Our Editorial looks at the main ideas which have underpinned the Webmag over the last twelve and a half years, and invites readers to contribute (in the next fortnight) to our one hundred and fiftieth issue.

News Views includes sport for all, great teachers, children’s rights in Wales, paying for truancy, Care.com, transport and family story-telling.

Under the title Being Born Again, Keith White’s In Residence column takes a look at the standard teaching on child development and sees it as something much more complex, affecting adult life, when some people need to reframe their lives.

As a solicitor David Greenwood has seen plenty of evidence of abuse by clergy, and of defensive cover-ups by churches. He argues powerfully for a thorough inquiry.

There is a report by Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation about girls and physical activity; they don’t do enough and the WSFF has an action plan.

The findings of a survey by Baby Sensory show that music through headphones puts unborn babies at risk.

Finally there is a book review by Valerie Jackson concerning Parenting a Child with Dyslexia by Chris Stanway and Lorna Miles.

We think that the HMIs were wrong. Children need some regular exercise every day, and it should be re-instated in schools. By all means offer a variety of activities, so that girls can do something uncompetitive if they want. Which makes us think. What is sauce for the goose…. Why shouldn’t the staff join in as well, as role models? If the whole school community were to participate, it would offer a powerful message. We wonder whether this idea is in the WSFF kit for schools.

Great Teachers

The House of Commons Education Committee has published a report called Great teachers: attracting, training and retaining the best, in which it comments that “the current generation of teachers is the best ever”.

The teachers’ union Voice supports the Committee’s view that “it’s crucial that we have an educational system which celebrates great teachers, keeps more of them in the classroom, supports their development and gives them greater status and reward”, but remarks that unfortunately, the attitude of government ministers and the media towards teaching often seems to be negative.

Perhaps we need an extension of the Leveson Inquiry to look at ways in which the media have skewed our views. Generally, they don’t like good news stories. Young NCB have had a campaign to demonstrate how teenagers are bad-mouthed by the press, to the point that older people are fearful and suspicious of them, unaware of all the positive work undertaken by young people.

As for this generation of teachers being the best ever, if anyone argues to the contrary, remind them of the way the cane used to be wielded in many schools, of the boredom of some of the lessons, and of the regular absenteeism and not infrequent riots that there used to be. If you doubt it, just read the histories of our older schools.

Wales leading the way in the UK for Children’s Rights

Welsh ministers now have a duty to have due regard to the requirements of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). This means that ministers must consider the rights of children and young people in all the decisions they make about new legislation, policies and changes to existing policy.

To coincide with the new duty, which came into force on 1 May 2012, Gwenda Thomas, the Deputy Minister for Children visited Big Pit National Coal Museum in Torfaen to meet local school children and talk about how their lives and rights compared to those of previous generations. No more pulling coal tubs underground for the kiddies; no more injuries being crushed by falling rocks.

Now let’s hope that other countries follow suit.

Paying for Truancy

Charlie Taylor, government adviser on school behaviour, is advocating increased fines for parents of persistent truants, and the deduction of the fines from their benefits if they do not pay up. We think that this will be ineffective.

There might be a point to charging well-off parents who take their children out of school for holidays for the cost of the education missed. It would probably irritate them and make the cheaper term-time holidays less attractive. We have been informed by the deVere Group, who describe themselves as the world’s largest independent advisory firm which specialises in expat wealth solutions, that three out of four expatriate parents underestimate the true cost of educating their children privately overseas. We have no idea of the daily cost of state education in the UK. Knowing the investment being made out of taxation in their children might make some people value it more.

But people on benefits have very little in the first place; some of them do not value education, which may well be why their children truant. It is the children, though, who will lose out, and the families will risk being driven to offend in order to survive. Taking money from them is likely to make them more antisocial, conforming grudgingly, rather than valuing education.

What is more important, using stick rather than carrot will only embitter families who do not value education against compulsory schooling. Why not use carrot rather than stick? Ideally the carrot should be the enjoyment of learning and the increased opportunities arising from educational success, but a payment for attendance would at least be a start.

Care.com

We received an email, which looked very official, with the royal coat of arms, only to find that it was a private company from the USA advertising its services. The arms had been added because UK Trade and Investment, a government agency of which we had not previously heard, had encouraged Care.com to set up its European HQ in the UK.

Care.com say that they provide an online forum for UK families and carers to connect with each other, arrange care, and share advice. The company helps families address their unique lifecycle of care needs: childcare, special needs care, care for older people, pet care, and housekeeping. Care.com does not employ, recommend, or endorse any carers or care seekers nor is it a recruitment or other agency. Care.com provides information and tools to help members make informed decisions.

However, members are solely responsible for selecting an appropriate employer or carer for themselves or their family, and employers are solely responsible for obtaining and reviewing any necessary CRB or other identity, verification, background, or reference checks before hiring a carer and for verifying the age of the carer they select, as well as that carer’s eligibility to work in the UK. Care.com UK has a trained and dedicated team reviewing all carer profiles for suspicious and inappropriate content. Care.com also provides secure messaging, reference checking services, and a growing collection of articles and resources on the interviewing and hiring process.

It sounds like a good idea. We had heard of a similar system in the States whereby families with a member with learning disability were given a budget based on an assessment of need and used the internet to select the services of their choice, cutting out all the work which social workers would have done to evaluate possible placements and monitor progress.

Transport - a Priority for Young People

The British Youth Council, supported by the House of Commons, has launched the Youth Select Committee – a new body which mirrors the UK Parliament Select Committee structure and gives young people the opportunity to scrutinise and hold enquiries in to topics they’re interested in.

The group’s first inquiry, in July, will look at public transport – as identified as a priority by members of the British Youth Council and UK Youth Parliament in 2011. The terms of reference for the inquiry are “to inquire into issues and concerns around safe, affordable and accessible transport for young people and make recommendations to decision makers to address them”. This topic is one which Young NCB identified some time ago, and it is good to see pressure being maintained.

Family Story-telling

Blurb have emailed to encourage the sharing of family stories for the benefit of future generations. They point out that a lot of children find their grandparents’ stories boring and there is a real risk of losing a wealth of family information. Although 68% of parents want family stories documented, only 18% of children sit down to listen to their grandparents.

Blurb say they are the world’s leading self-publishing platform, and they are launching www.nationofstorytellers.com where you can submit a short synopsis of your favourite personal story. A judging panel will then select twenty of the most inspiring stories for publication, so they can be preserved forever.

‘Research’

Drinkaware report that 72% of young people aged 10 to 17 would turn to their parents to talk about alcohol. For half of them, their parents had given them their last drink.

Meanwhile, a survey by Dove found that 37% of girls looked to their mother as their role model, with Cheryl Cole coming in second at 8%. Kate Middleton only scored 3%, who were presumably the ones dashing to the shops for the look-alike dresses.

So we can rest assured that children still look up to their parents.

Nothing directly to do with children, but the Sun claims that 48% of Britons are seriously considering leaving the country, though another survey reports that 63% will be travelling abroad for a holiday, spending nearly £1k each.

From an article

The Government was literally throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

We hope that a passer-by from the Big Society was there to catch it.

The eight main ideas described below have underpinned what we have done to date. They have not been formalised as an editorial policy authorised by the Board, but they have influenced the material we have sought and the content of the editorial columns. Do they match up to the profession’s thinking today? Do they offer pointers for the future? Comments and contributions to our thinking for the future will be welcome.

1 Quality child care

It should go without saying that we have wanted to promote high standards of child care, but it is sometimes worth stating the obvious, so that it is explicit. While we have published much material about child care services, we have also emphasised the need for the right principles, values and beliefs as the foundations for high quality services.

2 The Whole of Childhood

We have tended to publish material inclusively, and have covered issues ranging from pregnancy through to young adulthood, as well as general social issues. This is because we have considered that growing up is a continuous process and that, while services for children and young people may need to be organised by age groups, professionals should view their work holistically. “The child is father of the man”, and babies grow up through childhood into adolescence and young adulthood. It is important that professionals working with one age group understand about the needs and potential of other age groups. In practice we have probably focused more on residential child care than other fields and there are some which we have covered inadequately, but that is because we depend upon in part what contributors want to write about and in part on our range of contacts. We have tried to get children and young people to contribute, but have only succeeded intermittently.

3 A Child Care Profession

As an extension of this thinking, we have argued that the child care profession has suffered from being split into specialist silos. Child care professionals tend to see themselves as residential workers, foster carers, nursery nurses, childminders and so on, rather than as members of the larger profession, and this splintering has weakened the profession. We have published a lot of articles to brief professionals about areas of service with which they may not be acquainted.

4 Social Pedagogy

As a conceptual vehicle for bringing child care professionals together under a common banner, we have promoted social pedagogy, and we are pleased to see that more local authorities and child care organisations are piloting and researching social pedagogy. We do not argue that it has the magic answer to every problem, but the concepts underpinning social pedagogy have served continental child care well for sixty years or more, and the holistic thinking is consistent with our approach.

5 International Thinking

In the Webmag’s early days we carried a separate section of articles from countries round the world. Clearly, the bulk of the readership is from the United Kingdom, and many of our articles and news items reflect the UK base, but we have always tried to include material from a wide range of countries, as child care professionals have much to learn from each other. To say the least, it can be eye-opening to realise that workers in other countries may do things quite differently, and it can help us challenge our own assumptions. In particular we have given publicity to the work of FICE and AIEJI.

6 Learning from the Past

Child care workers and managers tend to live in the present, dealing with current challenges, and it is easy to forget that our predecessors faced similar problems decades or even centuries earlier. If we ignore what they learnt we risk repeating their mistakes. Yet governments press on, ‘innovating’ without knowing whether ideas have been tried in the past. Many of the best child care texts were written fifty years ago, and they can be hard to obtain, so we have tried to include retrospective articles about child care in the past and have published the Key Texts series - 75 summaries of the most important books and reports from the past.

7 Encouraging Thinking

Most of the content has been articles - some of them of a standard suitable for professional journals, some of them news items or opinion pieces. The standard of writing has varied, but we have considered it important to encourage the sharing of ideas, and we have wanted contributors to feel able to express themselves. We believe that child care requires sensitivity, awareness and fresh imaginative thinking if individual children’s needs are to be met, and this entails urging readers to think creatively and maybe to challenge accepted ideas.

8 Format

We have published the Webmag monthly, partly as a discipline, partly to be able to organise publication without creating excessive pressures. With all the technological developments, this format may now be considered dated, reflecting the old hard copy magazines which are dying out. However, if professionals are to lay out their ideas and argue their cases at any depth, they need more space than a tweet.

A final thought: how about writing a piece for our one hundred and fiftieth issue?

A new report by the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation (WSFF) says that girls in the UK are not getting enough exercise – and that schools hold the key to encouraging girls to get active. The report, based on research carried out by the Institute of Youth Sport at Loughborough University, shows that half of all girls (51%) are put off physical activity by their experiences of school sport and PE.

Official figures show that just 12% of 14 year old girls are reaching the recommended levels of physical activity – half the number of boys at the same age. This is despite three quarters (74%) of girls saying they would like to be more active.

As part of the research, a survey asked 1,500 school children about their attitudes to fitness and sport. It found that:

• Half of all girls (51%) are put off physical activity by their experiences of school sport and PE.
• 45% of girls say “sport is too competitive” and more than half think boys enjoy competitive sport more than girls.
• Over half of all boys and girls agree that “there are more opportunities for boys to succeed in sport than girls.”
• Half of the girls surveyed (48%) say that getting sweaty is “not feminine.”
• Nearly a third of boys think that girls who are sporty are not very feminine.

• Of the least active girls, 46% say that they don’t like the activities they get to do in PE compared to 26% of the most active.
• 43% of girls agree that “there aren’t many sporting role models for girls.”

The report also highlights the gender gap that emerges between girls and boys as they grow up. In Year Four of primary school, girls and boys are doing similar levels of physical activity. However, by Year Six girls are doing considerably less exercise than boys – a gap that widens as girls reach Year Nine of secondary school.

WSFF is writing to every head teacher and head of PE today (over 4,000 teachers), offering them practical guidance on making PE and school sport more appealing to girls, and encouraging all schools to aim for 100% pupil participation. The guidance, developed in partnership with the Youth Sport Trust, recognises that some schools and teachers are already doing this, but what is currently best practise needs to become common practise. WSFF wants every school to help motivate and inspire girls to ‘get active and stay active’ by offering alternative activities, such as dance or martial arts alongside traditional school sports like hockey and netball, to motivate girls to not only enjoy PE and sport in schools, but to adopt a more active lifestyle.

Physical inactivity among girls is associated with a range of outcomes from obesity and low self-esteem to poor educational attainment. The report also highlights the importance of school sport in preventing an obesity crisis in the UK. British women are currently the most obese in Europe and the UK falls behind the OECD average for physical activity among 11-15 year olds.

The report makes a series of recommendations on how to help girls enjoy being active:

• Schools should work with leaders in the field to ensure best practice becomes common practice.
• Performance against the Government’s recommended levels of physical activity for children should be more rigorously monitored within and outside the school environment
• Education authorities and schools should recognise the way in which current provision is failing girls and develop policies and strategies specifically to redress this.
• Choice in physical activity is crucial and schools should seek the views of pupils on which activities they are likely to participate in e.g. single-sex sporting choices or non-competitive classes like dance or martial arts.
• Schools should set their own targets and establish clear and public aspirations for 100% pupil participation.
• Schools should celebrate higher levels of participation as well as success in competitive sports. Initiatives like the Government’s School Games are a great opportunity to encourage young people to enjoy the benefits of playing sport. However, more needs to be done by individual schools to make sure that a range of activities are on offer.

Sue Tibballs, Chief Executive of WSFF, said:

“It is well-known that school children are less active than they should be. This problem is particularly severe for girls. Our research shows that PE and school sport is actually putting the majority of girls off being active, even though three-quarters of girls are keen to do more exercise.

“We need schools and the Government to urgently address this issue, and create policies that will keep our children fit and healthy. The priority needs to be getting all children active not just focusing on the sporty ones.

“We simply cannot afford to keep ignoring the evidence that school sport plays a key role in shaping attitudes to health and fitness. Some schools are leading the way in delivering exciting and inclusive PE lessons, but there is still a great deal to be done. And, with sport front of mind in 2012, now is the ideal time to do it.”

Baroness Sue Campbell, Chair at the Youth Sport Trust said:

“When it comes to PE there are many barriers that can make girls fearful of PE – everything from lacking the confidence to take part through to being extremely body conscious. Schools that deliver PE well recognise these challenges offer a wider variety of sports and physical activity that make girls feel included and encourages them to get involved. We would like to see all schools take this approach.”

On the basis of this report, the WSFF is launching a schools toolkit which provides ideas and solutions for schools.

In the past we have trusted church organisations, but in the same way that we lost trust in the police to regulate themselves (culminating in the creation of the Independent Police Complaints Commission), churches should now be regulated by an independent body.

The Stop Church Child Abuse campaign is an alliance of clergy sexual abuse survivors, support groups, specialist lawyers and interested individuals working in the field of child safeguarding. We have come together to highlight the serious safeguarding failures of church institutions.

The Call for an Independent Inquiry

Clergy and church officials hold important posts and are highly trusted and respected within our society. They have unquestioned access to children and the most vulnerable. We have been aware of increasing numbers allegations of abuse by clergy since the early 1990s.

For 20 years the leaders of the Catholic Church and the Church of England/Wales have repeatedly stated that they will respond appropriately to reports of child sexual abuse, and numerous safeguarding/child protection procedures have been put in place. Despite these assurances and procedures produced, there have been repeated court cases in which clergy and church officials have been convicted of multiple child sexual offences, often dating back and continuing for decades and involving a number of children.

Repeatedly, prosecutions have revealed that church authorities covered up past reports of child abuse and allowed clergy to remain in post despite allegations and in some cases past convictions for child sexual offences. In many reported cases further child abuse took place. The James Robinson case in 2010 involving the Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham, the recent convictions of monks and priests at Ealing Abbey, Buckfast Abbey, the Cotton and Pritchard case in 2008 and subsequent Church of England Diocese of Chichester Inquiries (2010, 2011 and ongoing 2012) are just the latest examples. It is also concerning that in church-run schools Ofsted inspections have marked some outstanding when either known abusers have been working at the school, or the schools have inadequate child protection policies.

My Findings

• From my research between 542 and 1,776 abusing priests have gone un-prosecuted.

• Church safeguarding procedures allow Bishops to keep allegations away from the police and social services.

• There have been recently discovered cover-ups in which Bishops have protected clergy.

• Bishops can decide for themselves whether to even have a priest risk assessed.

• There are very recent examples of Bishops allowing sex offending priests to work with children.

• The churches allow convicted sex offenders to be ordained.

• The institutional dynamics of the churches prevent effective child protection and are putting children at risk in 2012.

The Catholic Church

It is clear from the ongoing appalling cases coming into our courts that at no time in the twenty years that we have known about clergy perpetrating child sexual abuse in this country have Catholic Church leaders shown themselves capable of conducting an inquiry into the institutional failings to protect children.

The recent church commissioned inquiries into Downside, Buckfast Abbey and Ealing Abbey will not result in any change of hearts or minds or institutional dynamics within the Catholic Church which continue to protect its reputation, resources and the clergy at the cost of the safety of the most vulnerable.

The Church of England and the Church of Wales

Whilst the press and public have to date focused on the failings within the Catholic Church similar events have gone unreported in the Church of England.

The current Church of England safeguarding procedures do not adequately protect children from risk of abuse by those already known to be accused. As with the Catholic safeguarding procedures there is no compulsion to report allegations of abuse. Bishops and other church officials have too much discretion.

Only a public inquiry into the thousands of cases of child abuse perpetrated within Dioceses and Church run institutions will reveal both the extent of the abuse that has been perpetrated and also the institutional dynamics within the Church that enable such abuse to be covered up and to continue for decades, even into the 21st Century.

These two organisations have proved unable to police themselves and we call for a statutory body to regulate their responses to allegations of abuse.

The Campaign

The campaign is calling on the Government to set up an Independent Commission of Inquiry into child sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy, religious and other church officials within all Dioceses and institutions of the Catholic Church in England & Wales and the Church of England and in Wales.

We recommend that the following changes are enacted into legislation :-

1) Mandatory reporting by church and religious leaders of all allegations of child abuse perpetrated by those in positions of trust and authority within churches and religious institutions.

2) An independent statutory body to receive reports of abuse, to monitor and review safeguarding procedures within the Roman Catholic Church and its religious institutions and the Church of England and in Wales. Such a body should have powers to carry out regular and planned inspections, make recommendations for improvements and enforce compliance, as well as to inspect at no notice where substantive cause for concern arises.

David Greenwood is a Solicitor working for Jordans Solicitors.

Tel: 01924 868911

Fax: 01924 868915

email:david.greenwood@jordanssolicitors.co.uk

web: childabusesolicitor.com

web: jordanssolicitors.co.uk

twitter: @dgreenwoodlaw

Chapter one looks at the definition of dyslexia and how this may affect the individual’s ability. As with any other diagnosed need, dyslexia takes many forms, from the creative to the disabling disorganised person who cannot seem to function in the world.

The second chapter looks at the symptoms and prognosis of the condition and some of the methods for treating the child. There is a telling section for adopters and foster carers when trauma mimics dyslexia. Most children have suffered to some degree by being looked after or adopted into a new family. This can send their reactions into the stratosphere and may even cause concerned adults to wrongly diagnose a condition.

The third chapter advises on questions to ask prior to adopting or fostering a child. The next few chapters look at how this may affect the individual child’s development and what support, educational strategies and further help can be expected.

The second section of the book focuses on the importance and frustration of parenting a child with dyslexia. Lorna Miles shares her own experiences of living with children who have dyslexia. It is a simply told narrative with an emotional yet realistic undercurrent. At the end of this section there are questions to ask oneself.

I found this book to be an ideal addition to the bookshelf, especially for foster and adoptive parents. With any child, there is an element of the unknown and for children who are not born into the family, there may be even more surprises. I liked this short yet informative volume.

Stanway, Chris and Miles, Lorna (2012) Parenting a Child with Dyslexia

BAAF

ISBN 9781907585463

“Parents need to be educated about this issue and practice alternative methods of playing music to their unborn child such as low background music on a stereo or even singing to their bump. Then once welcomed to the world your baby can engage in many fun and educational activities involving music which can help development and intelligence in later life”, advises Dr. Lin Day.

Baby Sensory is the only provider of baby development classes designed specifically for babies from birth to 13 months. The classes are run in over 200 locations throughout the UK and currently one in 55 babies born in the UK attends Baby Sensory classes. Classes are also run in twelve countries, including the USA, Australia and Spain and, most recently, in China. The Baby Sensory programmes have been developed in the UK by Dr. Lin Day (PhD. M. Phil. PGCE. BSc. Dip. Ed), who has worked with babies and young children throughout her career.

Baby Sensory state that all activities are excellent for developing physical, social and emotional, and language skills, co-ordination, awareness of the world, a love of music and the concentration needed for further development. The programme is also suitable for babies with physical or learning impairments. For more information, see www.babysensory.com.

