which may help to explain why the therapeutic communities were less successful than their advocates would have assumed. Millham et al. were working from a sociological rather than a psychological perspective but their account of the successful schools suggests that they offered something akin to the love tempered with restraint which Wolins suggests children at the dependent stage need.

The schools shared with the cottage homes studied by Polsky (1962) the absence of most staff over the weekend but only the therapeutic communities had the strong informal pupil worlds found by Polsky in an institution also committed to therapy.

The finding that the more decentralised schools tended to be more successful reflects the research by King et al. (1971), which highlighted the interaction between unit heads and children as the key factor in quality care.

This research had been completed before Taylor and Alpert (1973) had shown that aftercare support had no effect on outcomes but their findings support this conclusion.

Advisory Council in Child Care (1970) Care and treatment in a planned environment: a report on the community home project London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office See also Children Webmag December 2008.

Carpenter, M (1853) Juvenile delinquents, their condition and treatment London: W & F G Cash See also Children Webmag November 2008.

Clarke, R V G and Martin, D N (1971) Absconding from approved schools Home Office Research Studies 12 London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office

Field, E, Hammond, W H and Tizard, J (1971) Thirteen-year-old approved school boys in 1962 London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office

Home Office (1968). Children in trouble Cmnd 3601 London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office

King, R D, Raynes, N V and Tizard, J (1971) Patterns of residential care: sociological studies in institutions for handicapped children London: Routledge & Kegan Paul See also Children Webmag April 2009.

Lambert, R and Millham, S (1968) The hothouse society: an exploration of boarding-school life through the boys’ and girls’ own writings London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson

Millham, S, Bullock, R and Cherrett, P (1975) After grace, teeth: a comparative study of residential experience of boys in approved schools London: Human Context

Polsky, H W (1962) Cottage Six: the social system of delinquent boys in residential treatment New York: Wiley

Taylor, D and Alpert, S W (1973) Continuity and support: following residential treatment New York: Child Welfare League of America See also Children Webmag March 2009.

Wolins, M (1973) Some theoretical observations on group care In D M Pappenfort, D M Kilpatrick and R W Roberts (Eds) Child caring: social policy and the institution Chicago: Aldine

The book is well written, well thought out and offers all the essential areas that anyone undertaking a research project needs to know. It is particularly mindful of ethical issues and other areas which are specific to researching young children and their families.

The book tackles some research methodologies which can be difficult to understand. However, the authors have given very clear definitions on aspects such as positivist research, interpretivism, post-structuralism etc. as well as the difference between scientific methodology and other types of positivism such as quantitative and qualitative methods. There is also a chapter on interpretivism and post-structuralism.

Chapter three is of importance as it looks at the ethics of undertaking research with young children and families, both of these groups being particularly vulnerable. The importance of ‘informed content’ is looked at in some detail as it is important that participants and/or parents of children understand the issues relating to the research and how their children will be involved. The university’s own ethics policy also has to be adhered to.

Part two of the book looks at the different approaches to research and how best it can be tackled through areas such as surveys, ethnography, case studies and action research. Under each of these headings there are not only details of what they actually mean and how they can be employed but also the usefulness of certain strategies in relation to what the researcher is trying to find out. In other words, the students, having decided on which area of early childhood they wish to research, need to look at all the methods put forward and decide which is the most appropriate for getting the best results.

The third part of the book discusses the different methods of research such as observation, interview, questionnaire etc.  This section is particularly interesting as it looks at how researchers can examine themselves as a legitimate part of the research or, as it terms it, ‘The self as a legitimate subject for study’. Within this area there is discussion relating to the researcher keeping a private journal as a ‘vehicle for reflection’ and as a research tool, aide-memoir, initial focus for the research or a tool for data gathering. Most importantly there is a very clear section on the ‘possibilities and limitations of using journaling as a research tool.’

The final section of the book relates to carrying out a research project and involves design of the research,  the importance of the literature review, analysing and presenting data and, finally, writing up the results.

I wish that there had been a book like this available when I undertook my research; it would certainly have made life easier!!

Mukherji P. and Albon D. (2010) Research Methods in Early Childhood: An Introductory Guide

Sage, London

ISBN: 9-781-847875242

It is clear from the outset that this is a very caring and compassionate man. He has worked hard to bring children back to society where they may lead productive and satisfying lives. He pays homage to nursing and social work professionals throughout the book. He spends time explaining regimes and changes and how they have supported the children he mentions. Where he could, he gave credence to the dedication of some of the parents of the children and how they worked together with the professionals to enable change to evolve in their children’s behaviours.

This is a book of reminiscences, full of references to the traditional and established theorists and thinkers of the era. The bibliography confirms this with no book being mentioned after 1977 apart from revised editions or collective editorials. I have to confess that I struggled to continue reading this book initially because the author gives a good impression of smugness and “They did it better in my day” attitude. However, as a conscientious reviewer, I stuck to my task and I must say I warmed to this person, who had obviously made real differences in the lives of the children he worked with.

I found myself wanting to know how the stories of the children ended. As in all situations where we play a small part in the child’s life journey, he wasn’t always able to re-visit the now adult children. Where he did, most of them had managed to become productive individuals and positive role models for their own children.

I would recommend this book to students of psychology and psychiatry in particular. It is only when we look back that we can see how our future should be.

Rogers, James (2009) Metamorphoses - Troubled Children over Four Decades

Book Guild Publishing

ISBN 978-1-84624-354-7

It is, as you can see, a very large book, and so this review will be aimed at giving the reader a ‘taster’ of the contents and how the book is set out.

At the outset it is made very explicit what the boxes in the chapters refer to in terms of format and colour coding i.e. Reflective Tasks, Practical Tasks, Tools for Learning, Research Boxes etc. There is also a very useful section comprising three pages which tell the reader the full titles of all the abbreviations to be found throughout the book.

In terms of readership, the book is aimed at quite an extensive range of students on a number of courses such as Early Childhood Degrees, Early Years Professionals, FE Advanced Diplomas, Initial Teacher Education etc. However, the material is presented in such a way that it accessible and relevant to all readers who are moving beyond the basic childcare and education courses into a higher discipline.

The Introduction includes very valuable user-friendly practical tools for undertaking different levels of research, including definitions of the different types of research that can be undertaken and how to write a research proposal. There are Reflective Tasks and Practical Tasks throughout the chapters and these are divided into levels 1-3 depending upon which level the reader is at. The chapters also have Tools for Learning boxes, Reflective Tasks, Research Boxes: and at the end of each chapter a Summary, Key Questions and References.

The main section of the book is divided into 4 parts; Part 1 - The History and Philosophy of Early Childhood Studies, Part 2 - Early Years Development, Part 3 - Early Childhood and Part 4 - Practitioners in Early Childhood.

Part 1 Chapter 2 is devoted to getting the reader to develop their own philosophy on early childhood which incorporates a very interesting practical task of getting the reader to react to different philosophical statements.

In Part 2 all the developmental areas from Physical Development through to Social Development are very thoroughly defined and discussed in individual chapters.

In Part 3 the chapters take the reader from Families, Home and Childhood through to Special Needs and Inclusion.

Finally Part 4 chapters cover the role of the Early Years professional, Reflective Practice, Working Together and Leadership and Management. In fact this book covers all a student or practitioner would need to know.

Finally, I even learnt about a theorist who I had never previously heard of called Jean Frederic Oberlin (1740-1826), who instigated an early education system based on language development and handicrafts. He founded schools in poor villages in rural Alsace which became known as knitting schools where the children sat around the class teacher/leader who knitted whilst teaching  the children about the names of objects, plants, animals etc.

So just as it has done for me, I am sure this book will widen all readers’ horizons in relation to Early Childhood.

Johnston J. and Nahmad-Williams L. (2009) Early Childhood Studies

Pearson Education Ltd., Essex

ISBN : 978-1-4058-3532-9

Jim Hyland was given access to a considerable volume of archives which the Catholic Children’s Society (Westminster) has amassed over the last couple of centuries, and he has provided us with a thorough, factual and workmanlike history of the ways in which services were set up, developed, maintained and then run down or replaced.

One of the interesting threads which runs through the book is the battle which the Roman Catholic Church has had to assert its rights and implement its mission to care for Catholic children. There were anti-Catholic riots in the early days, major political battles in the nineteenth century, and professional skirmishes - for example within the Curtis working party in 1948. This theme is, of course, still alive, as in the Pope’s recent comments on the question of Roman Catholic adoption agencies being required to enable gay people to adopt children.

Another impression obtained from seeing the sweep of history in a short space is the number of people who dedicated their lives to the work of the Society. A remarkable number of the clergy died at a relatively young age - the effect of overwork? proximity to disease among the poor underclasses? or just co-incidence? There has been much in the news in recent years about the abuse of children in Catholic homes and schools, but the overwhelming message in this book is that children being brought up in dire poverty and squalor were offered a chance of reasonable living conditions and education, and that this was only achieved through charitable giving and the dedication of the clergy and other workers involved.

Jim Hyland approaches the issue of emigration in a level-headed way, acknowledging both the good intentions of those who arranged for children to be shipped to Canada and Australia and the acceptance now that the policy caused a lot of suffering and hardship. Interestingly, even when the policy was being introduced there were people who were sceptical about its value and fearful about the vulnerability of the children. Again, this theme is still live, and Jim’s account gives some of the background to the recent apologies offered by Kevin Rudd for the Australian Government in November 2009 and Gordon Brown for the UK in February 2010.

The format of the book is slightly disappointing. On the plus side, it has plenty of well-chosen illustrations, many being from the Society’s magazine, The Net. In other respects, it feels like an economy version - which it may be. Every page is tightly packed with print, including the Contents on the inside front cover. The strange exception is that the first page of each chapter has a space so large that it looks as if a photo has been omitted. The book is published by the Catholic Children’s Society (Westminster) but intriguingly it contains no other details - no ISBN, no contact address for purchasing copies, no price (is it free?), no warning about copyright. Not even a Nihil obstat.

If the lesson is that the Society had to hunt for funding to publish the book, we should of course be grateful that they did. Despite the criticisms of the format above, it is nonetheless readable and fulfils its purpose. It is not intended as a coffee-table book, and readers should not be deterred by my sniping.

Hyland, Jim (2010) Changing Times, Changing Needs

Catholic Children’s Society (Westminster)

Stop Press

The book can be obtained from the Catholic Children’s Society (Westminster), 73 St. Charles Square, London W10 6 EJ  Price £10 including postage.

It purports to offer a toolkit for parents to use to aid smooth running family life.

It is packed full of common sense advice for parents who have small children at home. It offers alternatives by way of statements or behaviours to help turn around a potentially confrontational situation and make it more palatable for all.

The chapters deal with specific examples of every day incidents that can create a negative atmosphere for parent and child in seconds. It works to enable parents to re-think their statements or instructions to their children. It acknowledges that sometimes parents can be forgiven to think, for example, that their children are deliberately setting themselves against them. Often in the throes of a ‘domestic’ it is easy to forget that these are small children being small children.

The offering of alternatives makes good sense, whether it is a different statement, expectation of parent or child or a toy. Children need to test boundaries. That is how they gain security from the adults caring for them. An indulged child is unhappy and cannot understand ‘No’. We all crave a perfect child, but who amongst us is already faultless?

I think this is a book that I would recommend to be placed on the bookshelf for those trying times when parenting appears to be an unrewarding and sad job. The book offers lots of real life examples of how parents learned to cope and manage themselves and their children.

Beever, Sue (2009) Happy Kids Happy You

Crown House Publishing Ltd

ISBN 978 184580129 8

Mervi Nyman explains the excellent training system in Finland. Jennifer Lehmann raises training issues in Australia, including the impact of IT. Angie Bartoli weighs up the impact of the Task Force’s recommendations on social work training.

Professor Ewan Anderson describes his approach to action training. Katy Hayden writes about her training as a nanny.

On residential care, Dr Chaim Peri from Israel writes about the “Village Way”. A. J. Stone’s novel about the life-story of a boy in care continues. Keith White’s In Residence column talks of his experience in changing roles.

Stuart Hannah looks at social pedagogy and therapeutic education to see if they are compatible. Sylvia Holthoff & Gabriel Eichsteller report encouragingly on the experiences of practitioners in the social pedagogy pilots.

There’s a strong critique of the Fostering Draft Minimum Standards by Marion Thorpe, and a powerful piece by Charles Pragnell about the dangers of male dominance.

Emma Patterson has written about the importance of story-telling in nurseries. Valerie Jackson has covered a range of issues around education. Chris Durkin has emphasised the importance of the economy, in Haiti and the UK. An interesting historical item about Admiral Boscawen. There’s advice about swine flu and children from the Department of Health. And we have some more contributions to Young Vision 2020. As usual, there is also News Views, and the Editorial, this time considering Doncaster’s plight.

In this little article I reflect on the matter of education as related to competences required in work with deprived children and their families. Because of my current profession as a teacher in an university of applied sciences and educator of bachelors of social services, I will concentrate on this group’s education and professional role in child welfare services and leave the other two groups of the field to be discussed some other time - even though their role in the work is equally important.

In Finland child protection or child welfare work according to the Child Protection Act of 2007 (see Päivi Sinko’s article in this magazine 2008) is conducted at development work level and in early prevention as well as working with individual families and children. The new Act stresses preventive work; at the same time the individual rights of individual service-users have been more specified and child-centeredness emphasised.

To make things simpler I mainly use the term child welfare work in this article. This term is supposed to indicate, that the work in question underlies child protection work as such and covers parts of family services and family support provided by society.  I have mentioned here my own employer, a university of applied sciences, and the network of social degree programs of universities of applied sciences and therefore it is necessary to point out that in this article I am not acting as an official representative of any of those. The ideas are all mine and I myself am responsible for them, as well as for possible errors and mistakes.

Professional Groups  in Child Welfare Services

Three main professional, educated groups work in this field. They all give their contributions both in open or community-based services as well as in residential services, and they work both in preventive work as well as in social rehabilitation work which is organized in residential settings or in people’s homes. In larger cities, for instance in Helsinki, early intervention services are organized separately from child protection services.  As preventive work child protection work its importance should not be underestimated.

Practical nurses have vocational education for three years provided by health care and social services institutions. Entry to education is possible for those who have completed their basic education. Practical nurses can work - just to mention only a few examples - in children’s day care centers, playgrounds and hospitals -  also within early intervention as family workers and in child welfare services residential settings as nurses and child care workers.

Social workers are educated in universities. A Master’s Degree in Social Work is required  for a qualified social worker. In child protection they are in charge of the social work -processes of the service users as well as for development work.  With their university degrees they are also competent academics with research qualifications.  The scope of social work research has got a boost since social work education was lifted up to university level in the 1980s.

The Bachelor Degree of Social Services is the newest of the three, since universities of applied sciences (formerly called polytechnics) started to function in the early 1990s. Education at applied sciences universities - later called UOAs - is supposed to be more practical and orientated towards work than university education. Education in degree programs of services should, though, not neglect to equip the students with the skills of critical reflection and analysis of all relevant human and social phenomena.

Child welfare services consist of early intervention and family and child-targeted child protection. Bachelors work with every level - in administration as well as in client work, in private and public services, in NGOs and in private services. Employers have ultimate choice in recruitment but in the public sector there are regulations based on legislation for educational qualification requirements in child protection services. To work as a social counselor, advisor or supervisor in municipalities’ open services, you need have a bachelor degree in social services.

Also in residential services most staff are supposed to have bachelor degrees. The most common job titles for bachelors (when speaking about those working elsewhere than preventive work and early intervention in the public sector), are probably social counselors, advisors, supervisors (sosiaaliohjaaja) or family workers in community-based child protection and family services and supervisors or educators (ohjaaja/kasvattaja) in residential care.

In child protection the social counselors work in close co-operation with social workers and contribute among other things to assessment, planning and implementing child protection plans. They are in charge of child protection family work which is an important child protection method and is implemented in an intensive partnership with the user family. In residential work social counselors are in charge of implementation of rehabilitation processes of child, youth or family customers.

In both service settings the social counselor’s task consists of working in close partnership with the service-users in order to help people cope in problematic situations. Excellent communication and empathy skills are needed to create and maintain functional relationships with the users. The work is goal-oriented and aimed to produce positive change in users’ life situation. The work is not carried out separately but in close co-operation with other professionals in the team and multi-professional networks. Working methods vary from individual work to group work and a variety of activation and/or creative methods are in use.

Education in Universities of Applied Sciences in Degree Programs of Social Services

In the dual higher education system of Finland bachelor degrees of universities of applied sciences, according to the Bologna process, are equal to university degrees of the same level.  The degree consists of 210 credits (ECTS) and the regular time for studying is three and a half years. The modules are basic studies, professional studies, free choice studies, practical training and final project or thesis.  Professional studies include optional study units and management and development studies and make the widest part of the studies. The other modules, especially practical training and the final project, are all crucially important for an individual student’s professional competence.

In the network of universities of applied sciences all degree programs in social services have agreed upon the specific competences required of graduates:

(1)       Ethical competence in social work,
(2)       Client work competence for direct work with the service users,
(3)       Competence in social services - knowledge and understanding of the service system and networks in the society,
(4)       Social analysis - knowledge, understanding and skills for analysing society and social change and their consequences to people’s living circumstances,
(5)       Competence in reflective development and the management of services,
(6)       Community and society - competence for working with communities and skills in influencing society.

The universities of applied sciences - UOA s - have rather a wide autonomy in their educational functioning. The contents of syllabuses in different UOAs therefore vary.  Some provide optional orientation lines within programs where students can, for instance, focus on families and children or elderly people or rehabilitation. More often programs are universal, aiming to give basic qualifications at a sufficient level for all kinds of professions related to social field work to be accessible for bachelor degree holders.

Anyhow, there are many opportunities for individual students to plan their studies according to their own interests: by choosing certain study units, taking certain work placements and conducting their final thesis on a certain subject.  A student’s individual choices do not affect their statutory qualifications when seeking employment in the public sector, but all degree holders are seen as equally qualified when vacancies in the public sector are to be filled.

This, along the universal nature of the degrees, means that after graduation students need to develop their own professional knowledge and skills continuously, and it places a considerable responsibility on employers to enhance and advance their workers’ professional knowhow. Therefore employers provide their employees with professional development training on professional themes or work-specific subjects. Some employers might support their workers’ further studies that aim to add and/or update their professional competence. Obtaining a qualification or certificate or continuing one´s studies for higher degree - to Master of Social Services in an UOA or to Master of Social Work in a university is not rare among professionals working in child welfare services. Many UOA graduates have also obtained certificates according to which they are family or crisis therapists, just to mention a few examples. This might indicate the ethos of life-long learning which in the influence of social work is visible.

From 2003 graduates of applied sciences have been able to apply to higher studies in their own educational institutions since Masters Degree Programs started. Currently there are eight Masters Programs in Social Services in Finland. These programs aim to enhance students´ expertise in their own profession and equip them with additional skills in leadership, management and development.

Social Pedagogy as an Educational Orientation in UOAs’ Education

A considerable number of degree programs of social services are based on a social pedagogical orientation.  Definitions for social pedagogy may vary but some ideals are more or less present where it is applied in teaching.

Social pedagogy is strongly based on ethical thinking and this means that traditional social work values of human rights and social justice are in the core of this approach as well. Social pedagogy has a strong belief in individuals’ capacity to learn and their right to use their learning in personally and socially fulfilling ways. All humans have the right to pursue a good life, and social pedagogy is to help them in achieving their goal. Social pedagogy is against social disintegration and social exclusion, and aims to respond by pedagogical means applied to work with individuals and groups. The approach when working with people is holistic, having an emphasis on day-to-day living of people. Concrete matters - troubles and challenges in peoples’ lives - are addressed, but social pedagogical work is more interested in possible solutions than problems and in the strengths or resources which people themselves have to put into action.

As an educational example I use the program where I have taught  myself since its initiation in mid 1990s (Metropolia University of Applied Sciences). The main ideas - or ideals - in our program are, in addition to those above mentioned, participation and empowerment ,supporting and helping people to construct their social and cultural identities. Further, it means dialogue - including genuine communication in an open and mutually respecting way with the goal of learning from each other, listening to the other, and everybody’s right to voice their own views is strongly emphasized.  Supporting communities and encouraging people to self-help and provide mutual support are included.

According to Paolo Freire’s ideas people should be encouraged to become critically conscious of repressing societal circumstances that have impact on their lives and hence to find effective ways to influence society and make changes where needed. Education can be a powerful tool when helping people in taking their lives into their own hands and realizing their hidden resources.

All these ideas seem to be particularly appropriate in preventive work with children, youth and families but, from our experience, they seem to work in rehabilitation in child welfare and child protection as well. In the example of the educational program in which I am involved all students have to complete study units on:

-                     basic knowledge of social and educational sciences as well as of society and human life,
-                     social work processes and its ethical base,
-                     individual case management, basic social service systems and services as well as optional ways to organize and provide them on a societal level,
-                     empowerment and social influence,
-                     dialogical ways of communication,
-                     multiculturalism,
-                     basics of research skills and
-                     basics of management, leadership and development.

The students are instructed to develop their skills of critical reflection throughout their learning time.

As optional studies students can take study units on specified professional themes according to their own interests. Those are, for instance, child protection and youth work, disabilities and special education, early education or work with the elderly.  Methods of social pedagogical work are optional study units as well:

-           counseling and advising,
-           family work,
-           use of groups,
-           creative and expressive methods,
-           community work.

Students can include two or three from this list in their curriculum.

In the case of my university there are three practice placements, of which the first is of 9 credits, the second of 12 credits and the last of 24 credits. The first is designed for students to learn the basics of social pedagogy, and about various target groups and their needs; the second is about social pedagogical work and applying its methods; and the third continues with social pedagogical methods and the development of social service work. The first and second placements are organized by the school but the third one the students seek for themselves. The students are strongly encouraged to take their work placements in different settings with different target groups.

To acquire skills and knowledge and prepare oneself for a future career in child protection services, a student can include one or two work placements in child welfare services or somewhere closely connected to them. However, for formal qualifications, this is not necessary but anybody with a certificate from a degree program in social services is equally qualified and the choice is for the employer.

Current Challenges

There are several dilemmas in the education provided by UOAs as well as in the social services field.  Here only some of them are briefly discussed.

Students, the main resource in education, seem to be comparatively satisfied with their education in general, whenever feedback is requested. A majority seem to value the wide base of expertise. Education taking place in close co-operation is seen as a merit for program management and teachers. Students come seeking practice-oriented education and give credit if they think that their expectations have been met. Some graduates would have liked to have opportunities to learn more on the subjects that they are especially interested in, and regret if that is not possible. At the same time people understand that it is not possible to include everything in one degree.

As degree programs in social services are a newer form of education than social work education of universities, the bachelors of social services have had to work hard for their position in working life, especially within public sector. This is the situation partly also in child welfare and child protection services, even though after almost twenty years, they have established their position widely. Today their professional expertise and skills are recognized and new positions are organized and made available for them.

However, there are still open questions concerning their area of expertise. It overlaps with several other professions such as social work or kindergarten teaching, just a mention a few. This need not be a problem if different educational backgrounds are regarded as a source of additional resources and an invigorating factor in work. But in certain settings it could create problems. UOA graduates can suffer from lack of a firm professional identity. When the expertise area is wide and consists of cognitive, affective and ethical elements and covers the expertise of everyday life but does not include a deep body of knowledge on some specific field, one might sometimes be in difficulty trying to convince others of one’s own professional worth.

And the issue becomes harder when there seems to be unfair treatment in material rewards and the allocation of workloads, particularly so if the work does not appear to differ from the other professionals’ work in the same setting. This presents special challenges to service organizations: the structure of responsibilities and tasks should be clear and all principles and criteria openly discussed, transparent and consistent.

Social pedagogy can provide a way to identify oneself professionally among other professionals in the social work field. A familiar slogan of social pedagogy’s holistic view about helping people - heart, hand and head - seem to describe the work well, as it takes place close to children and young people and their families struggling in overwhelming life situations. The everyday-life orientation means that workers are ready to share the reality of their clients and consider it from their point of view. At the same time the workers have a solid knowledge base and understanding of society and human life in general and they are equipped with tools to give new perspectives and to encourage people to see their own strengths.

Maintaining and bringing hope in difficult situations can happen through organizing activities and being available as well as only through discussion.  Empathy skills are crucial. They are something that do not always and constantly come as natural, but must be learnt through training. A professional needs to take care of his or her professional ethics as well as their personal integrity in emotionally challenging work. Maintaining oneself - applying evaluation skills and readiness for self-consciousness - is hard work and needs support. Good team organization, work counseling and accessibility to career development training and available further training possibilities can all help in this. Getting feedback also in the form of genuine respect and public appreciation might help as well.

Mervi Nyman is Senior Lecturer at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki.

And my colleagues in the field have their priorities too. Requests for more knowledge and expertise in mental health, child protection, disability and family violence are not uncommon. Add to such dilemmas the shift to a business culture in tertiary institutions, and the challenges become considerable, with fees, class sizes, number of hours of face to face teaching contact, nature of the learning approach to be implemented and assessment being but a few of the issues.

As a teacher in the provincial and rural sector, with a particular interest in environmental issues and the impacts of climate change, I no doubt bring to bear my own biases in my teaching and writing. However, my core concern is the nature and content of training courses that will prepare social care practitioners for a world that is complex and rapidly changing; both socially and physically.

It is easy to make lists of characteristics we want in graduates from our training courses. Indeed, many universities now publicise the graduate attributes which students are to attain, with concomitant pressure on staff to educate for these outcomes. The difficulty is that educating to achieve attributes such as flexibility of thinking, high levels of literacy, tolerance of diversity and commitment to lifelong learning as a professional practitioner is actually quite problematic.

A comment made to me recently concerned someone who had clearly known what to say in academic assessment tasks, but as a practitioner lacked flexibility, tolerance, the capacity to build productive interpersonal relationships and was unable to use supervision constructively-all of which I would consider essential capacities for social care work. While it is easy to point the finger at the educational sector under such circumstances, it is harder to establish training and assessment processes that eliminate the passage of ‘unsuitable’ graduates into the field.

This commentary raises a few of the issues associated with the training of social care practitioners with a particular focus on the dilemmas we already face, and the likely exacerbation of these in a climate-changed world. While not attempting at this point a fully referenced, research-based article, my comments are designed to stimulate the sharing of ideas, theories, speculations and knowledge drawn from innovations in education. My point of view comes from working in regional and rural settings, but may well resonate with the observations of metropolitan-based educators.

In delivering an elective subject Social Work Practice into the Future during 2008 and 2009, I had the opportunity to work with two groups of 20 to 24 social work students. It was this experience that brought home to me the potential impacts of climate change on the delivery of training, because this issue became integral to discussions about lifestyle and social work practice in coming decades. Of the many issues that arose, three warrant closer attention, though I appreciate the inter-connectedness of each with an array of others that would no doubt be considered equally important. I will refer to these as the socialisation effects of training, the use of technology in training and the development of a commitment to curiosity.

Socialisation Effects of Training

The idea of socialising students into a professional discipline has existed over centuries, whether this was achieved through apprenticeship to a master and subsequent guild membership, college membership and alumni relationships or academic scholarship with subsequent professional association registration or membership.

Over recent decades, aspects of this socialisation process have been challenged by the delivery of distance education, online subjects and ‘block’ teaching (sometimes referred to an ‘intensives’), all of which have the effect of limiting the face to face contact and relationship formation with teaching staff and fellow students. These modes of teaching may have served to increase accessibility to training that had been previously reduced by such factors as geographic distance, disability, child care responsibilities or the need to maintain an income.

And it is likely that the increasing impacts of climate change-the need to reduce transport emissions, more extreme weather conditions and potentially increased isolation of some rural communities-will result in greater promotion of education and training approaches that progressively embrace flexible delivery modes, further reducing the interpersonal exchanges in real time and space.

However, one of the disadvantages of these developments is the loss of interpersonal exchange in training which includes the debates and subtle challenge that take place as relationships develop in the campus setting over time. Associated with the interpersonal is greater awareness of diversity of values, lifestyles, choices and the variations of practice style to which students are exposed. These processes of interaction serve to balance the ‘insiderness’ effects that can prevent a student from stepping outside, metaphorically speaking, of their local cultural milieu because studying through distance, online or ‘intensive’ modes limits the interrogation of established values, attitudes and assumptions.

Developing interpersonal relations and being exposed to a range of perspectives is something akin to the impacts of the ‘grand tour’ taken by young men and some young women of means in earlier eras. The ‘tour’ was a way of providing experiences and insights into how others in the world live, as well as providing the learning opportunities that become available when one becomes an ‘outsider’.

Ironically, staying away too long can have the effect of becoming an outsider to one’s former social group (as sometimes happens with students who do not return to their communities of origin on graduation) and becoming an insider to a new one, but I think we all recognise the benefits of education that moves us beyond our home base and the reading packs and computer-based learning packages that so easily exclude exposure to the outside world.