This is how she describes how she now understands what was going on in her personal development:

“I think that if you are going to go on developing as a human being, there will challenges to the self. You can’t simply become habitual, or even know, to yourself – you have to take risks. And I think that the person I was…couldn’t go any further. It’s very odd when you run out of self – it’s like the end of a road…So if you are going to have a second life you probably need to have a second self to go with it, which is a self which has been broken and remade in some fundamental way…”[ii]

The comparison between this sort of experience and religious conversion is one that she herself makes. And she uses the same phrase “born again”.

A person confronted by one or more big issues in their life (including separation, loss, shame, physical traumas and so on) has a range of defensive options available to them, and psychotherapy has charted them exhaustively. As an alternative to suicide, Jeanette Winterson sees them as the attempt to repair the situation/self by adopting a false personality. This involves shutting down the self as a means of escape. This strategy may succeed in preventing suicide, and keeping life ticking over, but it does so at the cost of genuine relationships, intra and inter psychic. The only authentic option she sees is that of putting things back together (redeeming them) in such as way that it is possible to start again. The past is revisited and reinterpreted. (The way Jeanette describes her new understanding of her adoptive father chimes well with the theory of resilience described in that historic book, Out of the Woods.[iii])

With this in mind, the next part of my argument concerns the deep-seated problem that we have both as individual human beings, and as humanity as a whole, in understanding the true nature of things. I do not want to become unduly philosophical here, but rather to make a very simple point. We often look to the wrong people for explanations and interpretations of phenomena: we instinctively turn to those who are assumed to be the experts in a given field. It can make good sense for some things (going to a garage mechanic to fix a car, and to a doctor for a medical ailment, for example), but can often lead us to the very people who by virtue of their familiarity with certain data and situations, cannot see the wood for the trees. Experts by definition will always tend to see and explain phenomena on the basis of their specialist knowledge or theory. That much is surely unexceptional, and need not delay us for long.

Let me give just one practical example: the blue stones at Stonehenge. It is universally accepted that some of these, at least, came from the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire. The thorny question is how they were transported. There are two main theories: that they were carried by the Ice Age, or by some form of slave or conscripted labour. To an unbiased onlooker these seem to be two sensible options, given that the flow of ice was in roughly the right direction, and that there was the availability in theory at least of the necessary labour. The worrying thing is, however, that geologists all tend to opt for the former, and archaeologists for the latter explanation! How on earth does the unbiased observer begin to assess such specialist information given that there are two such completely distinct paradigms of knowledge?

In my view this sort of difficulty is commonplace in knowledge and theory, and reasonably well attested by the likes of Polanyi,[iv] McIntyre,[v] Illich,[vi] and Kuhn[vii].

So now let’s return to the matter of individual human development, a field dominated by the social sciences, notably psychology and psychotherapy. Is it possible that we have turned to such specialists so often and in such a reflex way, that we, like them, have missed something important? One shouldn’t rule out at this stage that there might be an elephant in the room, or that the Emperor is naked!

I think something very important has been overlooked. And this is the nub of the matter. Development theory (the phrase itself is not an objective or neutral one) is basically framed by the assumption that there are stages of development. A cursory glance at the textbooks and leaders in the field will leave the reader in no doubt. What’s more there are, by definition, “normal stages” of development. And if you are not careful you begin to swallow this camel of a meta-narrative, while trying to strain out the odd gnat as part of your studies. Years of teaching child development and related topics have convinced me beyond reasonable doubt of the attractiveness of stages of development as a framework that students readily understand and even more quickly embrace.

This is hardly surprising given that such development theory is congruent with ideas of the progress of human civilisation, increasingly linked in our day and age to a concept of human evolution. Whether we are thinking about the micro or the macro level, the fundamental paradigm of development and progress is the same.

It follows that there is “normal” personal development, and “normal” societal development, and one of the tasks of the specialists is to identify those whose development is abnormal or retarded, and to recommend ways in which it can be sped up. I mention societal as well as personal development not because we will be exploring it in this column, but because it is vital to see that all of us, whether as individuals or social groups, operate within thought and language permeated by these closely connected paradigms.

If we go back to Jeanette Winterson, we can see how easily she fits the whole pattern: she is one of those who, because of unfortunate childhood experiences, has had her development adversely affected, and therefore she needed help in one form or another in order to get her back on track. In such situations the experts are of course all set to offer help and advice.

The problem I have with these mutually-reinforcing discourses is that they do not do justice to the facts as I have come to understand them. This includes the facts of numerous life-stories encountered in the course of my life and work at Mill Grove, as well as through those stories I have gleaned from case studies, literature, and ordinary social life. And it includes what I have learned of human social history through extensive reading and travel.

My interim conclusion (it would be unwise and unscientific to be dogmatic) is that the basic development paradigm is therefore flawed. Any theory must be open to reconsideration in the light of the facts of individual personal human life, or of the wide span of human “civilisation” (a weasel word if ever there was one, as Mahatma Ghandi observed when referring specifically to the west). Rather than seeing those who are stunted or retarded as abnormal (“challenged” is probably the politically correct word at the moment), I have come to see them as representing much more the true nature of the human condition. In short, both human and societal development are far more patchy, more nuanced, less convincing as stories of progress than the theory would suggest.

Before going any further it is vital to point out that I am neither suggesting that the story of human progress has no substance to it, nor am I venturing an alternative version resembling human regress. On the contrary I am seeking to do justice both to the achievements and glories of human civilisation, and to the darker side that has bedevilled, and continues to bedevil humans and human societies worldwide, of whatever culture, religion or political creed.

And it is a former Professor of Christian Education at Princeton Theological Seminary, James E. Loder, who helped me to see where the fundamental flaw in the whole process might be. And it is to do with early ego development. René Spitz,[viii] who studied the early months of the lives of children in detail, was persuaded that at somewhere around three months (there is, of course, no need for a rigid definition of the time period) a child seeks and responds to the presence of a human face. Loder argues that this interaction over time establishes the child’s sense of personhood, and is a universal prototype of the Divine Presence (that all is, and will be, well). You can choose you preferred vocabulary at this point: the important thing is that we can find a way of proceeding together.

At about six months the child has begun to recognise the mother’s particular face, and becomes aware of her absence. This causes huge anxiety (because so much is at stake given what the face represents), which is exacerbated by the increasing interdictions of significant others by gesture as well as by word “No!” The child is at risk because of an inner absence, and also because of perceived external hostility. The universal way in which children, male and female, go about coping with this is the pivotal point of the whole argument.

The child takes the initiative and begins to set up all relationships (including that with the mother) on her own (negative) terms. Like a reaction formation, the child says “No” in all situations, whether or not it is actually what she means or wants. The point is to take control as a way of coping when the world, within and outside, has proved so unreliable. This is the source of the autonomous ego, no less. And it achieves it primary purposes of repressing hurtful or destructive longings, and bringing some objectivity to negotiations with the world outside and around. The child now begins to function as an agent, rather than as a passive victim. And this is welcomed and reinforced by family and society in many ways.

But the cost is huge and potentially lifelong: the true personality is not centred.

This seizing of the initiative serves a function, but does not change the existential, lonely, vulnerable reality of the child. And this, Loder argues, is at the very heart of human ego development: a misguided attempt to deal with a sense of rejection and cosmic loneliness. From that point on, the theories of development kick in, all seeking to help the ego of the child (whether with motor, cognitive, personal, language skills), and normal stages of development chart and encourage the flawed progress of the ego. Writ large, the whole of human society and the human project is likewise built on this foundation, not least in its western individualistic version where you are encouraged to look after ‘No. 1′.

I venture to guess that not every reader of Children Webmag will be familiar with Karl Barth’s Commentary on Romans, so let me share a brief summary of his conclusion at this point:

“This world has…form and shape; and it possesses a law, a general pressure towards concreteness, to light-created light. This pressure towards enjoyment, possession, success, knowledge, power, rightness; this vigorous movement towards an attainable comprehensible perfection; this pressure…forms the mysterious pivot round which the whole world of human genius revolves…and…genius is…our beloved ego.”[ix]

Here is a case of finding someone who is not so immersed in the trees that they cannot see that the whole wood is in fact destined to die! This is in almost complete contrast to theories of child development that see the individual reaching maturity as an adult. But then what?

Loder draws from a wide range of writers (including Barth) in developing his theory in two books.[x] These writers include Erikson, Freud, Jung, Winnicott and the like. He is writing not to critique what they are saying but to put their work in a new and wider framework of understanding.

If there is a grain of truth in what Loder is saying, and from observation and reflection over a lifetime I think there is, we could see the twin frameworks of human and societal development as conspiring to cover up, or deal with, the existential alienation and loneliness that characterises the human species from birth to death. It is a form of wish-fulfilment that assumes a person who plays his cards correctly will experience untroubled, normal human progress. Likewise that human societies (that are made up of course of individual lonely human beings), if they only get the right system of economics, politics or management, will reach new levels of peace and prosperity.

It follows that those alone who can show us the way are people like Jeanette Winterson who see the flaw in the project of the self, and are willing to go right back to the beginning (suicide is the most complete and dramatic form of this longing) in order to remake the self, in the light of a better and more complete understanding of the facts of the matter.

I have seen this again and again with youngsters who have been let down by their own biological parents and families. What I now realise is that the challenge to be born again is one that confronts every human being. It entails the acceptance of the brokenness of the self, and the need for it to be re-made. And the same is highly likely to be true of human societies: until the west and China, let’s say, acknowledge the truth of their fallibility and brokenness, there can be no genuine human society at any level.

So it is that the little ones, the broken ones of societies and families throughout human history, can lead the way for the rest of us. And as they do so, we need to re-write the theory of human development in the process. It is far too alluring and reassuring for our own good. Perhaps that is why it has lasted and been so popular for so long.

[ii] Third Way, April 2012, page 17

[iii] Out of the Woods: Tales of Resilient Teens, ed. S. Hauser et al (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006)

[iv] Personal Knowledge, Michael Polanyi (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1958)

[v] After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre (Notre-Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1981)

[vi] Deschooling Society, Ivan Illich (London: Penguin, 1973)

[vii] The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1962)

[viii] The First Year of Life, Rene Spitz (New York: Inter Univ. Press, 1965)

[ix] The Epistle to the Romans, Karl Barth (trans. E Hoskyns) (London: OUP, 1933)

[x] James E. Loder, The Transforming Moment (Colorado Springs: Helmers and Howard, 1989); The Logic of the Spirit (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 1998)

 There are three main groups of contributions this month - articles on child care practice, contributions from or about issues in other countries, and book reviews.

First the practice articles.

-           In his In Residence column, Keith White looks at the way that families       function as a part of wider communities.

-           Michael Greig describes work with a boy in which he applied what he had           learnt about social pedagogy.

-           Delma Hughes describes the progress in developing Siblings Together - despite the recession.

-           Chris Durkin questions what the real impact of social work intervention is.

Next the international articles.

-           Charles Pragnell describes problems with the Family Courts in Australia.

-           Bettina Terp describes FICE - the largest international professional           association for people working with children and young people.

-           FICE’s President, Dashenka Tashkova, draws attention to the plight and             future needs of children in Syria.

-           The Editorial focuses on ways in which child care workers can communicate      and keep in touch internationally, following a cyc.net ‘clan gathering’.

We also have the thirteenth contribution from Jim Hyland about the demise of the approved schools system, and News Views covers truancy, social pedagogy in Ireland, the demise of the CWDC,  church child abuse, Tony Newton, Herb Barnes, parental mileage, tablets, children’s clocks, spring-cleaning and flat panel TVs.

The book reviews, all by Valerie Jackson, all concern books (mainly for professionals) published by Jessica Kingsley Publishing.

-        first an introduction about JKP;

-           101 Things to Do on the Street by Vanessa Rogers about games and        resources for detached, outreach and street-based youth work;

-           Connecting with Kids Through Stories by Denise Lacher and others, about           using narratives to facilitate attachment in adopted children;

-           Friendship and other Weapons by Signe Whitson about group activities to            help young girls aged 15-11 to cope with bullying;

-           Safeguarding Children from Abroad Refugee, Asylum Seeking and Trafficked       Children in the UK, edited by Emma Kelly and Farhat Bokhari;

-           Starving the Anger Gremlin, a cognitive behavioural therapy workbook on             anger management for young people by Kate Collins-Donnelly.

And finally a review of the Asda Kidscam Digital Camera by Bill Stevenson.

Forty years ago, residential child care workers in the UK used their only days off to share their professional problems at meetings of the Residential Child Care Association, and they looked to their monthly copies of Child in Care for their inspiration. Now they can make contact with colleagues, lecturers and others throughout the world by texting, emailing, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and a host of other systems. Responses can be immediate, and it is not necessary to give up days off.

This sounds like real progress, and as far as the technology is concerned, the options today are light years ahead of the 1970s. But an important question is whether these systems actually lead to more careful thought, more informed discussion and better services for children. After all, whatever system one uses, “Rubbish in; rubbish out” applies, and the quicker the response, the less thought may have been given to the answer. Complex professionals issue require careful thought and use of words; a quick Tweet may simply be a distracting use of time. Developing good communication may not be a matter of reducing concepts to soundbites but of encouraging workers to find settling down to think and study rewarding.

It is not yet clear whether we have further technical developments ahead which will make communication significantly easier, or whether we now have available the main sorts of communication systems which professionals will be using over coming decades. Whether things will change or not, how do we best use the systems we have?

cyc-net

Aficionados of cyc-net have held a ‘clan gathering’ in Glasgow to consider these issues. If you are a reader of Children Webmag, but have not yet looked at cyc-net, we recommend that you do. Its aims and values are very similar to those of the Webmag. It has grown up in the same sort of way, with a Board, a core of volunteers at the centre and a network of contributors and readers.

Although they may feel financially hard-pressed, cyc-net has been better financed than the Webmag, though, and it has been much more successful in developing a wider range of material, for example by having a Learning Zone with training materials. It does a lot of the things which the Webmag would like to do.

The clan gathering was the first of its kind. It was a warm and friendly event, attended by about sixty participants from about a dozen countries, well organised with The Kibble at the heart, with a day conference in which thirty-six quarter-hour papers were given about different aspects of child and youth care. The rest of the time was given over to discussing where cyc-net goes next. It was a debate which reflected on not only cyc-net itself but also the way child care workers communicate world-wide and the global state of services for children and young people.

Five Thoughts

As concerned well-wishers from a parallel venture, we offer five thoughts for the future of cyc-net.

First, what has already been achieved is precious. That does not mean it is something you can preserve like a diamond ring in a box. Its value is that it is a living network, involving thousands of people, who make contact because they want to, without obligation. Clearly cyc-net has to have some form of organisation in the shape of its Board, but it needs to remain lively, accessible, responsive to need, changing format if that meets participants’ needs better, alert to trends in child and youth care and technical changes in communication systems.

Any decisions which create formal structures or fees to access material could risk stifling the creativity of the site. For example, if a membership organisation were set up on the model of FICE and AIEJI, which have both been around for over sixty years, cyc-net would not only be a rival to them but it would inherit the problems they are facing in keeping structures going that do not sit easily with the electronic age.

It should be noted that the success of cyc-net is the result of the personal impact of a number of individuals. At the risk of omitting some key people of influence, we should offer thanks to Brian Gannon, who has been at the heart of the enterprise, to Thom Garfat and Leon Fulcher, and to Graham Bell for the support of the Kibble. It is because these key professionals have contributed not only their time and energies but have provided the right sort of milieu, based on sound professional thinking and the right values, that cyc-net has had such an impact.

We need to recognise the importance of what has been achieved, therefore, and the need to maintain the services and approach offered to date.

In what ways could cyc-net expand? Our second point is that cyc-net is strongest in countries where English is the first language - USA, Canada, South Africa and Australia, for example. This is not only a question of language but of culture and professional approach. The child and youth care model of North America is dominant. This is not to criticise the model, but there are other models such as that of social pedagogy of Europe. A dialogue between proponents of these models would not only introduce workers to new ideas but help them question their own methods.

There are obviously many other languages spoken in child care around the world. There must be hundreds of thousands of people working with children whose main language is Chinese, Arabic, Hindi or Urdu, for example. Where does one start? We suspect that a network on the cyc-net model for the Spanish-speaking world would meet a similar need and be a good starting point. Like cyc-net it would need time to build up, but it could serve much of South America, Central America, some of North America and Spain itself.

Thirdly, we suggest alliances with other organisations such as FICE and AIEJI. They have experience in running congresses and cyc-net could piggy-back on their events, saving on organising time, avoiding rivalries but also having the chance for face-to-face meetings which enable greater depth of discussion and the development of relationships. Such arrangements would also create opportunities for interface between the world of child and youth care and the world of social pedagogy.

Fourthly, one of Children Webmag’s aims has been to unify all workers with children and young people under a common banner, to create a strong profession comparable to the other major professions. In the UK the profession is splintered, with workers too often remaining in silos, with separate professional identities, training, accreditation and registration systems, and often having few contacts with workers in other settings. There is a gulf, for example, between early years workers and those working with adolescents, let alone the wider gap between those working with babies and those with young people in secure settings.

We may be wrong, but we suspect that the bulk of cyc-net material focuses on a section of children and young people - not the whole age band, and there may be scope for broadening the field. After all, it is the same children who live through the different age groups, and the way they are reared when tiny affects what they do as adolescents. We need an integrated approach.

Finally, how about thinking big? Compared with the big industries, child care is a poor relation, and both Children Webmag and cyc-net are run on very tight budgets. There are plenty of millionaires in the electronic communication industry who could easily spare money to expand the services offered by cyc-net. For example, if the child care services of India and Africa could be offered laptops they could access the training materials offered by cyc-net, and a lot more besides. The impact on the quality of services worldwide could be enormous, and it only needs one millionaire to understand the scope of this proposal for things to take off.

We wish cyc-net well as it looks to the future.

Truancy

It is reported that the percentage of children who miss 15% of their lessons has dropped from 6.8% to 6.1%. That is still about 400,000 children. Children are meant to attend school and so any such fall is good news. Children who miss school underachieve and this can affect the rest of their lives.

But, as was commented when the figures were published, there are local communities where truancy is an endemic part of the culture and the children are reflecting what their parents did, and still do in some respects. In areas of high unemployment there are families who for generations have not worked. Why is it compulsory for children to attend school when it is not compulsory for adults to attend a place of work? Shakespeare referred to “the shades of the prison-house” when talking of school, and for young people where the local culture does not value education, leaving school is an escape to freedom to do what they want.

The much more fundamental issue, then, is how we encourage children to enjoy and value education so that they want to learn, not only because of the opportunities it opens up, but because of the inherent interest in discovery and finding out how things work, how we got here, how we can communicate with people in other countries and so on. Until we can crack this one, there is little point forcing children to “creep like snail unwillingly to school”, as without the right motivation they will simply be uninterested, incapable of absorbing ideas and even disruptive. Some of them solve this problem by truanting.

Social Pedagogy in Ireland

The Social Pedagogy Development Network is holding a conference in Sligo, the first on the subject in Ireland, on 25 - 25 May 2012. The evening seminar on Thursday, 24 May (6.00pm – 8.30pm) will provide a more theoretical perspective on aspects of social pedagogy. It is complementary to Friday’s SPDN full-day event (25 May, 10.00am – 4.00pm), which will have a more practice- and action-orientated focus.

Prof. Juha Hämäläinen from the University of Eastern Finland, author of The Concept of Social Pedagogy in the Field of Social Work and Developing Social Pedagogy as an Academic Discipline’ will address the conference, along with several other academics from university colleges across Scandinavia.

For more information, see www.thempra.org.uk/network.htm.

Children’s Workforce Development Council

Jane Haywood, Chief Executive of the CWDC, issued this letter on 16 March 2012:

You will be aware that CWDC will be closing on 31 March. As you would expect this is a sad time for of all of us in CWDC but also a very proud one as we reflect on our achievements.

Since our formation in 2005 we have sought to strengthen the children’s workforce

through improved qualifications and skills, increased support for employers, and wider integrated working. We have helped to transform some of the most challenged sections of our workforce – especially children’s social work and early years. We have supported local authorities to become much more effective in planning for their workforce. We have also set up new systems to allow voluntary and private sector employers to access workforce support.

We have done this in partnership with employers and the workforce. We have worked closely with children and young people to ensure that their needs drive our policy, strategy and delivery. We are deeply grateful for the support and trust that you have given us and we are clear that the sector will continue to give a strong focus to workforce development and integrated working.

We know that professionals and volunteers benefit from working in integrated teams. They remain longer in post, they record greater satisfaction with their job, and they have more opportunities for career development. In turn, employers benefit from the greater flexibility and cost-effectiveness. When professionals work together well, everyone benefits. Evidence shows integrated services keep children and young people safer. Outcomes for children are significantly better – they learn better; and they are healthier and happier.

It is now time for us to move on. In our final year, we have continued to focus on

delivering support to employers while finding secure homes for all of our work,

particularly our core vision of integrated working. In future, other agencies will pick up the baton we have carried, and we wish them well.

The Department for Education’s (DfE) Teaching Agency will continue our work with early years and educational psychologists. Our social work reform programme will transfer to DfE, alongside sector-led development across all other sections of the workforce. Some of the CWDC staff will move with this work which will help the transition of key areas of work.

Finally the leadership of integrated working will be taken up by the Children’s Improvement Board, in partnership with the Department for Education. The attached chart provides more details so that you can maintain and develop your key relationships in the coming months.

Our motivation in CWDC has always been to do what is best for children, young people and families and I know that you have shared this vision. I wish you well and thank you for all that you do.