In summary, the socialising aspects of training and the interpersonal factors that contribute to the development of knowledge, understanding and skills might lack sufficient strength in courses in the future, undermining the very benefits of earlier approaches to education in the social care disciplines.

Technology and Training

Over the last decade or so the veritable explosion of technological developments impacting on communication and access to information has made its mark in the delivery of training in the human services sector. It has also changed the expectations and, to some extent, the approach to learning for some students. At times, student expectations have been much higher than what the technology and learning mode can provide; in other instances I believe it might have changed the nature of information intake and ‘attending’ capacity.

Some of the issues with which I have been confronted include: requests for lectures and seminars to emailed due to student absences from class (not just the PowerPoint and notes that are already made available);  students who use only websites for developing discussions and essays because they believe it is too hard and takes too long to read articles and texts; students who give scant regard to the importance of class-based activities based on the assumption that only the teacher’s notes are required to pass the subject; students’ assumptions that information equates to knowledge, understanding and skill; and the tendency for some students to want knowledge to be delivered in ‘two minute grabs’, without requiring concentration and application of analytical thinking on their part. On the other hand I have had a parent, whose adult child was underachieving, accuse the university of being unsupportive because of the university’s expectation that students take responsibility for their learning in terms of accessing available databases, electronic readings and other technology-based activities!

One of the arguments one hears in universities is that students can now educate themselves at times convenient to their home and work routines. This assumes all students have access to sophisticated communication technology and broadband, and are adept at using it; but even if they have-and many don’t-this raises concerns about the nature of the learning taking place. Is it, for example, focussed and sequenced in a manner that maximises the retention of information and linked, in the student’s mind, to the development of action-based skills; or is it constantly interrupted because of ‘multi-tasking’ behaviours? Worse still, does this encourage students to gloss over material, and to pick and choose the bits they think are interesting to the detriment of their learning?

Do we really believe that human service professions can be taught predominantly through the vehicles of technology, or is there much more to the development of what some refer to as emotional intelligence, reflective capacity, and interpersonal helping expertise? How do we balance the need to make education accessible, while ensuring that the knowledge base and expertise are, indeed, evident at the conclusion of training? And are we prepared to pay the additional costs of personal coaching for students training at significant distances from tertiary campuses, which may well be required as the impacts of climate change become a more potent force to reckon with?

These are questions which are vexing, but won’t go away. I wonder if we need to embrace the use of technology, but make it work for us through learning to teach more skilfully over communication links, being much better at making choices about which technology works well for specific subject delivery, and ensuring that students have access to the technology they require for training purposes through locating such facilities within local libraries, schools, community centres and major employing organisations (eg local hospitals).

And we might need to make shifts in assessment of knowledge and expertise matched to courses that are more strongly technologically based, for example, by demanding much more performance-based assessment with commitment to analytical feedback and reflective processes: time-consuming, but perhaps the equivalent to that ‘saved’ by the use of the technology in the first instance?

A Commitment to Curiosity

My final concern in this commentary is the development of what we have traditionally called ‘taking the initiative’-the capacity to respond creatively using contemporary evidence and knowledge to craft appropriate responses in complex and unique circumstances. With lives replete with myriad demands, students appear to have an increasing tendency to want swift training outcomes that lead directly into suitably renumerated employment, with minimum commitment of time and attention to going beyond what is contained with the course and subject outlines. On many university campuses students are only present for designated class times and rush away to fulfil other responsibilities. A significant number of students have also told me they find reading and digesting texts, articles, report and government policy documents unfulfilling and of limited interest. It appears many prefer to be engaged in the ‘doing’ of social care activities as this acts as a trigger to investigation and knowledge building.

We all learn in different ways but such comments, coming as regularly as they do, suggest that training may need closer alignment with being on-the-job and, dare I say it, that ancient apprenticeship model? The necessity to deal with situations, based as they are in interpersonal relationships when engaged in social care practice, appears to be a stronger stimulant for eliciting curiosity and initiating investigative learning than is class-based learning. The human service sector wants more than ‘greenhorns’ being paid to learn on the job, of course. But some of the initiatives to more strongly linking practice with the development of professional knowledge and expertise-the development of ‘clinical school’ models, for instance-may provide the vehicle to encourage students to appreciate the need for curiosity and initiative, as well as the capacity to turn this into creative and unique practice responses.

A key difficulty is the tendency for many government and government-funded organisations to be constrained by policies, rules, regulations and accountability regimes, all of which can have the effect of stifling initiative and diversity of practice responses. The constraints reported to me by some of our graduates and mature age students who have worked in the sector are worrying, as it appears easier to survive in such workplaces by avoiding challenges to the status quo.

And this brings me full circle to the power of socialisation forces in organisations and disciplines, in communities and training institutions. Do we want to have graduates who are able to work, unconcerned and unquestioning, in regulated and constrained workplaces, or do we want professionals who are perceptive, strategic and able to challenge values and beliefs in a constructive way? This fundamental question might act as a driver for decisions about what training is required, when, in what format and at what level.

I would like to see more emphasis put on training that promotes flexibility in thinking, encourages creativity and ongoing learning, promotes the confidence and courage to challenge, and to meet the challenges of swiftly changing demands in a context of uncertainty and complexity. I feel confident that information on such topics as child or adolescent development, family violence and disability is available from many reliable sources, but less sure that we are adequately preparing social care personnel for the interpersonal aspects of professional roles, critical thinking and reflective capacity. Perhaps we should be clearer about what the technology can provide and use it to its best effect; and focus our teaching efforts on the cognitive and social/emotional development of graduates who can integrate information through critical reflection in flexible and emotional intelligent manner.

Dr Jennifer Lehmann is Senior Lecturer at La Trobe University, Bendigo Campus, Victoria, Australia.

This level of public outcry, sustained and nurtured by the media, has served to further undermine and ridicule the social work profession and fuel the need to have individuals to blame and punish. This media drive, together with the fact that Baby Peter, like Victoria  Climbié before him, was an ‘open case’ to the social work team in Haringey Council, were both arguably significant factors in the decision by the Government to set up a Social Work Taskforce in January 2009.

One year on, both the Interim (July 2009) and Final Report (December 2009) of the Taskforce have been published. The initial training of social workers is a dominant feature within both documents, with the Interim Report mentioning ‘training’ 112 times and the Final Report referring to training in 114 instances.

The training of social workers has experienced an unprecedented change within the last decade which, amongst other things, has included the qualification becoming a degree, the protected title of the profession, and a new post qualifying framework for practitioners. The initial training of social work is undertaken by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and regulated by the General Social Care Council.  The Final Report (December 2009) outlines 15 recommendations, of which almost half (7) will directly affect HEIs and the training of social work students including:

• Calibre of entrants to social work programmes (recommendation 1)
• Curriculum and delivery (recommendation 2)
• Practice placements (recommendation 3)
• Assessed year in employment (recommendation 4)
• Regulation of social work education (recommendation 5)
• Continuing professional development (recommendation 9)
• Social work supply (recommendation 14)

The “overhaul of the content and delivery of social work degrees” (Social Work Taskforce, December 2009:12) suggests that current programmes of study are inadequate and producing social workers that are unable to cope with the challenges of the profession. This is arguably a sentiment shared by some of the media and general public and which has been associated with social workers’ levels of stress and diminished professional self-worth, where the image perpetuated is of social workers’ inadequacies and mistakes. (Collings & Philip, 1996, Asthana, 2008)

The level of qualification for the social work profession has increased incrementally with each reform, from the Certificate, to the Diploma, to the current Degree.  Therefore, it is of little surprise that the present reform is supporting the expansion of Masters level qualification. Whether the academic success of students equips them better to face the complexities encountered when undertaking the task of social work is debatable.  Rarely, if ever, has a Serious Case Review following the death or serious injury of a child, concluded that the level of qualification of the professionals involved has  impacted on the practice or outcome for the child. Instead, the invariable, familiar laments of poor communication amongst professionals and poor decision making are singled out in the analysis of ‘what went wrong’.

Academics, whilst embracing the principles of the Social Work Taskforce recommendations, have reacted to the explicit and implicit  suggestions that Universities alone are to blame for the lack of preparedness felt by social worker upon qualification (McGregor, 2009). It could be suggested that the critical stance taken by the Taskforce in respect to the initial training of social workers mirrors that adopted by the media - the need for a scapegoat.

As in recommendations of numerous Serious Case Reviews, the need to further train professionals is a common, if not consistent, recommendation. However,  offering training as a dose of medicine to rid social workers of their ailments is rarely the issue. The interpretation of legislation, inadequate recognition of the complexity of the task, lack of implementation of procedures and lack of appropriate supervision and support usually are the crucial factors.

Yet these are bewildering and rarely straightforward processes to deal with, which involve latent organisational as well as individuals’ cultures and practices. The delivery of training is a remedy that is easier to grapple with and administer, becoming not only the medicine, but also the proverbial spoon that helps it go down.

Social workers deal with facets of life that are uncomfortable to hear about and to look at and at times too unbearable to consider. Child abuse, poverty, substance and alcohol misuse, domestic violence, mental health, disability and dementia, to name but a few, are key issues and the essence for the profession. How universities can better equip students to deal with this reality in a empathetic way that safeguards individuals, whilst promoting respect and humanity is a task that can only be achieved in collaboration with employers who support students (through the supply of practice placements) and in managing newly qualified social workers.

The Taskforce recommendations have in principle been accepted by the Government. This includes the new concept of students not being fully qualified upon completion of their initial training, but for it to be dependent on

“some form of supported and assessed ‘probationary’ year” which is similar to the teaching profession. (Social Work Taskforce, December 2009: 23).  How this probationary year will be assessed and the role that HEIs, together with that of employers, is yet to be debated and detailed.

In my experience as a Senior Lecturer in Social Work, when discussed with current students, it is a move that is welcomed. Students consider this to be a crucial time in their future career and look forward to protected case loads and increased levels of support. However, how managers will manage this transition, from trainee to fully licensed, is yet to be realised against a backdrop of increasing pressures caused by social work vacancies, rapid turnover of staffing and the inevitable budget reductions and restructuring that most local authorities are plagued with.

The landscape for social work training is shifting and the terrain appears different but occasionally looks familiar. For example, the Social Work Taskforce (December 2009) proposes that practice placement experience should decrease to 130 days (from 200), as it was when the qualification was a Diploma. Arguably, this loss of practice learning will be counter-balanced with the probationary year and additional time gained by HEIs.

Whether the proposed changes will have an impact on the training of future social workers is no longer an issue open to debate. Simply, it will. This is a consistent thread that has it has been identified strongly within the Taskforce recommendations. What these changes will look like, how they will impact and be interwoven into practice and better safeguard vulnerable children is yet to be either realised or agreed upon.

Angie Bartoli is Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Northampton

angiebartoli@northampton.ac.uk

References

Asthana, A. (15.06.2008) Social workers buckling under stress burden, The Observer Newspaper. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jun/15/socialcare [Accessed 21.11.2010]

Collings, J.A. & Philip, J. (1996) Predictors of Stress Amongst Social Workers. British Journal of Social Work.  26: 375-387

Department of Health (2002) Requirements for Social Work Training

Social Work Taskforce, July 2009, Facing Up to the Challenge: Interim report.

Social Work Taskforce, December 2009, Building a Safe and Confident Future: Final Report

Willets, D. & Soodin, V. (15.11.2008) Thousands sign Baby P petition, The Sun Newspaper. Available from: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1933558.ece. [Accessed: 20.01.2010]

The researchers work with the young people and staff to generate data. The potential benefits for the staff include learning about research methods and data handling and having an opportunity to pursue a higher qualification. For the young people, there is an opportunity to contribute to their own welfare and, hopefully, to enhance their inventory of role models and to meet some stimulating researchers.

Having pursued this type of research over many years and having added a training and residential element, it has gradually struck me that there is something which can be distinguished as “action training” and it has many advantages. To demonstrate some of the issues involved, I have to lean largely upon personal experience and for this I apologise.

A Residential Care Example

In the late 1970s, I ran a programme for Newcastle University to evaluate the benefits of a residential setting for 25 middle school aged children in a home. At the same time, I was expected to help train the staff and encourage them to observe and monitor the children. It quickly emerged that the most effective way of carrying out this work and of capturing the interests of the staff, was by “total immersion” in the home.

In fact, I worked with the children as a member of staff for one full day a week for a year before addressing the research problem. One result was that staff training occurred in situ, more or less as and when required and unobtrusively. Over the three years of the programme, this approach proved successful for both children and staff and resulted in a basic model which was sufficiently robust that it has lasted until the present time.

Boarding School

In a totally different setting, a boarding school house, a similar method was applied. A major portion of the Durham University BEd course in residential education was completed in the boarding house of a local school. The students and I effectively carried out boarding duties once or twice a week and were able to discuss issues and events with both staff and young people. At the end of the duty period, we sat as a group, analysed any problems and assessed the performance. As with the research in the children’s home, it was possible for the learners to witness the course teacher in action.

Field Work in Malta

The most obvious example of action training probably occurred during the Durham University BA/BSc geography course. For some fifteen years, I took approximately 35 students for a residential period of almost two weeks to Malta. There we became immersed in a different culture and worked together on a range of projects covering physical, political, economic and social geography.

Again, the students were able to see the teachers in action. We prepared each project carefully together, completed the fieldwork and then discussed and produced a report each evening. It is reasonable to say that for the majority of the students this aspect of their course was the most memorable part and also the one in which they had the opportunity to become geographers rather than students reading geography.

Residential Education

At another northern boarding school, there has been a programme lasting approximately three years in which it has been possible to work with staff and young people to develop effective anti-bullying procedures and restorative practice. The success of the enterprise has been demonstrated by the fact that two members of staff have completed further qualifications in boarding and residential education and many of the young people, of their own volition, attended meetings to discuss the programme and the effects upon them.

At a meeting of the York Group, which included representation from a range of boarding schools and other residential establishments, members of the school catering and cleaning staff attended together with a number of boys. All entered fully into discussion and greatly enhanced a day which would otherwise have been limited to presentations by experts.

Secure Care

Work in a secure unit for a week each year for the last few years has also illustrated the potential benefits of action training. Living with the young people and staff, even for only a week, allows any latent tensions or suspicions to dissipate. Staff training has been unobtrusive, on a one-to-one basis, and one result has been that several have applied for further qualifications. This particular work stemmed from NVQ training (Levels 3 and 4).

NVQ training requires not only theory but the assessment of practice. Therefore, staff members need to be observed in their own setting. However, if the entire class can take place in a children’s home, there are further advantages in that the young people will necessarily be involved and the teachers have the possibility of contributing to their welfare.

A Lesson about Learning

Having conducted a number of classes in different parts of the country over the past four years, it can be concluded that the two which took place in situ, within the residential setting, were clearly the most successful. Not only was it possible for the teacher and the staff to develop closer relationships but statistically, the results were better with, in each case, 100% pass rate.

Suffice it to say, from my experience there are many advantages to be gained from running training courses in situ, within the home in which all the candidates work. There appear to be a number of reasons for this:

i.              The students feel at home and can settle to the work effectively and efficiently.

ii.            The teachers see the environment.

iii.           The teachers can be called upon to demonstrate knowledge and skills.

iv.           The children and young people can be involved.

v.            The possibility of research can be linked to the training.

vi.           Theory can be applied directly.

vii.          The candidates can be assessed in situ.
Ewan W Anderson is Emeritus Professor at Durham University.

As ever, when people from the same line of work get together, our conversation turned to training and the quality of workers. It is sometimes difficult to appreciate how life and standards have changed without sounding critical and miserable. We concluded that the most significant aspect lacking in workers within the industry these days is passion and gratitude.

Passion for the work of being involved in the forming of children’s attitudes, motivation, self confidence and courage appears to be a thing of the past. I know that my next sentence will make me sound and feel very old: very few people nowadays really want their life’s work to be with children and young people. For some it is a stepping-off platform to bigger and better things, such as teaching, social work or hospital work. That is absolutely acceptable and should be applauded.

Being an assistant or support worker is one of the best preparations for a more academic career. It should be compulsory that social work students spend a considerable amount of time working in nurseries, schools and behavioural units so that they gain insight into the difficulties children can present to those engaged in supporting their development and education. I am aware that this may prove difficult, as most social work training is generic, which indicates that students must be introduced to every aspect of possible work, including supporting the elderly, working with individuals and children who suffer from mental health conditions as well as the statutory safeguarding and preventing harm to children and young people. Life isn’t easy for people in this profession.

It seems to be acceptable in these times to gain a child care qualification without understanding the theories and philosophies on which education, the recognition of the importance of play and development of patterns of learning are based. Without that understanding I would find it impossible to be able to fully care for children or support their education, no matter how much I respected them or enjoyed their company. There would be gaps in my knowledge which would affect their achieving a well-rounded education and future outcomes.

I have also met individuals whose joy for their work is so outstanding that they almost shine like beacons in the gloom of an undervalued workforce. I have mentioned this before, but at the risk of being boring and pedantic, we fail children within our state education system. We fail them further by forcing them to attend school at the risk of their parents being fined or imprisoned if they do not. When a school holds up its hands and says, “We cannot contain this child”, the child or young person is excluded and then placed in a Pupil Referral Unit. (See note at the end.) There, if the system is successful and the child begins to achieve, they are then removed from this supportive environment and returned to a school because this is the expectation of the governing body.

We have a selection of different private educational establishments where results for children’s achievements are very high. There was talk at one time of getting teachers from these high flying schools to share their techniques and strategies with teachers working within the state schools.

I assume it hasn’t continued as we are now in a recession and a large number of private school pupils have had to be withdrawn from their schools due to parental financial difficulties.

Each country has its own educational approach. I want to offer readers the opportunity to read about Scandinavian approaches to compare attitudes and expectation. If you look on the web page, there are contributions from a variety of parents and some key facts related to start age and educational plans. http://www.teachers.tv/video/12090

My intention in writing this article was not to overly criticise the UK approach to children and young people, but by writing, identify some of the worrying trends that can affect high quality outcomes. Enjoy the read and please, disagree with me I look forward to hearing from you.

*Pupil referral units (PRUs)

What is a pupil referral unit (PRU)?
PRUs are a type of school, set up and run by Local Authorities to provide education for children who cannot attend school. LAs have a duty under section 19 of the Education Act 1996 to provide suitable education for children of compulsory school age who cannot attend school. Placing pupils in PRUs is just one of the ways in which LAs can ensure that they can comply with this duty.

Who attends a PRU?
PRUs are often thought of as a place where badly behaved children are sent, but they can actually cater for a wide range of pupils - those who cannot attend school because of medical problems, teenage mothers and pregnant schoolgirls, pupils who have been assessed as being school phobic, and pupils awaiting a school place. They do also provide education for pupils who have been excluded and they can be used to provide short placements for those who are at risk of exclusion.

Some PRUs cater for particular kinds of pupils (units for teenage mothers and pregnant schoolgirls, for example), while others will have a mix of different kinds. But usually, pupils who are in PRUs because of behavioural problems are not taught alongside pupils who are in PRUs for other reasons. For most pupils, the main focus of PRUs should be on getting them back into a school.

What kind of education does a PRU provide?
PRUs can provide full-time or part-time education. The minimum level of education to be provided varies depending on the age of the child and their reason for being in the PRU. Children with medical needs, for example, may not be able to manage a full-time curriculum; they should receive as much education as their condition allows but the minimum should be five hours a week, while young people who have been excluded should have full-time education which, for those in Key Stage 4, is 25 hours a week.

PRUs can offer education directly, or they can arrange packages that involve external providers such as FE colleges, employers and work-based trainers, and programmes provided by voluntary or private bodies. Often they will provide a combination of both. PRUs do not have to teach the full national curriculum but they must offer a balanced and broadly based curriculum, which should include English, mathematics, science, personal, social and health education (PSHE), ICT and, post-13, careers education and guidance.

Many PRUs also work with schools to support vulnerable pupils and those at risk of exclusion. They may do this through outreach support to pupils within the schools, or by dual registration, where a pupil stays on the register of their school but is also registered with, and attends, the PRU.

Registering, Opening or Closing a PRU

PRUs should be registered with the DCSF so that they can be inspected by Ofsted. There is no formal process for opening or closing a PRU, but there should be reasonable consultation locally, including with other PRUs and their management committees, and with local schools that send pupils to a PRU that it is proposed to close. The DCSF should be notified of opening and closing of any PRU and any other relevant changes.

The practical side was placements within day nursery, school, state nursery and private family settings.  The one thing I would say is that as most of us were training to be nannies, the family placements should have been over a longer period.  I also enjoyed the observations of children that we had to complete within these settings.  It was very interesting to observe a particular child and evaluate developmental norms and general health and well being.  I think that this was a great learning curve for me; it taught me a lot about child development and general stages of growth.  It was easier to actually observe children and learn rather than being told in a lecture.

Professional training is so important for any child carer, but in particular nannies.  It is important to have a NNEB or similar so that people do respect that this is your career and not just a fill-in job till you decide what you want to do.  It separates the professional nannies from the rest; it makes people realise that we love our jobs and that we have learnt every aspect of child care including developmental norms, First Aid, weaning, learning through play, observations, childhood illnesses, learning difficulties and many more.

There are many courses available to nannies and I don’t think there are any excuses for not completing a course.  A qualification enables you to be selected for jobs, it enables you to become Ofsted-registered, which again is highly recognised when applying for jobs.  Training for nannies is a must: a lot of people start courses for child care and some don’t complete them as they realise that the courses are not a stroll in the park; they are intense and very informative.  You don’t just learn how to feed, change or play with a baby you are learning all aspects of child care, laws and legislations, theories, First Aid, food hygiene, health and safety policies and much, much more.

Training courses should also be considered for individual careers i.e nanny, nursery nurse, etc. as, although the courses cover a general overlap of all careers, I found that I would have liked to have spent more time with a family placement and learning more about baby care and weaning etc. rather than modules relating to the management of a nursery setting.

The courses enable you to use your NNEB qualification to gain many job opportunities in childcare but I am a great believer that practice makes perfect and experiencing the working environments will help child carers to make the correct career path.  Another aspect of training is working with other professionals, this maybe staff or, as a nanny, with parents.  Some people may find it easier to work alongside other staff and have a manager to turn to but as a nanny you are working with the parents.  This can be tough at times and being a professional is the most important thing to remember.  You have to be able to talk and interact in a mature and approachable manner: you can’t go to someone’s house every day and not have a relationship with them, as this affects the child.

As a nanny you are also working alone, you are the carer, the manager, the First Aider etc. and you have to be prepared to be able to do this and work from your own initiative.  A nanny who can work from their own initiative, interact and build a relationship with both parents and children, take guidance from parents, act in a mature way and be approachable is a nanny that will stand out from the rest.  All of this comes with practice and also the passion to be a nanny.

If anyone is wishing to become a nanny, then training is the first step. As a nanny you should always want to be the one that stands out; everyone thinks they could be a nanny but not everyone is a professional nanny.

Katy Hayden is VOICE Nanny of the Year.

Haiti

The scale of the disaster in Haiti is such that it would be wrong for the Webmag not to recognise its individual impact on a whole generation of children in that country. Thousands have been killed; many are orphaned; many have lost limbs or been injured; for the rest of their lives all of them will carry the memories of the earthquake, the fear, the loss, the sight of suffering and the uneasiness and grim living conditions afterwards.

It is a terrible tragedy, made worse by the poverty and political instability in the country over recent decades. There is always anger at the slowness of the authorities to respond to disasters but, in the case of Haiti, the community did not have the resources or infrastructure to be able to respond.

If there is to be good coming from the suffering experienced in this catastrophe, two things need to be done:

-           There need to be better international systems (presumably run by the UN) for taking over and creating the infrastructure to deal with disasters, so that the right balance of supplies and services can be provided and controlled, and to avoid squabbles and shortages.

-           Haiti - and other poor countries - need to be helped to build up their economies so that they themselves can cope better, not only at times of disaster, but as participants in the world economy, so that their people can live a better life in the first place. Haiti has needed help for a long time; it has had some aid and support, and the UN was active, but action was not enough to get the country properly on its feet. We hope that a shocked world will be motivated to give long-lasting help to this generation of Haitian children after their ordeal.

And in all the ghastliness of the disaster, let us be thankful for the generosity and commitment of everyone who has helped out, and for the miraculous rescues of people many days after the event.

Being Professional 1

Jennifer Lehmann refers in her article this month to the socialisation effects of training, which encourage students to take on a professional approach to their work and their clientele. This presumably entails the absorption of professional values, adopting professional attitudes such as being non-judgemental, and creating a professional persona which will be independent of the clients. At the CCHN conference in October 2009 June Jones spoke impressively about the ways in which medical students were educated into internalising professional ethics, and the importance of the personal influence of the lecturers in making students face their shortcomings.

On the other hand we were at a meeting of a voluntary organisation the other evening where the thread running through the discussion was that former clients appreciated the way that non-professionals in the voluntary sector listened and did not judge or pigeon-hole people, by contrast with the professionals, who assessed and categorised clients and told them what to do.

We obviously need professionals who are independent but not aloof, listening while analysing unobtrusively, and as committed as volunteers but with hidden skills.

Being Professional 2

While thinking about professionalism, don’t miss the article about the social pedagogy pilots this month. Whatever you think about social pedagogy, as an enthusiast or as a sceptic, you cannot fail to be impressed by the interest it has stirred up. Participants have had their eyes opened, they have had successes and their keenness to improve is palpable.

Enthusiasm is not everything. If you want a pipe fixing, an enthusiastic plumber can wreck your electrics as well. But in child care a real commitment is as vital as all the skills and knowledge.

Well-being

This year’s Christian Child Care Forum Annual Conference on 24 March 2010 at King’s Cross Baptist Church is focusing on well-being, with Baroness Howarth to speak about Government policies, Jim Davies about The Good Childhood, Jo-Joy Wright about professionals’ needs, Richard Eason on the well-being of communities and Joanna Gordon on parents’ and toddlers’ well-being.

The event is friendly and modestly priced, and whether you represent a Christian organisation, or you’re a Christian working in child care, or you’re just curious about well-being, it should be an interesting day. Ring 0208 504 2702 for more details, or go to www.christianchildcareforum.org.

Acting Together

The Young Vic and Siblings Together are collaborating to provide a half-term workshop, intended for separated siblings (in care, adopted, left care etc.) to give them an opportunity to share an interesting activity. The week-long programme will give young people aged 15-25 the chance to work with professional actors and directors, and to create a show by the end of the week. To find out more, ring

07899  2745 or 0207  231  6925. Time is short and places are limited.

Grandparents’ Rights

The new Government Green Paper on families suggests that grandparents should have more rights of access to their grandchildren. We back this development. For too long the family has been viewed as consisting primarily of parents and children, with other family members being also-rans.

Before the days of open adoptions, when children were presented to their new families as if their minds were tabula rasa, it was not only the parents who were deprived of their children, but grandparents lost their grandchildren too. While adoption may have been the outcome of poor parenting, grandparents were punished too, even if they had done their best for their grandchildren.

Now we are into the era of family conferencing where a wide range of concerned extended family members may be involved, and the saying about children’s upbringing being a matter for the whole village, not just the parents, has been quoted so often that it is verging on the hackneyed. For it to be true in practice, though, a lot more changes will be needed. Any ways in which nuclear families can be supported should be encouraged, and giving grandparents a more significant role is a move in the right direction.

Leading from the Front

We liked the story about Brian Walker, Head of West Park School in Spondon, Derby, who insists on silence during an hour’s Vivaldi, Bach, Handel or Mozart as part of detention. A lot of the subsequent comment was whether this would put children off classical music for life. We doubt it, but the point we want to make here is that Brian Walker’s impact on the school community strikes us as resulting from the way he leads from the front.

It is Brian Walker (or his deputy) who supervises the detention; it is Brian Walker who is on the school’s home page, inviting people to contact him. We expect that the children in his school know where they stand with him, and that he provides the sort of framework for children’s behaviour which they need. Not only that, but we suspect that he keeps coming up with challenging educational ideas which expose the children to new ways of seeing things, new experiences - which is what learning is all about. If so, it is not surprising if misbehaviour is down in West Park School; the classical music is probably only one part of a bigger jigsaw.

Everyone a Reader

A piece of research by the Institute of Education in London University called Every Child a Reader found that half an hour’s individual teaching a day for four months enabled six-year-olds who had fallen behind in reading to catch up, and the change was long-term. Good news.

We would also like to encourage child care professionals to read more. It’s a good way of picking up ideas from other people, of professional self-development, of understanding children and their needs better, of having your preconceptions challenged, and so on. Ask your colleagues when they last read a professional book, and tell us what you found out.