We have included it in full because it demonstrates the volume of work undertaken by the CWDC and the pragmatic way in which they ensured that their workload was passed on. When the CWDC was set up it seemed that proper recognition was at last being given to the child care workforce, and its closure is yet another loss to the field of child care. We shall watch with interest to see if the Department for Education can provide a comparable lead, and we are sceptical about its likely success, though we shall be pleased to find our fears unfounded.

Stop Church Child Abuse

On Thursday 19 April 2012 at 2.00 pm at Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London, a campaign will be launched for a public inquiry into church child abuse.

Why do we need a public inquiry? The organisers say that members of church organisations hold influential and highly respected roles within the community and have had unquestioned access to children and the trust of the public.
They are aware of over 68 priests (Roman Catholic and C of E) who have been convicted of serious sexual offences in the recent past. Police investigations are ongoing. Church organisations have persistently ignored and in many cases covered up complaints of abuse. They say that they have seen clear evidence of cover-ups and believe these are the tip of the iceberg, with the culture of denial and cover up deeply embedded in these two churches.

They say that there is now overwhelming evidence that the churches are so compromised by their own failure to police themselves effectively that the only way to address the scandal of sexual abuse in the RC and C of E churches is through a comprehensive public inquiry, and they urge ministers to order this without delay.

Tony Newton

The news came out this week that Lord Newton had died. As a Conservative politician he showed consistent concern on social issues and came over to professionals in the service as conscientious, caring and knowledgeable. Even when seriously ill he was still busy in the House of Lords. CPAG spoke for a lot of people in saying that they felt they had lost a friend.

You can Google to see his obituaries. We have just one small story which won’t be in them. Some time in the early 1980s he was making a ministerial visit to the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work, which was sited near King’s Cross, an area which was fairly insalubrious at the time. Tony Newton swept up in his ministerial car, leapt out and shook the hand of the young lady who, he assumed, constituted his welcoming party. She was somewhat surprised at the unusual greeting, and presumably he was too when he found out that she was actually a professional of another sort, standing in her pitch plying her trade.

Herbert Barnes

On 14 February 2012 Herb Barnes died in Florida, U.S.A., from a massive heart attack which he had experienced a few days before his passing. He was not well known in the UK, but he had contributed considerably to child care on the international scene.

Herb served on the AIEJI Board for a number of years. During this time he was a tireless advocate for bringing the ‘educateur’ philosophy of a holistic child care approach to the U.S. to strengthen services to young people. In this regard he had established the ILEX program a professional exchange between the U.S. and Europe. Numerous professionals from Europe over the years experienced a year or two in child care facilities across the U.S modelling the holistic approach for their American colleagues.

His wife, Liese, wrote about Herb, “His zest for life was infectious and he always was ready to take on a new challenge”. Arlin Ness, former president of AIEJ said Herb Barnes was not only a personal friend but a colleague who enriched you by his friendship and his creative mind. Emmanuel Grupper, Israeli AIEJI board member, wrote, “Herb was a unique and fascinating personality, always so optimistic on the one hand and realistic on the other. We will always remember him as a great humanist and professional and especially a devoted friend to so many who already miss him so much”.

We can echo these tributes from the times we spent with Herb. Child care is fortunate to attract such people, and he will be missed.

‘Research’

We keep getting results from surveys; sometimes they throw interesting sidelights on the human condition; sometimes they underline the obvious.

1 Mileage

Sainsbury’s car insurance have looked at the mileage clocked up by parents in taking children to school and sporting and social events. They reckon it adds up to 230 million miles a week, and that this comes to £32 billion in unpaid fares. While these are big figures, they are unsurprising and knowing them is unlikely to change anyone’s behaviour.

An interesting sidelight, though, is that parents welcome this chore, as it gives them a chance to talk without interruption to their children before they disappear to their computer screens, mobile phones etc.

2 Tablets

69% of parents would be happy if the use of tablets in school were compulsory, according to Magbooks. 66% of parents let their children use their tablets and 54% supervise them closely, but children still use them for 6 hours a week playing computer games.

Maybe the compulsory use of tablets would lure the truants back to school, so that they could play computer games all day. Bread and circuses they called it in Roman Empire times, to keep the populace happy and avoid riots.

3 Children’s Clocks

The Gro Company, makers of Grobag, commissioned research among 2,000 parents of UK children under the age of seven, which showed that three out of five UK parents felt controlled by their child’s sleeping pattern some or all of the time. The study also found 45% of them admitted to relying on their children to wake them up some or all of the time, with a quarter (26%) claiming never to use an alarm clock at all.

So the Gro Company developed the Gro-clock to help the entire family to manage its sleep pattern and aid children’s understanding of day and night. The Gro-clock has a variable, illuminated display that indicates when children should be sleeping and when they can get up, using friendly sun and star graphics. Once set, at night time the display glows blue and begins counting down the stars on the clock face until the sun comes up and the display goes yellow, at the desired time for waking.

Catherine Fairchild at the Gro Company, said, “We know how difficult it can be for children to understand when it is acceptable to get up in the morning. Often, they believe their day starts – and that of the whole family - when they first wake up, whatever time that is. All too often and particularly with lighter mornings that might be five or six a.m. The Gro-clock was created to provide parents with a useful tool to set parameters on sensible rising hours”.

We look forward to hearing what the 2,000 parents think of the Gro-clock in 12 months’ time.

4 Cleaning carpets

Did you know the average family of four sheds up to 3lbs of skin per year? Or that your carpet can hold up to 2lbs of dirt per square foot? Surprisingly, despite these shocking facts over 80 per cent of homeowners have never washed their carpets!

As well as this, 45 per cent of homeowners don’t remove their shoes before walking on their carpets and worryingly, four out of ten people eat food which has been dropped on the floor.

So says the Rug Doctor, advocating the re-introduction of spring-cleaning, and the involvement of children in the work. We were taught that everyone should have their peck of dirt, presumably as a sort of inoculation against lurgies.

Flat Panel TVs

Unless we have checked equipment we do not endorse it, and whether the product advertised solves the problem we do not know, but the advert below identifies a new safety problem which we had not come across before, and we thought readers should know about it.

There are now estimated to be over 30 million flat panel TVs in the UK, with roughly half sitting on a piece of furniture. The UK now has the highest penetration of large flat panel TVs in the world with more than 1 per household₁. With four child deaths in the UK in the last 12 months as a result of falling TVs and over 9,000 accidents last year, TV wall mounting specialist Peerless-AV is calling on owners of large flat panel TVs to safely secure their equipment.

In almost all cases when a TV is placed on a piece of furniture it will remain unsecured and easily toppled by an overactive toddler or household pet. Gordon Dutch MD of Peerless-AV Europe says, “Even with screens becoming slimmer many larger sets still weigh in excess of40kg, which if it was to fall edge first on a child the impact is the same as a hammer or metal pipe blow to the head. The move to put second TVs unsecured in children’s rooms is particularly worrying. Generally there is less space but far more movement, the huge success of the Wii and Connex and interactive family activity games has made physical activity around the TV a regular occurrence. Small children are particularly at risk as they reach for remote controls or pull themselves up and climb using the TV. A recent US study showed that three quarters of TV screen injuries logged happen to children under 7and tip over accidents are up 40%₄. Parents of young children wouldn’t think twice about fitting a stair gate, plug socket covers and a smoke alarm and yet they fail to buy a piece of kit which can anchor the television safely and prevent potentially life threatening accidents”.

The Peerless AV – Stabilis ^TM screen safety kit is an effective universal solution to secure a flat panel TV and protect families in the home. The kit has been manufactured and tested to prevent children pulling large screens forward on to themselves. The universal kit fits all LCD and Plasma screens from 32” to 60” with telescopic height adjustment. The kit rigidly clamps to all types and sizes of furniture and can be used to screw directly into a wall or cabinet. The rotational mounting plate allows screen to swivel while the rigid design also prevents the screen tipping backwards as well as pulled forwards.

From the Case Files

Mother was preparing the baby’s fees.

Charging the Health Visitor and Social Worker for his time when they visited?

And I am sitting at my desk trying to finish this article before heading off to speak at a conference in Kilkenny, Ireland, tomorrow. The combination of the scene outside and the preparations I am making inside help to explain the subject of this piece. I have beside me a volume called Task Force on Child Care Services, Final Report produced for the Minister of Health in Dublin in September 1980 (Prl. 9345). Yes, I know that’s some time ago, but I have been asked to do a reflective, historically informed paper!

There is a phrase near the beginning of this 32-year-old report which caught my attention. The section is headed Fundamental Considerations. Having listed some of the needs of children it continues, “All these needs are subsumed in the general need that every child has for total care. Total care is usually found in a family.” (Page 2)

I think it is reasonably clear what is in the minds of the writers: they are trying to establish some sort of baseline against which they can measure the support and services offered to families that are “incomplete” or “not functioning in an ideal way” (page 2). But it doesn’t require much thought to realise that something strange is going on. It is as though a family makes up the whole (total) world of the child, and that the only time this is not so is when a family is in some way inadequate: then the state steps in to support.

But what on earth has happened to the meaning and significance of the scene I am watching right now? The children are not in their family homes, but in my garden. The adults are not their parents, but carers. They have all been to school earlier in the day, not home-schooled. There is a network of relationships represented connecting generations and cultures (I can see at least one baby right now!). And they have been playing in the Spring sunshine, under a clear blue sky, surrounded by the sounds and smells of nature.

Several years ago I tried to put into words the practical philosophy of Mill Grove, the residential community in which I live, and came up with this sentence:

“We believe that shared living based on God-given rhythms and patterns can provide a therapeutic context in which the deepest personal and social wounds can be healed, and creative growth and expression encouraged.”

If you were to think of a child in a (normal?) family, then “shared living” would encompass this social arrangement, but then we come to “God-given rhythms and patterns”. What did I have in mind? I was thinking of personal bio-rhythms, the oscillation of moods and feelings that make up normal human life. But also day and night, the seven days of a week, with one day set aside for re-creation. Then there are the seasons of the year, which in Europe are usually and memorably characterised as four (with thanks to Vivaldi). And then the seasons of life, which Shakespeare thought of as the ages of man (in As You Like It), which span everything from birth to death. And when we are on holiday in North Wales beside the sea, we are very conscious of the tides and patterns of weather. (When we are not there we still think of them often.)

My point is that families are set within geographical, topographical, social, religious and cultural contexts, and that all children’s needs (that is the term preferred in the document) cannot possibly be met by the family as if it were some sort of total institution: a microcosm or the planet, with its own eco and psycho and socio systems.

But there is something much more important than this at stake: children can only thrive when their families are in some sort of harmony (is that too strong a word, I wonder?) with the rhythms and patterns of the wider world in which they are embedded. Of course we know that healthy attachment, a sine qua non of good human development, almost always (though not invariably) takes place in the heart of the child’s family, with mother or father. But that healthy attachment makes for a secure base, and that base is a springboard for exploration of the world outside the family. It is not a relationship that is possessive or restrictive.

Social work, social care, and allied professions, can easily focus on certain aspects of a child’s life and experience, notably good-enough human relationships, without paying due attention to the pivotal place of what I am witnessing right now. (The same can be true, sadly of education and schools.) What I love about what I see is that all the interactions of the children: with each other, with adults, with the natural world, take place in the context of fun and play where the imagination plays a key role. It is not something they are “working at” or that someone is organising for them like a PE lesson.

And who can say what therapeutic benefits accrue from such spontaneous play? At the weekend one of those who had lived at Mill Grove as a child, popped in to see me out of the blue, for a “serious chat” as he put it. He is now in his mid-twenties and has a lot of experience of parenting and work. His biological family was unable to provide secure attachment for him in his early years, and schools were not places in which he ever felt remotely comfortable. Yet as we talked I was made aware of emotional intelligence that had grown alongside his considerable intellectual capabilities. What might help to explain his maturing? Shared living which included lots of time together working at (or was it playing at) tasks; times spent in the mountains and on the seas of North Wales; camping out in the mountains; fishing; and climbing; not to mention Technic-Lego!

While I have penned this, the youngsters have had their tea and just emerged into the garden again as the shadows lengthen. One is heading up the rope-ladder into the tree house, and he is sure to get a fine view, even if it will be some time before the planet Venus will begin to shine brightly above Jupiter in the western sky.

A family cut off from all this for whatever reason is a sad environment for a growing child, but a family connected to this will itself be nourished and supported. Now how do I get something about all this into my paper in Kilkenny, I wonder?

The young person in question was a 14-year-old boy from family that had been fractured by intervention. The young person (I will call him Billy to protect his identity) and his younger sister were removed into care. Billy’s older sister and little brother were allowed to remain in the parental home. There were significant concerns about the impact of the parents’ drinking. This was impairing their capacity to parent and putting the children at risk.

Billy presented in a very rough and tumble manner and was very much a boy’s boy who liked his sports and had dabbled in boxing and football in the past. There were serious concerns about Billy also in respect to him presenting at the unit under the influence of unknown substances and possibly getting involved in drug dealing in his home community.

Billy presented as a charming and likeable boy who had a great sense of humour and was very playful with staff and young people on a good day. On a bad day or when Billy was let down by his parents or rejected in some other way things were very different. There was a deep resentment present in Billy. He was very angry at having to come into care when his siblings had been allowed to stay at home and was confused about what he had done that was so wrong compared to others. When Billy’s temper got the better of him he would act out in all kinds of hostile ways. This ranged from rampaging around the unit and creating a mess with toiletries, food, etc. – maximum effect for the minimum effort kind of a deal – through to being violent and antagonistic towards other young people and care staff. This led Billy into serious trouble with the police on more than one occasions.

Intervention

From early on in the placement I could recognise the positive qualities in Billy and found I was able to relate to him and build a relationship with ease. On reflection I was clearly subscribing to the Diamond Model that I had learnt about while attending the 10-day session with ThemPra at the Scottish Institute of Residential Child Care. I set about with a dual approach of helping to bring the best out in Billy, i.e. uncovering the diamond. I had also learned that helping Billy to see the best in situations or other people was important too.

Initially Billy was wary of my attention and wanted to know why it mattered to me what he thought or how he felt about things. He would tell me that I was only interested because I had to be and was paid to. I worked hard at building an authentic and genuine relationship with Billy as I had been reminded that this was crucial to a helping relationship as underpinned by pedagogical principles.

Billy had returned one evening and had been particularly excited by some rap music he had been listening to. I could relate to the passion he was expressing and feeling about his music. I could see an opportunity for developing a Common Third with Billy. This was a concept that I had learned on the social pedagogy course. By using a Common Third we can build a relationship with others. The Common Third refers to a task or goal that the social pedagogue can work towards with those that they are supporting. It is ultimately better for this task to be something that is new to you both. This way you can grow and learn alongside one another. Ultimately the opportunity for the person being supported to become the teacher would mean the process was at its most effective.

I supported Billy and another young person to create new rap. They spoke eagerly about presenting their material and going on to Britain’s got Talent. I found their rap to be genuinely interesting, as they would express their thoughts and feelings about coming from the poor council estates and having to survive – much like their American rap icons. I made suggestions about laying down beats and they used music on their phones to rap over the top of and keep them in time. We had discussions about style and content, the need to try and keep it clean. For Billy he went on to produce a CD with the help of another agency and was so very proud to bring this back to the unit and play it for me.

The Common Third took another spin with the invention of a rap pad. Billy was escalating in his outbursts and verbal abuse towards those around them. I spent time reflecting with Billy about how upsetting others found this. Billy was also able to appreciate that the behaviour was working against himself and it was counterproductive. I was able to acknowledge that Billy was and could become very angry about his life. I told Billy that I thought this was OK but that he needed to find other ways to express his anger. We spoke about Eminem and how he has used his music to express some of his darker feelings and thoughts about things. Billy and I came up with the idea of a rap pad. This was for Billy’s eyes only and he did go on to treasure this and use this to record his raps and thoughts about things that bothered him.

Reflections

Billy actually ended up moving on to a full-time place at a residential school and as a parting gift the unit provided him with an mp3 player and rap music to focus on when times got tough. The residential school was a very positive outcome for Billy, who soon flourished with their structure, routine and love of sports. Billy and I became quite close during the time he was with us and I believe that the pedagogical approach helped me to promote a healthy attachment with the young person also. This relationship provided a buffer between Billy and some of the other team members, who struggled when he acted out and pushed their buttons over certain issues.

The most important elements to the pedagogical approach for me are to accept the individual for who they are and to be able to see them for the person they can become. To not judge them for how they are presenting but to understand why these things are happening and to help them on the way to their personal healing. Putting the relationship at the heart of everything we do and being creative in how we support the children to grow and learn were also valuable lessons for me.

I was very intrigued by this style of working and continue to raise the profile of social pedagogy in my council. I am looking for the best in everyone now, an exhausting process because it is easier to think that some children are evil or can never change. But also with other adults and parents I need to find the redeemable qualities, to help them feel more positive about themselves and their families. I look forwards to wherever the social pedagogy trek will take me.

If we look closer to home at our own country things don’t seem much better, with ongoing economic difficulties and what seem like many intractable social problems - high levels of unemployment particularly amongst young people which in some areas will add to the growing problems of poverty, poor health and community relations.

I was also disturbed recently by a reality television; it was neither a talent show nor another celebrity programme; this was reality that was raw. There was nothing in this programme that was uplifting or a show for some future talent. It was a show of an isolated family who were struggling with life. The programme focused on the work of a Bristol social work team and shone the spotlight on a young couple who were struggling with the bringing up of their son. Their situation was causing increasing concern to a variety of agencies because of issues of neglect. The boy was developmentally delayed due to speech problems and the house was untidy and dirty. This was what is sometimes described as a ‘typical’ neglect case; yet there is nothing typical about human tragedy.

From what I can remember about the programme the family were living in a very sparsely furnished flat in a rundown estate with few friends and limited contact with other family members. However, what we saw were two parents, particularly a father who was not coping and a mother pregnant with her second child. Later on during the programme the mother was admitted to hospital with pregnancy complications. As the story unfolded you watched as the social worker and her manager became increasingly concerned; concerns were compounded when it was realised that the father was not coping, which finally resulted in the child being admitted into care.

My initial thoughts were why did this family agree to have their rather tragic story shown on television? It also brought back memories of similar cases that I had been involved in when I was a social worker. Neglect cases are often very complex and you have to make difficult decisions about whether to leave a child in a home balanced against the potential harm caused by removal. They are not just tales of people living in a dirty house.

Neglect, unlike any other category of abuse, can be caused by either commission or omission. In the latter case, problems may be alleviated and ultimately solved by support and education. They are cases, however, that can go on for years with families being passed round all members of a team and often seen as a ‘good learning experience’ for a student. Yet the slowly deteriorating state can lead us to a false sense of security, wanting to feel that things are improving when they are slowly deteriorating. As the time progresses we may shift our gaze and lose our focus on the child and his or her relationship. These are fine judgements that have to be made.

Too often a family’s needs may require the involvement of a number of different agencies which may compound the problems leading to confusion, poor communication and passing the buck; ultimately nobody takes responsibility. The Victoria Climbie case showed how easy it is for people to change their focus away from the central issues; for example, in that case much of the time was focused on the housing status and issues of immigration rather than the deteriorating family relations.

I would have forgotten about this programme if it wasn’t for a colleague asking me about it wanting my perspective as an ex-social worker. As I spoke to her my memories came flooding back of some of the difficult families that I had worked with – the anger people felt about the decisions I was making, the threats I received and, on occasions, the kindness I was shown. Although I hoped I had made a difference to some, I had to admit to my colleague that I was not really sure what change I had made in many of these families.

In Australian Family Law such ‘best interests’ are contained in a single sentence – “the child should have a ‘meaningful relationship’ with both parents”. Such a ‘meaningful relationship’ is not defined, nor can it be shown how a law can create, maintain, and enforce such a relationship, especially if one of the parties (usually the child) does not wish to have such a ‘meaningful relationship’. The Family Courts do, however, manage to enforce such relationships by ordering children and young people into contact with, and even the custody of, parents with whom they do not wish to have such a ‘meaningful relationship’. In some circumstances the parent suddenly appears and wants to engage in such a ‘meaningful relationship’ with the child, though the child may be five or six years of age and has never known that parent.

An even greater flaw occurs in the Australian Family Law and its administration when allegations are made of domestic violence (with the inherent abuse of children) and/or the direct abuse of children.

When evidence is submitted of a parent having prior convictions for paedophilia or child sexual abuse or for violent offences, and the accusing parent has taken out Apprehended Violence Orders or Domestic Violence Orders by other Courts, such evidence can be, and frequently is, disregarded or dismissed and the right of the accused parent to a ‘meaningful relationship’ with the child is held to be the paramount consideration.

But there are even greater obstacles in law to a parent who presents to the Court evidence that the other parent has abused the child or has been violent toward the presenting parent. This is because the Family Court takes on a role of a quasi-criminal Court, although the role and purpose of the Court is to determine the future care and welfare of children and is not a trial of anyone on criminal charges, as occurs in similar circumstances in a Children’s Court.

This is done by the Family Court disregarding the common law standard of proof of a ‘balance of probabilities’ and applying a near standard of proof of a criminal Court. Judges are applying the Evidence Act 1995 Section 140 and the Briginshaw Principle (1938) which require that the ‘gravity’ of the alleged offence has to be a major consideration requiring a standard of evidential proof towards the ‘extreme end of the scale’. Yet there is no scale of proof between the civil standard and the criminal standard and this is therefore creating a ‘third’ standard of proof applicable only in Family Law proceedings.