Smacking and Optimism

Professor Marjorie Gunnoe of Calvin College Michigan is reported to have done some research which showed that children smacked until they are six did better at school, and that smacked children were more optimistic. We knew a man once who said that the way to train a dog was to beat it while it was young, so that it knew who was its master. We can’t tell you if his dogs were more optimistic.

New Technology - and its Impact on Children

Prezzybox polled 1398 parents with children aged under 10 and found that 63% of the children had mobile phones and 77% had their own lap-tops. However, 54% of parents did not monitor the call usage of their children’s phones in any way, and Prezzybox was concerned that primary school children’s use of the internet should be checked too.

More than 40% also had handheld consoles, iPods or MP3 players, digital cameras, and their individual TVs in their rooms. Having their own TVs presumably stopped squabbling about channels, but we must be breeding a race of hermits. Arguing about TV channels is at least a form of social interaction which hopefully helps children to learn about give and take.

MyVoucher Codes also did a survey and found that parents had allowed 78% of children under 15 years old to join social networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo, and 48% did not know what their children were doing on those sites.

Meanwhile a YouGov poll has indicated that a sixth of children aged one to seven have speech difficulties, and this is attributed to their sitting in front of screens of all kinds.

It’s not only children we need to be worried about. Winmonkey did a survey and found that 23% of stay-at-home mothers spent more time on the internet than on giving their children quality time. Another illusion dashed! Humanity certainly has its frailties.

Safe at Home

Commissioned by the Department for Children Schools and Families, the Royal Society for Safety and the Prevention of Accidents has devised a scheme called Safe at Home, designed to spread information widely and make equipment available. There is an 8-minute DVD for starters, being made available to all SureStart Centres.

They point out that families in need are often those most at risk, and from the cases we have come across we can only agree - little children left alone in a house, standing by open upstairs windows, for example. See www.safeathome.rospa.com. if you want to read more.

The Child’s Best Interests?

On 19 January Barnardo’s issued a press release quoting their Chief Executive, Martin Narey, “Today’s Cafcass figures show that the sharp rise in care applications after baby Peter’s death has not been reversed. This should be welcomed as an appropriate response to child neglect and abuse. Social workers need to be supported to intervene earlier when a child is at risk. Barnardo’s is concerned that pressure to keep families together, almost at any cost, must be resisted. The interests of the child should always come first.”

We don’t disagree, but the question is what is in the child’s best interests. Some people believe that keeping children with their families helps children most. To get out of this circular argument there needs to be much more research to identify where real risk lies, and this will need to reflect all the nuances and variations between different families when it is applied. Otherwise, social workers will have to follow their hunches.

Just to use one example, research has shown that fostering is more successful when children maintain links with their birth families. Now is this just because the links are maintained, or because the more coherent and supportive families are the ones which maintain links? And since there can at times be fearful tensions between foster carers and birth parents, with the children torn between them, do we have any ways of identifying potential foster carers who will not be able to work in partnership with birth parents successfully?

Every School-day Counts

Under this banner Sunderland City Council have done a deal with Hays Travel to offer a 10% reduction to parents who book family holidays and stick to school holiday times, in order to encourage 100% school attendance. In view of the high percentage of parents who remove their children from school to go on holiday, we think this is a good idea. When parents do this, it is a sort of parentally-sanctioned truancy; it tells the children that the holiday is more important than education, or that the price of missing some schooling is worth paying to keep the costs of holidays down.

The alternative is that, like virtually all other places of work, schools could remain open almost all the year, and children could take holidays as appropriate, in the way that workers in factories, offices etc. do, covering for each other and keeping the business going. Has anyone tried that model? Even in 365-day boarding schools we’ve not heard of staggered holidays.

Social na Pedagogika

We have received the November 2009 edition of the Slovenian social pedagogy journal. This one is in Slovenian, but four of the five articles have abstracts in English. Their themes are:

-           the group as a social learning space,

-           the developmental and psychological significance of games in middle and late childhood,

-           the significance of interactive play activities for social skills training,

-           confronting aggressive behaviour in children and adolescents following the LSCI model, and

-           the teacher in the role of the mediator.

It’s time to learn Slovenian.

Advice for Parents

A new parental advice website has been set up called www.parentchannel.tv, supported by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. It is designed to give simple advice on key issues of concern. They have undertaken a survey to find out what causes greatest alarm to parents and children.

They have found out that parents are most bothered about their children getting involved in drugs and alcohol, followed by the possibility of a serious accident, and they are least confident about talking to their children about sexuality or paedophilia, though they thought that sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy were the two main subjects which they should be discussing.

The children were concerned about sexuality, serious accidents, academic failure their financial stability and being in trouble with the law. The survey also covered what they lie about - which includes homework.

Tegan’s Wish

We don’t usually carry feel-good stories unless they have some other message about encouraging high standards of child care. On this occasion, we felt that as a contrast to the news from Haiti, it would be good to end with an item which is simply heart-warming. Well done, to everyone involved.

Budding ballerina Tegan Jones, aged 11 from Bishop’s Cleeve in Cheltenham, was granted a surprise wish by Make-A-Wish Foundation UK, the charity that grants magical wishes to children fighting life-threatening illnesses. Tegan has been dance-mad since she was four years old. But living with hypersulinaemia and hypoglycaemia, disorders affecting insulin and sugar levels in the blood, had often meant missing ballet classes.

Despite this, Tegan had always dreamed of being a star and her condition did not get in the way of her dream, when she was escorted to her own VIP dressing room at the Royal Opera House. Tegan, her mother Carol and her grandmother Beryl Downie were then given a behind-the-scenes tour of the venue by Royal Ballet dancer David Pickering, which included a sneaky-peek at costumes and ‘heads’ from the Tales of Beatrix Potter. When Tegan was given a mouse costume to try on in the Wardrobe Department, little did she know she would be performing in it later.

After dinner with the dancers, Tegan, Carol and Beryl were then allowed backstage to watch the first show of the evening, Les Patineurs, a ballet about an Edwardian skating party. The highlight of the evening came when Tegan was taken backstage during the evening’s performance of the Tales of Beatrix Potter and told she would be on next. Far from being fazed, Tegan was in her element, following her instructions and getting into character with the other, more seasoned, ballet dancers onstage, before staying for a bow at the final curtain. Tegan was made to feel the star of the show as everyone in the company congratulated her and showered her with gifts - signed ballet shoes, Beatrix Potter goodies and bunches of flowers to name but a few. Tegan’s Mum Carole said, “I never dreamed that anything could be so special. It brought me to tears seeing her perform on stage”.

There are currently 20,000 children and young people like Tegan in the UK fighting a life-threatening illness. This year alone around 1,000 children will turn to Make-A-Wish and to grant all these, Make-A-Wish needs to raise at least £5 million in 2010. To contact Make-A-Wish ring 01276 40 50 60 or visit www.make-a-wish.org.uk

From a Report

It took two moths to allocate J as the family’s Social Worker.

Why pay a Team Leader when a couple of clothes moths can do the job?

Residential education in the Israeli context has been a major player in shaping the face of the emerging civil society in the new State.  As such, the aims of the upbringing and education of these children had to coincide with the aims of society at large.  In the first decades following the establishment of the State, those aims led to an effort to crystallize in the world of the youngsters a sense of commitment to society by enhancing values and behavior codes that would contribute to the survival and development of the new State. During recent decades, the trend, following that of the western world, has moved towards a more individualist direction.  At the same time, Israeli society has moved from the pioneer era to become a society marked by socio-economic divisions, with the unavoidable price to bear.

The educational philosophy and methodology which has been developed in Yemin Orde is grounded in the educational tradition of the early Israeli Youth Village movement, which began to take root in the first quarter of the 20^th century. Its principles and practices had to be carefully updated, in order to adequately address contemporary educational and social needs.

A Sense of Coherence

A major source of inspiration for this process is the work of Prof. Aaron Antonovsky¹. His concept of “sense of coherence,” or way of making sense of the world - which he advocated as being a major factor in determining how well a person manages stress and stays healthy - is one of the cornerstones of our philosophy and methodology. Our work assumption is that a coherent perception and outlook on life is a significant resource in handling difficult life situations as well as mundane commitments. Many symptoms prevalent among at-risk youth - imminent frustration, lack of self-control, poor language skills and deficiency in abstract thinking - can be attributed to lacking a sense of coherence.

The Yemin Orde philosophy is a practical adaptation of this school of thought to the field of at-risk child care. The existential early experience of the children entails abandonment and separation, bewilderment in the face of a host of conflicting messages as well as a complete lack of stable life anchors. It is therefore of primary importance that any educational or therapeutic endeavor to cause transformation in the lives of at-risk children must first and foremost create an all-encompassing, cohesive environment to draw all the fragmented components into a unified center of gravity.

Thus, a ‘community of meaning’ comes into being - a concept that we share with the late Kurt Hahn², founder of the Salem and Gordonstoun schools, who believed that schools of the future must function as ‘communities of meaning’. The ‘Village Way’ is the heading for the education platform used by Yemin Orde educators to create an environment marked by coherence, a potent antidote to the children’s inner brokenness, social alienation and helplessness. For three decades now, this educational methodology has proven to be instrumental in instilling in youth both emotional fortitude and a moral backbone.

Replacing the Lost Village

The concept ‘community of meaning’ also corresponds with the now famous African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child”. It aims to reproduce, for the benefit of children here and now, the qualities and structure that were the very essence of the original village of humanity.

Historically, the centrality of the relationship between parents and children could be taken for granted. In past times, most of humanity lived in villages and tribal communities, surrounded by their extended family, and a sense of coherence and meaning was woven into the natural flow of life. Children grew and developed within a wholesome aura, in which parents and other significant adult figures radiated an emotionally coherent set of qualities, connections, skills and beliefs.

We cannot return to the lost village of humanity.  We can, however, create a ‘village state of mind’ - a deliberately structured inter-connectedness with others that is natural to the anticipatory structure of human consciousness.  The Yemin Orde methodology titled ‘Village Way’ is about imbuing the temporal continuum or the psychological present of all involved - both children and adults - with six carefully defined elements of content. Our educational community has been designed to reproduce the basic outline of humanity’s lost village - a village that can instill in its children a recognition and pride in their past, a sense of direction and security about the future, an openness to transcendent values, a will to improve communal reality, and a deeper understanding and insight regarding their weaknesses and strengths.

The ‘Village Way’ corresponds with an array of theoretical and practical developments, a product of significant thinkers as a legacy of the 20^th century and its accumulated experience and wisdom. Jerome S. Bruner, in his famous 1977 piece, The Process of Education³, speaks of a “widespread renewal of concern for the quality and intellectual aims of education”. Bruner believed the principle of “knowledge structures” necessitates the structuring of spiral educational programs that periodically re-visit fundamental concepts in order to enhance their comprehension by the child. Thus, seemingly “sterile” knowledge is progressively augmented by deeper layers of meaning uncovered within the inner world of the learner.

Though many years have passed, the underlying questions regarding the quality of educational practice and its spiritual objectives remain unscathed. The ‘Village Way’ expands Bruner’s ideas beyond the field of knowledge acquisition to the complete and diverse network that is life in the educational system. This is consistent with Jerome S. Bruner’s later reasoning: “…the evolution of the hominid mind is linked to the development of a way of life where ‘reality’ is represented by a symbolism shared by members of a cultural community […] This symbolic mode is not only shared by a community, but conserved, elaborated and passed on to succeeding generations who, by virtue of this transmission, continue to maintain the culture’s identity and way of life.”⁴ . Indeed, these elements are the very core of the ‘Village Way’.

Empirical experience has shown over the years that deeds, words, customs and symbols can be embedded within an effective framework that instills them with meaning. The ‘Village Way’ regards the creation of an educational environment that embodies - even in its very structure - the message of meaningfulness and wholeness as a vital necessity which can be realized by structured programs.

At the same time, the ‘Village Way’ challenges the relevance of one of the major paradigms for measurement and assessment of educational programs, namely scholastic performance.  This criticism about the dwindling aims of education was echoed by numerous thinkers such as Alfred North Whitehead, in his book The Aims of Education.⁵ It was T.S. Eliot who lamented the decline of intellectual culture, asking,

“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”⁶

The Importance of the Social Setting

The ‘Village Way’ is about the belief that the aim of education is to instill in young individuals knowledge and wisdom derived from their interaction with a surrounding environment of substance and meaning. Therefore, a valid indicator of success is a graduate’s ability to become a normative head of household and a contributing member of society. In this ‘age of information’, characterized by constant measurement and comparison, it is extremely unpopular to place a seemingly unquantifiable paradigm ahead of scholastic achievements. Yet, the ‘Village Way’ does exactly that. Furthermore, we assert that scholastic achievements will, in fact, be a most welcome by-product of a successful upbringing of a human being.

It was the Coleman Report⁷ which already half a century ago concluded that academic achievements are unequivocally conditioned by the child’s social background. The fact that, years later, scholastic achievements are still heralded as the principle paradigm for success poses the question whether the Coleman Report has ever really been acknowledged. The ‘Village Way’ is about creating environments of structured elements, that offer at-risk children compensation for what natural justice should have provided them with - a reasonable family in a normative community setting. This approach entails a most significant built-in therapeutic element.  The enhancement of scholastic achievements, in our viewpoint, cannot effectively materialize in a context void of remedial awareness.

In this sense, we adhere to a holistic perception of the child, his past, present and his future.  Furthermore, we believe that the causes behind his troubled personal status must be addressed in the course of his formative years in order to prevent inter-generational transference.

It is our profound belief that the world doesn’t need educational institutions - but it desperately needs dynamic communities for children, environments which have the potential to produce people who are motivated to build a better world.

Dr Chaim Peri works at Yemin Orde Youth Village, Mt. Carmel, Israel.

References

1          Antonovsky, Aaron (1987) Unraveling the mystery of health: how people manage stress and stay well. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass Publication

2          James, Thomas - Journal of Experiential Education, 1990 : “Kurt Hahn and the Aims of Education” ; http://www.kurthahn.org/writings/writings.html

3          Bruner, J.S. (1977) The Process of Education, Harvard University Press

4          Bruner, J.S. (1996) The Culture of Education, Harvard University Press

5          Whitehead, A.N. The Aims of Education, Daedalus, Vol. 88, No. 1, Education in the Age of Science (Winter, 1959), pp. 192-205
The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences

6          Eliot, T.S. (1934) Choruses from The Rock /, Faber & Faber, London

7          J.S. Coleman, J.S. et al (1966) Equality of Education, US Department of Health, Education and Welfare, US Government Printing Office

Mum’s got lots of necklaces because she likes wearing them.  At a stall in town, I pick out a gold cross on a chain for her.  Mum’s going to visit me at Templewood.  She’s never been on a train before but I’ve told her it’s not difficult and she’ll have my social worker with her.  She’s coming for my review, I can’t believe I’ve been here a year already.  Rebecca says that mum’ll hear good things about me.

I look at the cross in my hand, it might be right for mum because it’s even more shiny and big than the one she used to have.

“Have I got enough money, Rebecca?”

“Let’s see … yes, enough, but it is a lot to spend on this necklace.”

“It’s for mum.”

“You don’t have to get her an expensive present.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“No, but I can guide you.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll buy these earrings for you with any leftover money.”

“Oh no, Aaron, don’t do that, save your money!”

“You don’t like what I want to get you?”

“It’s not that …”

“I’ll have both of these,” I say to the man stood smoking his cigarette behind the stall.

“Generous boy he is,” the man says to Rebecca.

His hand reaches forward and takes my money before Rebecca can stop us.  I give her the earrings straight away and she does smile. I carefully fold the paper bag around mum’s cross and put it into my shirt pocket.  And then suddenly panic travels through me.  What have I done?  I have to say something.

“Rebecca … I mean … don’t tell mum that I also bought you those earrings, it’s just …”

“It’s okay, I really like them but I shan’t wear them tomorrow or mention them to your mother.”

Her eyes fall softly onto me.

“I do understand, Aaron … And thanks for buying them for me.”

” … Can you help me do a cake for mum when we get back to group?”

“Yes, I don’t see why not.  What type of cake do you want to make?”

“You tell me; what shall I make?”

“I don’t know what your mum likes.  We could do chocolate?  Jam, lemon, ginger?”

“Chocolate might be best … or it might be the worst.”

“What’s that?”

“Sometimes mum’ll eat two bars of chocolate together and still want more.  Other times, she’ll say she hates the fucking stuff.”

“Don’t swear.”

“I’m just telling you what … nothing.”

Back in group, we end up making two plain sponges - perfect rounds that rise just right.  We stick them together with a layer of jam.  I ask Rebecca to spread the icing and then I take some sugary red cherries from a plastic pot and arrange them into the word ‘MUM’ on top of the cake.

I get my room ready for mum, after all this time she’s finally going to see where I’ve been staying.  I hide Twiggy at the back of my top shelf, I don’t want to tell mum how the stick insect her money paid for died.  Or that this stick insect was bought for me by Rebecca and is bigger.

I put all my dirty clothes in my laundry bag.  The stuff left on the floor I shove into my drawer but then I remember how mum will want to look through all my things and she might open my drawers so I can’t leave a mess hiding in there.  Everything’s got to be right.  Piece by piece I sort out the muddle of games, CDs, tapes and books.  I bin all the ripped bits of paper, the broken games, the odd socks.  Finally I ask our cleaner to finish off my room.

“Your room’s brilliant,” she shouts at me above the din of her vacuum.  “I can really get round it today.”

Now, even the air in my room feels clearer.  I choose the clothes I’m going to wear for the visit and put them out on my chair.  I put the gold cross and chain for mum on my chest of drawers and beside it the letter I’ve written her.

mum is cute

mum is smart

I mum

with all my heart

forever yours Aaron xxx

I hardly sleep all night because I’m thinking of mum coming tomorrow.  What shall I show mum first?  My room or school or the main house?  I try to picture mum walking up towards Templewood; she looks small in the middle of the vast stairs.  I see her thin pale mouth that has a slight tremble to it.  Or should that be a bright red lipsticked mouth?  Will her hair be dark and straight, or maybe back to blonde again?  I think she’ll dress smart for coming here; maybe she’ll wear black.

I hear the house waking up - doors creak; adults speak softly as they meet up together; light comes under my door; Shelby’s voice whines about something.  I get up and dress.

When Rebecca walks into my room; I leap up to show her how I’m ready for today.  Her face is not smiling; she stops in the doorway looking out across the room with no focus; the door slips shut behind her.  My voice rushes into the uncomfortable space between us.

“Look at my room; mum’s going to be well impressed; I’m wearing these clothes. Do you think …”

“Sit down, Aaron, difficult news I’m afraid.”

“No.”

Suddenly in her words and her mood, I lose everything; I know the truth but I speak my dying hope.

“Mum is coming.”

“No, Aaron.”

“She can’t not come.”

“Aaron, she is not on the train.”

I turn my radio on, put the volume up.

“Aaron …” Rebecca shouts above the music.  “Turn that down.”

I punch my music station off my chest of drawers; it thuds to the floor then a fuzzing noise burbles out of it.  I kick it into silence.

“Jean is coming.”

“Fuck that!”

“She went to your mum’s house; she waited for her; no one was in.”

“What the fuck time did she go?” I say with another kick.

“Early, because of the long train ride here.”

“Fuck that; mum doesn’t do mornings; she’d have been in bed.  My social worker should have woken her, helped her to get ready.”

“Getting your mum ready is not her job; your mum knew and agreed to the early departure.”

“My social worker tricked us with that; she set it up so mum couldn’t come … Well she will.”

I cross my fingers behind my back.  Please make her come; she’s surprised us all before.  She might be on later trains; it’s not that hard taking a train.

Downstairs, Liam’s sat with a new adult called Emma who’s come to work here.  She’s pale with thin blonde hair.  She’s the sort of person who doesn’t seem to take up much space in a room, almost like she’s isn’t quite solid.  Her and Liam are eating and not talking.  I go and sit down with them.  I’ve got to keep going; mum has to come.  I pour some orange juice, slurp it and then give a throaty burp.

“Aaron …” Emma says shifting forwards to sit right at the front of her chair.

Liam chuckles and replies with an even deeper burp.

“Very funny; come on you two.”

“I’ve got my mum coming today,” I announce.

“Oh … What? … No,” Emma says all of a dither.

“I have.  Now get me some decent cereal.”

“Aaron, perhaps you should wait before having your breakfast.”

“I’m hungry now.”

Liam gets up and comes back with some cereal for us both.  I tip the box up and cereal fills my bowl and then overflows all over the table.

“Stop, Aaron.”

I empty the box then put it down with a laugh.  I pour milk and it spreads across the top of the cereal and splashes onto the table; Liam and I jerk our chairs back but Emma’s too slow and the milk drips down over her lap; she rushes to the kitchen sink.

“Hey, Liam,” I whisper.  “You want to go out tonight?”

“Fuck,” he says and his voice is too loud.  “You get your mum coming and then you want to mess up!”

“Aaron, I don’t think you should be here at this table,” Emma says as she returns with a cloth.  “Go!”

“Fuck off!”

“Aaron, you’re not sitting here.”

She grabs my bowl and starts to march off with it; I punch into her arm; the bowl spills.  She turns to me; her nostrils are all large; she’s getting angry.

“What is going on?” Ben says as he walks in.  “Aaron?”

“I’m not doing anything.”

I make my way towards the front door, Ben pulls me back in and marches me to the office settee.

“Sit, Aaron.”

“Leave your dirty hands off me!”

“Sit!”

“Shut your dirty mouth!”

I kick the settee then grab a cushion and hurl it at Ben.  I land a kick and he pushes me down on the settee.

“Get off!”

“Trying to make Emma angry, and now me, to deal with your own upset about your mum not coming?” Ben says.

“She is coming!” I thump my hand down on the settee.

“No, Aaron.”

The room falls quiet and I’m just sat alone on a big settee, the fool hoping for a mum.

My social worker turns up all official in a black skirt and jacket.

“Where’s mum?” I demand.

She looks at Rebecca.

“You know your mum is not coming,” Rebecca answers for her.

“I’m sorry, Aaron, I went to her house, I waited for a while in case she returned and then I had to catch my train.”

“She was asleep; you should have woken her.”

“No, Aaron, another woman came to the door. She said your mum wasn’t in. She told me to come in if I didn’t believe her.  I called out your mum’s name through the hall; your mum was not home.  I tried calling her on her mobile but the number isn’t working.”

“Something’s happened to her.”

“No, Aaron, a colleague of mine popped round to where your mum’s living about an hour ago. Your mum was there; she was not ill.”

So why the hell hasn’t mum come?  It’s not a question I want to ask my social worker.  I sigh inside; it’s not the first time mum’s missed a visit.

I refuse to go to my review.  I hate meetings.  People will be chatting about me and trying to make me talk about things like my feelings.  Alone in the kitchen, I take the cake I made for mum out of the tin.  The cherries have bled across the icing; it looks bad; mum wouldn’t have wanted it.  I’m about to throw it in the bin but then I rush to the bathroom with it.  I shove it into my mouth gobbling up the whole thing in minutes.

A loud hiccup comes out of me as I leave the bathroom and head upstairs to my room.  My perfect, tidy room.  I rip up my letter to mum and let the pieces fall down; I throw the box with the cross in it behind my bed; I pull out a drawer and tip it up so everything in it tumbles onto the floor.  Then I see my special envelope.

I open the envelope. There’s mum’s hair.  It’s curled up, looking old and dirty and so very small.  And beside it, there’s the rotten old sweet.  I screw up the envelope and throw it to the floor, then I open my door and kick it out into the corridor.  The door slams shut between me and the envelope.

I kick my bedroom wall then throw myself onto the bed.  I feel the sickliness of a whole cake sinking through me.  More hiccups start up; I hold my breath.

I suddenly rush to standing and swing my door open - plain brown carpet, nothing on it.  No envelope!  I search up and down the corridor, look down the stairs, under the settee in the upstairs lounge, behind the telly, in the wastepaper basket.  It’s gone.  Mum’s hair, the sweet.  Where is it?  What have I done?  I was only teasing when I kicked it away.

I run to the office; my hand reaches to knock on the door.  I stop still with my hand lifted up in front of me.  How can I ask if anyone’s seen a scrunched up envelope with an old sweet and one piece of hair in it?  I can’t tell anybody why they’re important and that they’re almost all I have of mum.

I slip quietly back to my room.

I’m sat doing nothing when my social worker comes to my room and starts talking about my review.  I don’t care what was said about me.  I look around my room at all the mess scattered across my floor.

“Can I phone mum?” I interrupt my social worker.

“The mobile number I have for her isn’t working; it leads to a line that’s been cut off.”

“Haven’t you even got the right number for her?”

“It was her number only two days ago.  You mother’s number has often changed; I have the latest one she’s given me.  When my colleague popped in on your mum she forgot to ask if your mum had a new number.”

“Fucking useless.”

“Will you come with Rebecca to drop me off at the station, Aaron?”

“No.”

“You don’t want to?”

“No.”

“Listen, Aaron,” my social worker says looking at her watch.  “I’m sorry I’ve got to go.  Good luck with everything.”

She throws an arm around me and my face bumps into her jacket and it feels all scratchy.

“I heard so many positive things about you at your review.  I’m sorry today you have been so let down again by your mum.”

“I haven’t.”

“I’m sorry your mother hasn’t come, that she doesn’t always do as she says she will.”

“She’s got her reasons; you’ll never understand.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to see her … Good-bye for now Aaron.”

What does my social worker care?  She’s not sorry.  This mess of me and mum living apart is all social’s doing.

When she’s gone I stand up and stare out of my window.  I look over at school and wish I could just slip into a normal day there with everyone else.

I watch as my social worker steps into the group car and then Rebecca starts to drive her away.  I shout out from inside at my social worker - take me, take me with you.  She’s driving near to mum.  Take me to mum.

Mummy’s hand is moving a stinging nettle out of my way so I can carry on down the little path.  I wanted to take this little path, I argued with mummy until she let me.  I stop by a bramble and she holds it back from my face.  Streaks of sun come through the plants that are over me.  Mummy’s happy again and back to a slow, easy smoking of her cigarette.  I pick up a tiny brown thing and mummy says it’s a pine cone.  I stumble over some stones and mummy’s hand comes down over me from behind to balance me.  The trees and plants begin to open and then we’ve reached a big paved path.  I run along the easy path, mummy calls me back and I giggle as my little legs take me further from her.  She calls my name, tells me that we have to get back now.  I run a few more steps feeling the weight of my head almost sending me somersaulting over.  I look at mum, she tells me it’ll be too late if I don’t come now.  She tells me she’ll give me a biscuit if I come.  She tells me she’ll count to ten and I had better come by ten.  Cigarette smoke drifts around her.  I don’t move.           

Mum shrieks my name and asks me why I never do what I’m told.  She says I’m spoiling the day.  I can see the anger spreading out from her.  She steps towards me; I step away.  She says she gives up; it’s up to me if I don’t want to come.  She turns back to the little path, I watch her legs pushing past each other as she steps over plants.  She disappears behind the shadow of a tree.  I run towards the trace of where she stood, I breathe in her leftover smell of cigarettes.  She suddenly bobs up on the little path up above me.  She looks round at me and I freeze.  She looks away and carries on up.  I try to run to catch up with her but a plant tears into my face.  I call after her but she doesn’t stop.  My hand itches from touching plants.  I want mum with me now, I want her to wait for me to catch up.  The white of her T-shirt flickers from behind the plants way above, sometimes it disappears and then re-appears even further from me.  I hate this little path, I don’t know why I ever made us come down it.  I don’t know why I was so naughty, why I didn’t go back with mum straight away.  Mum shrinks to a few dots of colour and then disappears.  I run a few steps and a bramble slashes against my leg, I trip.  I stand up knowing mummy’s waiting for me.  She has to be waiting.           

Mummy!  My scream carries out into the wood but the only reply is the sound of a passing car.  I push my way through the plants back to the big path.  Mummy!  I run one way and then another.  Mummy!  I stand still trying to hear mummy coming.  Trying to catch the smell her smoke.  Every sound makes me twitch but then suddenly I know that I’ve been waiting too long; she should be here now.  I run and fall, then get up again.  I start up a path but it’s blocked by a tangle of trees.  I take another.  I’m lost without mum and it’s all my fault.  I sit on a fallen trunk; its middle is a huge hole.  The greyness falling around me is not in my eyes; it’s getting dark.  I’m all alone in this huge forest world.

An initial ‘dabble’ into social pedagogy left me none the wiser really. I was, however, re-motivated and quite excited by the energy surrounding the whole thing, even though I remained very unclear just what exactly this ‘thing’ was. In time I discovered that I was not alone and that most colleagues would respond to my mention of social pedag ojy or goggy with a rather blank expression and the question, “What’s that?” to which I could provide only a limited response. I think it was the continued media coverage, my own curiosity and Barry Sheerman’s statistics that fuelled my own continuing desire to discover more.