This was best explained by Deputy Chief Justice John Faulks in a speech in Canberra in October 2010 when he stated:

Allegations of family violence and abuse in the context of family law litigation need to be established in accordance with two seemingly contradictory constructs. The first is that whether or not family violence or abuse has occurred needs to be made out on the civil evidentiary standard on the balance of probabilities,[1] not beyond reasonable doubt. In a judgment I recently gave (Kings & Murray[2]) I identified the difficulty inherent in navigating the evidentiary standard of proof (at paragraphs [8] & [9]):

Proof on the balance of probabilities involves, among other things, a consideration of what is more likely to have occurred than not. However, it has been well known for some time (and the Evidence Act 1995 (Cth) provides for this[3]) that where what is being sought to be proved is a grave and serious matter, or put in more blunt terms, if what is sought to be proved might be a criminal action, then the Court must apply what has been loosely described in the past as the Briginshaw v Briginshaw[4] standard of proof. In that decision, their Honours (Latham CJ, Rich, Starke, Dixon and McTiernan JJ) considered whether the matter required to be proved (which related to whether adultery on the part of one of the parties had occurred or not) was to be proved on the civil standard of proof or some other standard.

Chief Justice Faulkes is therefore stating that in all such cases of child abuse and domestic violence, which are also criminal offences, that Judges are setting a third standard of proof which is not the generally accepted standard in civil Courts and is a serious departure from a fundamental principle of justice which has been in place for centuries. i.e. that civil Courts make determinations on an evidential standard of a balance of probabilities.

However the practical application of the balance of probabilities was discussed in a different way by Lord Nicholls in Re: H & Ors. His Lordship stated:

Despite their special features, family proceedings remain essentially a form of civil proceedings. Family proceedings often raise various serious issues, but so do other forms of civil proceedings.

The balance of probability standard means that a Court is satisfied an event occurred if the Court considers that, on the evidence, the occurrence of the event is more likely than not. When assessing the probabilities the Court will have in mind as a factor, to whatever extent is appropriate in the particular case, that the more serious the allegation the less likely it is that the event occurred and, hence, the stronger should be the evidence before the Court concludes that the allegation is established on the balance of probability. Fraud is usually less likely than negligence. Deliberate physical injury is usually less likely than accidental physical injury … Built into the preponderance of probability standard is a generous degree of flexibility in respect of the seriousness of the allegation.

Although the result is much the same, this does not mean that where a serious allegation is in issue the standard of proof required is higher. It means only that the inherent probability or improbability of an event is itself a matter to be taken into account when weighing the probabilities and deciding whether, on balance, the event occurred. The more improbable the event, the stronger must be the evidence that it did occur before, on the balance of probability, its occurrence will be established.

Even to the most casual observer, the comments of Lord Nicholls appear to be double-speak and the result is the same, an application of a higher standard of proof. It has therefore to be considered whether judges are being just and reasonable in applying such a third standard of proof in circumstances which determine whether or not a child has suffered abuse, and not to hold trial as to who the alleged abuser may be. That is a matter for the criminal Courts if there is evidence sufficient to satisfy the need to bring criminal proceedings.

However the greater barrier to proving domestic violence and child abuse in an Australian Family Court lies in the Courts’ inability to have such allegations competently investigated. Although it is a legal requirement under the Family Law Act (Section 67Z), that when a parent submits a Form 4 setting out the allegations of domestic violence such matters must be referred to the appropriate State authorities. This rarely occurs so that the investigation of such allegations are at best haphazard and at worst non-existent.

This situation was best summarised by Chief Justice Diane Bryant in a speech in Brisbane in June 2009 when she stated:

[Australian] Family Courts are not forensic bodies. They do not have an independent investigatory capacity or role when violence or abuse is alleged … Family Courts are reliant upon other agencies, particularly child welfare departments and police, to undertake investigations into matters that may be relevant to the proceedings before it. And although the Court can make directions as to the filing of material and can issue subpoenas compelling the production of documents, it cannot order state agencies to undertake inquiries into particular matters. It is hardly an ideal situation but in the absence of the Commonwealth assuming responsibility for child protection from the states, that will continue to be the reality.”

In effect Chief Justice Diane Bryant was stating that Family Courts do not have the powers, expertise, and resources to competently investigate domestic violence and child abuse, nor do they have the powers to order the State Child Protection authorities to investigate such allegations.

Even in the rare instances where the police and/or the State child protection authorities become involved, they are seeking evidence to bring criminal charges or to satisfy the requirements of Children’s Courts, rather than to provide evidence of the child abuse and domestic violence for the Family Court purposes. There have been instances where the State child protection authorities have found child abuse allegations to be ’substantiated’ yet such findings have been dismissed or disregarded by the Family Courts in favour of ensuring that the offending parent has a ‘meaningful relationship’ with the child and that the other parent will facilitate and encourage such a relationship. If that parent does not do so, then there is an almost certainty that the child will be removed from that parent’s care and given into the sole custody of the allegedly abusive parent.

In conclusion, it is small wonder that allegations of domestic violence and child abuse have such a small chance of being proven and why such allegations are frequently claimed to be false, when in fact they are unproven because of the barriers set by the Family Law and the legal system. The consequences for many hundreds of children and young people have been catastrophic.

Charles Pragnell is Chairman of the Australian National Child Protection Alliance

PO Box 345, Mornington Victoria 3931.

http://www.nccps.org.au/eap/charles_pragnell.html

FICE (pronounced: fee-say) is the largest umbrella organisation for professional associations for people working in the field of child and youth care. At the moment there are members in about thirty countries mostly organised in National Sections. Although FICE is (still) a European dominated organisation, there is the intention to be worldwide – after FICE USA, FICE South Africa and FICE India we are proud to welcome FICE Kenya as a new member, and we are working hard on founding FICE Latin America.

Since the General Assembly in December 2010, which took place in Stellenbosch, South Africa, Dashenka Tashkova from Bulgaria has been the President of FICE. The Federal Council is FICE’s governing body and at the last meeting we worked out an updated profile for FICE:

Mission

FICE improves – worldwide - the lives of children in care or in need of care.

Vision

FICE forms a worldwide community to stimulate excellent care for children and their communities through worldwide exchange of professional and academic knowledge with the participation of the children involved.

FICE forms an active community of members, national sections or individual organisations.

FICE contributes to the quality of care for juveniles in FICE countries, according to the Convention of the Rights of the Child. FICE does this by offering directors, professionals and young people in (need of) care the opportunity to look beyond borders:

• by stimulating international exchange within the community,

• by facilitating (digital) exchange of innovative knowledge between organisations.

The priority objective is to gather information and make knowledge accessible for everyone, so that initiatives and campaigns can be expanded and reinforced more easily and more effectively.

Issues and interests cross national boundaries and the development of professionals’ expertise has to be seen in an international perspective. Indeed, globalization and internationalisation has become an essential part of the education task in youth care. This makes cross-border dimensions and encounters not only a need but also a necessity in childcare, both for professionals and young people.

Every three years, one of the National Sections acts as host for an International FICE Congress. The next FICE Congress will take place in Bern, Switzerland, in October 2013. The topic will be: Inclusion – Young persons in life situations in the contradictory contexts of Integration – Separation – Inclusion. More information will be available on the Congress website: www.fice-congress2013.ch

At the beginning of this article, I promised to give my personal view on FICE. So what does FICE mean for me?

First of all, FICE is a network of friendly and very smart people. When I attended my first FICE meeting in 2004 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, I was overwhelmed by the way I was welcomed. I expected a very formal group of experts in the field of child and youth care – and this was what I got. Away from the sessions, a different picture emerged. Projects, exchange of knowledge and campaigns are one aspect of FICE; friendship, love of life and love for our profession is the other.

In my opinion, the love for the profession is the main reason that keeps FICE going - and, needless to say, the focus on the wellbeing of children all around the world.

FICE is not a prosperous organisation. The resources of FICE have always been the people who want to be part of this community. All of us work voluntarily and this is not the best way to keep an organisation going. But the enthusiasm of people involved is infectious and although there are times when it is challenging to juggle daily life, your job, your family and FICE – it is worth it!

One of the most impressing experiences I had through FICE was the last International Congress in South Africa in December 2010. The Congress theme Celebrating the courage to care in a diverse world was literally presented from people all around the world. And you cannot compare a Congress in South Africa to any Congress you ever experienced in Europe! Drums and singers guided us through the day. I am sure that every participant at the Congress left South Africa wiser and in a very good mood.

Since October 2011 I have been the new Secretary General of FICE. My responsibility amongst other things is to take care of the National Sections and the individual members. One of my hopes is that there will be a FICE England in near future. And National Sections on every continent of the world.

If you are interested to join FICE as a National Section or individual member, please go to www.fice-inter.net and apply for membership. You can find more information on the web.

By the way, I discovered an excellent article about FICE, written by David Lane in the archive of the Children Webmag. If you go to February 2008 you will find lots of information about the background and the structure of FICE.

And if you want to learn more about the history of FICE, I would like to recommend the following book warmly to you: Children, Families and Care: reflections on the first sixty years of FICE by Robert Shaw; Trentham Books; ISBN: 9781858564456.

Bettina Terp is the Secretary General of FICE and is based in Vienna.

FICE-International members from all over the world are shocked by the information, published in UN’s 72-page report Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, issued on February 23, 2012, outlining the case that during the Syrian uprising the country’s regime has committed “gross human rights violations” and that “such violations originated from policies and directives issued at the highest levels of the armed forces and the Government.”

The report states that a “number of military commanders and civilian superiors may reasonably be suspected of responsibility for crimes against humanity because of their knowing failure to take all necessary and reasonable measures within their power to prevent or repress the commission of relevant crimes by their subordinates or to submit the matter to the competent authorities.”

A great number of people have been arrested.

• “According to the Violations Documenting Centre, which gathers the names of detainees and the place and date of their arrest from families and local coordination committees [run by opposition groups], more than 18,000 detainees, including more than 200 women and girls and more than 400 boys, remained in detention at 15 February 2012.”

A great number of people have left the country and prefer to live in extremely bad conditions than to stay and die in their own country:

• “According to estimates, 70,000 people have been arbitrarily displaced within the country. More than 20,000 Syrians found themselves in a precarious situation as refugees in other countries.”

Of all of the groups in disadvantage the children are the most unprotected and vulnerable!

• “As the violence intensified, children continued to be the victims. The State authorities made no visible efforts to protect children’s rights. According to a reliable source, more than 500 children have been killed since March 2011, with the highest number of children killed in December 2011 (80 deaths) and January 2012 (72). The largest group was adolescents aged between 16 and 18 years. Snipers and other State forces killed or wounded children, including those aged 10 years and younger. Many children were killed when the army shelled residential areas in Homs and other cities in January and February 2012.”

Is it possible for us to help the children in the country? FICE’s members are professional educators, pedagogues and social workers. Right now it is impossible to go there. At a later point we could set up different activity workshops in the refugee camps.

Can we stop the war in Syria and protect the children? We can’t – we are not an army.

We can tell the world, however, that we absolutely reject the violence against children. We will support the efforts of the international community to improve the situation of Syrian children in all areas of life. We will follow closely the implementation of children’s rights in the crisis regions and warn the international institutions of the need of particular support.

Dear National Sections of FICE-International, if you have any opportunity to help in any way the children of the world – do it – especially for the Syrian refugees in your country!

Dear colleagues, inform us about all difficulties, good or bad outcomes in the support work with children from this region.

All we can do right now for the ones that are still in Syria is give them our moral love and support.

Dashenka Tashkova

President of FICE-International

Campling, in a letter of 7 July 1986, gave a cogent account of how events developed at the Royal Philanthropic. When the former Approved School and Classifying School became a CHE in 1973 the trustees had opted for controlled status with the London Borough of Wandsworth. At the time of the change of status, the campus consisted of a CHE for 60 children, a Regional Assessment Centre for 52 children and a Secure Unit for 30 children. All the provision was for boys only. The CHE and the Assessment Centre were closed in 1982 and the Secure Unit in 1983. In place of these facilities a much smaller service, consisting of 20 places for remand and assessment, 12 long stay places and 8 secure places, was offered.

These facilities had been much in demand during the period from January 1983 to 7 July 1986. During that time some 460 boys had been admitted for varying lengths of stay. (Campling stated in a letter of 3 September 1986 that the Secure Unit in particular remained in great demand and that on one day in August 1986 he received no fewer than 17 enquiries for places.)

The Royal Philanthropic had, in fact, begun selling off the large campus once it ceased to be fully operational in 1982/83. The CHE site with workshops, classrooms and staff housing was sold to a developer in 1984. Subsequently, planning permission was granted for the erection of an ‘Old People’s Village’. The adjoining farm, which had always been a thriving part of the establishment was sold as a going enterprise. The Society had given as its reason for deciding to sell the property a wish to realise the assets tied up in the site and to apply them to other more modern methods of social work intervention in young people’s lives.

Logan-Salton’s correspondence with Norman Fowler, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Security in August 1986 tells of a somewhat belated attempt to stir up opposition to the closure, in view of the facts given above. It is clear that he was unaware that the closure was so advanced. Nonetheless a number of senior politicians were roused into responding to the issues raised, given that there remained a significant remnant of the Royal Philanthropic. Thus Lord Silkin of Dulwich QC in his letter to the Home Secretary, on 22 September 1986 stated that he shared Logan-Salton’s concern that, with the closure of such places as the Royal Philanthropic, there would be a reduction in the number of alternative to custody places for young offenders. He also commented that “No doubt you and Norman Fowler have consulted together to make good these gaps”. In her reply (8 October 1986) to Logan-Salton, the Under Secretary of State, Mrs Currie, observed that “Closure of a number of community homes is, I would suggest, to be expected”.

In a letter received from George Gardiner MP (5 September 1986) it was stated that the Philanthropic Society was not planning to close the CHE. “All it has said is that in 2-3 years time it will cease to provide free-of-charge premises. If the authorities wish to continue the CHE then they can seek to buy or rent the existing premises, and the Society will consider proposals on their merits” - a subtle point, since it would be unlikely that the amount of cash expected for this type of transaction would be available to Wandsworth Council.

Campling and his staff were clearly unhappy with the Society withdrawing from the arrangements with Wandsworth He commented:

The Royal Philanthropic Society was founded in 1788 and pioneered social work with delinquent children. Its innovative work paved the way for much of the eventual legislation introduced during two centuries to ensure that children who offend are dealt with outside the mainstream provision for adult offenders. It does now seem ironical that their present action will almost inevitably result in more children entering the penal system that would otherwise be the case.

This may have been a harsh judgement on the Philanthropic Society since it was largely the lack of referrals by local authorities in earlier years that had greatly reduced the work on the campus and made it less viable.

It was regrettable that the Society planned to withdraw from being involved in any residential provision offering training and education. The new Director of the Society, Donald Coleman, stated that instead it was intended to develop accommodation for young people who had been in care, a good and necessary work but not wholly in line with its previous history of work with young offenders. The society finally closed the remaining provision at Redhill in June 1988.

The Closure of St Peter’s, Gainford, and the Regional Plan

The second account concerns St Peter’s near Darlington, which was one of the two CHEs managed by the agency known as Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Rescue Society. St Peter’s was situated in a rural area just outside the village of Gainford in County Durham, and offered places for 60 boys aged from 11 years. It had opened in 1900 as a Roman Catholic institution for homeless children, and became an Approved School in 1942. St Peter’s was set in 32 acres of land beside the River Tees. The building itself was large, sprawling and barrack-like in appearance. It had a modern classroom block, a gymnasium and sports fields. There were staff flats, bungalows for the Principal and Deputy Principal and a staff house, all on the campus, and staff housing in close proximity.

At the time of closure in 1984, the staffing consisted of the Principal, Deputy Principal, Head of Education, Training Officer, 4 Housewardens, 22 residential care staff, 7 teachers, maintenance men, gardener, 2 administration staff, and cooking and domestic staff- some 56 staff in total. The CHE was owned and managed by the Catholic social work agency for the diocese in which St Peter’s was located and had assisted status with Cleveland County Council.

Efforts by the Region to Manage Closures

The closure of St Peters should be seen in the context of concern in Regional Planning Area No. 1, from 1980 onwards, about the number of CHE places required in the Region. In 1981 the Regional Planning Committee had created a working group of Senior Officers from various Authorities in the Region to review CHEs with special reference to the overprovision of places. This group reported back to the Committee that there were 140 boys places surplus to requirements, out of an existing total of 540. The 150 girls places were considered necessary. Critical remarks were made about two CHEs, the Castle School, Stanhope, and St Peter’s, and it was recommended these should be closed.

Cleveland County Council who managed the Castle School and ‘assisted’ St Peter’s were quite happy with this recommendation, but the Hexham and Newcastle Rescue Society strenuously defended the practice at St Peter’s and the need for the CHE to continue. In the event, the Regional Planning Committee did not pursue the recommendations that facilities should be closed. Instead they left it to individual local authorities to make suggestions as to how to bring about the reduction in numbers. As a result, St Peter’s was not closed at this time. In its place Newcastle upon Tyne sought agreement to its proposal to close Axwell Park CHE at Blaydon. The Castle CHE did, however, close in 1982.

The Region attempted to create a clearer and more specialist structure for its CHE provision and a further working group was given the task of developing these proposals. In 1982 it produced a review of services for difficult children and their families in which it was recommended that there be a concerted attempt to integrate the CHE system into the total provision for children and families. This report laid down an ambitious programme to bring together both local and regional services and was accepted in principle by the Regional Planning Committee in 1982.

Events were, however, overtaking this belated attempt at integration. Individual local authorities began making their own decisions about closures. Although they still formally sought the approval of the Regional Planning Committee to proceed with their plans (and also Regional funding to cover the costs of closure) there was little likelihood that these proposals would be rejected. This was because of the general agreement that such closures would ultimately save all the participant authorities expenditure, and because no one wanted to deny that, in practice, each authority retained the right to exercise its powers over its own establishments.

The Impact of the Health and Social Services Adjudication Act 1983

The change in the law in respect of Regional Planning under the terms of the Health and Social Services Adjudication Act 1983 led the local authority Councillors to resolve to end the pooling arrangements on 31 March 1984 and, in the absence of any agreement on an alternative co-operative grouping, the local authorities’ regional dialogue ceased. It would appear that once finance was removed from the agenda there was little incentive left for the self-sufficient local authorities to consult with their less well endowed neighbours.

The prospect of the removal of the financial cushion of the Regional Pooling arrangement had led the Hexham and Newcastle Rescue Society to write to all local authorities in the Region in October 1983 asking about their projected future use of St Peter’s. Only the assisting authority, Cleveland, saw any likely use of St Peter’s, and this for only seven places. In the light of these responses it seemed prudent to close St Peter’s rather than risk serious losses as a result of low occupancy and additional closure costs. If the Society closed St Peter’s before the end of March 1984 the constituent authorities in the Region, as they had done with the other closures, would meet the costs of this exercise.

The staff had been kept fully informed of these possibilities as soon as they became apparent in October 1983. A further meeting was called in November 1983 to advise staff that the consultation with local authorities had shown that they foresaw no future need for St Peter’s and that it was to be closed on 31 March 1984. At the time of the announcement there were 40 boys in the CHE. Ironically, because of an industrial dispute amongst local authorities and residential workers, a further 12 boys were admitted on a short-term basis up to the period December 1983 when all further admissions were then refused. The boys were all told of the closure plan on the same day as the staff and generally were upset and unsettled by the prospect.

Of the 52 boys discharged from the date of the closure announcement 20 or so (including some of the short-term placements) would, in any event, have returned home over that period; for the remaining 32 boys the closure meant yet a further disruption in their lives. Case conferences were called on every boy to make the best arrangements possible. Twenty-five boys were discharged by Christmas 1983, six by the end of January 1984 and eight by the end of February. The last boy left St Peter’s on 28 March 1984.

When the closure plans were announced to St Peter’s there were 56 full and part time staff in post. The longest serving member of staff had been in post for 33 years. Eight of the teachers and care staff had worked at the CHE for eight more years. Redundancy payments, in line with those when other CHEs in the Region closed, came to just over £70,000. Six of the staff took early retirement. Many staff had difficulty in finding other suitable employment.

The managers of St Peter’s accepted that the Rescue Society had genuinely explored the future viability of the CHE and that they had reluctantly made the only prudent decision. There was some belated outcry from a few members of the public but no concerted effort was made that offered any realistic alternative to closure.

St Peter’s was put on the open market by the owners, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. The building was sold in November/December 1984 to a local consortium. Over £40,000 had had to be spent on wages, heating, rates up to the time of its sale. The building and the land were sold for £130,000. The buyers subsequently sold some of the dwellings and converted one wing into a nursing home for the elderly. The need to repay the DHSS for improvement grants made by the DHSS or Home Office in earlier years added still further to the financial burden for a small voluntary agency after offering a service to the State for so many years.

The Closure of Benton Grange, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne

Benton Grange was also managed by the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Rescue Society but was owned by a Roman Catholic Order of nuns.

Benton Grange had originally been opened in 1889 by the nuns. It was a large solid structure with all its living and educational facilities in the one building. It had also a small secure unit for three girls. Located in an urban area, the town centre of Newcastle was 15 minutes distance on public transport. Originally it offered places for 44 girls but this was reduced to 40 in 1978, 34 in 1983 and 22 in 1984. The reductions were an attempt to retain the CHE with a smaller number of girls and staff but, ultimately, the low number was not viable.

The staffing consisted of a Head, 2 Deputies, a Head of Education plus 6 teachers, 22 care staff, a Bursar and an assistant Bursar, half-time nurse, a secretary, two maintenance staff and a cook and domestic staff. The cost per week at the time of closure (1984) was £377 per child per week.

Exploring Options for Survival

Considerable effort had been made by the managing agency to retain Benton Grange as a CHE. In 1983 a managers’ working party and a staff working party had been appointed to explore ways of ensuring its future. In August 1983 a 17-point plan for the future development of Benton Grange was presented, following the exploration of various options. Amongst those explored had been the development of the CHE into a special school for girls. The Secretary of the Northern Council of Educational Committees had responded to this idea by stating that “LEA (Local Education Authority) provision in the Region of the Northern Council of Educational Committees, with particular reference to provisions for disturbed children in need of special education, was likely to be adequate for the near future”. The option of special residential education was not therefore pursued.

There was also little scope for any integration with Newcastle upon Tyne City Education provision. Some way of serving the Catholic network of 22 secondary schools in the Diocese was also explored. The difficulty was that, although a number of Heads of Catholic schools expressed interest in the idea of referring difficult girls to Benton Grange, there was no system for doing this since the schools were located in eight different local authority areas which, on the evidence of the Northern Council, could see no need for additional provision.

The model of provision offered by Barnardo’s at Druids Heath CHE in the Midlands was also explored. This approach involved a small network of residential facilities in the community and a main base, used primarily as an education unit and as a family support provision. Support for this proposal was not forthcoming from the local authorities.

Although the proposals were accepted by the managers and the staff they never came to fruition. There was little enthusiasm from local authorities for the ideas and reluctance by some staff to become part of a more complex resource.

With the collapse of the Regional Planning Committee and the ending of the Regional Pooling arrangements, the future funding of Benton Grange would depend entirely on fees from referrals. However, as the number of girls’ places provided in CHEs in the Region as at 1 April 1984 was likely to fall from 142, with the closure of one girls’ CHE, the probable closure of a second and the conversion of the third into a co-educational CHE, the anticipated eventual number of girls’ places available in the Region would be only 41. Although only four local authorities, one of whom was out of the Region, took up a proposal to buy in a number of places at Benton Grange (10 places in all), it was nevertheless decided at the end of 1983, despite the demise of the Region, to proceed with offering 22 residential and six day places at Benton Grange.

When, by early May 1984, the number of residents dropped in 16, with the prospect of some discharges at the end of the Summer term and virtually no new referrals, it was finally decided that there was no option left other than closure. In a written statement to all staff at Benton Grange on 9 May 1984 the Administrator of The Rescue Society advised them that he had decided, after consultation with the Managers, the assisting local authority (Newcastle), and with the knowledge and agreement of the owners of the property, to announce that Benton Grange would cease to be a CHE with effect from 31 August 1984.

The staff were not particularly surprised by the announcement of the closure. Many had become weary of the worry and uncertainty about the future viability of the CHE and accepted the announcement with some relief. The few girls who would have remained in the CHE had it not been closing were distressed when they heard the news. Case conferences were soon arranged and all were discharged by the end of July 1984.

The Cost of Closure

Benton Grange closed with a running cost deficit of £70,653 and staff redundancy payments of £39,653 and £12,000 in supplementary payments under the superannuation scheme. With central government refunds of £15,000 on the redundancy payments, the Society was left with a deficit of £105,000. All Local Authorities in the Region were asked to assist in clearing this debt on the basis that they had been the main beneficiaries of the use of Benton Grange. Four of the nine authorities agreed to make a contribution totalling £29,000. The Society was therefore left with a debt of £76,000.

The Religious Order who owned the property agreed to the Society running Benton Grange as student accommodation for two years. With some minor building modification, 50 students took up residence in mid September 1984. This arrangement was to allow the Society to explore other possible uses for the CHE. In 1986 the Order decided to sell the whole property, including the adjoining convent. The building stood empty and unused until, in October 1987, it was demolished. There is now an housing estate of executive style properties on the site.

The main reasons for placement had been the serious emotional instability of the girls and the ‘moral danger’ to which they were exposed. In view of the depth and range of disturbance of the girls who were placed at Benton Grange it seems that many girls with similar problems and needs must now be left in the community with very limited support.

The closures of both St Peter’s and Benton Grange illustrate how a voluntary society was forced to relinquish work with disturbed and delinquent young people because of financial pressures and the change of policy of local authorities in respect of the use of residential care. With a substantial financial loss it was difficult for the Society to develop other community based alternatives.

Short Accounts of Twelve Other Closures

The most frequent reason given for closure was finance and the to ensure the best use of resources. This was stated as the main reason in the closures of St Hilda’s, Gosforth, Springhead Park, Sheffield, Danesbury, Hertfordshire, St Camillus, Tadcaster. At St Hilda’s there was clear evidence that the controlling local authority, Newcastle upon Tyne, decided to use the closure to help balance its Social Services budget and to improve some of its other child care services. In it financial year, £230,000 was saved. Of this £100,000 was allocated to improve staffing ratios in children’s homes and to improve resources at the observation and assessment centre. The balance was deducted from Social Services expenditure. (Peter Wright, 1985). At Crouchfield and Danesbury (Hertfordshire), considerable savings were made in Social Services budgets as the result of the closures. The figure given for Danesbury (Gentry, 1986,) was £750,000. Some of the monies from the closures were used to develop intermediate treatment programmes. The rest was lost to child care services.

A major aspect of the cost of maintaining Springhead Park, Sheffield, and of many other CHEs, was that of the employment of large numbers of staff. This raised the weekly fees to a level that deterred many local authorities from using the service. In Springhead Park, a CHE for 30 girls, there were a Principal, two Deputies, a Head of Education, three full-time teachers, two Group Leaders and a team of residential social workers, a field social worker, a bursar, two office staff, a cook, a handyman, a gardener and domestic staff. It is hardly surprising that at the time of its closure in 1986 the weekly charge was £423 per week per girl. Part of the explanation for the policy of providing a high child/ staff ratio was the belief that change in the child could be best achieved through effective interpersonal relationships.

The high charges could only be sustained in a declining market of referrals where Regional Pooling systems operated, which enabled those CHEs with deficits to be reimbursed. Once this collapsed, many CHEs, especially those managed on a voluntary basis, faced financial disaster, as in St Peter’s, Gainford and Benton Grange.

Another example of this was the closure of St Camillus, Tadcaster. At the time of its demise this was a CHE for 45 boys. It had been managed by a voluntary child care agency, the Leeds Catholic Child Welfare Society. There had been no cost pooling arrangements in this instance and as local authorities attempted to sustain their own facilities rather than send the declining number of referrals to a voluntary agency, this typeof CHE quickly became a victim of market forces. It closed in August 1983.

Five other voluntary managed CHEs support the evidence that they were generally more vulnerable to closure in the early years of the decline in the use of CHEs than those managed by local authorities. These were St George’s Freshfield, St Aiden’s Widnes, Greenfield House, St Helen’s and St Joseph’s Marshfield. There was a great deal of anger with the local authorities and the Regional Planning Committee for forcing these closures on the voluntaries.

Some creative thinking on the part of the agencies concerned emerged as a result of these closures. In the case of St Joseph’s, a CHE managed by the Good Shepherd Order, an arrangement was reached with another voluntary agency, Dr Barnardo’s. This involved the Sisters becoming responsible for the staffing and day to day management of a CHE, owned by Dr Barnardo’s, Duncroft, in Staines on a limited contractual basis. As a result of this the Head of St Joseph’s, nine staff and 20 girls transferred to Duncroft.

Alternatives to Closure

In the cases of two of the CHEs managed by Liverpool Catholic Social Services, St George’s and Greenfield, considerable foresight and tenacity was shown in changing their status from CHEs registered with the DHSS to schools for children with special needs, registered with the DES.

Had a similar course of action been advocated in other instances the special residential services for children might have been substantially improved and a number of CHEs could have been enabled to carry on offering a service to children. It emerged that the closures could be more complex and painful where a number of separate but interested parties were involved. This was apparent in considering the closure of the Royal Philanthropic, with the Society and the local authority adopting differing standpoints. It was even more complex in the case of Eton Lodge CHE in Liverpool. This was owned by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd Order and managed by Liverpool Catholic Social Services on their behalf, and had assisted status with Liverpool Social Services. The decision to close Eton Lodge was taken by the Good Shepherd Sisters because they no longer had sufficient nuns to manage the CHE. The local authority and the managing agency were not pressing for the CHE to close and were unhappy about the decision but, once it had been made, they decided to accept it. The various reasons and differing circumstances of the closures indicate the general disarray into which the CHE began to fall from the early 1980s onwards.

The Casualties of Closure

The closures had a dramatic impact on the lives of many people, primarily the CHE staff and residents. The follow-up enquiries by Jones of Polebrook House indicated how poorly many of their former residents behaved after what was often a premature discharge from residential care. The St Peter’s data also shows that many children were returned home earlier than would have otherwise been the case. The Springhead Park account drew attention to the increased disturbed behaviour of the girls when they learned of the impending closure.

The fact that Polebrook House staff were the only group to mount a sustained challenge to closure plans indicated the absence of any concerted resistance to the closures. The professional associations did little to resist the changes and there are no records of them aiding any of the CHEs that were closed. The work of the CHEs was not generally known to the public. Many of them had operated with only very limited contact with the community (belying their title) and their going did not arouse much, if any, public interest. The managers of the CHEs did not have the power or the status of their Approved School predecessors and so generally felt unable to resist the closures even where they might wish to do so. Initially the Regional Planning Committees tried to set the pace for the closures. As they were wary of dictating closure decisions to constituent Local Authorities they flexed their muscles on the voluntary agencies.

Thus, St Joseph’s in Wiltshire, St Camillus in Leeds, and St Aiden’s, Lancashire, each of which were in different Regions and all voluntary agency establishments, considered that they had been chosen for closure in preference to a local authority resource. In Region 1 there was evidence of an attempt at an orderly disengagement under the direction of the Regional Planning Committee. This was short-lived, however, and once local authorities began to take unilateral action any thought of Regional needs appeared to have vanished. Once the local authorities started closing their own provision they made no attempt to sustain the remaining voluntary agency CHEs.

Few of those who provided the data for the accounts were satisfied that realistic alternatives for delinquent and emotionally disturbed children were in reality available in the community. It is apparent that the CHE system could only have survived intact where there was a strong belief in its worth. Once that belief collapsed, as it generally did, then there were many arguments readily available to favour its dismantlement. What is perhaps of more concern than the loss of the resources inherited from the past is the general failure to build substantial alternatives for the future.

One of the important changes brought about under the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 was that central government divested itself of direct responsibility for the former Approval Schools - the new CHEs. The only powers retained were to hold a watching brief via the Department of Health and Social Security and a requirement that the Secretary of State had to authorise the CHE coming into being and agree to closure. In the event these powers were used in a largely formal way and thus simply endorsed recommendations of lesser bodies, i.e. Regional Planning Committees and local authorities. With government distanced from CHEs, and with few powerful advocates and with the financial pressures on local authorities their closures were inevitable.

This material is based on Jim Hyland’s account in his book Yesterday’s Answers (1994).

I’ve little to lose and don’t need much to get by; I’m passionate about recycling. Since I’m mainly a volunteer for our charity, my time and skills has been the best investment I could make, and it has brought good results. It’s all worth it. We are managing things incredibly well despite these hard times.

Our work, as you know, is all about fundamental, pure & simple, relationships! There are hundreds of theories about them but few which actively get to work on them.
We can analyse all we want about the what ifs, the fears and doubts, but essentially we’ve found our way to supporting children, to tackle the delicate job of preservation and reconstruction of these fundamental relationships.

It costs nothing to care but does cost to have the place to care at, and we’ve been extremely fortunate to have attracted some incredible staff to work alongside us, and generous people to host our groups, as well as some funding we managed to find.

People truly do sign up to make a long term commitment with us, they get hooked and become part of our family; perhaps that’s part of the modelling. I sometimes
think we are the luckiest charity in the world; it feels like the best job!. There’s much wonderment to being there; seeing those smiles and hearing the laughter of children
as they play and just get on with the profoundly complex and difficult task of being a child with their siblings. Facilitating this is what we do best; yes, it’s often tricky too.

As you know, we ran the very first pilot siblings residential camps and have been continuing for more than five years now. We’re committed to continuing these. However I want to share with you news about our new branches which, I’m very proud to say, have been blossoming in the form of our Monthly Activity Days (MADs), which we first piloted last year in Hackney. Now we are running a new centre in Camden Town; we are already full to capacity! We have siblings joining us just one day a month for a fun day together.

We are currently looking at another new venue for our second MAD in central London for easy access, for the children to have adventures, enough facilities for arts to flourish, and space which offers the much needed tranquillity which the children thrive on … so a garden preferred. We’re visiting the venue next week and I cant wait!

We developed these MADs as a continuation - a sort of stepping stone - from our camps. Most if not all siblings wanted more contact throughout the year so we developed a way to make this happen. Again, it’s never been done before. Using all of the skills of art therapy, social work and youth work combined, a kind of Art Pedagogy approach has leapt forth - if there is such a thing.

A number of our siblings have moved to different placements, yet our MADs continue to be there for them, offering a bridge more than anything else. We’ve become the consistent place with consistent faces, we knew them earlier and we share some of the history for them and have helped make plenty too!

From this excellent work in progress, we have developed an entirely new concept and model of siblings mentoring/befriending, and have been successful in our bid to fund a three-year pilot project. We have chosen a large national voluntary organisation to partner with us for delivery of a large scale programme, working alongside four children’s services, with an extensive and thorough evaluation of this pilot being carried out by one of Britain’s top universities.

We are also running a creative connection programme, the first one being a film week at the Roundhouse Theatre, London, at Easter, with others to follow. We have a sailing holiday donated to our siblings, as well as a barge holiday in the pipeline for this year too. We are arranging a week for young writers in/from care in partnership with the Arvon Foundation, which we are still fund-raising for … and many more on their way!

Delma is the founder of Siblings Together. For more information see www.siblingstogether.co.uk

Here is what they say about themselves:

Jessica Kingsley Publishers is a wholly independent company, committed to publishing books that make a difference. The company was founded in 1987 by Jessica Kingsley and has grown since then to the point where we now publish around 150 books a year, which are available throughout the world. In 2004 we opened our US office, in Philadelphia. We publish books for professional and general readers in a range of subjects. We are well known for our long established lists on the autism spectrum, on social work, and on the arts therapies. More recently we have published extensively in the fields of mental health, counselling, palliative care, and practical theology.

We are independent publishers of accessible books that make a difference. Recognised as the leading publisher on autism and Asperger syndrome, we publish in a range of areas including social work, education and arts therapies. Our books are for parents, professionals, academics and the general reader.

The first section of the book deals with the whys, whats and whos. Why choose street work, what it entails and who are the youth that will come along. She advocates the importance of developing and sustaining partnerships with other community-based groups such as police, health workers (including sexual, mental and addiction), charitable organisations and community leaders. There is a passage about the funding and expectations of each group. Vanessa Rogers remains realistic about the risks, the temporary nature of street work and the hoped-for outcomes.

She talks about a basic kit bag, which should contain amongst other items a mobile phone, ID, personal alarm, paper, cards and a host of other resources.

The book fits well with the national play movement in this country, which has gathered momentum over the past five or six years. The specimen risk assessment agreement allows for some risky play to be developed whilst maintaining the standards of health and safety required.

The activities and tasks recommended cost very little and can be developed within minutes. There are many creative exercises such as quick photos, tie-dye, Halloween lanterns and some more challenging situations and quizzes, for example, how much do you drink, leaving home, exploring attitudes.

The book has different examples of quick evaluations so that the workers can see what works and what does not with their different groups of young people.

This is a book that will be used time and again. I would also recommend this for teachers and counsellors, as some of the exercises are excellent for getting those difficult conversations started.

Rogers, Vanessa (2011) 101 Things to Do on the Street – Games and resources for detached, outreach and street-based youth work

Jessica Kingsley Publishers

ISBN: 9781849051873

Life is full of challenges. If a foundation is stable and secure, individuals face adversity with hope, using whatever skills they have, knowing that they have the support and help of family and friends. When a foundation is shaky, the world seems a dangerous place where survival of the fittest is the rule. In 1995, realising the need to rebuild the foundations of these individuals, we began using stories to challenge mistaken beliefs and restructure the working model in order to help parents and children live a connected life. We called this process Family Attachment Narrative Therapy…From the Introduction to the book.

The stories of the children in this book allow the reader to look at their world prior to adoption or ‘salvation’ when they are taken from a place of danger, vulnerability and cruelty and placed in a secure, stable environment whether to be a permanent family member or a long-term foster child.

The case studies demonstrate the time and care that is required to help build the trust between a bewildered, protected child and their new permanent parents. The story of Robert threads through the book and offers insight into how the adoptive parents discover details about his previous life and how this becomes the text of different narratives designed to allow thinking and feelings to surface gradually with space for regression where necessary.

There are other stories and other methodologies of supporting these damaged children. There are models which help make sense of the chaos that some children are born into and why and how they struggle to attach to anyone. The first demonstrates the link between attachment – or not, life events or trauma and development and how this may be interpreted by a small child as they struggle to survive in a world they cannot control.

It is an effective book for prospective parents of older children - those who have a conscious or unconscious history of living a different life. It demonstrates how exceedingly difficult it is for these children to learn how to become attached in a normal way to other adults when they have been so badly betrayed in the past. The theories of Bowlby* are foremost in the texts when addressing attachment.

The final chapters offer more narratives and stories to help children move over the barriers they have imposed on themselves and their new families.

This is a good book to have on the shelf if you are an adoptive parent of foster carers. It is invaluable for professionals who work with such damaged children especially when they also run out of ideas as they offer support and counselling to the families.

* John Bowlby 1907-1990- looked at attachment and its implications especially for children raised outside of their birth families

Lacher, Denise B., Nichols, Todd, Nichols, Melissa and May, Joanne C. (2012) Connecting with Kids Through Stories – Using Narratives to Facilitate Attachment in Adopted Children

Jessica Kingsley Publishing

ISBN: 9781849058698

The author immediately introduces the reader to the concept of a training manual to support strong positive friendship groups between girls. She identifies the specific bullying methods used by girls and looks at places where this can be challenged as well as perpetuated. She lists the people who may choose to use the book, from educationalists through to group leaders and parents as well as girls themselves.

The book is a step-by-step curriculum, which takes the user through aspects of potential bullying, how this can be addressed. There are exercises and thought provoking prompts for discussions. There is time for reflection and a follow up on the different tasks and stories.

The book is formulated to follow the girls from age 5 up to 11 years when they begin secondary school. The intention is to arm them with strategies and confidence to become autonomous and not follow the crowd.

I like this book a lot. It gives the adults plenty of ideas for next steps and it even has sample letters to send home so that parents understand and can join in at home.

It is an honest, open method to promote individuality and negate bad, biased attitudes.

Well worth having on the school and youth club book shelves.

Whitson, Signe (2011) Friendship and other Weapons – group activities to help young girls aged 15-11 to cope with bullying

Jessica Kingsley Publishing

ISBN: 9781849058759

She uses Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) as a tool in her workshops, therapy sessions and in her written work.The first thing I liked about this book was the fact that the author addresses the intended reader first – the young person who may seek self-help support and who may then wish to share with the adults.

The language is straight-forward and un-patronising. There are questions to answer to see if this is the sort of help the young person is in need of. For example, “Do you frequently feel angry?” “Do you find yourself hitting, punching, kicking, screaming or damaging things when you get angry?” “Do you feel like you have no control over how you feel and how you react when you get angry?”

It explains what CBT is and how there are links between all three aspects. She stresses that it is important to talk to a trusted adult about these things so the help will mean something.

The illustrations are taken from other young people’s perspectives and serve to reassure the reader that everyone reacts in their own unique way, but that may have been influenced by other’s behaviours or attitudes and reactions. The tasks are simple and non-threatening and encourage the reader to see that many people have felt as they do. Throughout the book there is vocabulary that will help express how the anger makes them feel. It looks at personal anger as well as group angry behaviour and how it may differ.

Through the book the reminder is always that whatever feelings we may have as a result of what someone else said or did, the anger and the behaviour are ours and we must own what we choose to do.

It encourages minute analysis of how the anger begins, how it grows and when it feels out of control. The gremlins can be starved and deprived of freedom by the individual thinking first and acting second. It introduces questions such as “Is it worth it?” What might happen if I behave in this way?”

The book is thin but packed with enough challenges and tasks to be a useful addition to the shelves of every school counsellor and youth worker. Whilst I cannot envisage young people going out to buy a copy, there are lots of ways to gain access to such an invaluable book.

The book is mainly geared towards the adolescent market, but I can see a use for this in primary school as well as with some adults. This book comes at a most topical time when films of domestic violence are being shown during the predominantly adolescent viewing times in the early evening to highlight how easy it is to become a victim or a perpetrator. Anger plays a major part in this.