Cotswold

My own experience of residential care began at the Cotswold Community in 1990 when I visited one day as a very green, twenty-year old undergraduate. I’ll never forget the experience of leaving Kemble BR in a taxi, heading for Spine Road West and driving along the long isolated drive, passing the handpainted (by children) signs saying, “Slow! Children at play!”

I then met a very serious but likeable man, John Whitwell, who not only looked at me intensely as if he could somehow see within the contents of my soul but also asked me how I could convince him that I wasn’t a paedophile! As if that wasn’t enough I was then permitted to visit one of the ‘households’ where I accompanied a young student social worker on a car journey to the local town with one of the ‘boys’ who needed to by a bouquet of flowers to take with him the following day to his mother’s funeral. I was later told that his father had killed his mother the previous week. I was both shocked and deeply touched, unable to believe that the small, angelic little boy I had just been with was living this reality.

I spent the summer as a volunteer living and working with ‘the boys’ of the Cotswold Community and returned on graduating and stayed as a paid staff member for almost six years.

In this time I witnessed and was embroiled within an intense, psycho-dynamically informed version of milieu therapy. In retrospect, I was transformed, as were the lives and experiences of peers and ‘the boys’ living in this carefully managed, planned ‘living-learning’ environment. It was here that I developed a lifelong passion for and interest in human experience and relationships and developed faith in the healing potential of new, non-abusive relationships for severely deprived and neglected young people. Since leaving, I have witnessed and worked in numerous other residential settings, some claiming to be ‘therapeutic’ and others not. These experiences have been very mixed and led to me now stating very clearly that I believe in the transformative potential of residential care done well rather than residential care per se.

The Institute and the Tavistock

Perhaps the richest common ground between therapeutic childcare and education and social pedagogy is the centrality of a focus on relationship in the broadest sense. My endeavour to educate myself about social pedagogy led me to visit its UK heartland at the Institute of Education where I was soon told that not only is it ‘gojy’ and not ‘goggy’ but it is also “definitely the way forward for English residential homes”. An initial definition offered was that of “education in its broadest sense”, which a few months later on a second visit was refined into “something closer to social action”. For me it remained exciting but somehow very hard to visualise and translate into the context of the children’s homes I knew.

I began to feel aggrieved that, as far as I could figure out, there was little reference within the social pedagogic literature to the emotional experience of children and staff members within residential care. Very little, if any, to how the whole business should be led, managed and organised in the best interests of the children and little about the context in which children are placed in residential care in England and the importance of the work undertaken at the many interfaces. I would include in this the whole personal and professional network of each child - birth family members, social workers, foster carers, Independent Reviewing Officers, schools etc.

I was also hooked on the omission of what I would call a ‘psychological dimension’ to the whole framework of social pedagogy. Despite these reservations I was, and am, hopeful that social pedagogy can positively transform the experiences and outcomes of young people and staff members in residential childcare.

Conversations with colleagues at the Tavistock Centre, where I had recently trained in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, seemed to generate similar reactions in terms of social pedagogy seeming both attractive but ‘psychologically lite’. I was also keen to encourage collaborations between the Tavistock and the many providers of fostering and residential care in an ongoing way, believing that the training models provided by the Tavistock potentially have a great deal to offer those living and working with this very troubled and troubling population of children. The idea of a working conference emerged with a focus on the potentially fertile common ground between therapeutic childcare and education and social pedagogy.

What emerged was an energetic day entitled So What Makes it Therapeutic? Observation, Analysis and Intervention in Residential Childcare Practice and Training co-organised by the Tavistock and NCERCC and hosted by the Tavistock Centre in October 2009. A wish to involve those at a policy level motivated us to invite the Shadow Children’s Minister, Tim Loughton, Mark Burrows from the DCSF, Ann Harrison, CWDC, and John Simmons, BAAF’s Policy and Research Director.

In summary, the day was both fun and stimulating and generated many ideas and questions. The notion of ‘therapeutic pedagogy’ was explored in papers by John Diamond, Chief Executive at the Mulberry Bush Organisation, and Jonathan Stanley at NCERCC and emerged as an evolving idea to be further developed. Most delegates were left still wondering just what is social pedagogy but glad to have had some time in which to begin to think it through and engage with what most agree is an exciting addition to current models and theories.

This grouping is still thinking through how and where the two worlds of social pedagogy and therapeutic care and education might co-exist and collaborate for the benefit of staff teams and young people in a number of settings. In my work in child mental health I encounter countless looked after young people who are approaching early adulthood with a worryingly underdeveloped ‘core self’ or sense of who they are and who they want to become.

Steve

These ‘incoherent narratives’ are often devoid of even very basic knowledge about where and with whom young people have previously lived or any clear sense of why they were not raised within their birth families or by relatives. I want to give an example of a recent encounter and then explore what social pedagogy might have offered and also how ideas rooted in the tradition of therapeutic care and education helped me begin to think through the young person’s experience and my own in his presence.

Steve, now approaching his eighteenth birthday, was recently referred to the looked after children’s CAMH service by his GP who noted in the referral letter that he was encopretic and enuretic and that his current foster carer was struggling to manage this. It took some time to identify his case-holding social worker for two reasons. First, in this area, GPs referring looked after children often do not know the child’s social worker, so therefore do not mention them in the referrals. Secondly, Steve was at an age where he fell neatly between being the responsibility of the pathway team who focus on young people’s transitions out of care and the child and family support teams who tend to pass the young people over to the pathway teams somewhere around their seventeenth birthday.

When I eventually tracked down Steve’s social worker I quickly realised that in fact they barely knew each other and they had only met less than a handful of times. The social worker was, however, aware of Steve’s enuresis and encopresis and that he would be ‘leaving care’ (and therefore his foster placement) in less than six months time. The social worker also said that the local authority would still have ‘a duty of care’ towards him after this date.

In keeping with the team’s usual practice I arranged a convenient time with the foster carer to see Steve with her in his foster placement. I arrived, on time, at the attractive nine-bedroomed Victorian property situated in a coastal town in North East England. I noticed a “For sale” sign at the front of the property and made a mental note of this. As agreed, I initially spent some time with the foster carer, a warm and sensitive middle-aged woman with a local accent. She explained how she has had Steve in placement for almost a year and how worried she is about what will become of him after he turns eighteen, as in her mind he is functioning more like an eleven or twelve year old and lacking very much in self-care and independent living skills.

I noticed numerous family photos in frames on the wall and found my mind wandering and wondering who they all were. I couldn’t see any photos of Steve, and she responded to my asking by saying she knows very little about Steve’s life before he was placed with her. He himself rarely mentions the past and she was told very little about him.

She went to tell me how he soils himself most days and usually begins each day with faeces on his fingers and ingrained under his fingernails. He also urinates in bottles in his room and leaves them scattered around the room for her to empty. I began to feel agitated and slightly nauseous as she described how challenging she finds this and how she feels unsure whether or not she can continue to look after him whilst he’s doing this. She also forewarns me that the estate agent has arranged for a house viewing in the middle of my time there and, while being outwardly polite and not wanting to get in the way, I begin to imagine what Steve’s experience of this might be.

My mind fills up with ideas and slightly random thoughts. I often associate encopresis with sexual abuse and wonder what Steve might have experienced on this level. I wonder why there’s just the two of them in this nine-bedroomed property and why the move now? How will Steve experience this? I begin to worry about the placement ending within the next six months and imagine Steve still encopretic, living independently somewhere. I even begin to wonder why he was ever placed here. Is this a medical matter? Might a psychologist be of more help than me? I begin to feel under pressure to stop this poohing and peeing.

We agree that she will go and get Steve, who enters the room rather sheepishly. A tall, rather awkward-looking young man with short brown hair enters the room and sits close to me on the sofa. I quickly become aware of how anxious he seems as he peers at the floor and glances at me fleetingly when I introduce myself. He then starts to nibble nervously on what’s left of his finger nails as I say who I am and why I am there. He says he was expecting me but exudes a powerful vagueness and sense of not knowing in response to my questions about him and his life prior to the move here.

The people arrive to view the house and the carer leaves us alone. I begin to feel both sorry for and deeply sad towards Steve, who keeps nibbling his nails and looks quite vulnerable, bordering on pitiful. I continue to enquire about him: is he sleeping? Is he eating? Where and with whom would he like to live when he leaves this placement? Has he always poohed and wet himself? I know of this from his doctor who has written to me about this.

He tells me that since he moved into care when he was nearly five he has poohed and wet himself. He didn’t before this and he remembers being toilet-trained and not being in nappies. He seems very sad and, perhaps picking up on this, I speak out loud and say I wonder if some of why he does this connects with his own sense of feeling quite shitty sometimes about himself and perhaps not being able to understand why he wasn’t, and isn’t, wanted by the people who brought him into the world, his parents. I feel like I’m taking a risk, perhaps talking out of turn, but he seems very receptive, curious even, as he looks at me and bursts into tears.

We are soon joined again by his foster carer, who comes over to him, places an arm around his shoulders, and comforts him. I feel slightly guilty for upsetting him and let his foster carer know what I said that prompted his upset. She tells me that he never speaks to her about his past and offers to be there for him if he would ever like to. He continues to cry and I let them both know that I think she is best placed to support him from day to day with his thoughts and feelings and that perhaps they might talk together about how they might work towards finding a solution to the problem of the wetting and soiling.

Before I leave we agree that I will write to them both about what the next step might be in terms of my involvement but make it clear that it is most likely I will meet with his social worker and carer rather than with him again. He looks at me with reddened eyes and thanks me as I get up to leave, feeling very uncertain whether or not I have done or said the ‘right things.’ I call the following day to check how Steve is and arrange a day and time on which to meet the carer and social worker.

Reflection

I will now reflect on this intervention from a therapeutic and social pedagogic perspective before moving towards a conclusion. Clearly this work is undertaken in a context other than a residential children’s home. However, our children’s homes are full of young people like Steve who are hard to engage and understand and present in ways that are difficult to tolerate and survive for both the young person and their carers.

From what I can ascertain, a social pedagogue would have a meaningful relationship with this young person with a focus on working within all aspects of the young person’s lifespace. They would have a good working knowledge of child development and the impact of trauma on both neurological and emotional development. The tricky territory in this example might be the application of predominantly sociological ideas to a part-medical, part-developmental and arguably part-emotional condition or presentation like this. I’m sure the freedom to think and act creatively enhanced by social pedagogical ideas might have led to a less rigid and stuck feel to the relationship between Steve and his carer.

There is a very powerful, ‘too little, too late’ feel and undercurrent to this example, coming from Steve himself, who exuded huge amounts of hopelessness into both me and his carer. I also found myself feeling aspects of his helplessness and hopelessness that were then translated by me into strong frustration towards ‘the care system.’ Surely his encopresis must have been known about at earlier stages of his life and arguably more easily treated then?

Recent encounters with Steve and other looked after adolescents has led me to start to think through why some looked after children develop a greater capacity for self-reflection, coherent self narratives and mentalisation than others. I am particularly curious as to what role and influence carers in different placement settings can have over this.

My hunch or hypothesis is that it is the capacity of the adults caring for young people to model reflection and to think aloud in the presence of the young person about emotional experience that leads to the development of this in young people themselves. This capacity for emotional literacy is present in foster carers and residential staff and indeed in all adults caring for children in whatever context to varying degrees. It is the positive contribution to the development of this capacity in both carers and the cared for that I am most interested and I believe the jury remains out as to whether the tradition of therapeutic education and care makes the greatest contribution or, in time, the developing tradition of an English version of social or therapeutic pedagogy.

It is the idea of a form of therapeutic pedagogy that integrates the strengths of both social pedagogy and therapeutic care and education that requires further exploration and to be rooted in clinical and residential practice. Further dialogue, research and collaboration at many levels is required to test out the actual impact on young people and staff members’ experiences of these two potentially very compatible approaches.

This paper aims to give a short insight into the professional and personal development of some of these participants, who went on a further learning path and submitted assignments which were in turn assessed through ThemPra and the University of Lincoln. To establish an ongoing process of reflection and to enable them to trace their learning, it was a requirement for all course participants to keep a reflective diary. These recordings were the baseline of the assignments, illustrating how practitioners have perceived the input from the course and how they have constructed their thinking and practice from there onwards.

To structure the contributions from the assignments, they have been categorised under the three main elements that are always present in a pedagogic setting, focusing on the main elements of the situation described: the child or young person, the pedagogue, and the task.

-           Regarding the child, this would mean: What has changed for this child in their everyday life and what does this change mean for their further development?

-           Looking at the pedagogue, the main focus is on: How do professionals now reflect upon their practice, how do they make use of their learning, and how do they utilise the social pedagogic models?

-           And finally regarding the task: What is now actually seen as an educational task? How is it now approached? What impact has this change had on the children, colleagues and the overall atmosphere?

The following assignment extracts all originate from residential care professionals in Essex County Council, who ThemPra has been working with very intensively. These examples demonstrate both how social pedagogy is different as well as similar to practice, so while they may not necessarily be new to professionals they demonstrate how social pedagogy underpins best practice, affirms practitioners’ confidence and their understanding of a situation, and thereby has a positive effect on the children and young people. The excerpts were also chosen in a way that transcends residential child care - we hope that other groups of professionals will find them interesting and relevant for their practice too.

We would like to thank these course participants for what we believe are valuable insights into social pedagogic practice. And we hope they will inspire other professionals to explore the potential of social pedagogy and to critically reflect on their own practice, as these participants have done. Enjoy reading!

Sylvia Holthoff and Gabriel Eichsteller are Directors of ThemPra Social Pedagogy.

The Child / Young Person

1

The third core element[1] of working as a social pedagogue is that I should enable children to empower themselves. This involves making assessments in partnership with users, not on their behalf (Biehal, 1993). In my role as a pedagogue I feel that this element is important, as children should have a say in all aspects of their lives, especially in important decisions that involve them (Wolff and Hartig, 2007).

For example, we had a meeting at a child’s school regarding his education plan and what we were going to do to help him access education at his pace. Taking the pedagogue way of thinking, I took the child along to the meeting so that he could hear what could be done to help him and so that he could hear it first hand. At the meeting one of the professionals who attended was not happy that the child was at the meeting as she felt she couldn’t talk as freely as she would like.

Whilst I understood that it was hard for her to convey what she thought without offending the child, I felt that it also stopped her from thinking of the child as just a problem and had to make her think of him as a person, as she could see him. I found that the child got a great deal out of the meeting as, when we both discussed it afterwards to make sure he understood what had been said, he seemed very happy and instead altered the plan to suit him better.

The original plan involved a few more steps in the arrangement to get the child into school but the child decided to skip some of these steps and move straight to being at the school. I could see that the child felt empowered by this decision as he knew that no one was making him do this and that it was solely his decision. By being at the meeting he could also see how many people were prepared to help him and offer him support to achieve this goal. On reflection I was glad that I had taken the child to the meeting as it had given him the empowerment he needed to make the first steps in re-attending school.  (Reflective Diary, September 2009)

This element also focuses on the need for children to be allowed to participate in areas of their lives (NCERCC Development Pack, 2009) and their right to be able to participate (Vrouwenfelder, 2006).

2

What I have learned through my recent reflection is that if you enable the children to attempt to resolve their own conflict a solution is often found.  It might not always end in the way that you would have expected or hoped.  However, the process is important as it gives them the beginnings of developing the tools that will take them into adulthood. […] By me handing over the authority to the group to participate in [the resolution], the process was an empowering experience for all the children.

3

On first arriving at the camp all the young people (and adults) were very keen (anxious) to get settled into their cabins, and were less concerned, as a whole, about the activities available and other children arriving. They also immediately squabbled about bunks and who had the best cabin.

I also remember witnessing the same thing at [a previous] camp. Initially, and at [the previous camp], I had put this down to competitiveness mixed with anxiety, and even sought to redirect them and get them prepared for the first activity. However, on reflection I was able to consider this in terms of the Learning Zone Model[2]. I was able to respect that, by the young people ‘merely’ leaving their home to come to camp, they had already left their comfort zone, and I could consider their encroaching anxiety as a sign that they were approaching their panic zone. Therefore, I understand that their need to identify their cabin and bunk (and possibly start squabbling) were attempts to relieve their anxiety and recreate their comfort zone.

Similarly, we had brought with us several personal items for each of the kids (as is common practice for us, and me, in my private life), such a duvets and pillows and personal effects, which they were also keen to find a new home for. The importance of this is easily identifiable when considered in terms of their comfort zone as being an area of familiarity, and therefore more easily re-creatable with items of considerable familiarity. (Excerpt from reflective diary completed 19/08/09 reflecting on various events throughout the Camp based over 17-19/08/09)

The importance of one’s comfort zone is that it gives space to reflect and recover, and provides a sense of security (Thompson & Thompson 2008). Often young people who have experienced trauma may develop a reduced capacity for learning, as anxiety and fear can too quickly overpower their ability to maintain their normal pattern of behaviour and they will exhibit signs of having entered their panic zone. It is therefore important that, when offering opportunities to take risks and explore (entering their learning zone), individuals do not feel isolated and cut off from areas of comfort, such as a personally set up ‘homely’ bunk.

4

Through group meetings and active listening we have focused on finding out how the children feel and have empowered them to make decisions alongside the adults. The children were able to verbalise that mealtimes were particularly difficult for them, so together we looked at ways that would make mealtimes easier for them. Since these discussions the adults have been working alongside the children to lay the table instead of instructing them to do it; we share the task and the responsibility of the chore. In the discussions it was agreed that the food would be on table so that the whole group could be served together rather than having to queue up in the kitchen which prevented the group from eating at the same time and could be perceived as institutionalised. Children also felt that the adults often left the table regularly to answer phones or to do other tasks, so it was agreed that the adults would remain at the table until dinner was finished. Then the whole group would share the task of clearing the dinner things together.

The feedback from the children has been very positive, they feel that their views and feelings have been listened to, and this has also been reflected on how the mealtimes have changed, enabling the children to have more positive experiences of mealtimes and more quality time with the adults to help build and maintain positive relationships. The children have also expressed that they feel more valued and that their thoughts and feelings are being taken into account by the adults.

5

I now give great emphasis to using the ‘common third’[3] approach to building relationships with the young people. Seeking out opportunities via a seemingly endless scope of activities will allow for valuable bonding between two individuals or groups. By giving way too much attention to non-urgent administrative duties I was attuning myself to the office atmosphere of disillusionment. Some staff members frequently use this space to air their grievances regarding the young people and it is easy to become drawn into that negative culture.

To remedy this I decided to utilise my time more effectively and get out of my own comfort zone. Since I was no longer a key worker I made the most of building up positive relationships with all the young people. I remarketed myself as accessible and traded admin for activities with a sense of urgency! This helped tremendously towards influencing a positive atmosphere in the home, boosting my own morale and that of others. As I grew in confidence I found myself directly challenging or preventing negative practice by planning and agreeing intended outcomes of a shift with my colleagues and the young people.

6

I was quite surprised initially that he answered my question, and at first I did not understand why. Was it not a normal thing to do to ask children I work with what they expect from their relationship with me? As I continued to write, the answer I came to was: No, it wasn’t normal working practice and yet it should be.

During link sessions or just ordinary conversations I ask my key children lots of questions such as, what activities they like to do, what more could I be doing for them that they may not think I am doing for them at the moment, and lots of others. Something about that question made our relationship completely transparent and non-hierarchical, as it should be. When I initially asked him I could see he found it a strange question and yet his eyes appeared to sparkle, which is something that is rare for him. I wondered at this point what he had picked up unconsciously in his mind; although he found the question unusual he was pleased to be asked it.

This exercise appeared to have a good effect on the reciprocal relationship with my key child in allowing a more honest and open relationship to develop. In the future I will always ask this question to all young people I work with, so they do not see me as just another adult who thinks they know best about the things young people are looking for in their relationship with adults.

The Pedagogue

7

Up until now I have used reflection as a means to look at a situation that has not gone so well.  I now see reflection as a lot more holistic and consciously think about how I approach this.  I realise that to develop and grow it is also important to reflect on what goes well too.  For me this is a new concept that I hadn’t considered before.

I also have started to realise, through my reflections, that I need to take a deeper level of ownership of my actions and to question what I am feeling - to give myself the time to ask myself the question, “Why I am I feeling this and what does it mean?”  This has enabled me to question some of my responses to the children’s requests and actions.

For example, one of the children asked me to get him a flip chart out of the art cupboard.  There was a lot of activity going on around us at the time.  I responded immediately with “No, not now”.  I was able to recognise my feelings at that moment, which was agitation.  I reflected back to him that I had said “No”, but I didn’t know why I had said “No”, only that I felt agitated at this moment and could see that he also felt agitated, because I had said “No”.   I became aware that it was only a flip chart and questioned why he can’t have this.  It became apparent to me that I felt agitated as the children had a lot of items from the art cupboard and in my opinion the lounge was starting to look messy.  I thought that what was messy for me was in fact a creative activity for the children.  What I was able to do was to acknowledge my feelings and talk this through with the child.   (Excerpt from the Reflective Diary)

8

Fast-forwarding on to recent events, and once again my fourth key child, Sam[4], has no school placement. I am, however, fully committed to accommodating her needs by including her and others who are off school in a variety of tasks during the day. She is very unsettled by the idea of a new school and has been out of the educational loop for some time. During a school day Sam and I went out for some key time together, which involved a simple walk and lunch out. Being sensitive to her feelings towards school I chose not to raise the issue; however, Sam seemed settled enough raise it herself. We talked about how her trampolining classes went, and she explained what moves she could do and how she would like to continue with this. She then talked about school, as she had witnessed three young people refusing to attend this morning. I explained that consistent refusal of things like education and health appointments may result in a placement being reviewed, and that she should try and take advantage of the support that is being offered and to not let herself be influenced by the choices made by others.

I sensed we both felt comfortable chatting and therefore shared my own personal experiences of school, both positive and negative. Her response was, “Well, I’m not wearing a uniform!” I gave her a big hug and said, “We will cross this bridge when it comes to it but believe this to be a vast improvement on previously refusing to attend school whatsoever.” We then planned to celebrate by baking a cake when we got home. I intend to inform the staff team of this development at the coming meeting and request that consideration is made to plan a variety of tasks that will provide stimulus throughout the day. (Reflective Diary 10.09.09)

The opportunity presented itself to act on my initiatives and this took place during a team meeting. I had put an item of school refusal on the meeting’s agenda, and I talked to the team about when the young people refuse school their expectation is not to be given time or opportunities to discuss this in a relaxed environment. I explained the difficulties of currently having two young people without school placements and how planning needs to happen to keep them stimulated. The same should also be a made available for those not at school as a platform to engage them as per the common third pedagogy approach.

I mentioned that if the young people are continually dismissed there are consequences. Often they get more and more agitated and tend to push the boundaries by creating their own distraction of winding staff up intentionally. I highlighted a recent event which culminated in two young people being arrested. The team’s reaction was very positive, and we agreed that we need to find a new way of working and should attempt to try new methods to re engage them with school’. (Reflective Diary, 16.09.09)

Sam is now looking forward to starting secondary school and has been proudly showing off her new school uniform. For me, a valuable learning experience has taken place. Employing the technique of reflection has certainly enriched my practice and given me the confidence to convey my ideas with conviction; and, equally important, social pedagogy has helped tremendously towards re-establishing my enthusiasm. It has provided a framework within which to challenge and support events and experiences that occur within the life-space of the home. Using head, heart and hands to share this life-space holistically and therapeutically is, as I emphasised earlier, simply common sense.

9

I love the pedagogical way of reflective practice; I see it as essential to the work. Mullins (2006 p. 348) and De Janasz (p. 32) use the “Johari window” as a simple model for looking at self insight, and the reduction of hidden behaviours, through self-disclosure and through feedback from others. The “Johari Window” is the window of opportunity. In a crisis unit the young people display all kinds of behaviours, as do the staff reciprocally in their relationship with the young people. If there was more time for reflection rather that just being reactive to the young people’s behaviour … for example a child breaks a window, so what will the sanction be? Staff are missing the communication from the child and straight away resorting to a sanction.

10

The pedagogue is a practitioner. Who they are as a person plays a major part in how they fulfil their role. The Three Ps[5] plays a major part in how they then work with the young people.

The first one, private or privacy: I agreed with the statement and wrote in my diary that I agreed because I thought that one of the pedagogues’ roles was to draw out the child, not to impart information which could distract them from seeking insight into themselves into seeking insight into someone else.

Personal: this to me is the pivot of the three Ps. Reflection: asking questions such as “Where is the child at this moment in time?” “Where does the child need to go?” “How can I/we progress towards this?” “Am I providing developmental opportunities for the child?” “Am I moving too fast or too slow?” “Do I need group support to give an over view?” “Does the child need a new face who could broaden their developing skills more effectively than you?” Total transparency and honesty with self is needed. No matter how good we are at something (or how good we think we are), there may be someone else whose unique skills may be just the trigger needed.

Professional: this also is where reflection is crucial in order to remain objective. When a young person is displaying disruptive behaviour towards you or other people it allows you to key into where they are coming from and why they are acting in such a way.

11

Initially I sought to resolve these arguments and stop the bickering, laying down rules that I considered to be in the best interest of the group and also enabled staff to better maintain the supervision of the group. I later considered that, as the young people wanted to demonstrate their ownership of their cabins and were able to discuss, or argue (mostly on equal terms) what rules they wished to abide by, I backed off and allowed them to decide for themselves what they wanted to do.

(Excerpt from reflective diary completed 19/08/09 reflecting on various events throughout the camp based over 17-19/08/09)

Through this process the young people were able to develop their sense of ownership and also feel empowered to make decisions over an important part of their camp experience.

Task

12

Pedagogy has enabled me to think more critically about how I use my time when I am with the children. To really experience and share the living space with the children for me becomes ever more important. This means to be fully engaged and authentic in my relationships. One particular incident enabled me to fully appreciate the time and experience I had shared with a young girl.

I was sitting in the playroom with the other children, and we started an activity that involved someone tapping actions on a person’s back and made stories up to the actions.  There were four children and two adults involved, and we would take it in turns to be tapped and be the person who tapped.  This resulted in a lot of laughs and enthusiasm to continue with each other.  Gradually the rest of the group began to leave the playroom, leaving the young girl and myself.  We both were still experiencing the excitement of the previous game.  We were looking at each other and she stood up and made a silly noise and waved her hands about.  I immediately stood up and did the same thing.  She laughed and said, “Copy me”, which I did, and then I said, “Copy me”, which she did.

This went on until her bedtime, and each time we would fall down together on the sofa laughing uncontrollably.  As she was going up to bed she called out, “That was good; it has made me so happy; I’m going to go to bed happy tonight”.  I remained on the sofa and felt a warm glow inside.  I felt happy, and this was compounded when I heard what she had said.  (Reflective Diary excerpt)

13

Before the team undertook the [social pedagogy] training the term ‘education’ related more to an academic sense of the word. The training has helped us to look at the overall [meaning] of the word and the importance of educating the children in all aspects of life.

14

From viewing this in a social pedagogy way I have now learnt that what we were doing was not conducive or at all beneficial to the child. This was also confirmed when the child still refused to attend school. By boring the children we were not giving them any opportunity to want to learn for themselves or offering them a situation in which they could help themselves - and in actual fact [this] was putting them further into their panic zone, making them feel that there were only two sides: school, which they hate, or being bored, sat in a corridor at home. By giving the child worksheets to complete, this was not creating a situation where it was possible for them to learn, and in many instances the child would rather rip up the worksheets rather than complete them.

By taking a pedagogic stance with this situation I found that the child would respond more by doing things that relaxed them and that when they were in this space they were taking more in and actually learning. For example, by taking the child to the local shops to buy ingredients for a cooking exercise, they were doing maths and learning life skills without even realising.

When working with a child who is refusing to attend school I now question myself about what it is I should give them to work from and explore other situations I can create that may give them more opportunity to learn. I also reflect more on how they must feel and how their refusing to attend school is telling us something rather than just them being defiant.

For example, one of the children refused to get out of bed and get ready for school. Rather than force him or give him ultimatums about what would happen if he did not get up, I left him in bed and dealt with getting the other children off to school. There is a lot of chaos that goes on in the morning, and I thought that by leaving him in bed it would stop the situation from affecting the other children and possibly stop them from going to school as well. I also thought that the extra chaos may also have a detrimental effect on the child, who was already worried about going to school.

I kept on checking on the boy, however, and gave him his uniform, so that he knew that he was not forgotten and that he could get up and get ready if he wished. Once the children had gone to school I went back up to the boys’ bedroom and chatted to him about why he did not want to go to school. I recognised that his reasons for not going made me feel agitated, and for personal reasons I felt that I needed to get this child to school. I became aware that the child may be telling me things he thought I wanted to hear to cover up his true angst about school and instead asked him further questions about what he didn’t like about school.

From our conversation I understood that the child was worried about a certain subject and instead offered to help him with this. The child got up, and when he was ready we started to read through his textbook. The child said he did not want to sit in the classroom within our home, and I could see that this was causing him to become agitated, so I instead offered for us to sit outside and look through it. What I was able to do was recognise my fears about the child not attending school and allow him the opportunity to want to learn. (Reflective Diary, September 2009)

Notes

[1]           Referring to the Diamond Model by ThemPra (see www.thempra.org.uk/concepts_diamond.htm).

2           Senninger proposes that each person has a comfort zone, a learning zone, and a panic zone. See www.thempra.org.uk/concepts_lzm.htm for more details.

3           Further details about the Common Third are available on www.thempra.org.uk/concepts_c3.htm.

4           Name changed for reasons of confidentiality.

5           The Three Ps is a Danish concept - further information is available on www.thempra.org.uk/concepts_3p.htm.

Although I have a more eclectic taste in radio listening than my father, Saturday morning on Radio 4 is a real gem. On a recent Saturday returning from a shopping trip, I turned the radio on and listened to From our own Correspondent. As usual, this was fascinating, with one of the journalists talking about a visit to an ice cream parlour which holds the world record for the number of flavours. If you are interested, the world record is 860 flavours and the record is held by a place in Venezuela[i]. The flavours range from the more usual traditional fruit and chocolate flavours to chilli ice cream and to my mind the worst of all flavours - macaroni cheese ice cream.

Haiti - Immediate and Long-Term Problems

The media provide us with a window to the world, albeit this picture is often sanitised and subjective. The recent disaster in Haiti has been given huge prominence, and rightly so. It pricks our consciences and we all feel appalled and powerless to respond to a place that few of us know much about, though we now know it is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and one of the unluckiest countries on the planet. The devastation inflicted on the island of Haiti will effect the population for years to come and will leave lasting scars, scars that are not merely physical but emotional and psychological; problems that build on a political history of colonial occupation, dictatorship, floods and grinding poverty for the majority of the population.

We look on with horror at the current catastrophe but forget that most significantly its problems are more intractable, stemming from its relationships with many western countries (including France, the United States and the United Kingdom) and the loans and trade regulations we put in place, because, as the sociologist A.G Frank once said, “…contemporary underdevelopment is in large part the historical product of past and continuing …”[ii] relationships with western industrial countries. As the crisis dies down, the journalists will pack their bags and move on to another country. The media then move their collective lens onto another disaster. Yet we know that the problems remain because short-term disaster relief is not the same as long-term development.

And in our Back yard too

If we return to these shores, we can see a country which is struggling to come out of recession, leading many to question both the make-up and the balance of the U.K. economy.  Although one of the wealthiest countries in the world, there remain significant levels of poverty and high rates of inequality in wealth, education and health, inequalities that have long-term consequences for our collective well-being and particularly for our young people.

Despite the fact that the economy may be recovering, we know this is going to be a long slow process and it is the young people who are being hit the hardest, with growing numbers of them not in employment, education or training. In a recent report published by the Princes Trust they found that the latter group “…are less happy and confident in all aspects of life than those in work, education or training”. As Professor David G. Blanchflower says in the Foreword, “Joblessness has a knock-on effect on a young person’s self-esteem, their emotional stability and overall wellbeing. The longer the period they are unemployed for, the more likely they are to experience this psychological scarring. And more often than not, these are permanent scars - not temporary blemishes”[iii].

Poverty, unemployment and inequality need to be attacked on a number of different levels; if they aren’t, we can potentially lose a generation.  In a number of communities there are people whose problems can be traced back to the recession of the 1980s and whose life chances are much worse than those of the majority. As the bankers salivate about their bonuses and the majority of us who are in work get on with our lives, we are in danger of ignoring some significant problems that are developing.

Wake up. Action Needed.

The recession in my view has been a wake-up call that provides us with an opportunity to develop our communities in a more sustainable and equitable way, involving young people both in the development of their own careers and their communities. All political parties emphasise localism, so what will this mean in practice? And what of significance are they going to do? Rhetoric is one thing; action is quite another.

Losing Power

On reflection it occurred to me that I might use the short stay as a basis for entering into some of the experiences and feelings of a child or young person living away from home. It’s not that I haven’t tried to empathise with such children for most of my life: now I was united with them, in that power over my life had been temporarily handed over to others.

And that is the first reflection: I had a room in a private hospital paid for by the NHS as a way of guaranteeing an operation that had originally been scheduled for a year ago.  In many ways it was not unlike a hotel room: bed, armchair, the dominating and inescapable television screen, and a bathroom en suite.  And the room service was rather like that in a hotel: polite and tidy.  So why, as I sat in this room and rested on the bed, was my experience so different,?   Simply and solely, that I had handed over my well-being to others.  My life was now in their hands.

Whatever choices I had, and there were several throughout my short stay, the one choice that was not open to me, was that of leaving.  It was the powerlessness that struck me forcibly. Others would take decisions about me, monitor me, and talk about me as professionals.  No amount of involvement in reviews or discussions with the professionals concerned could disguise the stark truth that I was the object of their treatment and care.

Mission Unimportant?

Next, I was surprised that although it hung prominently in the corridor en route for my room, I was not interested in the Mission Statement of the hospital.  Up until my patient status I had always read such statements thoroughly, scrutinising each phrase and using them as a basis for evaluating what I saw going on.

You might therefore expect that now I was patient I was likely to be even more interested and eagle-eyed!  So why not?  I guess that now the boot was on the other foot policy statements did not count for much: the only thing that mattered was what happened in practice.  And this helped me to see that Vision and Mission Statements are likely to mean a lot more to the professionals and providers than to those they are employed to help.

Carrying the Can

Third, I soon wished that there were such a thing as a matron whom I knew personally: someone who was ultimately responsible for everything that went on and with whom I could speak.  It was not that anything exceptional occurred, or that I had issues of huge import to share. Rather that my room was invaded (after polite knocks, of course) by a sequence of professionals each with her or his own specific tasks, and that it would have been good once a day to speak with someone about how the whole package added up, and to ask questions that did not fall within the brief (or contracts) of any of the individual players.

The way life is, there is always custard that slips between the prongs of the fork.  Let me give a small and intentionally simple and practical example.  Due to regular trips to the bathroom after my operation the waste bin became filled with tissues and gauzes during the night.  It needed emptying.  The night nurse informed me that this would happen in the morning: so in the meantime I had to perch additional materials carefully on top of the lid.  In the morning I mentioned this to the new team of nurses.  They informed me that it was something that the cleaners would take care of.  In the event it was not emptied during my stay by anyone.

It made me wonder how often children and young people who are looked after are told that someone else holds responsibility for a particular task, and that in time the child discovers that the status quo will have to be accepted.  (For the record, my guess is that a matron would have taken a lively interest in this potential risk and health hazard, but for the purposes of this piece that is beside the point.)

Whatever their new nomenclature (Director of Nursing etc.) there was no one whose responsibilities were as comprehensive or corresponded with those of a traditional matron.  And I wondered whether, with the demise of matrons in both residential care and hospitals, we had lost something much more important than we have realised.  (I am aware that you may read this as a nostalgic longing for a bygone age.)

Relationships

This brings me to the consultant who referred me to the hospital and performed my operation.  I had known him for three or more years, unlike any of the other staff, and so most matters were shared with him.  He came to see me on three occasions over the weekend, which indicated genuine commitment to my well-being.  He was relaxed and informative and, as providence would have it, had trained at the same hospital as my wife.  Not surprisingly we talked of the old days at the teaching hospital and the subject of matrons came up: the abiding myth that everyone was in fear of the matron, consultants included, was alive and kicking!

A final point: as one who uses the distinction between I-Thou and I-It relationships as foundational in my life and work (the terms were coined by Martin Buber), it was pretty obvious that those who looked after me related to me predominantly in one or other of these ways.  There was a sister who came in, busy and unsmiling, to check that all regular monitoring had been done. She achieved her task, but made me feel like a cog in a machine, and perhaps she did too.  At the other extreme was a night nurse who cared for me tenderly and with whom I the longest and deepest conversation about life, the universe and everything!

What is striking about relationships categorised in this way is that the quality of the relationship is not determined or prescribed by the nature of the role or task.  And this reminded me that so often as I read the life stories of young people in the care system, it was someone like a cook or gardener, to whom they related most humanly, rather than the key worker, social worker, therapist or whoever.

I will leave it at that, because the effects of the anaesthetic haven’t fully worn off and I might already have left readers bemused with my ramblings.  All the same, a brief, seemingly effective, and largely pleasant hospital experience has opened my eyes to aspects of the nature of residential care in a new way.  Could I have acquired similar insights by reading or role-play, or is it necessary to sit where others sit, before we really begin to understand them?  However good the literature or training, I suspect it is the latter.

Key Factors

In reading the N.M.S for Fostering it is important to bear in mind several factors. First the reason why children are in foster care. The Children Act 1989 clearly highlights this reason as being that they have experienced “significant harm” at the hands of those who should be caring for them.  Mostly children find themselves in the care system after some emergency, even though the family may be known to Children’s Services. There then follow certain procedures which ensure that roles are clearly defined and  that children’s rights are safeguarded. The child’s Social Worker has a key role in planning for the child and the reviewing system ensures that children do not drift and that safeguards are maintained.

The second point to consider is the whole gamut of research around developing resilience and overcoming attachment trauma in children. Gilligan and others highlight that this is best served by developing a normal family life in the foster home. This includes making links and friendships by sharing activities and developing relationships in the foster carers’ world with neighbours, local schools and family and friends. Added to this is the current thinking around moving residential care toward the European model of care based on social pedagogy and a less confrontative approach in the carers’ relationship with the child.

The third area to consider is the demographic of the average foster carer. Foster carers are volunteers. They are recruited from the general population but there is a preponderance of foster carers from working and lower middle class families. They tend to live in the average three-bedroom semi-detached home. They are usually engaged in full-time employment and may have children of their own. It is a 365-day task. It is a round-the-clock task. If the carer is ill, then foster care still goes on. If the foster carer suffers bereavement or the washing machine packs in, then foster carer still goes on. The normal stresses of everyday life have to be coped with in the caring environment.

Confrontation, Risks and Lack of Realism

Bearing all of these things in mind, it would seem odd therefore that the new N.M.S. Standards seem to adopt a very confrontational approach to care, where roles are blurred and expectations are prescribed in such detail. Take, for example 2.26 and 2.27 of N.M.S. This prescribes that, where there has been a “physical intervention”, the child be examined by a Registered Nurse. Does this mean that, if a foster carer with child is crossing a busy road and pulls the child back from an approaching car, the child must be medically examined? I am also quite bemused by 2.31 which seems to require that foster carers involve the police in their normal day-to-day running of their family life. What normal family would also carry out a “risk assessment” before taking a child on a shopping trip as in 3.14?

As with all children, there is a real potential for harm with uncensored internet and mobile phone use. We would expect any good parent to be able to restrict such use at times. Children in care are often more vulnerable than most. It is unbelievable, therefore, that the standards do not recognise this and advocate that the use of these forms of communication is facilitated and that they should not be censored, listened to or read.

Individual plans for contact with family members will be governed by the courts. Why then do the N.M.S. advocate that family members should be able to visit children in the foster carer’s own home unrestricted and in private? This is not only potentially damaging to the abused children but also may place the foster carer at considerable risk. The ignorance about family life is further compounded by the dictum 10.8 that, if a child wishes to change bedrooms, this be given urgent consideration.  In a normal family in a three-bedroom or even two-bedroom house such a consideration becomes a major event and the adults need to balance the needs of all family members.

In an emergency the likelihood of having placement choice is extremely rare (Section15), bearing in mind the need to place a child within his own community where school can be maintained and access to his old friends. It is also quite unusual to be able to provide “all background information”; though that be a noble ideal the need to remove a child from his current environment may be paramount.

Confused - and Worrying

In general it seems that the new N.M.S. for fostering are often confused. They put a lot of onus on the foster carer to make arrangements and keep records,  some which are clearly the duty of the child’s Social Worker. These regulations do not seem to acknowledge normal family life but rather seek to turn loving families into surrogate institutions. Of course, these are only draft recommendations but the fact that they could have been so conceived is worrying in the extreme.

Victorian Values

In Victorian times in Western societies, women and children were considered to be the possessions of their male spouses in marriage, and this was embodied in the laws following separation where they were classified as `goods and chattels’, to be disposed of as the male spouse chose. Such a situation still applies today in many countries around the world and is mainly reinforced by religions.

Of course in those times it was extremely difficult for a woman to escape from an unhappy marriage as the whole of society was opposed to marriage break-up, particularly the churches and priests who brought great pressure on women who left their husbands to return to them, no matter what they may have done.  Women leaving a marriage were ostracised by society and even by their own families, who often took the view, “You’ve made your bed, so lie on it!” Very few women were employed in those times, so they had few means of self support and no government assistance in supporting themselves and their children if they left the marriage. Divorce laws were extremely restricted and relief from an unhappy marriage was mainly available only where there could be proven grounds of adultery.

Victorian times could rightly be called the `Golden Age of Patriarchalism’, where males dominated and controlled every aspect of society and particularly their families. Their home was their castle in law and all within it were under their control. Most societies in the world had been patriarchies for two thousand years with the advent of religions based around a male figurehead and with texts which placed females in a subservient, suppressed, and often reviled role.

Change

Some changes were made when women were granted the vote in the early part of the twentieth century due to the courage and extreme sufferings of small numbers of women around the world who campaigned for women’s rights. But progress was still extremely slow and it was the Second World War which gave women’s rights an unexpected boost when women were employed in factories and farms to replace the men who had gone to fight in that War. There was something of a setback after the war when the men returned and women had to give up their jobs to the men but even so, women were gradually able to get jobs in many forms of work and even the professions and to thereby attain a measure of financial independence which is essential to a mother and children after marital break-up.

But still there were huge hurdles to be jumped as finance companies and banks were not willing to grant loans to women to purchase properties or other household goods, so separation from an unhappy marriage was still a quantum leap into the unknown with a multitude of risks and condemnations for any woman who contemplated such a step.

In the 1960s and 1970s laws regarding the custody and contact with children began to favour women, as it was looked on as natural that mothers were the obvious primary carers of children and men were required to make maintenance payments for the upkeep of their children after separation.

Reaction

But in this was the seeds of the patriarchal reactionary movement, now commonly called the Father’s Rights Movement.

Many men failed or refused to pay maintenance for their children from spite or revenge or because they had created a second family and could not afford to do so, even after being ordered by Courts. The Courts were loath to enforce such Orders and because so many children were having to be maintained from taxation, this eventually led to the setting up of Child Support Agencies, which took a more strident view of child maintenance payments and enforced the provisions vigorously. Many fathers took their own lives when they could not meet payments or were deeply offended that their power and control was so severely compromised and they were thwarted in their attempts to retain control.

Also the expansion of methods of contraception and abortion and the liberalisation of laws on abortion gave women control over whether, or not, to have children, which had largely been a male prerogative, and encouraged by some religions as an increased population expanded the influence of those religions. Women’s control over their own bodies - and whether or not to reproduce - has been a huge threat and loss to the patriarchists and to oppressive religions.

Some regard was given to children’s rights when the United Nations created a Charter of Children’s Rights in 1959 but it took over 30 years before Western nations ratified the Charter/Convention (the U.S.A. has still not done so and although the Australian Federal Government has ratified the Convention, the individual States and Territories have refused to do so) and the Federal government has implemented very little of the Convention’s contents in law and custom.

In effect, children are still treated as the `goods and chattels’ of the parents under law and in effect they have no human rights in Australia, except those which the parents or Courts decide they may have.

Changes in Law

Of course this emancipation of women and children fed the patriarchal reactionary movement and they pressed for changes to the Family Law Acts based on spurious arguments that men could be as good as mothers as primary caregivers. But the real issue was about reactionary male dominance and power and control over women and children, and that they saw the liberalisation of laws in favour of women as eroding this position.

So the introduction of Family Laws and amendments to existing laws swung the pendulum back in favour of the patriarchists, with fathers’ rights taking dominance and enforced by a male dominated judiciary and legal profession, ably supported by the medical profession in the form of psychologists and psychiatrists prepared to argue the cause for fathers’ rights and to declare to Courts the unscientific theories of PSA or to diagnose mothers as having personality disorders. These were all ploys in a judicial arena to bring control and power over women and children, back to the patriarchists.

However the law of unintended consequences swung into action and the Family Law became a charter of rights for child sex abusers, paedophiles, and those seeking to evade child maintenance. Fathers’ rights became predominant and paramount within the law and have been enforced as such by the Family Courts.  Fathers with records of domestic violence, child abuse, criminal records, mental illnesses, and drug and alcohol addictions, have been able to use the law and the Courts to gain their own ends. This has been done with the collusion and assistance of lawyers, Court Reporters, and `hired gun’ experts such as psychologists and psychiatrists.

Using the Law

Fathers who have never taken any interest whatsoever in their children either during the marriage or partnership, or thereafter have suddenly decided to use the laws favouring them to apply for contact with the children, not because they care about their child but as a means of evading child support, or fathers seeking revenge for being rejected, and driven by spite, have sought contact as a means of further harassing and abusing their former spouses or partners as a mean of control and dominance over them.

If mothers have raised reasonable objections because of the fathers’ record of violence, criminal conduct, mental illness, or drug addiction and have opposed contact, they have been labelled and treated as ‘implacably hostile’ by Courts and have been punished by imprisonment, orders to pay all costs, and worst of all, by the removal from their care of their children, who are placed with the abusers. Courts are not places where fairness, truth, and justice have any meaning or application, only places where the law is upheld in favour of individual rights, usually the fathers’. Legal strategies, cunning, and deception are what win Court cases and not what is just and right in the name of children.

Children’s Rights Ignored

Only a token regard is given in the law to children’s rights and particularly their rights to have their wishes and feelings taken into account in decision-making processes, and to be safeguarded and protected from abuse and exploitation. Children have suffered many forms of abuse and have even lost their lives as a direct consequence of Family Law provisions and its implementation in Courts. Some have become `ping-pong’ children, shuttled between homes and environments on a week-about basis simply to satisfy parents’ wishes and rights, while others have been forced to live in strange surroundings and communities, or have to travel huge distances and for several hours, simply to afford a parent to enforce their right to contact.

Any changes and reforms which may come from the current reviews of the Family Law Act and its implementation in Courts are sadly unlikely to improve the situation for children unless such laws are based on the needs, wishes, and rights of the children and the children are removed from being mere ‘goods and chattels’.

At Little Einstein’s Kindergarten, we find storytelling entertains, enchants and on occasions even soothes, but this ancient form of communication which has survived from generation to generation, we believe, delivers much more than that: it equips young children with gifts for life.

As a nursery manager, I am responsible for providing the children in my care with educational and social activities which stimulate them emotionally and mentally, as well as physically, and I believe storytelling sits in all three of those important areas of a child’s development. Reading aloud, for example, helps children learn the art of listening at an age when they don’t tend to have this skill and engages their emotions. Encouraging children to share their own stories helps improve their confidence, as well as their vocabulary and motor skills.

Storytelling needs to take place in a relaxed, comfortable and cosy atmosphere where children can engage fully with the story. Stories need to be fun, and questions and discussion about favourite parts of the story which will help the children to build links between the written and spoken language. Linking interesting stories with relevant family occasions or key milestones in one’s lifetime also helps children to recognise different social contexts which are essential to their learning.

Props and visual aids along with stories which have elements of repetition will accommodate children with additional support needs. For these children, participating in the art of storytelling gives them the freedom to be creative, and we find is particularly effective when combined with activities which engage different areas of the brain such as dancing, music, or arts and crafts.

The way you tell a story creates a unique version of the story in the child’s mind, usually with pictures first. As we all know, young children will happily listen to a story again and again. Once they have developed their understanding of the story, and grapple with this idea of whether a story is ‘true’ or not, only then they will then start to focus on the words. All of these stages prompt key learning points, including recognition skills.

For example, even if children have had few experiences of storytelling they will recognise popular introductions or statements such as “Fee fie foe fum…” or “Once upon a time”. This knowledge helps to empower children and create a bond between them and the storyteller which evokes positive emotions. It is this sense of sharing - sharing of words, meanings and emotions, which is at the heart of storytelling.

At Little Einstein’s Kindergarten, which has seven nurseries throughout Scotland, storytelling is a much loved pastime, but it is also a very powerful tool that we use for embedding key messages which will support a child’s learning and education.

Little Einstein’s Ten Top Tips for Successful Storytelling

• Find a book that interests you - if you are not captured by the story then why would you listeners be?

• Read the text over to yourself several times to familiarise yourself with the text.

• Visualise the characters and their intentions, what kind of voices they might have, how the plot evolves and what emotions this provokes.

• Make notes to yourself about the story and what images and emotions it provokes.

• Practise your storytelling by finding a quiet, comfortable space and reading the book aloud to yourself. Experiment with how you can bring the story to life for your listeners.

• Find somewhere cosy where the children will feel engaged and start clearly, making sure you have their attention.

• Tell the story in your own words - don’t worry if you make mistakes -storytelling by its nature is subject to interpretation and improvisation.

• Alter the rhythm of your voice and bring your emotions into play. Keep a visual image of the unfolding story in your head so that you can deliver the storytelling with conviction.

• Finish strongly - create an appetite for more.

• ‘Story of the week’ helps to build repetition and create an interest in early literacy and reading skills.
  

Emma Patterson is Nursery Manager at Little Einstein’s Nursery.

Admiral Boscawen was so famous that a battleship was named after him, the HMS Boscawen, and naturally, as he had been a figurehead in the navy, the ship named after him had him as the figurehead.

It was in 1874 that this ship - its fighting days over - was used as a training ship for young offenders, to replace the HMS Wellesley, the original reformatory ship allocated in 1868. The name Wellesley, however, was retained for the Nautical School when the Boscawen was taken on.

In 1914, as with many of the old reformatory ships, the Wellesley was gutted by fire.

Following some temporary quartering, the school was eventually re-sited onshore at an old submarine shore base at Blyth in Northumberland. Admiral Boscawen’s figurehead was retained as a memory of the link with the sea and was placed at the front of the school.

In 1933, following the Children Act, the establishment became an approved school.

Following the 1969 Act, like other approved schools, Wellesley Nautical School became a community home, and it lost its nautical associations. During this period the figurehead had rotted beyond repair and was eventually replaced by a replica in 1991. Wellesley was finally closed down by Sunderland Council in 2006, and Admiral Boscawen’s proud figurehead then suffered some years of neglect, having been vandalised and then stored in a transport yard in Blyth.

The latest news, though, is that the figurehead has been restored and has been presented to Ashington Sea Cadets as their figurehead at their base, T.S. Tenacity.

If you have been watching Dan Snow’s television series about the history of the Royal Navy, you will have heard him mention Admiral Boscawen, and you will be aware of the proud tradition of which the Ashington Sea Cadets are part.

So this story has a happy ending, but there is an important footnote. The men who put the colour back in Admiral Boscawen’s cheeks all had connections with Wellesley Nautical School themselves, mostly as boys who had been sent there by the Courts in the 1950s and 60s. They have since built themselves a wide variety of successful careers, but they are still proud to associate themselves with the old school. The fact that they put their energies into this task is a retrospective credit to the work of the School. Admiral Boscawen will no doubt be happy about it too.

Our picture shows from left to right, Dr Michael Hendryk Majer and George Hale (ex-Wellesley), Dennis Roe (ex-Wellesley) and Vic Clarke (ex-Wellesley). Mike, George and Dennis did the bulk of the work in restoring the figurehead. Vic and Graham Corkhill (not pictured) organised donations and logistics. Congratulations to the team.

Nuwangi Munasinghe

I hope in ten years time the hole in the ozone is gone and the planet will still be there.
I think our ordinary utensils are going to change, like robots will do every thing.
I look forward to the fun rides people will make.
I am afraid that there will never be another 10 years because every one will die.
People will realise we have to help nature grow instead of destroying it.
Help nature!!!
We must help nature!!!

Sarah

In ten years’ time I hope the world will be a happy place.
How do I think it’s going to change? Well, I think that we will have more inventions.
What am I looking forward to? Well I’m looking forward to riding a red car.
What am I afraid of in the next ten years? I’m afraid war just might come back!!!
In the next ten years I hope that I’ll be a singer, one just like Pink. (She’s my idol.)
What do I want to say to people in power? I would say give one million dollars to me!! What would make all the poor people unpoor {and have a big house made of jelly}.     From Sarah:)

Brett

In ten years I hope the world will be a peaceful planet. All the kids that have no homes or anything will be wealthy & healthy. All the bad people turn good. More libraries will open. Africa will blow up the United Kingdom except for Nandos and Legoland. Jesus will come back down. Bob will take over Earth. Chocolate will fall from the sky. The end.

Violet

Here is what I think about the future; I hope the world in ten years’ time will be more natural and more technical at the same time. And I think for the poor people it can change by having special day for picking up.

Thomas Cairnes

Here is what I think will happen in 2020. I hope the world will have lots of food to eat so that the people in poor countries like Africa don’t starve.

Ben Jackiln

I think the world would be very exciting in 2020.
I think the world is going to change in a way of good and bad.
I’m looking forward to flying cars.
I’m afraid that the world is going to end.
I hope the world will NOT end.
I’d say to the people in power: Prevent the world from going to end.
I’d send out search teams for werewolves and other mythical creatures.

It reminded us of a crisis many years ago, when a delegation of staff from a children’s home came to the Civic Centre to demand that a difficult girl should be removed forthwith from the home, or they were all going to walk out. After an hour and a half’s discussion, we had identified twenty-three precipitating factors which had led to the crisis, and in differing ways, a lot of us were responsible - the girl’s social worker, the school, senior departmental managers and the staff themselves. Often the failings were well-intentioned sins of omission, rather than commission, for example when the staff covered up for the girl when her behaviour problems started.

We are happy to say that in the end the staff agreed to carry on and the girl remained in the home some time before leaving on a planned basis for another placement. The important message, though, is that all of us are responsible - to differing degrees and in different ways, but responsible nonetheless. Someone who reads a memorandum, spots an issue of concern but fails to follow it up may be the last person in the system who could have remedied a problem before it caused damage.

In many of the major crises there can be dozens of people who have played some sort of role before the problems had an impact. Not all of them are culpable. In some cases it may be a well-intentioned policy which should not have been applied. Or it may be the effect of cuts, or of staff shortages, or of the confusion created by re-organisations. Or it may be the impact of national policies or changes in the law.

Or the economy. Where a community is well off, people may or may not be happier, but they have the resources to resolve many of their social problems, and there is a reduced demand for local government intervention. With the closure of the pits, Doncaster suffered serious hardship some years back, and the old mining communities became run down. In consequence, the burden for Doncaster Social Services Department will have increased when the local economy was weaker, and the Government system for allocating resources did not sufficiently recognise the needs of authorities such as Doncaster. The Council is working hard - and successfully - to rebuild the local economy, which should help Doncaster children years from now.

Whether as people in positions of influence, or as citizens or as child care professionals, we all carry responsibility, and while we must learn from tragedies we should beware of being too ready to cast stones.

Swine flu causes mild symptoms in most people, generally lasting for about a week, but, there are particularly high hospital admission rates in children under-five and a higher proportion of this age group are admitted to intensive care.
Myth:              The vaccine hasn’t been properly tested and isn’t safe for children aged over six months and under five years.

The vaccines have been licensed for use in children over the age of six months by the European authorities and would not have been if they were considered unsafe.

Scientific evidence from trials suggest the risk of a serious reaction is extremely small - and far outweighed by the risk of a child under the age of five becoming seriously ill from the swine flu virus itself.
Myth:              The vaccine isn’t safe for my child as it contains mercury.

Pandemrix contains very small quantities of a preservative called thiomersal that contains mercury, which has been used in vaccines for over 60 years to prevent contamination and keep them safe.

The World Health Organization and UK Commission on Human Medicine have found no evidence of health risks linked to thiomersal, including to children aged over six months.
Myth:              The vaccine isn’t safe for children who have an egg allergy.

There are two versions of the swine flu vaccine, one of which - Celvapan by Baxter - has been created without the use of hens’ eggs, so that it is safe for children with a severe allergic reaction to egg products.
Myth:              The vaccine will give my child swine flu.

The vaccine does not carry a ‘live’ virus, so it cannot give swine flu to the child being vaccinated. Some children may experience mild symptoms like fever, headache and muscle aches as their immune system responds to the vaccine, but this is not flu and will usually disappear in one or two days without treatment.
Myth:              My child isn’t six months old yet, but I should get them vaccinated anyway.

The vaccine is not being offered to babies under six months old as there is insufficient evidence about the immune responses in children of this age, and studies are complicated because they are having many other vaccines at that time.
Myth:              There’s no need for my child aged over six months and under five to get the vaccine if I think they’ve already had swine flu.