Collins-Donnelly, Kate (2012) Starving the Anger Gremlin - A cognitive behavioural therapy workbook on anger management for young people

Jessica Kingsley Publishing

ISBN: 9781849052863

Back to the office and I telephoned Asda’s head office and spoke to their Customer Services. The young lady I spoke to listened to my explanation of press release, product, etc. then said, “I’ll check on this, Sir; now where did you hear about this?” I explained again that it was a press release from them and I wanted to purchase one to do a review on it. Had to tell her again – twice – that it was a digital camera for children priced at £8.98. “I’ll get the proper department to give you a ring back and they’ll tell you where to get it.”

That was a couple of weeks ago and I’m still waiting for their call.

In the meantime, I happened to be out of town and was passing a huge Asda, so popped in to try my luck again. Searched the toy department and a helpful assistant suggested that I try the photographic counter. Success – there it was!

At home, I set about unpacking it. Nearly ten minutes later, I managed to extricate the bits and pieces from the ‘sealed-with-a-vengeance’ packaging. Contents looked promising, plastic camera, small carrying strap, USB cable, CD and instruction leaflet.

Glanced at the instruction leaflet and searched for a couple of AA batteries since none were supplied. “Slide the battery cover off in the direction of the arrow”, said the instructions. Nearly broke my finger nail trying to do this – it wouldn’t budge. I then saw a really tiny recessed screw in the cover, so, managed to find a tiny spectacles screwdriver, removed the screw and the cover, then slid. It wouldn’t stay closed after the batteries were inserted unless the screw was replaced.

Went into the garden on what was a rare March sunny day. Took a few shots of some greenery and some flower tubs. Installed the software on the computer and transferred the pictures I’d taken.

The dream ended there. Terrible quality. Now I didn’t expect miracles, but the quality was really dreadful with washed out colour and pixelated images. The webcam function made me look less human than usual although to be fair, the (silent) video facility using the webcam function (it has to be attached to the computer by the very short USB lead to take video) wasn’t too bad.

Overall, I would suggest that, although this camera is a cheapo, Asda really shouldn’t have bothered – (could be the reason why they didn’t phone back). Any child receiving this will be so disappointed by the results that it’s liable to be used once then discarded. According to the packaging, it is made in China by Vivitar. I’m surprised they put their name on it. If you want a camera for a child, look on E-Bay where you can buy a ‘real’ camera for around twenty quid.

If you want to see the photo results, go to www.whbs.co.uk/asdapics.

Valerie Jackson continues her account of home education, “weathering the storm”.

Keith White gets to the heart of what residential child care is all about - dealing with the important through the medium of the mundane. Stuart Hannah is also looking at residential child care, and asking where it’s going.

Jim Hyland looks at the problems caused by the closure of CHEs and the interplay between politics and child care thinking.

David Lane makes a plea for greater openness instead of redaction.

We have three lots of straightforward advice for parents with young children. Dr Lin Day writes about Toddler Sense Classes, and there are items on bath-time safety tips, and ideas to keep children busy in school holidays.

There are two book reviews:

-           Talking about Death and Bereavement in School by Ann Chadwick

-               How to Win from the Start on planning careers by David Royston-Lee

Finally News Views includes the heart of residential child care, social pedagogy, a field trip to Germany, a conference in Ireland, HDJ and the Health and Social Care Bill.

The thought that children and young people should choose to harm themselves is appalling. They are at a stage in life when they are growing and developing, and they should be looking after the bodies which they will have for the rest of their lives. Self-harm is contrary to this, and it indicates a high level of unhappiness and disturbance for a child to want to harm him or herself.

There is no easy answer, but we would like to suggest that there should be international studies to identify the cultures and countries where there are low levels of problems such as self harm. Rather than focus entirely on the problem, can we identify the features of the cultures which successfully avoid or minimise the problem?

We do not know what findings such research might reveal - perhaps better parenting or extended family support, or fewer broken homes, or fewer stressful educational pressures, or less peer pressure and bullying, or better job prospects for young people? Or are all these factors irrelevant?

Whatever the causes, we need to be grateful to the four charities for sponsoring National Self-Harm Awareness Day. They merit our support

Keith White writes this month about the pith and sinew of residential care. His message is of critical importance for professionals to understand what residential child care is all about.

Children and young people in foster care and residential care need meetings with their social workers to talk about important problems or counselling with psychologists or play sessions with therapists, but these formal programmed activities are insufficient to meet the needs of some children. It may be that they are not relaxed in formal sessions or that they have not built up a strong enough relationship to trust the professionals working with them.

Reading case files, though, it is striking how often the things that matter most to children and young people are raised in the informal ‘in-between’ times that Keith describes, when they are with carers whom they trust. A classic example is the disclosure of abuse or bullying. It is also interesting to note how often, when these matters are reported by the carers in accordance with formal procedures, the children do not want to repeat their disclosures to social workers and the police.

Yet the work of caring is still undervalued, dismissed as if it consists only of the mundane tasks which Keith describes. These crucial times when children talk are not programmed, though there are times, such as bed-time, when in-depth conversation is more likely.

The handling of disclosures and discussion of other issues of deep importance to the children requires real professionalism - sensitivity, listening skills, ability to analyse what is happening, determining how best to help and remembering with a view to recording at a later time. If these occasions are well handled, they may help children resolve problems which may otherwise trouble them for a lifetime.

The best professionals are needed, therefore, to do the most mundane things, if they are to have the most positive impact. (This is true also in nursing.) For decades, though, there has been a strand of thinking which sees foster carers and residential staff as para-professionals who do not require the same level of training, professional status and reward as the social workers who carry case accountability.

The same is, of course, true for other client groups. Bath time in a home for older people, for example, can be an opportunity for a resident to share worries with the carer, and it is a mistake to programme bathing as if it were a simple mechanical process to get people clean. The hard task is getting trainers, managers and pay negotiators to recognise the real nature of the task.

Social Pedagogy

Children Australia is a quarterly peer-reviewed journal reporting on research and practice around children, youth and families. In December 2011 they published a special issue on social pedagogy, which brings together contributions from an academic, research and practice perspective to explore how social pedagogy has evolved as an ethical orientation towards working with human beings, what international comparisons can tell us about its effect, what social pedagogy has to offer to professionals, and how it can be applied in practice within a range of settings.

Gabriel Eichsteller guest-edited the issue and he writes, “Whilst we hope that the journal will be widely read by our Australian audience, we are also keen to share some of the articles with readers in the UK and to make them available through our website - www.thempra.org.uk/childrenaustralia.htm.”

Field Trip: “Social Pedagogy in Action”

Following enthusiastic feedback from Jacaranda’s last visit to the north of Germany, a further field trip to Hamburg and Heide has been planned, offering an enhanced programme. Both leaders and practitioners who are interested in social pedagogy are invited to:

· engage in dialogue with professionals from statutory services, providers of pedagogic services as well as academics and students of social pedagogy

· visit a centre offering family and professional fostering placements, residential child care for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, children with disabilities, day care and mother & child placements (* see quote below)

· enjoy “Abendbrot” (evening meal) during a visit to an organisation providing social therapeutic support and independent group living for young adults with mental health disorders

· meet state employed social pedagogues working at the German equivalent of children’s services, with a particular focus on fostering, facilitated by a social pedagogue who has worked in an English fostering team

· take part in an experiential tour of Hamburg, lead by social pedagogues, including reflection on how such experiential pedagogy is taught in higher educational programmes as a tool for work with young people

· observe and experience a social therapeutic service run by social pedagogues in a youth prison and a youth remand centre

· attend a presentation and final reflection of the field trip, facilitated by a social pedagogue experienced in working in England and a former consultant social worker in Hackney

The field trip will run from 30th May until 1st June 2012, For more details, click on the attachment here.

Sharing Ideas in Ireland

The programme of the conference of Social Care Ireland in Kilkenny later this month is attached. Under the heading Taking Stock, they have booked twenty-seven speakers and it should be a first-class event, if you can spare a couple of days to network and pick up ideas. Besides, who could turn down a spring-time trip to Ireland? Click here for the full details.

HDJ

Those who were active in residential child care in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s will be sorry to hear that Haydn Davies Jones is seriously ill in hospital. He played a major role, first as Captain of Wellesley Nautical Training School but then as the Senior Tutor in charge of the Newcastle University advanced residential child care course, which over a couple of decades provided training for a few hundred senior managers of children’s services, heads of residential schools and children’s homes. Together with Chris Beedell’s Bristol University course, the Newcastle programme had a marked impact on standards of residential care, but they were eventually both closed down by CCETSW. We wish Haydn well.

Health and Social Care Bill

Paediatricians have now joined the other professional bodies opposed to the Health and Social Care Bill. We try to avoid taking political stances in this magazine, so we will simply observe that over the last four decades every government - whatever its colour - has messed with the National Health Service. We haven’t counted them ourselves but we understand that there have been sixteen major reorganisations in the last twenty years. And every time there is a restructuring, a whole lot of people are laid off and huge amounts of time and money are spent on the process.

What makes matters worse is that Ed Miliband is describing the current Bill as the government’s Poll Tax moment, presumably meaning that if Labour gets into power they will make a lot more changes, not necessarily putting the service back as it was. We think that this perpetual process of change is seriously damaging, and that the NHS should be left alone for a while to get on with providing services - from the Webmag’s viewpoint, services for children and young people, of course.

From the Case Files

J was arrested for breach of the Police as he was drunk.

Broke into the Police canteen bar?

We always have a break at weekends and that usually works well. She is used to that and enjoys not having to get up and get dressed until she is ready. During the week she knows that the routine is up, breakfast, washed and dressed, teeth cleaned, wait for me to come back from feeding and cleaning out the hens and the pony and have a cup of tea, get changed myself and then off to the office we go for the morning. At weekends she goes to ballet and street dance classes.

We follow a number of different learning resources depending on which suit her needs at any particular time. As well as reading books we work on the essential 100 words researched by Solity at Warwick University. See below an article from BBC News Channel 9 December 2005

‘Only 100 words’ needed to read
Research suggests reading schemes might not be necessary England’s strategy for teaching children to read could be overloading them with superfluous words, researchers have suggested. The strategy recommends teaching them to recognise 150 words initially. An ongoing study at the university of Warwick says 100 will do to read most written English, including books intended for adults. Far fewer phonic skills than in the official strategy were needed to understand various letter combinations. Minimal returns Warwick researchers Jonathan Solity and Janet Vousden analysed a range of books including adult fiction and non-fiction, and two popular reading schemes. By learning 100 key words, children found they could understand books designed for both youngsters and adults. The 16 most frequently occurring words: a, and, he, I, in, is, it, my, of, that, the, then, to, was, went, with The 100 high frequency words: a, about, after, all, am, an, and, are, as, at, away back, be, because, big, but, by call, came, can, come, could did, do, down for, from get, go, got had, has, have, he, her, here, him, his I, in, into, is, it last, like, little, live, look made, make, me, my new, next, not, now of, off, old, on, once, one, other, our, out, over put saw, said, see, she, so, some take, that, the, their, them, then, there, they, this, three, time, to, today, too, two up, us very was, we, were, went, what, when, will, with you Progress is varied We work through the words in stages and each group is learned independently as well as being incorporated into sentences that she constructs herself. We have gathered resources from some excellent websites and I am amazed at the wealth of information there is out there. Where possible, she mixes with other children who are home educated very frequently and she has started to attend street dance and ballet classes at weekends. The problem I find hardest to manage is my own frustration when she refuses to continue with the work, due in no small part to her exhaustion and me forgetting she needs brain breaks. It is quite difficult to rein in my enthusiasm for a subject and remember she is only one child, not a class full who would take up more of my individual time but leave them free to relax occasionally. Recently we went to the local zoo armed with task list. We walked all the way round once, then had lunch and a drink then got down to the business in hand. We completed as many of the questions as we could, then came home to look at our evidence. We made a display of the photos we took as well as the things we had discovered about the animals. This was great fun but for me the regret is that no one apart from her family get to see the wonderful work she now achieves. Good days and not so good Because my grandchild has numerous difficulties to overcome, there are times when she cannot think at all. Her brain and her behaviour do not allow this. We can look at the same sets of words or numbers and within seconds she has completely forgotten everything. This makes her very prone to screaming rages as she fights against herself and it pushes me to doubt my ability to teach as she is one child and I have all the resources I can muster. The battle is being won albeit slowly. My philosophy is to push in the information and eventually it will pour out of her in a recognisable form. I am relying more and more on good old-fashioned humour. Getting her to laugh at herself gets rid of the anger much more quickly. I am also learning to back off instead of persisting with something that is clearly forcing her to have a headache of sorts. I actually do think she gets pains in the head due to the muddle in her thinking processes. Last night she came back from visiting friends with her mother. The man’s father had recently died and the adults were discussing this. She asked if he was in a cave and was told ‘no’ he wasn’t. She then asked if he was in a box and whether the box had been sawn in half, clearly confusing magicians and funeral directors. Despite the obvious grief as such a recent sad loss, her questions created such good feelings that he phoned his mother to tell her and they laughed together. Today we worked on bigger numbers and next numbers for about half an hour after which she couldn’t remember letters linked to particular sounds, so has gone for a rest and a snack whilst I complete this article in time for publication. Let’s hope we both achieve what we need to.

It took me back to the time when I was at a Barnardo’s residential school in Lanarkshire. I was spending a couple of days together with the staff, and one of them, called Jim, remarked that he felt that the most important interactions with children usually seemed to happen in between places, activities, tasks and planned events. He pointed out that it was vital for there to be resourceful adults on hand and available to be alongside young people at such times, and in the “in-between” places where they were likely to occur. When he was asked to clarify what he meant, he suggested that the gardener, maintenance men, cook and domestics were best placed in his particular residential community to be alongside the young people. In fact it was during his days off, when he was working on his car or garden, that he felt he had some of the best conversations with them.

Everything came into sharp relief when I thought about the all-encompassing trend towards what is often called a “contract culture”. The idea, as readers will well know, is to specify tasks and outcomes and to employ people to do these tasks and achieve the outcomes laid down. What could be more reasonable? What’s more, it is possible at every level, from a piece of work with a young person for, say, six sessions, to the running of prisons, or the social care of boroughs and councils. There is obviously something to be said for it, even if there is a lively debate about changes not unrelated to this in the NHS at present!

But you may have guessed the point that arises: who are the people that will be available in between tasks, contracts and activities? Let me clarify things: the precise nature of the role I am concerned about is that, although it can be conceived and understood, it is by definition impossible to describe in a way compatible with contracts. Let’s imagine that some bright person or organisation, decided to appoint “in between” people: that would immediately negate the function required. For then they would be employed to do this task, whereas the key to what Jim was saying is that it is precisely people who are not contracted to do something who are the ones young people are most likely to talk to and share with!

On the day when I decided to write this piece, every activity in which my wife was engaged gave her the opportunity to be alongside someone in a non-threatening, and unstructured way. So in the short drive from the school to the hospital she was able to listen to the feelings and thoughts of the girl. At hospital she was present to facilitate the relationship of mother and child (and for that matter, relationships with other patients). Without being obtrusive, she could observe the interaction between them. When cooking she was also chatting and distilling homework tasks into a manageable chunks, and finding a cardboard box with which a model house was constructed. And when ironing, there was the chance to reflect on things with one and another, as and when they chose to do so.

I doubt if there is anyone who fails to see the value of what I am describing. Indeed it could be taken as a description of the basics of parenting. This reminds me of another reason why I saw the light last week: one of our daughters came round with her three children, and Ruth and I were reminded of the multifarious tasks that go with parenting. Did we really do all that when we were young, we wondered?! It all came flooding back: night-time ear-aches and nappies, early rising and stories, bathroom and teeth, breakfast and getting ready for school including lunch, getting clothes on for school…and so on. There were in fact very few times when you sat down and chatted parent and child, one to one: it was all on the move, or, if you like, in between.

And residential care, however specialised, at its heart, or in its pith and sinew, will be richly textured enough for every such activity and many more to be times and opportunities to be alongside a young person. I am using the term, “alongside” because it is a favourite of mine. I do not mean sitting opposite, or carrying, standing or teaching, or in a group therapy session: it is much more relaxed, informal and spontaneous. Both of us are between places and between tasks (or we can multi-task) and that is when being alongside happens.

Recently I was with a young person who was taking a room in a hostel. I will not, for all sorts of reasons, say which one. There were staff at reception (although they weren’t gifted with looking anyone in the face). There was a support worker, and there were others, whose designations were not clear to me, on the other end of the phone. But when we found the room in a complete shambles, with broken glass all over the floor, and soiled bedclothes on the bed, there was no one from whom we could beg or borrow a vacuum cleaner or broom. There was simply no possibility of anyone being alongside the young person. No doubt people were doing their tasks, although I have still not found out who was responsible for cleaning the rooms after a guest had left. But I must remind myself that this was a hostel.

And you might say: of course, what do you expect of a hostel? If so, we are agreed that this is not what is meant by residential care. The former is primarily about providing a roof over someone’s head, whereas the latter is a total living experience of which each part is seen as having the potential for chatting, for learning, sharing, reflection, joking and fun.

The problem is that when I read brochures and prospectuses, Ofsted reports, and the like, I get little sense of the pith and sinew of a place, a community. Residential care is what happens before and after school, before and after counselling or therapy, between this place and that, between this event and that, between the evening meal and bedtime. And it is what happens when an adult is there with time and space to be available. Not, let’s make it clear, to do anything, not to listen and make a report: but to be alongside. And there is nothing quite like a car trip, cooking, washing, ironing, mealtimes, and even homework, for that.

Contracts may perhaps be able to specify the bones, but what I am trying to get at is the pith and sinew!

The formal procedures, laid down under the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, had to be followed. This included advising the Secretary of State for Health and Social Security of the decision to close. Below are some accounts of how this process was experienced by a number of individual Community Homes with Education.

In order to obtain the data for the detailed accounts of closures a number of individuals across a range of both voluntary agencies and local authorities were approached. They had either been Heads of CHEs or in senior management positions in agencies which had closed CHEs. Information was also sought from sources suggested by some of the respondents.

Those approached had close association with 21 CHEs and responses were received about the closure 16 establishments. The Head of one CHE, Sydney Jones, had written a detailed contemporaneous account of the closure his establishment, Polebrook in Leicestershire (Jones, 1985). Background information about the closure  of the Royal Philanthropic School was obtained. Valerie Jenkins provided data concerning a study she was undertaking about the closure of a CHE in Sheffield. Data were also received from Geoff Mercer (Crouchfield), Gordon Gentry (Daneford), M. Wright (Egerton House), and P. Wright (St. Hilda’s), all Heads of these CHEs at the time of their closure. Information  about the closure of five CHEs managed by the largest of the Roman Catholic agencies in England, Liverpool Catholic Social Services, was provided by its Director. Data on the closure of one of a number of girls’ CHEs managed by a Roman Catholic order of nuns were also provided. Although only four of all these accounts were sufficiently detailed to allow for a full examination of the events surrounding closure, the remainder give valuable additional insights. I shall begin with the fullest and clearest account.

The Closure of Polebrook House

Most CHEs closed relatively quietly and recorded little detail about the closure process. Polebrook House is unique in that the Principal at the time of its closure, Sydney Jones, had kept a full record of events. He, his staff and others were, as far as can be ascertained, the only staff group to fight in a sustained manner (albeit unsuccessfully) the closure of their establishment.

Polebrook was opened in 1881 by Leicester City School Board under the provisions of the Industrial Schools Act 1856 and subsequently became an Approved School known as Desford.  At its closure, there were places for 50 boys and girls aged from 12 years. It had been provided with secure provision, but this was never used. It also specialised in ‘independence training’. The staffing consisted of a Principal, three Deputies, 10 teachers, 32 residential care staff and 25 ancillary staff.

Polebrook was a substantial resource, situated in 50 acres of land, with eight separate self-contained living units completed in 1982, a separate teaching block made up of classrooms with science, woodwork, art and pottery facilities, a horticultural unit, a painting and decorating workshop and general workshops and a sports hall. There were 24 staff houses on the campus and eight single person flats. The whole property was owned by Leicestershire County Council.

Sydney Jones was, at the time, one of the new breed of Heads who had moved into the old Approved Schools to apply the philosophy of the DHSS, as enunciated in its report Care and Treatment In a Planned Environment (DHSS, 1970). Jones wrote a booklet on the events (Jones, 1985). He became Principal of Polebrook in 1973 when there were 100 boys in residence and the weekly charge was £36 per child. The building was then a large purpose-built school block around a central courtyard. The boys were accommodated in four large dormitories and each ‘house’ group of about 30 boys had one room available for recreation.

A major building programme was set under way in 1977, with the erection of four purpose-built units being completed in 1979. An eight-place secure unit was completed in 1982. By 1983, most of the residents (both boys and girls) came from within 10 miles of Polebrook. Individual care programmes were devised for all residents.

The philosophy was child-centred and also recognised the need for structure and direction. Polebrook enjoyed the support of the Director of Social Services and of the officers who had direct management responsibility for the school.

In 1983 £1.6m was spent on redevelopment of Polebrook, including a grant of £175,000 from the DHSS for the secure unit. The closure proposals, when they came, seemed to have much to do with the political in-fighting on the County Council. Up until 1983 Leicestershire had been controlled for many years by the Conservatives. After the local elections of 1981 they lost overall control of the Council and needed to share power with Liberals. The focus for hostility to Polebrook was the secure unit. The Labour Group put down a motion not to open the unit. This was defeated in May 1982.