Unless a case of swine flu has been confirmed by a laboratory test, people cannot be certain that their child has had the disease, or that they will be protected if the virus mutates.  Parents of those aged over six months and under five years are therefore recommended to have their child vaccinated unless they have had a positive test for swine flu - if a test didn’t confirm swine flu, and they did actually have it, being vaccinated won’t do them any harm.
Myth:              If a child has had the seasonal flu jab, they don’t need the swine flu vaccine.

The seasonal flu vaccination will not protect against swine flu.  All children aged over six months in the at-risk group for the seasonal flu jab should also get the swine flu vaccine to ensure they are protected against both swine flu and the other flu strains in circulation.
Myth:              Children need to stay at home after receiving the vaccine.

Those receiving the vaccination can return to their normal routine straight after the jab or in between doses if two are required.  As the vaccines do not contain a live virus they do not make a child infectious.
Myth:              If a child aged over six months and under five years doesn’t usually catch the flu, they won’t catch swine flu.

Swine flu is caused by a new strain of the influenza virus called H1N1.  Because it is a new strain of flu virus, no child aged over six months and under five years has immunity to it and could be at risk of catching and spreading it.
Note               This article is similar to one we published two months ago which contained advice for adults.

2.    The vaccine uses an inactivated form of the virus so it cannot give your child swine flu.  It works by tricking the immune system into thinking it has been infected with the swine flu virus so that it creates antibodies against it.

3.    All children over six months and under five years are being called for the swine flu vaccine. There are particularly high hospital admission rates in under fives.

4.    All other children over the age of five years who have long term health conditions which may weaken their immune system or make them more susceptible to complications from swine flu are also being called for vaccination.

5.    At-risk groups include children with chronic respiratory, heart, kidney and liver disease, chronic neurological disease, or diabetes requiring insulin or oral hypoglycaemic drugs.  Those who live with children whose immune systems are compromised by a disease or treatment for a disease, such as cancer patients or those with HIV/AIDS are also being offered the vaccination.

6.    The vaccine is not being offered to babies under six months old as there is insufficient evidence about the immune responses in children of this age, and studies are complicated because they have many other vaccines at that time.

7.    Possible complications from swine flu are pneumonia (an infection of the lungs), difficulty breathing and, in the very worst cases, it may even result in death.  The common side effects of the vaccine are a sore arm, fatigue, headache or fever.

8.    You can only be certain your child has had swine flu if it was confirmed by a laboratory test. Otherwise, they may have had normal seasonal flu or something else. Unless you know for sure that your child aged over six months and under five years has had swine flu, or if they are older and in one of the at-risk groups, you should have them vaccinated.

9.    The seasonal flu vaccination will not protect against swine flu.  All children over the age of six months in the at-risk group for the seasonal flu jab should also get the swine flu vaccine to ensure they are protected against both swine flu and the other flu strains in circulation.

10. If you have a child over six months and under five, you will be contacted by your GP inviting you to go to an immunisation clinic or make an appointment at their surgery - either by letter or in some instances by text or phone.

The swine flu pandemic is being closely monitored by the Department of Health. You can sign up for email alerts on the latest here: www.nhs.uk, or visit www.direct.gov.uk/swineflu for further information.

We have quite a variety of material in the rest of the magazine. There is the grandmother’s angle on the Adoption Story. There is a powerful piece by Charles Pragnell, where he points out the lack of children’s rights in Court processes.

Keith White writes of an educational success story in In Residence. A.J. Stone’s novel fills out the picture of life in a children’s home during holiday-time. Valerie Jackson wants to start a discussion on the establishment of a new children’s home.

Gabriel Eichsteller and Sylvia Holthoff report on the launch of the Social Pedagogy Development Network. We have two health items on puppy-fat and swine flu vaccination respectively, and advice to parents about choosing play settings. Anton Tobé reports on the recent FICE meeting in Bulgaria.

Robert Shaw’s two Key Texts focus on adoption with works by Tizard and Wiener. We advertise the contents of the lates issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal, and as usual we give our own angle on things in News Views. We also have one Book Review about kids’ letters to President Obama.

And, of course, the first issue of Children Webmag came out ten years ago this month, so in the Editorial we look back and look forwards.

A lot can happen in a decade, which is why we asked children and young people what they hoped or feared would happen over the next ten years. The Young Vision 2020 section of this issue carries a variety of fascinating responses, indicating a lot of concerns about the state of the world, but also great hope for the future.

They reflect the changes which have taken place during the last ten years. Climate change was not taken as seriously in 2000. The internet and other electronic devices have changed patterns of communication, the accessibility of information, the use of leisure time and, sadly, the way people bully and abuse children.

Some things do not change as fast. Human nature is much the same. The young people have written about their hopes and fears, often stating that they do not anticipate fundamental change. The values and much of the knowledge and many of the skills required by people who work with children and young people have not changed. The reasons why Children Webmag was set up remain as before.

In our first Editorial we said, “Learning about working with children and young people is not a matter of sitting at the feet of a guru and listening to the pearls of wisdom. It is a matter of thinking for oneself, becoming involved in the debate, sharing the conclusions and ensuring that the theories which emerge can be put into practice. Practice needs to be underpinned by theory, but theory must be pragmatic and workable. A web magazine allows anyone with a computer to join in the debate, to help to refine ideas.”

That remains true, and we are still keen to encourage debate among professionals, among parents, and among children and young people, so that we can help to ensure the best quality of child care possible. This issue is typical of the range of issues which our writers have raised - some practical or informative, some radical and challenging. Since January 2000 we have published a hundred and twenty issues. We have lost count of the number of articles, but they are there in the back numbers and they are full of ideas.

But we are not just looking back to the last ten years. There are still plenty of issues to tackle ahead, and plenty of ideas for coping with them. And running through a lot of the articles you will see the thread of hope for the future - in the contributions of the children and young people, in the article on social pedagogy, in Keith White’s piece, in Valerie Jackson’s project, in the review of the letters to President Obama. Hope keeps us going, inspires us, encourages us to start again.

A New Year is a good time to have resolutions and we have great hopes for the next ten years. Why not join in, and add your ideas? The next issue is on training; if you have views, send them in.

Click here if you’d like to read our first Editorial, and check whether we have fulfilled our aims and hopes.

Concern about the environment has clearly spread round the world. It is not long back in human history that it took years to share ideas with people the other side of the world. Now, thoughts are shared with somebody 8,000 miles beneath your feet as quickly as if they were in the next room. The significance of climate change has been shared world-wide.

There is also cynicism about politics. It is not just a question of the low level of trust in people in power, whom some see as lying and looking after their own interests. There is also some sympathy for their predicament, and while some young people write idealistically about what they would hope to do, others say that they have nothing constructive they could offer.

Although there is fear of illnesses, economic problems and war, the overwhelming message is one of hope, and trust that problems will be dealt with, and that is good news.

So far we have had a couple of dozen contributions, and their quality shows that it will be interesting to have a lot more. If you know someone who would like to have their say, or if they want to comment on the contributions we have published, please encourage them.

Dya Diana, age 17, Otelu-Rosu, Romania

How do envisage the world will look like over 10 years?

I think 10 years isn’t that much. In my opinion the world will still be the same, - maybe some medical progress besides the climate changes.

In what respect do you think it will change?

As I said, some changes will occur in the field of medicine, maybe financial or climate changes, and maybe we will have flying cars. I hope so!

What hopes do you have?

I hope for the world health, God’s blessing and peace to everyone.

What fears have you for the next 10 years?

My biggest fear is that these new diseases will spread in the world making everybody sick. Global warming is also a big problem.

What do you hope to happen in the next 10 years?

I hope we will be able to travel much farther in space and discover new worlds. Also I hope that scientists will discover a cure for cancer and AIDS.

What would you like to tell the politicians?

They should stop lying and the people will be able to live in harmony.

What would you like to do if you were a leader?

I would like to make a use for my budget as leader by helping people with needs and making a lot of working places.

Ramona, 16 years, Bucharest, Romania

Our World

I hope that after ten years, the world will just not look the same. I don’t hope the world will be pink. I hope that the world will not just destroy itself after 10 years of destruction of the world with atomic bombs, smoke, factories and barely green places. I hope that after another 10 year of civilization the countries will not be in war, will not lie so much like now. I hope that in every place in the world there will be a green place and I hope technology will come in the sub-developed countries.

I am afraid that a lot of people don’t know how to live together with the others if you put different cultures or religions in the same place. I am afraid that if we lose the green places, we will make vegetables and fruits by hand like wax fruits for the display. We will die rapidly with drastic causes.

I would like to tell to the people who are in power that they should listen to us, the people they are supposed to care about. Our opinion should matter more to them. They should know that green places should be everywhere, that peace should be permanent, that we should all care about our planet, about the poor who have no shelter or food, about the ignorant who do not know how to read or how to write, about the rich who never stop to think about how their indifference kills the world. Instead, we produce cigarettes and atomic bombs, we create terrorists and wars, we destroy this heavenly place that our planet is.

If had power I would forbid cigarettes, I would try to rebuild schools and I would try to bring prosperity and calm in my country and for its countrymen.

Ionut Ovidiu, 16 years, Bucharest, Romania

The Promises of the Future

Throughout the ages, the world has undergone vast changes, though not necessarily good ones. For example, the Middle Ages was a period of great decline in culture, science and relationships between countries. It was, unlike the ancient period, which was dominated by the Greek culture and the Roman Empire, marked by bloody wars, slow scientific advancement and horrible diseases.

Nowadays, however, we live in a peaceful age, an age of permanent change, of immense cultural diversity and of rapid scientific progress. In spite of economical difficulties, the world still registers steady progress. In the past decades mankind has made staggering progress: 50 years ago nobody would have believed that by 2010 humans everywhere would be linked by the massive network that is the Internet.

The relationship between various states has also greatly improved in the past few decades through discussions, treaties and trade. Organisations such as the UN also aid the less fortunate nations to overcome their difficulties. However, there is a downside to globalisation and increased population migration rate: people tend to lose their customs and abandon the traditions. As for the year 2020, I believe that the next ten years will hold great technological advancements, as well as greater unity.

Will the twenty-first century witness the colonisation of foreign planets and of deep space? Or will we succumb to deadly diseases and economic crises, and destroy all that was achieved by our forbears? I personally believe that the twenty-first century holds great things for mankind. Whether I’m right or not, that remains to be seen.

Remus, 17 years, Bucuresti, Romania

The World Over 10 Years

Over ten years the Earth will have one continent named Ameuroasiau , and its leader will be Obama.

There will be flying cars and to ride them we will need just water and some time on the old one oil.

The people will live peacefully with the aliens, in flying houses and the poor people will live in old houses on the ground.

There won’t be any offenders because the police will be formed by robocops.

Food will be made with pills that are mixed with water instead of real food. There will also be treatments for cancer and SIDA.

The rich people will have houses on the Moon and Mars and they will drive space ships. I hope there will be cheap cars and houses free entrance in the clubs, tuned cars that can be driven to the sky, under and on the water, legal races and beautiful girls.

I am afraid of the robots and monkeys because one will be controlled by them by the computer or by the animals. I hope I will be the owner of the Moon and half of Mars, and I also want to help the poor people and aliens around the universe. I will ask governments to reduce the taxes and for the food to be free. If I become president I will take the rich people’s money and give to the poor people. I will destroy all the polluted factories and make the world like a heaven.

Well, I don’t have any expectations or hopes. The world will change on its own. Of course the technology will evolve but I don’t think that the world will change so much that it would be unrecognisable. What hopes do I have? As I said before I don’t have any hopes concerning the world in 10 or a hundred years. For myself, I expect that in 10 years I will have a diploma and a job. I don’t know what I fear. A lot could happen in 10 years. What would I like to say to those who have the power? Well nothing much; they wouldn’t listen anyway. I wouldn’t like to have the power; it’s just too much of a responsibility and personally, I can barely take care of myself.

Anastasia, 16 years, Bucharest, Romania

Children’s Hopes and Dreams

Up to a certain age every child is dreaming and hoping that the fairy tale he lives in is true. He never wants to wake up from the dream he’s living in. I don’t know if I’m still dreaming, if I am in that fairy tale anymore but I am hoping that the fairy tale really exists.

Adults come to us with many questions like, “How do you see the world in 10 years?” I think I’ll see it the way I am now but harder and more complex than now. The changes won’t be that big. I mean, yes, the climate is changing but that doesn’t have to affect us in any way.

I hope that in 10 years the technology would be more advanced than now. I don’t know - maybe flying cars or even housekeeping robots. Let’s face it, now as I am writing, somewhere in the world something new is being invented, so in 10 years thousands of things will be invented.

My parents ask me almost every day, “What are my hopes for my life?” I can say that I have really high hopes for my life. Like…I hope to become a worldwide known doctor, and having a healthy and happy family. I also fear that maybe my hopes and dreams can’t be accomplished in 10 years, I fear about failing my parents, and I fear that the world will change so much that I won’t be able to keep up with it.

Once in a while when I look at the news almost every time I get upset by the things that are happening in our country - mostly the things that are happening in the field of politics. Every candidate that wants to be the president promises to raise our salaries and so many things that I can’t remember, but none of them can keep their promises. If I were the president of this country I think I’d make promises that I can keep and I think I’d come up with solutions to resolve the economical crisis.

Every adult still hopes deep in their heart that the fairy tale exists somewhere in the world.

Popa Andreea, 16 years, Romania

This Is the World that We Live In

Time is like the wind: you can’t see it, but you can feel it. You feel it when you grow up, have kids and your kids start their own family and you’re old and grumpy, your bones and joints hurt and you’re not in the mood for having fun when your grandchildren ask you to play with them. But you look around and realise that something’s changed. You look out the window, at the alley you live on and you see a lot of expensive cars, but you don’t mind, you’re actually used to the smell of gasoline and the noise of wheels sounds familiar to you. Then you start thinking that there are cars parked on the alley and people travel by buses and airplanes, and not by carts, like they used to when you were 20 years old. You wonder where those ages flew and how time just passed by you like a train.

And sometimes it just happens for you to miss that train, because it’s true what they say, “Life won’t stop and the world won’t turn upside down for your grief”. And one morning you just wake up and think that you’re 80 years old and you didn’t accomplish anything in this life, you have no joy, you have no one to spend the rest of your days with. And you realise that in time everything changes. Starting with people’s perspective of life and ending with technology.

It’s true, in time, all things change. And we have proof: just look back at the 80s and compare those times with our current year. There are so many differences between these two periods of time that it would probably take me a novel to write them all. And even so, with all this new technology we don’t have cures for AIDS and blood cancer, we can’t stop pollution, we’re in the middle of an economical crisis, and we’re battling with an epidemic swine flu.

And the worst part is that we aren’t doing anything to stop all of these things that harm us. My point is that if we don’t stop these things, a part of this world will be destroyed in 10 years. According to the Mayan calendar, this world is not supposed to end until later on. And I imagine myself living in a ten year older world that’s better. I see myself waking up in the morning and actually breathing fresh air. I imagine that the world would start caring for their own kind. I see a non-poverty world, with people that can afford buying a computer, having a house and a car, I see a world where all parents can afford education for their children, where all parents let their children go to school instead of treating them like garbage and forcing them to stay at home and milk the cows. I see a world where all animals have a shelter, like everybody else.

Maybe I’m not a realist, but I like to think that we can make this world a safer, cleaner and happier place. But it’s only up to us if we want to change the environment we live in. And why shouldn’t we try to make this world a better place? Some people say that we should be indifferent, we shouldn’t care about what’s happening around us, that we should mind our own business. But all that’s happening around us is directly affecting us, even if we don’t see it. Like this economical crisis. It started on a part of the globe and has been hitting all corners of the world since then. I don’t have enough power to change what’s wrong, but together we have more than enough power to do good. I think that’s my message for the politicians.

If I were a politician I honestly think that I’d be scared. I wouldn’t know what to do, because when you know that the world is relying on you and if you make a wrong move, you’ll be judged harshly, you kind of panic and start thinking what to do first to make things right. But I think that I’d fight for what’s good and I’d point out my ideas and I’d stand up for what I believe in. And I’d hope to turn things around, start a new age, a better one.

Yes, I know that I’m a dreamer, but I also know that I’m allowed to dream and to have my own beliefs. I’ve always hoped for the best and I’ve always fought for my rights and stood up for what I believed in. And I think that everyone should do that, every human being has rights and we’re equal to each other. I think that this is the start of a better world and this is how I imagine a 10 year older world… a true fighter.

* What do you hope the world will be like in ten years’ time?

In ten years, I am going to be 18 years old, and I hope there will be peace and less pollution. I hope that there will be less violence and war, because it is very bad. People are killing each other for no reason and so I hope that will stop. I hope people will stop getting cancer and other illnesses because it could kill them. When I am 18 I hope that people will pick up after themselves to stop the pollution. This includes my friends and me. I hope the world will stop getting really bad storms because they destroy buildings and people will not have their homes and people can get killed.

* How do you think it’s going to change?

I think that the world will change because I am getting older and I won’t be able to play with my friends a lot as I did in my childhood. The world will change by kids now meeting new people.

* What are you looking forward to?

I am looking forward to going to a good school, still being able to have my friends, to get a good deal on a car, and I am looking forward to meeting new people. I like to meet new people because it is interesting. I would look forward to meeting lots of people from lots of different countries.

* What are you afraid may happen during the next ten years?

I am afraid that I could get very sick, my school or house can burn down, of moving, of people breaking into houses, and I am afraid that the things that I am wishing for to stop may get even worse. Like pollution, sickness, war, or people being homeless.

* What do you hope will happen during the next ten years?

I hope I like the schools I am going to, the people I meet are very nice, and that I will be safe and OK. I hope that I can grow up to be strong, that I can get a job, and that people will stop making fun of each other because it could offend them very bad.

* What would you like to say to people in power?

I would say that war should be stopped because people are dying and we keep sending in more troops and they are basically taking other people’s lives, and their own lives away.

* What would you do if you were in power yourself?

I would put a stop to war, make sure people that don’t have homes go into homes, and that I would make sure people would stay safe and peaceful.

Sophia Korsmo, 6 years old. citizen of Austria & USA, residing in Bellingham, Washington, USA

* What do you hope the world will be like in ten years’ time?

I hope I will meet new friends at my school, and I can have times with my mom and dad more often. I would like to have a picnic outside on our front porch with my mom and dad. I hope the world will be better when I am not so young. If I could have more snuggle time than last time.

* How do you think it’s going to change?

I think it’s going to change that I will be bigger and I will be much more older and it might be different than when I was young. Maybe it will be different because there might be other kids that we meet and new friends and more kindness for each other.

* What are you looking forward to?

I don’t know. I might have a better life without falling off the bed. Or breaking my wrist, and that I will have no more fighting with people over toys or anything like when I was young.

* What are you afraid may happen during the next ten years?

I will be afraid of picking up snakes. And that towers might fall down and people will have to move to a different city or country.

* What do you hope will happen during the next ten years?

I hope I will have lots, lots, lots more fun, and lots more meeting other kids, and that I will be a lot funnier and people will make me laugh.

* What would you like to say to people in power?

I would say hello and to please make sure everyone has a good life.

* What would you do if you were in power yourself?

I don’t want to be in power. I don’t know what to do.

* What do you hope the world will be like in ten years’ time?

In ten years time the world will be like a rubbish dump.

* How do you think it’s going to change?

People will start to recycle.

* What are you looking forward to?

I’m looking forward for being a chess master.

* What are you afraid may happen during the next ten years?

I will die.

* What do you hope will happen during the next ten years?

Be famous.

* What would you like to say to people in power?

Don’t be a wimp.

* What would you do if you were in power yourself?
Don’t know.

Jordan Andreadis,

(We’re not sure of Jordan’s country, but we guess it’s Australia.)

* What do you hope the world will be like in ten years’ time?

In ten years’ time people have switched from small to big cars that you can ride like 10 year olds.

* How do you think it’s going to change?

Kids are going to love it.

* What are you looking forward to?

I am looking forward to getting a scholarship.

* What are you afraid may happen during the next ten years?

I’ll get injured.

* What do you hope will happen during the next ten years?

Everybody gets a car.

* What would you like to say to people in power?

Get better.

* What would you do if you were in power yourself?

Be crying.

Please shut smoky factories down.
Please can we have less cars.
Stop global warming; we don’t want floods.
Less planes, to save energy.
Stop gun crime.
Stop cutting down so many trees.
We shall have to put houses on stilts due to water level rising, and use boats instead of cars.
Whole ice bergs are melting in the North Pole. It will flood everywhere and animals will die. Can we help poor children in other countries?
Can we have more chocolate factories in the world?

First Meetings

The first aspect of this that is unsettling is the venom that was shown initially towards me and then how it spread towards my daughter, the adoptive mother. At the first meeting when the problems first began, my comments were intended as directions for future meetings with other potential adopters:

1. Please provide CLEAR directions to get to your building.

2. Please ensure that you point out parking areas in close proximity to the venue.

3. Please provide a detailed map.

After my comments, so far as my daughter and I were concerned, the matter was closed and the meeting continued. Unfortunately, everything we did or didn’t do from that moment was inaccurately analysed. According to the adoption manager and the adoption social worker, I was uninterested in what everyone had to say and showed no interest in the details of my future grand child. Neither of these was true.

We had waited over an hour for the social worker to arrive and by the time we finished that meeting FOUR hours later, no new ground had been covered and no new information about the child had emerged. In the days leading up to this meeting, my daughter and myself had pored over all the information on the child, researched the possible physical and intellectual effects of her condition and planned how to help her gain weight and stay healthy. There were no questions we needed to ask, having already asked them of my daughter’s social worker.

We then went to the local hospital for a meeting with the paediatrician who, we were informed, would be difficult and unfriendly. We found her to be the exact opposite. We had questions for her and she answered openly. It was a typical professional meeting.

This brings me to my next suggestion for open, clear, honest and transparent communication:

1. Do not hold too many closed un-recorded meetings. There is a danger that they will descend into gossip, which is what I suspect happened in our situation. Accusations about me and my daughter abounded. Our characters were assassinated and we had no opportunity to defend or explain ourselves.

2. Do not hold secret meetings without the future parent’s social worker. This leads to confusions and irritation.

3. Do not break the rules of confidentiality.

Accurate Reporting

Despite this vindictive assault, the key decision makers, the panels and the local authority found my daughter to be one of the most ideal parents for this child to the point that for the first time in their memory, they had no questions to ask other than “How soon can this adoption begin?”

Once a child is placed with its adoptive family, please visit as a support rather than as a bully and teller of untrue tales. There were many lies told about us by the adoption social worker and some of this was falsely supported by the peripatetic adoption manager. The adoption social worker did not always keep to the agreed regulatory visits and often a month would go by, then we would get a frantic call out of the blue to inform us that she was coming the following day when often we had already planned an outing:

1. Do make sure that your reports are accurate and factual.

2. Do not make up stories that cannot be evidenced.

3. Remember the lies you have told and make sure colleagues do not contradict them. For example, According to the peripatetic adoption manager, our child care practice was so poor that there had been an agreement to increase the social worker visits to once a week. No one else, including the adoption social worker, had heard of this.

4. Do stick to statutory visits. Don’t go for more than two months with no contact and then insist on an urgent meeting the next day.

Next Steps

- There must be a more informed manner of meeting and sharing information about the child with the potential adoptive parents.

- There needs to be the development of trust between all professionals and parents.

- There must be clearer communication using an appropriate and relevant format.

- All doubts must be discussed with everyone to avoid the ‘chinese whispers’ syndrome.

- Don’t lie to the birth parents. Do not sign agreements that they can still call themselves ‘mummy or daddy’ in letters before speaking about it with the adoptive parents. It causes real upset and confusion.

- Ensure that your comments and questions are always directed to the adoptive parent and not the oldest person in the room. Grandparents are supporters, that is all.

In our particular experience, I think that my assertive approach and business-like manner probably scared them and sometimes, when one feels threatened, attack is the only recourse. It was made personal under the guise of concerned professionalism but when they were challenged, both by the panels and by the solicitor, they had nothing to say.

I have been too angry to complain to the relevant authorities because the whole experience has been so destructive to my daughter and, to a degree, myself. I cannot bear to subject her to any further grief. It tainted what should have been a most heart-warming experience. Instead it nearly broke her. She has not yet fully recovered from it and I can still see the sadness that haunts her even now. If I could, I would love to sit in a tribunal but what would be the point?

Such provisions are rebuttable if domestic violence or child abuse can be proven.

Although the law is ostensibly concerned about the `responsibilities’ of parents, the provisions can clearly be seen to be concerned with parental rights over children, as there are no reciprocal rights for children to have contact with a parent or to enforce a parent to have contact and a meaningful relationship with their child if they choose not to do so. It is reasonably estimated that there are over 120,000 children in Australia where a parent does not fulfill their responsibilities to provide financial maintenance for a child or to have contact with the child and fulfill their parental responsibilities.

Consequences

It is clear from the evidence of Court decisions and the experiences of children after such decisions are taken that many children are suffering extreme disruptions to their lives, they are suffering emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, and some have even died subsequent and consequent to the decisions of Courts.

Some children, for example, are being forced to spend one week alternately with each parent and are commonly referred to as ‘Ping Pong children’, others have been sent to live in areas which are completely strange to them in order to provide a parent who has chosen to live and work in such an area with contact, and other children have been forced into having contact and residency with a parent whom they’ve never previously known and who is a complete stranger to them.

In one case a small infant, who was born as a consequence of a rape of her mother, was forced to visit her father in prison where he was serving a long sentence. Such demands of absent parents usually arise when they are required to provide financial support for the child and having contact for a minimal number of hours provides a means of evading such financial responsibilities or when they wish to continue with the harassment and abuse of their former partner.

Consultation?

Although the law makes a passing reference for children to be consulted on decisions affecting their lives, as is required under the U.N. Convention on Children’s Rights, in practice such consultations are minimal, and the children’s views are rarely given directly to Courts. On the few occasions when they are, the Courts take little account if the child is opposed to contact or residency. They are therefore forced into situations which are not of their choosing and in which they are extremely unhappy.

It is clear that in its wording and in its implementation, the Family Law is not upholding the rights of children and in some instances is directly violating those internationally recognised rights.

Reforms Needed

In order to ensure that family laws are child-focused and child centred and which uphold, promote, and enforce the rights of children, the following reforms are recommended :

1. The family law should be titled The Family Law (Children’s Needs, Wishes, and Rights) Act.

2. The family law must give paramountcy and primacy to ensuring that :

a. children have the fullest opportunity to participate in decision-making processes and their expressed wishes and feelings are given primary weighting in those decisions;

b. children’s safety, welfare and wellbeing are fully protected;

c. any decision regarding the residency of the child, and contact with a parent is demonstrably and measurably to the benefit of the child.

3. In order to ensure that Courts have the fullest possible information on which to base decisions on whether, or not, to grant residency or contact to a parent the following information must be provided to the Court:

a. A thorough and detailed assessment must be made of the previous involvement of each parent in the child’s life and upbringing and any history of a parent having committed acts of child abuse, domestic violence, or other criminal behaviours and whether they have engaged in drug and alcohol abuse, or suffer from a recognised mental illness. Any allegations of child abuse or domestic violence must be referred to the appropriate statutory authorities for full investigation and a report obtained before any decisions are taken by a Court.

b. A similar detailed and through assessment must be made of each child’s current emotional bonds and attachments with each parent, their bonds and attachments with other relatives and close friends, their involvement and progress at schools, and their leisure and recreational interests.

If western countries care about their children and their safety and protection from serious harm and exploitation, then changes to the Family Law are urgently necessary.

There were two of us traveling together on the top of the bus. We alighted in the High opposite Queen’s College. There was a warm welcome as we passed through the gate into the front quad. The young person in whose company I had been travelling had been invited to an interview for a place as an undergraduate reading history. Before long he was settled in his spacious rooms. From the bedroom you could see the spire of St Mary the Virgin, the dome of the Radcliffe Camera, and the twin towers of All Souls. In the sitting room there was a large modern television, and perhaps it was this that precluded us from recalling the view from there!

I left him in the company of other prospective students and spent some time in my former college, Hertford, before buying some books at Blackwell’s in The Broad. Then I boarded the bus once again as it set off south towards Headington Hill. The journey over the Chilterns back to London was remarkably smooth and speedy.

Three days later, my young friend arrived back home full of his experiences in Oxford: the interviews, the company, the newly refurbished Ashmolean Museum, and dining in the college hall (three cooked meals each day!). When pressed to describe the best part of the stay he didn’t hesitate at all: waking up to the sound of bells, and walking in the college quads. That really stirred memories for me: in 1965 I was given the opportunity of spending a few days as a sixth former at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and as I looked out from my rooms down to the beautifully manicured college lawn, and then drank in the morning air on my way to the college hall, I resolved there and then that, should I have the opportunity to study in Oxbridge, I would welcome it with open arms. There was nowhere I would rather study, and if I couldn’t study effectively there, then I couldn’t study anywhere else on earth.