New staff were appointed to manage the secure unit and were due to start work on 1 August 1982. However in mid-June there was a change of political alignment on the Council. The Liberals decided to withdraw their support for the Conservatives and so the Labour group took charge of all the Chairs of the various Committees.

One of the first decisions of the newly formed Social Services Committee was to stop the opening of the new secure unit. The local media made much of the issue and Jones gave his support publicly to the unit opening, as he considered that plans were now too far advanced to be changed. This incurred the displeasure of the ruling party. The Chairman and Vice Chairman (who was a social worker from a neighbouring authority) of the Social Services Committee came to placate the staff who sought assurances that there was no plan to close the whole CHE. Although this assurance was given staff remained sceptical.

A working party was then set up to examine the child care policy of the authority. The working party never visited Polebrook. In November 1983 the entire staff group were gathered together and told that the working party had considered two options in respect of Polebrook, one a reduction in numbers, the other total closure. It had been decided to accept the closure recommendation. The argument for this was that the money saved would be used to provide extra staff in the mainstream community homes. Although the staff were told that they would be re-deployed and that their salaries would be protected, they were extremely distressed at the news and a number resolved to fight the plan.

The Principal immediately informed the young people in care of the news and tried to reassure them about their futures. The atmosphere was one of sadness, anxiety and anger. The staff formed an action committee to prepare to persuade Councillors not to vote for the recommendation when the Social Services Committee met on 21 December 1983. The staff group produced a professional working broadsheet with which to argue their case.

The Principal wrote personally to every  Committee member and also invited each of them to visit the CHE. No Labour or Liberal Councillor visited, though a number of Conservatives did and  promised support. The Liberal Group agreed to meet a small staff group at County Hall. The staff visited their own County Councillors and the local Member of Parliament. The newspapers led an outcry against the closure when they discovered the news. The Lord Lieutenant of the County, who was also President of the Magistrates Association, wrote to the Social Services Committee asking them not to close Polebrook, as did the Chairmen of two local benches.

Jones said he never thought the resistance to closure would succeed but on principle he believed it to be a wrong decision that had to be challenged. The vote to close was narrowly carried in Committee in December but the Conservatives required that the decisions should come before the full Council for ratification. This happened in January 1984.

There were 70 full time equivalent posts in Polebrook. All staff were interviewed by senior staff from the social services department to find out their preferences for the future. Some of the ancillary staff took early retirement and the remainder were  redeployed. Teaching staff were also redeployed, though they were allowed to remain at the CHE until its closure. The care staff were redeployed, with many placed in other posts well before the closure.

The speed at which this was done led the Principal to ask for the process to be suspended for fear that all of the care staff would be moved before the young people had been placed. Some staff made it clear they wished to stay until all the young people had been properly resettled. Even though the redeployment terms were generous financially, many staff were distressed for some time and many kept in close touch with each other and with the Principal after the closure.

At the time of the announcement of closure there were 36 young people at Polebrook. This number was low because there was a national industrial dispute involving the care staff during which time admissions had been suspended. Five children were awaiting admission. The industrial action did not strengthen the case for retaining Polebrook.

Of the 36 young people 19 were likely to have been discharged in the succeeding months in the natural course of events. In January and February 1984 case conferences were held on every child, at which representatives from the Education Department and the Intermediate Treatment services were present. Nine children were placed in their own homes speedily, with facilities to return to the home on a day basis to complete CSE studies.

After a follow-up of the progress of the young people two years after they were discharged Jones observed that “some of the young people’s later careers may well have been much the same if they had not left Polebrook prematurely but many of those who ended up in custody or experienced homelessness would have returned to Polebrook and gone through the independence programme and would have been offered long term support” (Jones, 1985). He also noted that despite the expansion of the Intermediate Treatment service none of the discharged young people was offered a place on the programme because they did not meet the criteria.

Placement of Children after Closure of Polebrook House in 1984

Subsequent Placement

Residential Care           9

Custody                        8

Home & Offending        2

Home & Pregnant         3

Home & Progressing  10

Unknown                      3

Total                           35

Very few of the young people returned to mainstream education and only the one child who was later transferred to another CHE took the CSE examinations. Thus, despite the wish of the Committee that no child would suffer the fact, is that most did so according to Jones records.

Polebrook House formally closed on 13 July 1984. Jones remains convinced that the closure was a major mistake and that “many young people were denied the chance of experiencing what we offered”. He also noted that 4,989 young people had been catered for in the 103 years of  Polebrook/Desford’s existence.

A letter from the Chairman of Leicester City Juvenile Court Panel, Alan Clayton,        (19 December 1983) to the Members of the Social Services Committee raised some significant points. He believed there would always be a few children who will not respond to other forms of treatment, and that it was essential that these should be properly contained in a firm environment with an educational facility. He considered that only the Social Services Department was in a position to provide this. Clayton observed that the attitudes in schools were such that difficult children were frequently suspended and to all intents and purposes abandoned by the system, although he understood the difficulties presented to teachers by disruptive children. He concluded that Polebrook House was the only possible alternative to a custodial containment for many young people and was amazed by reports of the proposed closure.

The editorial of the Leicester Mercury on 4 December 1983, put the closure down to the “Leicestershire socialists’…fixation with intermediate treatment”. Yet despite the support of the local Conservative Member of Parliament Adam Butler, central government remained unmoved. In a letter to Norman Fowler, Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, on 12 January 1984, Adam Butler suggested that it would appear that there had been “a failure to act responsibly” on the part of the Social Services Committee. He went on to say “If you have powers to call it in, I would have thought there was a strong case for an Inquiry”.

The response he received from Mr Fowler’s Under Secretary, Tony Newton MP, on 4 March 1984, all but confirmed that Mr Fowler believed the Socialists in Leicestershire to be right and the Conservatives wrong. He began by stating that it was “not a matter in which the Secretary of State feels able to intervene” and then went on to point out that:

Local authorities have been encouraged to look critically at their policies for children in care with particular reference to making more efficient use of the residential sector. An important factor in such a review is that the rationalisation of under-used residential provision can often release considerable resources for application in other services.

What did concern Mr Newton was the future of the secure unit “since its construction was funded by way of 100% capital grant from the Department”.

A further response to Adam Butler, from John Patten MP, another Under Secretary of State with the DHSS, on 10 May 1984, specifically applauded Leicestershire’s policies and added that:

The Department will be monitoring Leicestershire’s strategy closely, especially as it contains some interesting and innovative features.

The account of the closure of Polebrook by Jones provided a unique and valuable insight into the closure of a CHE. By resisting the closure in the manner which he and his staff did, they elicited explicit statements that reflected many of the attitudes and issues that led to the decline of the system and the closure of more CHEs.

Polebrook was closed by a Labour controlled Council, with active assistance from the Liberals and with a Vice Chairman of Social Services Committee who was a field social worker in a neighbouring local authority. Their reasons for closure were primarily ideological - their belief that residential care was an unnecessary and inefficient infringement on the lives of young people.

The response of the Magistracy and local Conservatives was to challenge this argument. They denied the claim that young people could not benefit from a CHE placement and asserted that society needed such a facility for some youngsters. This clearly had been the belief of the previous Council who had invested over a million pounds in upgrading the building. When the opponents of closure turned to a central government, run by their own party, they found that far from receiving support they were told that the Council’s decision to close Polebrook made economic sense.

This closure highlights the rapid pace of the change in policy for young offenders. The results, in this instance, were that some of the young people in residence suffered further disruption in their already chaotic lives, that some staff talents were lost to the child care profession and that a valuable building in which much money and effort had been invested was lost to child care. All this occurred before alternative measures were properly established and found to be effective.

The closure also exposed the role of mainstream education in this whole process. A letter from the Chairman of the Leicester City Juvenile Panel claimed that “only the Social Services Department” were in a position to make provision for the residential care and education of disturbed and delinquent children and that many of these children had “been abandoned” by schools. He also claimed that many school teachers were powerless to deal with disruptive children.

It would seem right to question why only the Social Services Departments could provide a response to the problem when it is one that is also of concern for the Education Departments. Even the Warnock Committee simply accepted that CHEs were the province of the Social Services Departments, whilst arguing that teachers should be “in the service of the local educational authorities” (Warnock, 1978). In none of the accounts of closure obtained was there any reference to the local Education Departments being consulted about the closure, or expressing any interest. This underlines the compartmental approach by both local and central government to the issues of child care, education and juvenile delinquency.

In my next instalment I will give a number further accounts of closure and evidence of the immediate impact of these decisions.

This article is based on material taken from Jim Hyland’s book “Yesterday’s Answers”.

Dockar-Drysdale used this term to describe children who have had significant disruptions to their experience in the form of neglect and trauma usually in their first year of life. In her needs assessment they were children who often experienced panic states and had a tendency towards disruption of ordinary everyday experiences, for example intruding into perceived good times between a carer and another child or ‘spoiling’ other children’s birthday celebrations and those types of things. They were also very often free from or low in the capacity to empathise with others.

She chose the phrase ‘frozen’ very consciously and deliberately as it was accompanied from the start by the hope and possibility of a thawing out or defrosting type of process. In other words this was not a fixed but ‘treatable’ state of personality development.

More recently I was walking in the grounds of Harewood House on a very cold and frosty mid-winter day, thinking about how I might approach the task of writing up my reflections on the meeting I attended at CWDC in December. I was struck by the contrasts in the natural landscape I found myself in. What has been an uncharacteristically warm winter to date had led to the snowdrops flowering by the end of the second week in January and some of the daffodils already sprouting up to five or six inches through the white, frozen ground. My thoughts wandered to my recurring emotional experience of working with the residential sector and looked after children in general. This tends to be one of feeling filled with equal measures of both hope and despair in quite a rollercoaster-type manner. Something akin to both summer-like and wintry states of mind all at once!

The CWDC meeting was attended by a very diverse group of people including representatives of Mulberry Bush, NSCAP, ICSE, Charterhouse, NASS, ICHA, SEBDA, Thempra and NCERCC amongst others. The task for the day was to discuss ‘what can we contribute to support, challenge and improvement in residential child care’ and ‘a proposition for DfE - how can we develop the profession together? We were welcomed by senior members of the CWDC who then left us to have our own dialogue about how we might take forward new ideas linked to the concept of ‘sector led’ improvement and leadership.

Perhaps inevitably some of our initial discussions focused on the struggle to define ‘the sector.’ Were we to include boarding schools, EBD schools, or narrow ‘the sector’ down to children’s homes? From memory we settled on those children and young people living in children’s homes who tend, on average, to account for about 10% of the looked after population at any one time.

Revolutionary Zeal

I remember working as a team manager at the Cotswold Community in the early 1990s, a ‘therapeutic community’ working with latency and adolescent boys with the task and aim of facilitating emotional growth and learning as well as providing good quality day to day care. Most of the staff there were graduates and all completed a minimum three-year in-house training programme (see www.johnwhitwell.co.uk), rooted in relationship-based and psychodynamic theory. We had the luxury in those days of meeting on a daily basis as a full management group with the senior and middle managers present.

Although these groups were tricky at times with inevitable competitive undercurrents they could also be very facilitative and encouraging spaces in which the task and role of leadership was taken seriously and supported. On a good day one would leave invigorated and ready for the daily challenges ahead which, with ten boys in each household, were usually substantial! I recall one such meeting in which the management group were chewing the fat of a particularly challenging ‘season’ in the community and our principal, John Whitwell, spoke of the need for leaders in these contexts to draw upon their own ‘revolutionary zeal’ to equip them to lead and manage their staff teams through difficult and challenging times.

I am in no doubt that, as austerity bites hard in the public sector and beyond, any successful attempts at ‘sector led’ initiatives will need very much to be fuelled by the same kind of ‘revolutionary zeal’ as that described above. There is opportunity amongst the threat posed by the change and transformation ahead for children’s homes. However, as you will be all too aware, change processes that are not well managed and led to tend to impact destructively rather than constructively in terms of human development at the level of both staff and young people. My experience of our meeting with or at the CWDC was of being amongst kindred spirits sharing my own passion for residential care or treatment that is closer in its impact to greenhousing than warehousing.

However, I sensed an undercurrent of what John Diamond from the Mulberry Bush organisation helpfully defined as ‘coopetition.’ An’ integration’ of cooperation and competition. This seemed to be at a macro level between the DfE and what was NCERCC and at a more micro level between ‘flavours’. For example, shouldn’t everyone in the sector just do a degree in social pedagogy?’

Inevitably the move towards a mixed and increasingly private economy will have a significant impact on the landscape of the sector and the ‘bottom line’ imperatives needed for economic survival. My own mind wandered from the macro to the micro and began to visualise what I described as ‘regional do-ables.’ I found the macro focus overwhelming and despair-inducing and the more regional and micro focus somehow more bearable.

Locally in Yorkshire my sense is that there remain quite a high number of local authority children’s homes for adolescents that genuinely, through no fault of their own, struggle to get and remain ‘on-task’ in terms of greenhousing and not warehousing. I frequently hear and witness accounts of quite large and quite toxic groups of adolescents living together in homes that may be passed ‘fit’ by Ofsted but are, in practice, little more than warehouses for a very complex and in need population of young people, many of whom are hardened survivors of the care system and all it entails. I accept that, like the wider sector, each home and its culture will journey through seasons in which more growth occurs in some than in others.

Climate Change

In my moments of hope that are usually fuelled by conversations with providers and staff who are managing small group homes for up to about four adolescents or similar sized groups of younger people I can see a way forward. These discussions are often deeply pragmatic but underpinned by a sense of genuine passion and commitment towards young people and relationships. My own days of fanaticism around all things ‘therapeutic’ have given way slowly but surely over the years to a more moderate and, dare I say, eclectic acceptance that well led homes with an overarching philosophy of whatever ‘flavour’ can develop ‘healing’ types of cultures when certain conditions are met. I worry when I hear about the building of empires, ‘footprints,’ £10 million acquisition etc., I think most fundamentally because I wonder where the staff and young people are amongst this.

My sense is that the more we can develop and be part of a ‘movement’ that consciously emphasises cooperation as a model for collective growth and development the better. This is needed at many levels, from the boundary of each home to be as welcoming and transparent as possible to providers of whatever size being open to scrutiny and welcoming in peers and other forms of external input. It was reassuring recently to see a group of MPs with Jonathan Stanley walking around a home for adolescents. Ideally this cooperation could be modeled at the highest level in how the Support and Improvement Project approaches its work with individuals and homes. In many ways this modeling has begun with the work already undertaken on learning sets with leaders in the sector.

Perhaps the final views to appreciate on this ‘ramble’ are that of the journey that lies ahead and those to be seen now. From a bit of a distance my experience now is that there remain some models of outstanding practice in the sector. The Mulberry Bush Organisation comes to mind for the younger age group and places like Lioncare and Childhood First for the older age group to name but a very few. The journey ahead will no doubt be both adventurous and treacherous in equal measures. The hope may rest in the gradual impact over time of developments like the Munro review of child protection and the increased emphasis on the effectiveness of early interventions in the lives of children and families.

Reference

Dockar Drysdale, Barbara (1991) The provision of primary experience, Winnicottian work with children and adolescents, London, Free Association books

The online, self-selecting survey asked young people about their experiences of self-harm during January 2012. At total of 1,392 respondents completed the survey, giving their ages from 9 years old to 18 years old. The sample (which is obviously not representative of the full population) found that, among those surveyed, more than half admitted to hurting themselves on a daily basis or a few times a week.

The findings

The survey revealed that 41 per cent of young people who had hurt themselves had not told anybody about it, and those who did were most likely to tell friends first. However, the large majority felt that this hadn’t helped and still went on to hurt themselves as a way of ‘coping’.

The survey also showed that:

- 86 per cent of respondents had injured themselves;

- respondents cited feeling depressed as the main reason for hurting themselves;

- feeling lonely and family problems also accounted for a high proportion of self-injury cases;

- cutting was the most common way of self-harming, with 81 percent of young people adopting this method;

- scratching was also high at 71 per cent;

- boys are significantly less likely to tell anyone about their self-harming behaviour than girls.

The response

Speaking on behalf of the four charities, Sue Minto from ChildLine said, “We’ve seen from rising hospital admissions and requests for all services that self-harm is a critical issue for young people. ChildLine alone has seen a 59 per cent increase in the number of self-harm related counselling interactions in 2010/2011 compared to the previous year. The overall number of ChildLine counselling interactions (across all issues) increased by 42 per cent, so the proportion of self-harm related activity is rising at a significantly higher rate.

“Speaking up about self-harm is not easy, and this is particularly the case for young men. Our charities are coming together to raise awareness of the range of support available for children, teenagers, parents and those working with young people. Whether someone is experiencing self-harm themselves, or becomes a trusted confident for someone who is, we want to ensure they are able to easily access appropriate support.”

The four charities

The four charities which commissioned the survey are campaigning for greater awareness and support for children at risk of harming themselves.

ChildLine on 0800 1111 and www.childline.org.uk is the UK’s only free and confidential 24-hour helpline for children in danger or distress. Trained volunteer counsellors comfort, advise and protect children and young people aged 18 and under.

Selfharm.co.uk is a safe, pro-recovery website that supports young people who self-harm. It also offers training for parents, carers and professionals equipping them to handle disclosure and provide effective support.

TheSite.org is an online guide to life for 16 to 25 year-olds, run by leading online charity YouthNet. TheSite.org provides trusted, non-judgemental support and advice on anything from self-harm to homework.

YoungMinds is the UK’s leading charity committed to improving the emotional wellbeing and mental health of children and young people. YoungMinds provides a Parents’ Helpline for any adult concerned about the mental health or wellbeing of a child or young person. 0808 802 5544 or www.youngminds.org.uk

The charities are calling on anyone who knows a young person who is, or is at risk of, injuring themselves to get in touch with the relevant charity, who can provide the advice and support they need.

A video supporting this campaign and further information can be found at http://www.childline.org.uk/selfharm

Generally speaking a person only has a right to see information about themselves (Section 7) and not someone else without that other person’s consent (Section 7(4)), hence the practice of redaction. Local Authorities are given guidance as to how they should interpret this restriction by, for example, attempting to obtain the consent of third parties (Section 7 (6)), or waiving the necessity of trying to obtain consent, where, for instance, the person concerned is likely to be dead, or untraceable.

This article refers to redaction in relation to two groups:

(a)       (former) children in care or (former) pupils of residential special schools who seek access to their own records;

(b)       access by solicitors and expert witnesses to records in cases where former   children in care are alleging negligence.

There may be other groups who are in similar situations, but the issues faced by these two groups probably represent the range of issues faced by others.

It is possible to seek a Judge’s permission for records to be unredacted if justice will be compromised by the use of redacted records, but this will only be known once the records have been redacted and are found to be unusable, so that time is wasted both in the redaction and the action required to seek unredacted records. As far as I am aware there is no process for former looked after children to appeal against redaction when they wish to access their personal records and are not involved in litigation.

The situation is exacerbated whenever there are shared records, such as log books in children’s homes and family files in social services records, as they both inevitably contain a large volume of information which does not directly the person in question. Since the practice of maintaining family files has been standard practice for several decades, this applies to a large proportion of claimants.

In practice, redaction varies greatly, depending mainly upon the policy of the local authority responsible for the records. The most enthusiastic redactors attempt to wipe out references to any person other than the subject. Some do not bother with redacting and make all the information available. Some redact only the information which they consider sensitive. In heavily redacted files the quality of redaction is usually poor, so that different copies of the same document may be redacted differently, such that comparison enables the full document to be read. Indeed, I can recall only one case in which the files had been both heavily and accurately redacted.

I understand that redaction is usually the responsibility of local authority officers accountable for compliance with the Data Protection Act. However, the identification of sensitive information may require a professional social work judgement. This may mean that a qualified social worker (who is not necessarily trained in the niceties of the Data Protection Act and who certainly has a lot of other more pressing priorities) will be asked to read the material, which can amount to several thousand pages. To judge by the quality of redaction, it appears that the task is understandably delegated to a junior clerk.

The arguments for redaction are that:

(a)       it is required by the Data Protection Act;

(b)       it prevents confidential information about a third party being made known to   the person accessing the record.

Examples of confidential information include:

(a)       the names of people who have made allegations of abuse, who may be at risk of violent attacks from their abusing neighbours if it becomes known that they were the source of allegations;

(b)       the whereabouts of adoptive parents who do not want to be contacted by the subject’s blood relatives;

(c)        the names of the subject’s parents’ earlier children who had been kept secret from the subject (though it could be argued that the subject and the older child/ren should both have as much right to know of their siblings as their parents have of concealing the fact).