(As providence would have it I ended up at Oxford, although my initial preference had been Cambridge, and so it was that I only travelled to Cambridge when representing Oxford at Badminton. But my love for both these beautiful historic cities remains.)

Were there any other reasons why our visit to Oxford was so special or memorable, you might muse, or was it just a trip down memory lane: a morning of nostalgia? Well, seeing as you ask, there was something else that was rather notable. My young friend had not been able to live “in the community” with his family, and so he (and his sister and mother) had lived at Mill Grove virtually all his life: it had been the only home he had known. Those who study them, know that the life-chances of those who are looked after, or “in care”, are significantly less promising than the norm. Specifically the prospects of higher education are reduced considerably. So this interview was bucking the trend in a big way. After all, we were not looking at any college of higher education, but one of the most prestigious universities in the world. How come?

Well, the young man had clearly inherited a good brain: he has a superb memory for a start, and when he was very young her used to write long novels. If you were to ask him about an incident in the TV series Lost, for example, he would tell you the number of the episode! He took to philosophy at school so readily that his teacher was disappointed when he got only 99% for an A/S level exam. But brainpower is not everything when it comes to achieving, and in his case there was also the constant encouragement meal after meal, conversation after conversation, year after year, book after book, to be inquisitive, to wonder, and to explore ideas. The social and cultural environment at Mill Grove was conducive to learning.

He had Oxbridge graduates living with him or nearby; he worshipped regularly at church and listened carefully to, and critiqued, sermons week by week. He spent holidays in North Wales and together we explored castles, towns, mines, valleys, villages, drinking in their stories, and how they connected with the larger sweep of British and European history and social movements. We had trips to our extended family in Holland and Switzerland getting to know other cultures and ways of living. And when it came to apply to Oxford he had plenty of support, moral and practical, including his request that I join him on the way to the interview.

At the time of writing this piece I do not know the result of the interview process (and there are interviews to come at other universities), but I will try to pass it on to readers of the Webmag in due course. Meanwhile let me round off this column with a few concluding thoughts. I do not want to suggest that everyone at Mill Grove ends up at Oxbridge: we have a very mixed range of abilities, gifts and talents. But on the other hand, it is important to know that the nature of our life together and the prevailing ethos and values, focus on the potential of each and every child and young person. We are seeking to create an environment in which they can thrive: that is where they discover their gifts and find ways of developing and expressing them.

This is not to advocate residential care over any other form of extra-familial care, but to point out that probably more important than the label put on the care (residential, foster, therapeutic community, and adoption) are the values, motivations, and ethos of the home and the carers. I have taken it for granted, for example, that my wife and I have been here for the young man all his life (and a lot longer than that). This, I suppose, reflects the commitments and values that lie at the heart of what we do, and this continuity of care has no doubt been a vital factor in the development of this young person’s self-esteem and confidence.

In 1965 when I was interviewed at Hertford College, Oxford, there was also, if I remember it correctly, a student from Manchester Grammar School, There was never any doubt in anyone’s mind that he had the better intellect (he understood Spenser’s Faerie Queene, for a start!). But our don formed the opinion that I made up for what I lacked intellectually with my determination and strength of character. I cannot comment on that, but I have come to see that what counts is a rounded character, and this will depend in part on the long-term personal and social environment of the young person.

Intelligence is ultimately moral, practical and social, as well as academic. I guess that after his Headington Hill experience, C.S. Lewis might have added spiritual as well.

“Aaron, you don’t need that many T-shirts.”

“I don’t want them left here while we’re all away.”

“About four T-shirts should last the holiday … and not every pair of socks.”

“I’m taking them all.”

“We can’t take everything and what you don’t pack will be here waiting for you, untouched, when we return.”

I slip the envelope with mum’s hair and the sweet inside it down the side of my bag and tell Rebecca that I need to bring Kara’s photo. Liam says the group summer holiday is okay but I don’t know why we have to go away. The seaside, a beach. I don’t know what we’re going to do.

“Mustn’t forget your pyjamas,” Rebecca says.

“Where will I sleep?”

“It’s bunk beds.”

“Bunk beds!”

“Yes, there will be four children to a room; you’ll be sharing.”

“No way!”

“Aaron, I wanted to tell you, about sharing …”

“Sharing! Who with?”

“That is not completely decided; us adults are discussing that tonight.”

No, I can’t share.

“There will be an adult on duty all night, watching over the room …”

Which adult? Ben looking at me while I’m asleep? Derek?

“… Making sure everyone is okay.”

“Where will you be Rebecca?”

“I’ll be staying there every night, and some nights I’ll be the adult on duty. Aaron, I can assure you that you’ll be safe at night.”

“I’m taking my own pillow and duvet.”

“Yes, if you wish to, you can.”

“And my books and my dressing gown and a towel to hang around my bed … I wish I had Bramble to take with me.”

“I know … you miss him don’t you?”

“He came to Templewood with me; we were together … You still getting me another stick insect?”

“Of course; we’ll go and buy one after the holiday.”

“How many nights is it that we’re away again? Will we come back here?”

“Seven nights Aaron, and then of course we’ll come back.”

“Who’ll drive me? What will I do in the car?”

“I’m driving you along with Narinder; it’s a long journey but we’ll listen to music and stop off every now and then. Listen, I’ll look after you on holiday and so will the other Sunbeam adults. We’ll all be there; you’ll be safe. It’s meant to be fun.”

“Does mum know I’m going?”

“Jean does; she may have told your mum.”

Narinder’s spread herself out across the back seat of Rebecca’s car with a pile of magazines. I’m in the front seat with a bag of sweets, a colouring book and some pens.

“Rebecca, you haven’t been on group holiday before have you?” Narinder says.

“She hasn’t been?” I repeat. “Why not?”

“She hadn’t started working here.”

Rebecca hasn’t been on holiday? She doesn’t know about group holiday?

“Listen to this,” Narinder carries on. “My star sign, Gemini … ‘mysterious forces are at work but be warned; summer holiday romances often only last for the holiday’ … I don’t reckon I want a boyfriend this holiday. Rebecca, have you got a boyfriend?”

“I’d rather not answer that; it doesn’t affect my job or my care for you children.”

“Lighten up; it was only a question … When’s your birthday?”

“You want to know my star sign? I don’t think I want you reading out some girlie magazine stuff under my sign.”

“Adults, why don’t you ever tell us anything? I reckon you have got a boyfriend. What’s he like? … Or maybe you haven’t even got one and that’s why you won’t say anything.”

I turn to Rebecca, her eyes are set on the road; her look gives nothing away. She looks less wild today, her hair’s clipped back behind her ears and she’s wearing tiny gold squares as earrings. From where I’m looking, I can’t see the mole on her neck.

“Did you know there’s this wicked cream?” Narinder says leaning forward between the seats.

“Careful, Narinder, I’m driving,” Rebecca says as Narinder shoves the magazine towards her.

“Look, it says it cleans all the dirty bacteria off your skin. Did you know Rebecca that your skin’s covered in bacteria? I mean not just yours, everyone’s. I’m going to get that cream; I’m not having any bacteria on me … Fuck, it isn’t cheap.”

“Don’t swear, Narinder.”

“And Rebecca, can I buy a bikini? I want a purple one with beads on the straps.”

“No, Narinder, it’s better to wear a swimsuit.”

“Bet that’s not what your boyfriends used to say when you were young. Anyway, I need a bikini.”

“You don’t need a bikini.”

“Bet you wore one when you were my age.”

“I don’t think a bikini for you is a good idea and you know that no adult is going to support you in buying a bikini.”

“A bikini’s just a bit of fun.”

“It exposes your body in a way that makes you more vulnerable.”

“I knew I’d never be allowed … all my friends at school will be allowed to wear bikinis … Shit, look at this loser, sad boy or what.”

And then Narinder starts singing along with the radio. I eat a sweet, then take the wrapper off another. Rebecca starts humming.

“Join in too, Aaron,” Narinder says.

“Leave off!”

We stop at a service station for lunch, I have a double portion of fries and a burger; Narinder and Rebecca get a fussy lunch of jacket potato and salad. I get back into the front seat of the car feeling full and sleepy. I watch the trees and grass outside the window slip past. My back sinks into the seat, my eyes sting and it’s like my seeing is going grey and dirty. I rub my eyes then tip the seat back.

I jolt awake, whipping round as something hits into my neck. I see Narinder’s foot darting away from me. I settle back down but then my neck is tickled and it’s Narinder’s foot on my neck again.

“Get off me!” I grab her toes.

“Oy, settle down,” Rebecca says. “And Narinder, for goodness sake take your foot away.”

I punch back onto Narinder’s leg.

“Behave, both of you.”

“Narinder started it,” I shout reaching round to thump her again.

“Right, I’ll pull over and we can sit and wait for you two to calm down.”

Narinder lets out this big sigh as Rebecca crosses lanes and slows down. I fall back down into my seat with a huff.

“It’s taking forever,” Narinder says. “I’m so bored.”

“Well, it’ll take even longer if you don’t behave and I have to stop.”

“Why aren’t we there yet?” I ask.

“It’s a few hours still to go, now are you two going to behave?”

“Yes,” we yawn together.

“Why don’t you both try and get some sleep.”

“I was until Narinder shoved her foot in my face.”

Outside the rain’s started to come down and the windscreen wipers let out a scraping squeak as they flip from side to side. A sports car races past; I want a keyworker with a decent fast car not the crap I’m always driven around in.

“Here we are,” Rebecca says as she drives past the row of parked cars.

We must be the last to arrive.

“Amazing isn’t it? Look, see the horses … and the stream over there.”

“What is this building?” Narinder says.

“A converted barn.”

I’d been wanting to get out of the car but now I don’t move until Rebecca opens my door and tells me to get out. She pulls my bag out of the boot; we walk around a puddle to the strange house. Through a massive window I see Shelby waving at me; he bangs on the glass and then runs off to turn up again at the front door.

“You’re sleeping above me,” he says.

I look at Ben and he takes me to this room of bunk beds.

“You’re here,” Ben says. “Shelby’ll be beneath.”

“Liam took the other top bunk,” Shelby says.

“No, he didn’t take it, us adults planned where everyone’s sleeping.”

“I’ve got sweets; we’ll eat them in the night,” Shelby says.

“I don’t think so,” Ben laughs. “Now there will always be one of us around on night shift and we’ll look after you all.”

My bed is near the window; outside there’s only a small corridor of air before a thick hedge. On the other beds sit open bags with clothes and toys hanging out of them.

“You sleeping here, Aaron?” Narinder calls from behind me.

“Get out!”

“Oh here you are,” Rebecca says. “Nice room.”

“I’ve got my own room,” Narinder says.

“Why?”

“Well, they’re not going to put me in with the other girls are they?”

It’s not fair if Narinder gets a room to herself.

“Want a hand unpacking?” Rebecca says.

“How long do we have to be here for?”

“And you know what?” Narinder interrupts. “The adults are also in bunk beds.”

“Oh sure they are!”

“We are,” Rebecca states.

All the Sunbeam adults sleeping together. Derek’ll be with … with Kate? No Kate’s too fat for him. Maybe Rebecca? But then what about Ben?

“Right, Narinder, out; this is the boy’s room. And Aaron let’s put your own duvet and pillow on the bed.”

As I turn back to my bed I see a flash of blue outside the window. No. It can’t be. Oh shit. It’s the blue of his Chelsea wind-breaker. Him - the dosser! He’s come after us. I can hear Rebecca laughing with Shelby about something and Narinder’s saying she’s got five bags to unpack but their voices sound far away even though we’re all in the same room. Nobody else yet realises the danger right outside the window. My heart is in my throat as I dare to look again for him.

Blue of a dustbin. Is that what I saw? Only a dustbin? I look again to see if I can make the dustbin move in the way I’m sure I saw blue moving before. Maybe that was it. I take a big breath to push down the wave of fear that’s still rising up through my belly. Got to calm down. Come off it, how could the dosser be here? It’s too far for him to have followed us all this way. I’ve got to stop thinking about him; I’m making myself crazy.

Tea’s a horrible curry made by Derek. I don’t know why our cook didn’t come on holiday with us.

“Derek cooks a curry every holiday,” Narinder says, like she knows everything.

After tea, I’m told to have a wash then we watch a video and all go to bed at the same time.

“Goodnight, sleep well,” is all Rebecca says to me as she walks off.

I want my settling with a book being read to me. The door’s left open and light comes through from the corridor. I’m stuck in a bed right up near the ceiling, the springs squeak as I turn. I bet Narinder with a room of her own still gets her settling. I hear footsteps and voices outside the room. Shelby starts grunting beneath me; someone sneezes; a deep fart comes from across the room.

“Smelly,” Liam shouts.

“Quieten down,” Rebecca’s voice shouts into the room.

Sheets move; someone turns; another bed moans. A knocking, a deep chuckle. I pull the sheets tight around me. I hear footsteps, the bed moves, my ladder creaks.

“Go away!” shouts out of me.

“Got you! I scared you,” Liam laughs.

Footsteps and a figure in the doorway.

“Who’s calling out?”

A scraping sound and then I see a shadow sit down in the doorway; it turns into Rebecca. I lie still curling round in bed so I can stare at her. Shelby’s steady breathing comes from below; Liam’s stopped moving. I’m hungry, thanks to Derek’s tea. I slide my way quietly out of bed and down the ladder. Rebecca’s hand is on my back.

“Back to bed, Aaron,” she whispers.

“I can’t sleep.”

“Shhh … Try and rest even if you can’t sleep.”

I slip out onto the corridor; the floor’s as cold as ice against my feet.

“It’s just strange for you in a new place,” she says following me.

No, I’m used to new places.

“I’m right here, all night.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Look, why not go and get a hot drink and then try to sleep again after that. Go to the kitchen and ask whoever’s there to make you a drink; tell them I sent you.”

I run down the half-lit corridor towards voices and laughter that drift into quiet when I turn up. Ben’s holding a bag of crisps, Kate’s opening a bottle of pop.

“What’s up, Aaron?” Kate says.

She’s taken off her shoes and her bright pink toe-nails look tiny below her fat body.

“Aaron?”

“Rebecca says I can have a hot milk.”

Ben gets up and puts some milk into a pan; the gas of the stove is now the only noise in the room. My legs twist around each other; Ben pours steaming milk into a cup and hands it to me. As I head back towards Rebecca, I hear Ben and Kate starting to chat again.

“How come you’re stuck out here on your own?” I ask Rebecca.

“Keep your voice down, Aaron,” she says as she puts down her book. “I’m looking out for you lot.”

“The others are all partying without you.”

“Derek is on duty on the other corridor; we’ll all take turns to do one night. Anyway, it’s a chance for me to read.”

I sit down on the floor next to Rebecca’s chair and sip at my milk.

“Can I sleep out here?”

“No,” Rebecca laughs. “You’ve got a bed and you’d get very uncomfortable on this hard floor.”

“Here’s better than that bed. It’ll be best if we both watch out for stuff.”

“No, Aaron. That drink nearly finished?”

“No.”

“Come on then; drink up and back to bed.”

When I go to bed, I lie down and feel the warm milk passing through me. Each time I open my eyes Rebecca’s still there; she waits on and on and I listen to her staying close by.

“What’s that stink?” I hear Liam shouting out.

I open my eyes to light and everyone getting up.

“Is it you, Aaron?”

“Stop it, Liam,” Ben says.

I close my eyes again and wish everyone away.

“Get up, Aaron, you lazy bastard.”

“Liam!”

I groan and open my eyes.

“We’re taking you out on a trip today,” Ben says. “It’s a day worth getting up for.”

I pull my trousers and T-shirt from where they’re hanging at the end of my bed towards me; I start putting them on under the duvet.

“Change in the bathroom,” Ben says. “And how about clean clothes? Something good for the beach but it’s not that warm.”

The beach we go to is different to any I’ve seen on the telly or in books. And the sand’s not soft and fine like that in our sandpit; it’s not even all yellow. Here the sand’s lots of different colours with even bits of black in it. The sea goes out forever until it meets the sky and its white tops keep moving and changing position.

Liam takes off his shoes and rolls up his trousers so I do the same. I sit and dig down into the sand with my big toe and find pebbles mixed in with damp sand.

“Anyone want to come with me and look in the rock pools?” Derek says.

There are these grey rocks all along one side of the beach and we start climbing across them. I stamp in a little pool and the water sprays up.

“Gently, Aaron, things live in rock pools.”

Green slime is all I can see.

“Look at these fellows.”

I bend down and then jerk back as I see a creature crawling sideways. A crab. It scrambles along until Liam’s hand comes down on it; he picks it up by its shell and its legs move rapidly through the air. Suddenly Liam’s holding it in my face.

“Put it down!” Derek says.

Liam drops it.

“Carefully!”

In another pool, we see little silver fish darting around and then this weird red thing with lots of wavy bits. We look out to sea and see windsurfers skipping across water. I watch a purple sail spin across and then go off in the opposite direction.

“I reckon you could do that,” Liam says to Derek.

“You’ve got to be joking! I could go on a cruise; that’d be more my sort of sailing!”

A windsurfer leaps up on a wave but then goes nose diving down, sail and man slap into the water. We look back across the beach and see Ben with a large multi-coloured ball.

It’s when we’re kicking the ball around that Rebecca turns up in a black wet suit with blue stripes down the sides.

“Thought it was your day off?” I say.

“Look at you,” Liam grins. “You’re off some soap, like an Aussie lifeguard … only fatter.”

“Charming as ever, Liam.”

You can see every roll of Rebecca’s tummy where her wet suit gathers in tyre shapes around her. I’ve been noticing how she’s definitely got fatter than when I first met her.

“Well, I’ve caught up on sleep, so now I thought I’d hire a windsurfer and have a little play,” Rebecca says.

“This should be a laugh,” Liam says.

Rebecca stands in the sea holding up the sail then starts messing around with her foot twisting the board. I look up the beach and see Kate reading a book.

“Shit, you see that?” Liam says.

I look back; I can’t believe it’s Rebecca on the board that’s cutting through the water. She sails away from us, then somehow flips the sail across and now her board skips over the sea back towards us. When she gets close to the beach, she twists the board through water to head off out to sea again.

“Show off,” Liam shouts to sea and then turns to me. “She is fucking good!”

“No swearing, Liam,” Derek says. “Has Rebecca never told you she’s from Cornwall? She’s spent her life around the sea.”

“I’m going to get her to teach me,” Liam says.

She’s my keyworker and I’ll make her give me a go first. We watch her until she goes so far away that we can no longer tell which windsurfer is hers.

Dear Louise,

Here I am - the sea, closer to Cornwall, Aaron no longer totally rejecting me - and I feel terrible. I’m sorry to be such a misery.

This is the one week in the summer holidays when Pete could have come away and stayed with me for a whole ten days with no mid-week commitment to his children because they’re away. But missing Pete’s not the heart of the problem.

It’s you. My missing of you is so intense. Are you adrift without me?

I had a day off today because I did a night duty last night. I tried sleeping this morning but I couldn’t in some strange bunk bed, then I thought I’d make the most of my free time and hire a windsurfer. The kids watched me set off then went back to their beach games.

I remembered all our times windsurfing together. I longed to hear the lapping of your board coming up alongside mine. The hum as you raced on. I was so alone, a mere solitary speck of a windsurfer out at sea.

Afterwards, I just got in my car and started driving into Cornwall. I’d always thought a return to our old home would be as some sort of family pilgrimage and now here I was on my own. I sang along to song after song on the radio to block my thoughts of you. Then I got stuck in traffic and the slowing down got me thinking of what I was doing. The place I call home is not ours, it’s the home of another family. What was the point in going to stand on that bit of curved pavement by the dark hedge, looking in at some unfamiliar car in the drive, some different curtains pulled across the windows? I bet even our tree-house has gone. I wasn’t going to find us there. I might even see old neighbours and they’d give me the last thing I want - sympathy.

I pulled out at the roundabout completely forgetting it was priority to the right, a car had to stop suddenly. I could hear the car’s horn following me as I drove on. I just turned down a side street, parked and wept. The nearest shop that was open was an off licence, through its grilled hatch I bought a coke and a big bag of Revels. I ate the lot before I’d even registered what I was doing.

Then I headed back here to this barn of sleeping children and laughing adults. I’m so tired but I had to write to you before trying to get to sleep.

I really need you.

Becky xx

The next day, I go to a beach with Rebecca, Kate and Shelby. The sun’s shining and this beach is huge. There are dots of colour all over it - people, towels, umbrellas, tents. Rebecca bashes this stick into the ground, then Kate opens a blue and white umbrella and fixes it on top of the pole. It’s the Chelsea colours, just right.

“You need some cream,” Rebecca says to me.

She passes a tube to me, I flip open the lid and squeeze it over my tummy, it makes a farting noise and then a blob lands on me. I rub it in a circle.

“Let me help,” Rebecca says.

I stop still as she rubs down my back and legs but when she touches my front, I move away.

“Want to go in the sea?” Rebecca asks me.

I walk towards the sea then stand back watching the water come up and down the beach in regular waves. I think of the time I went swimming with mum. I walk into the shallow water then I’m suddenly hit by its iciness. Sea is such cold water, ten times worse than any swimming pool. There’s no end to the sea - no clear shallow end, no deep end. A wave slaps up against my legs surrounding me in a white foam, water chases me as I escape back to the beach.

“You okay?” Rebecca says coming back to me. “Stick next to me and don’t go deep.”

She reaches out her hand; I step away from it.

“It’ll be easier, Aaron, once we get past where the waves are breaking,” she calls out at me.

I stop still and feel the sand shifting under my feet. I bend my knees slightly to steady myself.

“That’s it; get used to the temperature and the water’s movement.”

“I have been in a wave swimming pool.”

Rebecca’s fully in the water letting the waves carry her up and down. I walk in a little deeper. A wave crashes into my tummy; I flinch from its coldness. I’ve always loved remembering the waves of that pool as I stood next to mum. Rebecca swims towards me; she smiles. I lift my feet off the bottom; a wave carries me up then down.

“Getting used to the sea now?”

Rebecca dives down under a wave and when she comes back up I dare to copy her. I dive down, glide, then come back up to the sound of wind and rolling waves. I feel the wind against the coldness of my hair.

“You’re doing brilliantly, Aaron.”

“I know.”

“Want to give my bodyboard a go?”

“Teach me to windsurf.”

“It’s easier to learn to bodyboard and I haven’t got a windsurfer here; I just hired that one yesterday.”

She gets her bodyboard and wraps the straps around my wrist.

“What are you doing?”

“The leash is so you don’t get parted from the board. Now we’ll wade out but stay in your depth.”

When the water’s up to my waist we stop and face the beach; a wave hits into my back.

“Next wave, lie up on the board,” Rebecca says. “You need to get the end part level to your waist.”

I throw myself onto the board but it flips sideways tumbling me off. I spin through water; my feet search for ground. I find air but then another wave sprays my face.

“You okay?” Rebecca says from beside me. “You’ve got to get your weight on the middle of the board, hands on the front. Do you want another go?”

Her board’s floating behind me as I walk into deeper water then lie on it again. I’m drifting until a wave slams against me and I topple into the sea again.

“Get on just as the wave comes,” Rebecca shouts as she swims up to me. “… Now!”

A wave picks me up, carries me along then throws me up onto the sand. I nearly crash into another boy on his board.

“Excellent,” Rebecca says from where she’s flopped in the shallow water next to me.

Excellent? I walk back into the water and Rebecca swims beside me. A little wave comes and not much happens when I lie on the board.

“Wait … Now,” Rebecca shouts again.

I pull myself forward onto the board just ahead of a large wave and then I’m suddenly rocketed through the water as I slide down the wave. The board lets out a long deep sound; spray spouts up from either side of it. I’m pushed on faster and faster right up to the beach.

“That is so cool,” I tell Rebecca.

I’m back into the sea then, gripping the board and flying once more along water. Sea air fills my chest, every part of my body tingles alive. Each time I go, the waves seem to get bigger and take me faster. My whole body smiles out.

I wish mum could see me here, on holiday. Sea water wouldn’t ruin her hair or leave a smell of chlorine on her body that she couldn’t get rid of for a week. And she could lie on the beach in the sun; she’d like that. If only she had the chance to come to a place like this, it would make her smile again.

For lunch, Kate buys us all chips. Afterwards she gets me an ice cream with two flakes. My bare legs swing freely and the sun warms my back. I look at the sea and watch its constant movement; I see the bodyboards and then further out the dots of boats sailing past.

Rebecca’s busy building with sand; she creates a boat with a front, back and seats. Shelby sits in it and a boy just comes up and joins him. Rebecca and I make a fort and we decorate it in shells and Rebecca finds a feather to go on top like a flag. We make a pebble path going all the way from the fort down to the sea then watch as the sea gets closer and closer, swallowing up the path.

“You want me to bury you in sand?” Rebecca asks.

“You what?”

“I dig a hole, you lie in it and then we cover you in sand - just your body obviously, no sand near your face.”

“How much does it hurt?”

“Oh Aaron, it doesn’t hurt, I wouldn’t suggest it if it did. Try it and see.”

Rebecca starts digging a trench. Near to us a baby is screaming; a group of girls lie in bikinis around a radio; a woman plays Frisbee with a little boy.

“You want to lie in here?” Rebecca asks. “Look, I’ve even made a sand pillow for your head.”

“I will,” Shelby shouts as he leaps up.

“No, Rebecca’s made it for me.”

I rush in front of Shelby and go to lie in the pit Rebecca’s made.

“Shelby, I’ll do you next,” Rebecca says.

“Don’t want you to,” Shelby moans.

“Sun’s in my eyes,” I say, squinting.

Rebecca props her cap against my head to shade me. The sand under me is damp but then Rebecca starts placing loose warm sand on top of me. She covers my legs, my shorts, my tummy. I lift my head and see my feet sticking out.

“Lie still.”

She carries on wrapping me up in the soft weight of sand and I feel the warmth of the sun coming down through it. Rebecca’s hands pat over me but never touch my skin. I listen to the sound of voices and the rhythm of the sea as it beats up and down the beach. A wind cools my face.

“There,” Rebecca says. “All done.”

I move my left leg and it cracks through sand.

“Aaron,” Rebecca says.

She covers my leg again, when she stops I move the other leg and laugh.

“Aaron, what are you like?”

She presses the sand back down.

“Now hold up Aaron and I’ll take a photo.”

While she shuffles through her bags looking for the camera a boy walks past and looks at me.

“Bury me, bury me,” he says pulling on the arm of the lady he’s with.

“No, play on your own for a bit,” she replies.

Rebecca comes back and I give a big cheesy smile as she clicks away.

“Those are going to be great pictures,” she says.

I look to my side and see Kate and Shelby playing noughts and crosses in the sand and eating biscuits. Because my hands are buried, Rebecca has to feed me a biscuit. She gives me another mouthful and I lie back and let its melted chocolate top and crisp base spread through my mouth.

Near to me a boy is kicking a football around with his dad. I wonder what dad would have done with me if he’d lived. Even if he was useless, he’d have had to do something with me sometimes. I mean, I know we wouldn’t have come to places like this, but maybe we’d have played football in the park. Football was what dad did to get a break at his children’s home from Mrs Beardsley. Mrs Beardsley was where mum and dad met when they were fourteen; they’d both been sent to live there and they both hated it.

“You know what I fancy,” Kate suddenly says. “Did you see those banana milkshakes they were selling in the beach café?”

I shudder and look far away to sea.

“Anyone else want one? Come on let’s treat ourselves.”

Shelby’s full of smiles and jumping up and down with the excitement of wanting a milkshake.

“For you Aaron?”

“Don’t ever, ever, EVER, give me a banana milkshake!”

“Only a suggestion! What’s up?”

“I’m totally allergic to it.”

Shelby laughs, so does Kate. They don’t believe me, but I know how it is. I will never again drink a banana milkshake. Banana milkshake had always been my favourite. Now it’s like a poison to me.

HE sits looking at me, watching my every sip. The milkshake’s in a glass with a straw. I blow down the straw to make frothy bubbles. He tells me to stop. His eyes are beams that drill though the top of my head. I don’t want to finish the milkshake but I won’t be allowed to move until I have. He says I should thank him for buying me special things. He tells me I’m getting spoilt. I have to suck on, through the tightness in my throat. I make the farting vacuuming sound of a straw in an empty glass but then I realise he’s smiling at this so I stop.

He opens a little book. ‘It was a warm, sunny morning. In his small house at the other side of the wood Mr Tickle was asleep.’ How could I have ever liked him reading to me? ‘Tickles are small and round and they have arms that stretch and stretch and stretch.’ He was the first person to read to me. ‘Extraordinarily long arms.’

I leap up from the sand and rush to the sea. Got to lock up my thoughts, slam the lid on them. Rebecca’s following me and I suddenly find I’m holding her hand as we splash into the sea’s coldness.

On the last day of the holiday, we all get taken to the ‘Silver Horseshoe’. There are lots of horses poking their heads over stable doors. Three dogs yap away at us. There were often dogs in the houses where I lived with mum; mum hated that. She says dogs are dirty and they make too much noise with all their barking. I’d pet them sometimes when mum wasn’t looking. I got bitten once but I never told mum how that cut happened. I look at the dogs here, I think I’d get bitten again if I tried to stroke them.

“Oh my god,” Shelby shrieks.

“Nobody has to ride,” Derek says. “But we will be in good hands; we’ve asked for gentle beginners’ horses and someone to lead each of you.”

This woman in muddy tight trousers comes over calling out “Hello” and telling us to go into this little shed to find a riding hat. I try on lots of hats until one fits.

“All right, Aaron?” Rebecca says.

“Look at you!” I chuckle because of the way her hair fans out from under her hat.

“And at you,” Narinder says to me.

A huge brown horse is brought out into the yard, Liam steps forward from where we’re all stood and darts his hand into the horse’s side. The horse shoves its head towards him and scrapes a front leg along the ground making Liam run backwards.

“Liam’s scared!” I say to Narinder laughing.

“And you aren’t?”

Rebecca just leaps up onto the brown horse and sits on top.

“This is your horse,” a girl says to me. “Honeyball, he’s as soft as they come. Come a bit nearer, lift your arm slowly, you can stroke him.”

I go towards him and smell earth and old mushrooms. I put my finger into his skin and a shiver passes down his neck. The girl’s hand strokes him and I copy and remember the warmth of petting friendly dogs. The girl moves Honeyball to this block of steps; she has me climb up and then over onto Honeyball. Honeyball moves, tipping me off balance.

“Feet in the stirrups,” the girl says.

She guides my feet. I want to get off; I want to feel still ground. Honeyball’s huge body wobbles beneath me; I grab the front of the saddle.

“You okay?” Rebecca says from beside me.

“No.”

“You want to get off?”

“… No”

“These are the reins,” the girl says. “Take them and you can also carry on holding the front of the saddle.”

Rebecca’s horse moves forwards; Honeyball’s weight shifts under me.

“Who’s leading you?” I call out at Rebecca.

“I’ll be okay without; I’ve ridden quite a bit before.”

“Is it all right?”

“Yes,” she smiles. “And it looks like you’ve got a kind horse.”

Shelby and Kate are walking away from the horses; they’re not going to ride. I see Derek on a huge white horse; he looks all uneven and slumped. Ben’s on a black horse; he’s grinning over something and chatting to the girl leading him.

My body is being moved around by Honeyball as we all start to make our way along this path between some bushes. Honeyball flicks his head and all these flies move out and then go back to buzzing around him; I wish they’d just go away and not upset him.

“Aaron, lean back a little,” the girl leading me says.

Honeyball’s staggering from side to side and toppling me forward as he goes down this hill. He skids; my body jerks.

“There, there,” the girl says stroking him.

Don’t fall, Honeyball, keep steady - please. The path’s getting flatter; I breathe out. I turn to see if everyone’s staying on their horse; I see Liam and he does not look comfortable.

“That’s it, Aaron,” Rebecca says coming beside me. “Sit up tall.”

“Do you like this?” I ask her.

“Yes, if you relax a little, you’ll start to get used to it.”

A group of walkers stand back and smile up at us. I begin to feel how Honeyball’s walk takes my back in circles. We make our way along by the edge of a stream.

“Who’s for trotting?” someone at the front calls out.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Rebecca says.

“Me too,” comes out of my mouth.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, can I?”

“You trying to get me fit?” the girl leading me laughs.

And then she’s stopping Honeyball and letting all the other horses past.

“We’ll trot to catch back up with the others.”

It’s just Rebecca, Narinder and me staying back.

“Now, Aaron, hold onto the saddle. It’s very bouncy and you need to go with it, rising up and down. Just shout ‘Stop’ if you don’t like it.”

The girl sets off; Honeyball follows. I’m suddenly chucked up in the air then crashed down.

“Up, down, up, down,” the girl shouts.

The saddle stabs up into my back, pushes me away and then hits me again. My legs flap up and down. My foot comes loose; I’m sliding. I need this to end. I’m leaning to one side. I need Honeyball to stop. I grip the saddle. I’m going to fall. I tighten up to try and hold on to some sort of balance. I’m shaken forwards.

There are horses right in front; we’re about to crash into them. Honeyball suddenly stops, I shoot forward and end up lying around his neck. The girl leading me is leaning over and panting.

“All right, Aaron?” Narinder asks. “You enjoy that? I did.”

I sit up and try to get my foot back in the stirrup. I push my hat back on top of my head, pull my T-shirt down.

“Well, did you like it?”

“Yeah.”

“You ended up in a bit of a muddle.”

“They should have given me a race horse.”

“Sure!”

We walk on through the trees and up a hill; Narinder’s horse is next to mine.

“You were brave to try trotting,” Narinder says. “You ridden before?”

“No.”

“I used to go lots at my last home.”

I sit up letting my weight go down onto Honeyball; at the same time my whole back seems to open out like there’s more space inside me and I’m lighter. I breathe in and out slowly. Honeyball rocks me forwards and back with his walk. My fingers loosen around the saddle. I look out from a height over the hills. I see the purple and yellow of small flowers and a single tree with its branches all growing sideways like a wind has blown them. In the distance on top of a hill there’s a pile of rocks laid down in sagging layers. We go up a slight slope and see ponies standing on a patch of dry, cracked mud under a tree with broad branches. Honeyball lets out a big sneeze and I brush my hand along his neck.

“Well done,” the girl leading me says when we get back to the stables. “Come off by lifting your leg across and sliding down.”

I land next to her and then see Derek hobbling across the yard.

“You did really well for a first try,” the girl says to me. “You from around here?”

“No.”

“Where’s home?”

“… Wherever.”

“… Maybe see if you can go riding again when you’re back home.”

I walk with her to put Honeyball in his stable and she shows me how to take off the saddle. I bury my face into his neck.

“Time to go,” Rebecca says from behind me, “you enjoy that?”

I give Honeyball a long stroke right the way along his neck.

“Say good-bye to Honeyball now.”

“No,” I say quietly.

“Time to go.”

“I’m not coming.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it … Come on now, everyone else is going over to the cars.”

“No, no, no,” I speak into Honeyball’s neck.

“Hey Aaron,” is shouted from behind me by Narinder.

I turn and see her coming over with a big smile.

“Aaron, everyone’s saying how you and I were great. You should ask; maybe you can go riding again. I’m going to try and go when I finally get my new family. You’d go again wouldn’t you? … Derek says he’ll never ride again; he’s done his back in.”

Then she walks off to the group car.

“I like horses,” I say to Rebecca.

“I know,” she says as she puts her arm through mine. “It’s hard to leave, isn’t it, hard to end our holiday. You’ve had a really good holiday, behaved so well.”

“You never rode,” I hear Liam shout at Shelby. “Too scared were you?”

“Liam, leave Shelby alone,” Rebecca calls over.

“Yeah, leave him alone,” Narinder adds. “You weren’t so great yourself.”

“Didn’t you see me go?” Liam says. “I’m the real jockey.”

“Right,” Narinder laughs.

“Enough,” Rebecca says. “As long as you all enjoyed yourselves, that’s what matters. It’s been a fantastic holiday, hasn’t it?”

No one answers her. Shelby and I get into the back of her car and Liam sits in front.

“Seat belts on,” Rebecca says.

Then Rebecca’s struggling with the handbrake; it won’t budge. She pushes and shoves it.

“Can’t you even drive?” Liam says.

“Don’t be rude.”

“Well, can’t you?”

“Just a thing that happens sometimes with my old car.”

“You drive a pile of shit.”

“Don’t …” the word comes out of me; I just want Liam to leave off Rebecca.

Rebecca tries again; there’s a click and the brake moves.

“Well fucking done,” Liam says as we finally move on from the car park.

“Don’t swear.”

“What do you get if you cross a pheasant with a duck?” Shelby suddenly calls out.

“That is such an old joke,” Liam sighs.

“Look there’s no need for you lot to get silly now,” Rebecca says.

“Rebecca, what are your shits like?” Shelby says.

“Shelby, stop it.”

“Well, what are they like?”

I punch across into Shelby; he gives a feeble hit back.

“Enough, you two,” Rebecca says. “Shelby, you’re being rude because you’re having difficulty ending something good.”

Shelby kicks the back of the seat.

“… And because it’s the last day of holiday.”

“Well, who’d want to go back to Temple-fucking-wood?” Liam says.

“Let’s think what there is to look forward to when you get back there - your bedroom, your toys … um, school. We’ll go on fun trips out; there’s that new adventure park that’ll be opening soon.”

“You can’t make us want to go back.”

“No, but I can try.”

“What was the point in showing us all this?” Shelby says with another kick to the seat.

I follow his stare out of the window and see some gulls and a sparkling blue sea.

“You bring us here and then we just end up having to leave.”

The house already exists as a care home for adults with learning and health needs. It will require some adjustment, not least because it is so well appointed in that each suite of rooms has a well equipped kitchen as well as bathroom and large bedroom. We had an unofficial inspection to let us know what would need to be altered. There will be some slight physical alterations necessary, but despite the inspector’s assumption that these children and young people do not need their own bathroom or privacy, we have planned to offer everyone a bedroom, study and bathroom which they will learn to keep clean and reasonably tidy.

There will be a communal dining room where everyone will sit and eat at least in the evening. Food will be prepared by those living in the house and we plan to invite local chefs to come in to help train and guide the youngsters. Cleaning will also be carried out by those whose house it is and everyone WILL do their share. Whilst we wish for this to have the feel of a permanent home, we are very aware that the majority of these kids are already vulnerable either through their borderline criminal activities, inability to conform, quick violent tempers or experience of abuse and rejection. We do not underestimate the task we set ourselves. In light of this, everyone living in the house will have a busy timetable every day and especially at weekends.

Most children’s homes anticipate that a percentage of their residents will run away. Our intention is to use preventative methods to disable that behaviour. It may be the norm for adolescents to ‘chill’ all weekend in their beds and then go out with friends at night; our children cannot do that. They will already have come to the attention of the police and some may have been in protective custody. This is not a normal situation for most of them. We will be introducing a different lifestyle and different attitudes. Some of these youngsters will be unable to adapt, but our wish is that a majority will break through the barrier of no hope and face a better, more optimistic future.

Where possible, we will be encouraging our children to attend their designated educational facilities. Eventually, our plan is to offer learning opportunities in a way that promotes learning and motives a thirst for knowledge. This may not be in a formal educational setting. I fail to understand why, after what may be a seven-year history of refusal to attend school, lack of interest and unwillingness to learn, the state system insists that everyone must be brought in line. It fails so many children. We want our children to be so hooked on learning that they demand more. Whatever we have to do to get this - provided it is legal and safe- we want to do. Not everyone who can’t read is dyslexic. Some have just been badly taught.

Entry and acceptance as a member of our new family will be guided by specific criteria. There are some young people whom we will not accept from the outset because their behaviour is already too violent or disruptive or they have been identified as sexual predators even at this stage in their lives or they have a diagnosed mental health condition which makes them dangerous to others.

We have still to work our way through the barriers we may have to enforce. We will consider each one on an individual basis, but this is a group setting and they will have to develop social skills and empathy under the skilful and vigilant guidance of specially selected workers.

I am looking forward to the challenge and invite you to check out the group discussions on www.facebook.com or contact me direct at valerie@valeriejacksonconsultancy.co.uk I look forward to receiving your comments and suggestions. If you are interested in working on such a project again, please contact me.

On Friday, 27 November 2009, the Social Pedagogy Development Network had its start-off event in Colchester. Set up as a grassroots movement by ThemPra Social Pedagogy in partnership with the Thomas Coram Research Unit (TCRU), the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care (NCERCC), Jacaranda Recruitment, and the English section of the International Federation for Educational Communities (FICE), the network aims to connect those organisations and professionals who have already been active in developing social pedagogy or are eager to do so, thus contributing to the coherent development of social pedagogy in a way that builds on existing best practice.

Sixty participants from England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and even from Denmark, Belgium and Germany joined us for the day with palpable passion for making a difference in the lives of the children and young people they work with, and social pedagogy was seen as the metaphor illustrating these ambitions.

In order to create opportunities for exchange and to encourage delegates to take ownership of the Network, the day was designed to evoke people’s enthusiasm and engagement with each other and with social pedagogy, both in playful and serious ways, with much of the discussion in small groups. It became obvious that there are many social pedagogy developments across the four countries and that these can offer inspiration and learning to others. While much of the morning session focused on participants building relationships with each other and exchanging their experiences around social pedagogy, participants also began a dialogue around the wider context and ways in which social pedagogy can grow in these conditions. These can be summarised in three themes:

The Learning Organisation

Participants recognised that social pedagogy requires an organisational commitment and is more than just about practice - much has to do with how the organisation works. Both a top-down and a bottom-up drive towards social pedagogy are essential, not just in organisations but also within the wider sector. This would convey a sense of everyone taking ownership for social pedagogy.

Practitioners highlighted that support from above is fundamental in alleviating fears about change and making mistakes. If organisations can promote and sustain a culture of trust in their workers and of seeing (honest) mistakes as learning opportunities, social pedagogy will find fertile ground. One example was the approach to managing risk at an individual, organisational and cultural level, where there are enormous myths and differences across the sector. One of the main questions that arose was how social pedagogy can work in a risk-averse organisation or culture.

Professional Identity

Participants noted that social pedagogy can help strengthen their professional identity, especially within residential child care, providing an opportunity to make ‘professional noise’ and giving people more confidence to take more ownership for their practice by focusing on what they are good at.

A further key strength of social pedagogy is that it could draw together different groups of professionals, thus giving the children’s workforce a clearer overarching voice. In connection to this, participants also emphasised the importance of refining the ‘political’ in professional work and seeing the political aspects of our professional actions. Suggestions included the need to form political alliances, focusing on what unites us rather than seeing others as competitors. One discussion group particularly highlighted that we need to engage with schools much more.

More self-critical messages were raised by one group which stated that we need to examine our attitudes towards children and towards society and recognise that attitudes and language affect our practice. This underlines the importance of having a positive concept of children that emphasises their resourcefulness, resilience, and competence rather than using pathologising terms to describe children in care.

Coherent Development

A key endeavour of the Social Pedagogy Development Network is to make the many different developments around social pedagogy more coherent and connected. Participants discussed the tension between maintaining a diverse and creative development of social pedagogic approaches without watering down the meaning of social pedagogy. They concluded that lots of different developments around social pedagogy are within the spirit, but that some training on social pedagogy is very important and that it is crucial to avoid practice merely being ‘relabelled’ without being remodelled from a social pedagogic perspective. This led to the question about courses in social pedagogy and opportunities for placements. As became evident on the day, several courses and qualifications at different levels have been set up or are in the final stages of development.

The afternoon session followed on from these conversations and provided an open space forum for participants to work on the themes they considered most important. In a buzzing, self-directed session, some participants explored the connections between social pedagogy and therapeutic approaches, the relation between risk and social pedagogy, the organisational changes necessary to implement social pedagogy, and how to build practical foundations for social pedagogy.

Others discussed how qualifications could incorporate social pedagogy at different levels, how organisations recruiting social pedagogues could support them in their championing role, what role the third sector could potentially play in promoting social pedagogy and how we can achieve a wider understanding of social pedagogy within the workforce, for example through joint conferences planned in partnership between universities and interested organisations, further meeting days of the Social Pedagogy Development Network with an even wider group of participants, and via the cyberspace on www.SocialPedagogyUK.com to continue the dialogue in the meantime and maintain the momentum created by the passion of participants.

Many participants felt a sense of being connected with like-minded people. “We are not ‘islands’, but there are people out there facing the same issues around pioneering - challenges, cultures, breaking grounds and its side effects, frustration, anger and fears of facing uncertainty in times of change and transition - and that’s on different operational levels (frontline, managerial, organisational)”, reflected Claudia Krüger and Maika Weinert, two pedagogues from Germany who are working in a children’s home in Cheshire.

The day brought to light that, between ourselves, we can overcome any issues, can learn from each others’ pioneering experiences and ideas - and, importantly, can reach levels of enthusiasm that provide the motivation and energy required to sustain the development of social pedagogy in practice.

Abby Ladbrooke, Managing Director of Jacaranda, summarised her impressions from the day, “Here was a group of people who came together, some in their own personal time, and made the very best of the space created for dialogue on the development of social pedagogy in the UK. I found the desire for change to be palpable and the enthusiasm for the theoretical and professional basis that social pedagogy provides to be strong. The determination to find a social pedagogy for the UK seemed not to want to stray far from the roots of the social pedagogy of continental Europe, but the sense that this must be a social pedagogy for this country was clear”.

This spirit was also reflected by representatives from universities in Strathclyde, Lincoln, Liverpool Hope, Newport, Aberdeen, Portsmouth and the new Centre for Understanding Social Pedagogy (CUSP) at the Institute of Education, University of London, as well as the University of Ghent.

Where Next?

Professor Pat Petrie from CUSP noted that the academics were able to have useful conversations about future cooperation and have an important role to play in developing a social pedagogy for the UK. “Social Pedagogy can only become rooted in this country if there is a strategic movement to develop training and education, across the country and at various levels, from short in-service courses to Masters Degrees, as well as research”, Petrie explained.

Together with all those who are interested to contribute, we will continue the journey of developing a social pedagogy for the UK by following social pedagogic principles of working in partnership, learning from each other, engaging in dialogue, valuing diversity and building strong relationships. With the Social Pedagogy Development Network we hope to bring these principles to life by providing an opportunity for dialogue and learning.

The next meeting of the network will take place on 18 June 2010, and if you would like to join please get in touch with us (contact@thempra.org.uk). For further insights into what happened on the Social Pedagogy Development Network day, please go to www.thempra.org.uk. We look forward to hearing from you.

After the indulgences of the festive season, and with the New Year, there’s no better time for reflection. On Christmas Day alone our children can consume up to a whopping 6,000 calories - that’s four times the recommended daily calorie intake for a five-year-old. These excess calories can take weeks or months to burn off, and in some cases not at all.

According to Director of Carnegie Weight Management, Paul Gately, a tendency to write off extra weight carried by children as ‘puppy fat’ can lead to continuing childhood obesity levels.

“Puppy fat is no longer relevant to our children; they just don’t grow out of it any more. In fact, half of overweight five-year-olds will grow up to be obese adults. I urge parents to seek advice early in order to understand the classifications of overweight and obesity, and access services.

“Increasingly, proactive Primary Care Trusts such as NHS Doncaster are addressing the problems by providing ‘Carnegie Clubs’, weight management programmes aimed at four-year-olds, which seek to reverse this trend early. If habits are altered at five we can reduce adult health implications at all ages.”

Carnegie Weight Management (CWM) is the longest running programme for the treatment of overweight and obese children in Europe, and was pioneered after 10 years of research in the US.

Doncaster NHS are leading the way in fighting the battle against childhood obesity by commissioning weight management services for younger children as part of a £500,000 investment to combat obesity in the area.

Carnegie Clubs are now available for children as young as four and aim to work with parents to combat the misperception of ‘puppy fat’ and promote healthy lifestyles and physical activity for overweight young people and their families.

Applications for Doncaster Clubs can be completed online at www.carnegieweightmanagement.com/doncaster or to find Clubs in your area visit www.carnegieweightmanagement.com or contact 0113 812 5233.

Myth 1: Swine flu isn’t that serious so there’s no need to get vaccinated.

Swine flu causes mild symptoms in most people, generally lasting for about a week, but those with a long term medical condition are more likely to be seriously ill with swine flu. Those at particular risk include people with long-term health conditions such as diabetes, chronic heart, kidney, liver or neurological diseases like multiple sclerosis, pregnant women or those whose immune system is affected by a disease or treatment for a disease. In some cases, people may need to be treated in hospital for complications such as pneumonia or difficulty breathing, and in the very worst cases, may die.

Myth 2: The vaccine hasn’t been properly tested and isn’t safe for people who have been identified as in an ‘at-risk’ group.

The vaccines have been licensed by the European authorities and would not have been if they were considered unsafe. In preparing for a pandemic, appropriate clinical trials to assess safety have been carried out on vaccines very similar to the swine flu vaccine. The vaccines have been shown to have a good safety profile.

Scientific evidence from trials suggest the risk of a serious reaction is extremely small - and far outweighed by the risk of someone with an underlying health condition becoming seriously ill from the swine flu virus itself.

Myth 3: The vaccine isn’t safe for people in at-risk groups who have an egg allergy.

There are two versions of the swine flu vaccine, one of which - Celvapan - has been especially created without the use of hens’ eggs, so that it is safe for people with a severe allergic reaction to egg products.

Myth 4: The vaccine will give people in at-risk groups swine flu.

The vaccine does not carry a ‘live’ virus, so it cannot give swine flu to the person being vaccinated. Some people may experience mild symptoms like fever, headache and muscle aches as their immune system responds to the vaccine, but this is not flu and will usually disappear in one or two days without treatment.

Myth 5: There’s no need for people in at-risk groups to get the vaccine if they think they’ve already had swine flu.

Unless a case of swine flu has been confirmed by a laboratory test, most people cannot be certain that they have had the disease, or that they will be protected if the virus mutates. People who have one of the long-term health conditions deemed a priority are therefore recommended to receive the vaccination unless they have had a positive test for swine flu.

Myth 6: People in at-risk groups who already have the seasonal flu jab don’t need the swine flu vaccine.

The seasonal flu vaccination will not protect people against swine flu. People in the at-risk groups for the swine flu vaccine should get both jabs to ensure they are protected against both swine flu and the other flu strains in circulation.

Myth 7: People in at-risk groups who don’t usually catch the flu, won’t catch swine flu.

Swine flu is caused by a new strain of the influenza virus called H1N1. Because it is a new type of flu virus, no one has immunity to it and everyone could be at risk of catching and spreading it.

Myth 8: People in at-risk groups need to stay off work or school after receiving the vaccine.

Those receiving the vaccination can return to their normal routine straight after the jab or in between doses if two are required. As the vaccines do not contain a live virus they do not make a person infectious.

Myth 9: There’s no point getting the vaccine as it won’t help people in at-risk groups if the swine flu virus mutates.

While it is impossible to predict if or how the virus will change, experience with the similar vaccine for the bird flu (H5N1) strain suggests the swine flu vaccine would provide a high level of protection from closely related strains.

Myth 10: The health workers that those at-risk come in to contact with for their condition will have been vaccinated, so there’s no need to get the jab.

Having the vaccine is a personal choice, even for health care professionals, so you cannot be sure that those treating you are not carrying the infection.

The nine questions every parent should ask…

Any parent leaving their child somewhere or with someone for the first time has the right to be concerned and ask as many questions as they like beforehand to ensure they are comfortable with the environment. But what questions should you be asking before choosing a registered out of school club or play setting?

1. Do all the staff hold a current CRB (Criminal Records Bureau check)?

It is illegal for any child care organisation to employ staff which do not hold a CRB. Any paid or unpaid members of staff who will have unsupervised access to the children must carry a CRB. If the answer to this question is in any way vague you should not leave your children there.

2. How many children are there to each staff member?

Ideally there should be no more than eight children to each staff member, for children 3 years old or over. The staff ratio must be 1:4 for children under 3, although it is very unusual that an out-of-school club will cater for this age.

3. What qualifications do the staff hold?

Most playworkers are required to hold a Level 2 qualification, so you should expect this, but a Level 3 is ideal. Obviously, the best qualification for the work is a playwork qualification. Other positive qualifications you should look out for include the Award in Playwork for Early Years and Childcare Workers, or training courses such as Take 5 for Play or Time to Play.

4. What is the out of school club’s policy on handling a sick child?

At all times at least one member of staff present should hold a current paediatric first aid qualification. If your child becomes unwell or has an accident, it will be recorded and, where a child is distressed, needs treatment or is infectious, you will be contacted. You will be asked to give details of any medication needed by your child, any allergies, or particular needs that he or she might have when you register your child, to help the staff deal with any emergencies that might arise and provide the best possible care. All staff members should be able to explain their procedures, if asked.

5. What is the out of school club’s policy on handling a situation where there has been an altercation between two children?

Staff must never use corporal punishment, nor should anyone else on the premises. All registered settings must have a policy and procedures for safeguarding children in their care while ensuring that children’s behaviour is managed in a suitable manner. You should be offered a copy of the policy when you register your child with the club.

Children will usually be allowed to sort out disagreements between themselves in a play setting, as this helps children learn negotiation skills, manage conflict and gain confidence. However, where a child might get hurt, or hurt him/her self, the playworker may intervene. In clubs where there is a wide age range, clubs are expected to ensure that the behaviour of children over the age of eight years does not have a negative effect on the younger children.

6. What activities will the children participate in?

There should be a wide range of play opportunities available which children can choose from as and when they wish. This might include arts and crafts, ball games, table-top and board games, dressing up materials, musical instruments, computers, den-building, cooking, reading and more. In addition, children may be offered the opportunity to go on trips to the baths, the local park or further afield. The setting must make information available to parents on activities that children might undertake. Good Playwork settings will apply the Playwork Principles to their practice, ensuring that children and young people can determine and control the content and intent of their play, by following their own instincts, ideas and interests, in their own way for their own reasons.

7. How does the out of school club manage issues such as food intolerances and allergies?

Ofsted inspection visits check that the childcare is accessible and inclusive, and takes all reasonable steps to ensure that the needs of each child are met. Information about any specific needs your child has will be requested when you register to use the scheme. This might include a particular diet for religious, cultural or medical reasons.

8. How much fresh air do the children get?

The children should certainly spend some proportion of the day outdoors in the fresh air. It is not acceptable or healthy for the children to be inside all day. However, there are no official guidelines on this. Parents should of course make allowances for poor weather conditions.

9. How flexible is the out of school club in terms of being able to accommodate your child on extra days at short notice?

Childcare schemes, including registered out-of-school clubs, must make arrangements with other childcare providers or with parents for occasions on which the scheme is not able to provide childcare.

According to Stephen Studd, Chief Executive of SkillsActive, parents can often feel that other people will view them as neurotic if they ask too many questions but they should not worry about this. The answers to these questions are important and any good out-of-school club will respect that.

Information about Playwork

Playwork facilitates children’s play outside the educational curriculum for 4 -16 year-olds. Playwork takes place where adults support children’s play in settings that include after-school clubs, holiday playschemes, adventure playgrounds, parks, playbuses and breakfast clubs.

More information can be found on their website http://www.skillsactive.com/playwork

Barbara Tizard has had a long-standing interest in issues of child development and the primary focus of this research was on the developmental progress of children who had spent a long period in a residential nursery. When she started the research, many people would have expected that the children would have been irreparably damaged by the experience. In fact, she found quite the opposite and threw a new light on adoption which, following the 1968 Abortion Act, was being transformed from a service for childless adults into a service for children.

In fact, adoption had always performed one service for children because, until the 1989 Children Act, any child born out of wedlock was illegitimate; so adoption within a family, which she mentions in Chapter 1, was a way of legitimising illegitimate children.

In the light of King et al. (1971), she also took a keen interest in staff-child interactions in residential care and the year before had addressed the FICE Congress in Aberdeen on this subject (Tizard, 1976).

Of the study group, about half were successfully adopted, just under half were restored to their families and a small number went into long-term foster care.

Key Ideas

- Adoption has ceased to be a service for childless couples and has become a form of child care.

- Initial problems tend to be forgotten when placements are successful.

- The previous placement was more likely to be blamed if a child had problems.

- There was no obvious benefit gained from maintaining contact with the previous placement.

- Children previously rejected do not have problems making fresh attachments.

- All the children were over-friendly with adults, including strangers.

- The early adopted children showed gains in IQ, which appeared to be related to the experience of emotional attachment.

- Overall, the children showed no more problems at home than a control group.

- The adopted children and their parents interacted far more than the control group; the restored children and their parents somewhat less.

- The children presented more problems at school though, unlike the control group, they were the same as they presented at home.

- The children’s overall behaviour was no more difficult than other similar children but the restored children were more likely to have been referred for treatment for some sort of disturbance.

- There was continuity in behaviour reports over time.

- Teachers and parents agreed about the difficult behaviour but not about its severity.

- Unlike the controls both groups were more likely to have better relationships with younger children than with their peers.

- Most parents had difficulty talking about adoption to the children.

- The later adopted and restored children had similar experiences to the early adopted and restored but there was less agreement between teachers and parents on behaviour problems and the institution was more likely to be blamed for problems.