The arguments against redaction are that:

(a)       it may be based on an overzealous interpretation of the Data Protection Act;

(b)       the interpretation has not been tested in Court;

(c)        virtually all the information redacted need not be: it is not particularly confidential and it may already be known to the person accessing the material;

(d)       redaction takes a lot of time, it is therefore costly, and it slows up processes;

(e)       redaction (fortunately) is usually done badly, so that it is possible to work out who and what has been redacted; if the information had truly been confidential, it would not have been concealed;

(f)         to understand heavily redacted documents takes probably three times as long as unredacted documents, wasting professionals’ time, and therefore money;

(g)       thoroughly redacted documents are sometimes incomprehensible, and some pages are completely obliterated;

(h)        even badly redacted documents may detract from the understanding of the situation, such as the way services are managed (for example, a children’s      home) or the subtle   dynamics within a family;

(i)         people reading their own files and expert witnesses reading case material are doing so in confidential settings and there is generally no need for their       contents to be circulated further;

(j)         where cases come to Court, confidential material is often made public;

(k)        where records relate to group settings the subject may see the others in their group virtually as family members and the records will be describing the   activities of their ‘family’, to which they should have access;

(l)         to suggest that professionals such as lawyers and expert witnesses cannot cope with confidential material is clearly a nonsense or a slur;

(m)      it is illogical that archivists, researchers and administrators should have unredacted access to files when they are not open to those who are most closely and directly affected, such as the subjects and the professionals dealing with their cases;

(n)        in terms of arguing the case it is in the interests of both the claimant and the defendant to have full information;

(o)       where documentation is redacted the unavailability of information may disadvantage the claimant as it is available to the defendant.

The consequence of these problems is that occasionally solicitors request unredacted copies. This is obviously helpful, but it means that, as noted above, time has been wasted on redaction, and the expert witness has to re-read the documentation. More frequently, rather than cause delay, I base my reports on the redacted records and add disclaimers that aspects of the cases may have been missed or misunderstood.

Examples include the case where the subject claimed to have been scapegoated, but where information about the way the parents related the subject’s siblings had been obliterated (as they were all third parties), such that there were limited clues as to whether the scapegoating constituted grounds for the removal of the subject from home.  Again, some redactors insert initials at the side of the page to replace the names of family members, foster carers etc.; unfortunately they often get their systems of replacement wrong, and the outcome is that work on such files is at best very slow, and the expert witness may be misled .

It is my view that, from a practical point of view, the arguments are so heavily weighted towards non-redaction that it should be the norm. Where it is known that there is a specific information which needs to be concealed, redaction should still be an option, but the basic principle should be openness. If this arguments is accepted, action should be taken for the adoption of this approach by local authorities

Toddlers need to be with other children in order to learn important social skills such as negotiation, turn-taking and cooperation, which form the foundations for cooperative play and relationship building. Even though toddlers do not cooperate, share or make friends until their fourth year, if they have been given plenty of opportunities to play with other children, they will be at an advantage when they go to toddler group or preschool.

Toddlers also need structure and a regular routine. Both give toddlers a sense of organisation, stability, comfort and personal control. In a Toddler Sense class, exercise and group play form an important part of the structure and daily routine.

Toddlers need to be on the move, so opportunities to run around and let off steam are a must. The first part of the session involves free-flow adventure play, which offers endless opportunities for exploration, problem-solving and imaginative thinking. Toddlers are encouraged to crawl through tunnels, bounce, climb or clamber over the equipment. They decide what interests them the most and how they will explore the equipment. Adventurers (18 – 36 months) put the equipment away after use, which builds self-esteem and confidence and keeps them busy and stimulated.

Free-flow play in the adventure area is followed by structured group activities which build the skills that toddlers need for healthy brain development. Activities may include hide-and-seek, music and movement, action songs, rhymes, dance, clapping and patting games, drawing and colouring, puppet shows, parachute activities, football, treasure hunts and interaction with soft toys. Toddlers can also explore a spaceship, climb a snow mountain, ride on a night train, sail on a pirate ship and hunt for dinosaurs. There is always something new and exciting to look forward to.

Throughout the session, parents join in with the fun and offer toddlers support, praise and encouragement. Spending time with them raises their self-esteem and emotional security and equips them to handle moments of frustration and anger.

Educational activities

There are plenty of fun educational activities that meet the learning and developmental needs of toddlers. The following Toddler Sense activities engage their interest and keep them happily occupied:

• Hide and seek - encourages rich parent-child interactions and the element of surprise that toddlers love so much.

• Pretend play - toddlers enjoy fitting themselves into boxes that are just their size, which promotes spatial awareness. When the box is transformed into a pirate ship or a train, parents get to see the world from the toddler’s point of view. Small world figures, plastic tea-sets, tents, soft toys and picnics set the scene for pretend play and imaginative thinking.

• Building with blocks - develops awareness of size, shape, weight and dimension. Toddlers also enjoy demolishing their constructions, which relieves stress and tension and teaches them about cause and effect at the same time.

• Ball games - a ball is one of the best ways to get toddlers moving. It can be bounced, thrown, kicked, caught or rolled down a slope. Tracking the movement of the ball improves eyesight, which is essential for later reading.

• Dance - dancing with ribbons and scarves is an excellent way to work in some physical activity. It also builds muscle memory and it encourages toddlers to express their emotions.

• Music - making music enhances fine finger movements, improves eyesight, hearing, concentration and memory. It also provides a great outlet for frustration, tension and stress. Toddlers also gain emotional satisfaction from activities that involve singing, clapping and body actions. The effect of music on toddlers with sensory impairments, disabilities and learning needs can be far-reaching.

• Obstacle course - an obstacle course created with cushions and pillows provides a great opportunity for toddlers to build up balance and coordination skills and controlled use of their feet. Creeping and crawling activities also exert pressure on the palms of their hands, which stretches the muscles, prevents the fingers from closing and leads on to greater flexibility of the thumb.

• Tools - fine motor skills are promoted by giving toddlers crayons and pencils for scribbling, beads for threading, sponges for cleaning, puzzles, toys and other tools. Encouraging toddlers to coordinate their hand and finger movements forms the foundation for more complex precision tasks such as writing.

• Action songs - repeating favourite songs regularly, and echoing the actions, reinforces memory and helps toddlers to control their movements. Vocabulary is also increased through stories and interaction with soft toys and puppets.

Toddlers are creative, curious, imaginative, busy little people who enjoy exploration and new challenges. However, they are easily distracted and they may not listen, sit still or join in for very long, so each activity only lasts three minutes. New Explorers (13 – 18 months) return to the Adventure play area after structured activities.

Toddler Sense provides toddlers with new challenges in a supportive and consistent environment. When toddlers are encouraged to be physically active, they learn how their bodies work, build muscles, strength and endurance, burn off excess calories and sleep better at night.

For more information, please visit: http://www.babysensory.com/en/Sample_Session.aspx

This advice note was provided by Megaflo.

Though 94% of parents admit that children’s bath time is essential to help them relax and learn about bath water safety, startling figures show each year emergency departments in the UK see around 2,000 cases of bath water scalds causing severe scalding in children. It takes less than a second for a child to be severely scalded by hot water. Bath time can also present other potential hazards for your child, which is why Megaflo, the hot water experts have put together some top tips for parents to follow while bathing their children.

1        Temperature Control

Getting the right temperature for your child is of optimum importance make sure you have a Thermostatic Mixing Valve (TMV) fitted and manage the temperature of your water. Fill the bath tub with cold water first, and then add hot water, this will reduce the possibility of your baby getting scalded. The temperature for young children should be around 37° centigrade. Use your elbow to test the temperature and give the water a good swirl to ensure even heating.

2        Constant Supervision

The fundamental baby-bathing rule is to never leave your little one unsupervised. Children can drown in less than just an inch of water so make sure you have all your supplies (soap, towel and toys) at the tub already. And if the doorbell chimes or the phone rings, scoop your baby up in a towel and take them with you. Little inquisitive fingers can also be attracted to the tap so it’s essential you keep an eye on them at all times.

3        Depth

Drowning can occur in just an inch of water so never fill the tub more than waist-high when your child is sat up.

4        Run the bath before your little one gets in

Never put your child in the tub while the water is still running; the water temperature could quickly change or the water could get too deep.

5        Safety seats and bath mats

Make the family tub safe by using a rubber bath mat for more secure seating while in the tub to prevent your child from sliding under the water and have a bath mat with a non-skid bottom next to the tub to prevent slipping and sliding.

6        Keep danger out of reach

Medications, cleaning supplies and electric appliances are just a few of the hazards that are usually stored in bathrooms. Make sure such items are stored up high or secured in a locked cabinet where children can’t reach them. Only rubber ducks and other playtime goodies should be near the bath when your baby’s bathing.

7        Faucets away*

Keep those fingers away from the faucets- even if he can’t move them now he’ll be strong enough to do so eventually, so try sitting your child facing away from the faucets to resist temptation. A cushioned spout cover can also protect your child’s head from painful bumps.

8        Soapy suds

Soaps, shampoos, and bubble baths can dry your baby’s skin and may cause rashes, so use them sparingly. To avoid having your baby sit too long in potentially irritating soap-filled water, have playtime at the beginning of the bath and save the soap and shampoo for the end.

9        Bathroom temperature

Make sure the bathroom is comfortably warm (around 23° centigrade) as children can get chilled quickly.

10      Drain away

Let the bath water out as soon as bath time is over to prevent any siblings or family pets of having an accident.

*           Is faucet now the in-word in the UK as well as the US? We call them taps. Ed.

all year round, have provided the following ideas.

1        Make Shopping Mathematically Fun

Get your young ones involved in the shop. Ask them to recite prices for you
and how much items will cost according to what’s in your trolley. Not only
will this keep them engaged, they will thoroughly enjoy the weekly shop and
find it more fab than drag!

2        Get Them Reading Everywhere and Anywhere

Whether you’re on public transport or travelling by car, get them to
identify the different names they see, how to pronounce those names and how
to spell them. This could range from street and road names to tube stations.
Make it feel like a game by getting them choose words for you to spell as
well!

3        Bake and Read

Turn baking cakes and cookies into an educational game. Get the children in
the kitchen and ask them to read the ingredients and instructions. They can
cook and learn at the same time. For older children you can test their
division, multiplication and problem solving skills by asking them to adapt
the recipe for different amounts of servings.

4        Family Time

If your child has an older sibling get them involved in your educational
games. By explaining to them that you want their help it will make them feel
very grown-up, and your younger child will love being included in activities
with older siblings that they look up to.

5        Discovery

Give your child a new word each day and explain to them what it means. For
that day, see if they can use the word in a sentence as much as possible.
This can also be done for maths. Dependant on your child’s age, give them a
number and ask them to find items around the house that add up to that
number, or all the possible ways they can reach it using mental maths.

6        Trip to the Library

Libraries contain a wealth of knowledge and adventure all under one roof.
Most libraries also hold events each day for the holiday such as reading
marathons and homework clubs that are free. Contact your local library for
more information.

7        Museums

 
Museums are like a maze; so make a game out of it. Use the map and get them
to navigate and direct you to each segment. It’s a great way to test their
motor skills and get their brains working in an unfamiliar environment.

8        Workshops

Take them to a complimentary Explore Learning workshop at your local centre.
We have a range of fun literacy and numeracy workshops occurring in several
of our centres over holidays, many based on engaging books such as Harry
Potter, or the Gruffalo. Find your nearest centre by entering your postcode
in the search box on the website: www.explorelearning.co.uk and call to find
out more about the workshops they will be offering, or to book a 1:1 session
with one of their experienced tutors.

9        Play-Dates

Take the children out with other friends. They will feed off their friends’
energy and educational games will seem more fun. Try challenging each of
them using number or word flash cards. It will stimulate their memory and
play to their competitive spirits!

10      Bath Time

Make daily chores such as bath-time or washing-up fun by incorporating
colourful letter or number magnets. They float on the water and can be used
in a multitude of games that will keep them engaged even during the most
mundane of activities!

This book has been written to enhance the work carried out by teachers and assistants to comfort and support children through their experience of loss and grief in situations where a peer or relative or other significant individual (including the school pet) dies.The author looks at aspects of death and loss, which most children will experience in their lives, such as flowers dying at different times and the seasons that help nature to live and die in cyclical form. She explains gently through personal illustration that in the western cultures we have almost attempted to eliminate death from our lives.

This often works against us when death happens, especially when it is unexpected.

She lists the comforting things that adults often say to children or near children which appear to be contradiction in themselves. Hearing people talk about a ‘happy release’ for a grandparent may seem rather callous to a child when they wanted their grannie to stay alive.

The author talks about the different attitudes to death and how children at different ages may react or think about such a topic. She sprinkles examples from first-hand experience through the text which helps clarify her ideas. She talks about the misplaced guilt a child may have when someone or something dies and how that might be avoided. She also talks about multiple loss such as a road traffic collision where pupils and teachers may have died and how the school can best deal with this.

This is a short but significant book. It allows the individual to think about their own experiences of loss over their lives and how they managed each situation and how they were supported in each one. I actually enjoyed reading it.

As in all JKP books there is a comprehensive list of additional relevant publications and help organisations.

Ann Chadwick (2012) Talking about Death and Bereavement in School

JKP

ISBN: 978 - 184905 - 2467

In particular, the author advocates a three-question approach, arguing that readers need first to identify who they are, then where they are going, before finally how they are going to get there. These questions form the main sections of the book, and they are progressively shorter, as David Royston-Lee clearly believes that young people planning their careers need first to clarify what sort of person they are and what they fundamentally like and want, before going on to identify any specific job.

He is a business psychologist who has held senior positions in major companies, and he is therefore well experienced in the field that he covers.

In evaluating the usefulness of the book, I must acknowledge that I have not tried it out on any of its target readerships, and although I have interviewed thousands of people over the years, I am not a business psychologist. So please take my observations with a pinch of salt, and if any Webmag reader from the groups which the book targets would like to write a second review, please get in touch.

In my opinion the book would be useful to two main groups of readers. The first consists of students in the latter years at school, or in higher education, or young adults entering the job market. In particular it is suitable to people who want to plan careers and see themselves as aiming high, as the title implies. They will find it an easy read, and will be able to pick and choose the exercises they think will suit them best. I think that this group will find the book of real value and it will help them get their heads round the daunting task of thinking which field to work in.

Teachers advising students on career planning form the second group. The ideas in the book - such as thinking about oneself, one’s characteristics, likes, skills, values etc. - are important to anyone entering the job market, but there will be a sizeable percentage who would find it difficult to cope with the book on their own. (An unhappily high number of young people are functionally illiterate on leaving school.) By using sections of the book, though, teachers may well help students in this category to think about the questions the book poses.

For the readership of the Webmag, who largely work with children and young people who face a range of problems, such as disabilities, family and social difficulties and educational underfunctioning, it may well be necessary to reframe the contents of the book. The examples given all assume that the readers are going for top jobs. For young people at the bottom of the social heap the question is often whether they can get any sort of job, and whether they can hold it down if they get one. A lot of the jobs on offer may well be unpleasant or boring, with few prospects. For these young people, developing the motivation to work, the right attitude to be a member of a team of workers and the ability to cope with bosses are all important if they are to be able to cope with very basic jobs.

The book needs to be digested and reframed by adults for these young people. Indeed, a challenge for David Royston-Lee could be to devise a twin volume aimed specifically at this end of the job market.

Finally, two or three comments on the way the book is presented. I felt that, in an attempt to be chatty, the book became rather longer than it needed to be, and I do not think it would have lost impact if it were, say, 25% shorter. It is littered with words in bold; some of them are important, but quite a number are not, and I found this distracting and unhelpful, as if someone speaking to you shouted occasional words, and it undermines the system of subheading, which is not so heavily marked. I also found that the flow of argument meant that if I lost my place and came back to the book I had difficulty understanding the text without going back to pick up the thread.

One final point: I think that in urging readers to think about themselves and their environment it was an omission not to include a section on what they thought other people’s expectations of them were. Family members may expect them to work in the family firm or in jobs like their parents’ or siblings’. They may expect the readers to aim high - or not to get above the station. Friends may also exert pressures. In short, the expectations of those close to us can be encouraging, but can also be limiting or misplaced. In planning careers it is worth being aware of these expectations and thinking clearly how to proceed, whether one conforms to them or rebels.

However, if you are wanting to have advice on planning your career, do not let these criticisms put you off. The book is a lively read and if its challenging questions make young people think, it will have achieved its aim and they are more likely to have a rewarding career.

Royston-Lee, David (2010) How to Win from the Start

Artesian Publishing LLP

ISBN 978 - 0 9551164 - 3 - 8

Quite a mixed bag this month. The Editorial urges professional to consider The Critical Role of the Manager in Good Social Care at the SCA/ICSE Annual Seminar.

News Views has its usual mixture of the serious and the not so serious, including internet safety, adoption reform, residential care in Wales, bedwetting in England and Scotland, immunisation planning and ‘research’.

Meredith Kiraly has contributed an important article on kinship care in Australia, in which children and young people speak out about contact with their families.

Alexander Borchert and Sue Ellis have written about the chance for social pedagogy to reach so-called ‘unreachable students‘ and their families in The ‘Good Enough Adult’

On a complementary theme Tomaž Vec suggests that readers might like to increase disruptive behaviour in the classroom as a way of learning how to do the job.

Keith White has been listening to a mother recount her son’s story.

In Jim Hyland’s history of the approved school service, the CHE system begins to unravel.

Clair Davies advocates the need for first-class support in developing a clinical programme and therapeutic practice in residential education.

Dr Lin Day suggests that there’s time to plan something special for a Happy Mother’s Day next month.

.

Richard Scorer and a number of other lawyers have called for a public inquiry into clerical abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.

The Department for Education has announced plans to review systems with a view to reforming adoption.

A survey has shown that bedwetting is still a taboo issue for worried UK parents.

Finally, there are three reviews of books for children and families:

-           My Tourist Guide to the Solar System  … and Beyond by Dr Lewis Dartnell

-           The Lego Ideas Book by Daniel Lipkowitz

-           Understanding Children’s Behaviour by Dr Dinah Jayson

Forty years ago the professional associations set the pace in residential child care, producing ground-breaking documents such as the Castle Priory Report, having influence with the government and playing a significant role in the development of professional training. Without writing a thesis on the reasons for the change, it is clear that today professional associations play a much more modest role and their memberships represent a smaller percentage of the workforce.

Does this matter? If employers are providing training and the quangos are developing policy and monitoring standards, why should professionals spend their time and money replicating these functions?

We have argued that child care needs a strong professional voice. In our view, workers should not just be functionaries of their employers, doing what they are told to do; child care professionals need to own their standards, theories and working methods and have influence. Each child needs to have his or her needs met individually, and this requires sensitivity, creativity and imagination. These are not the qualities expected of functionaries who do as they are told. Professional child care workers need to have a degree of independence of thought, to be prepared to challenge the status quo, and to hold strongly to their internalised professional values.

The Social Care Association and the Institute of Childcare and Social Education are therefore focusing on The Critical Role of the Manager in Good Social Care in the SCA’s Annual Seminar. The first day, on Monday 12 March 2012, is focusing on services for adults. The second day, on Tuesday 13 March, is looking at children’s needs. The Seminar is being held in the Clarendon Suites, Birmingham. Tim Loughton, Minister for Children, is addressing the second day of the Seminar, and the day will close with the ICSE’s AGM, at which a new elected Board will take over.

If any of the line of argument above is of concern to you, come and hear Tim Loughton speak - along with Jane Haywood, Jonathan Stanley, Laura Steckley, John Molloy, Gerald Meehan and about half a dozen workshops - and have your say in helping the ICSE to represent what child care managers think.

Click here to contact the Social Care Association to book your place.

There seem to be special days or years all the time now, and we could fill a whole magazine with them. This one, though, looks especially interesting. The Churches Child Protection Advisory Service (CCPAS) is linking with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection agency (CEOP) to draw attention to the need for internet safety. Obviously it is the children’s safety which they have in mind, but what they are trying to set up is events where children teach their parents and grandparents how to stay safe, under the title Connecting Generations. Two good ideas put together.

If you want to see their “comprehensive multimedia resource” called Safeguarding in a Digital World, go to www.ccpas.co.uk .

Adoption Reform

We are pleased to see that Tim Loughton is taking action to speed up adoption. The current process is ridiculously long, because of both bureaucracy and court procedure. We are, though, wary about pitching expectations too high about the improvements which can be achieved.

The placement of children for adoption is life-changing for all concerned - the children, their blood parents, their adoptive parents and all their extended families, and the decisions need to be undertaken with due consideration. It is because the process has been handled carefully in the past that a high success rate has been achieved. The process must not be unduly drawn out but neither must it be rushed.

There may have been ultra-PC attempts to match children which have prevented their placement, but in any human activity there are some idiotic decisions, and reform will not rule them out entirely, whatever the system.

We have two main concerns beyond the need to simplify and speed up the process.

The first is that for older children it may be preferable to go for long-term foster care first, with a view to adoption. Older children come with a history and may have suffered in various ways. Whatever the matching process, adoption may not work. If it fails, it is very hurtful. Going for adoption raises the stakes; it is meant to be life-long and irrevocable. In some cases it is better not to make that commitment from the start, but for the adoption to follow as a matter of choice between the child and the adults when the adoptive status reflects their feelings for each other and the bonds they have built up.

The second is that adoption should be more open. Even when it works well, the adopted children sometimes want to make contact with their blood family. Furthermore, while the child’s parents may be unsuited to bringing the child up, that is no reason to disenfranchise their other relatives. Meredith Kiraly’s article in this issue on kinship care emphasises the importance of relationships in the extended family. Families take all sorts of shapes these days, and there is no reason why the new relationship between the child and the adoptive parents can only be formed on the basis that all the child’s other family ties have to be broken.

Residential Child Care – A Positive Choice

The Care Council for Wales, in partnership with Care Forum Wales, is hosting a conference on residential child care on 26 April 2012 at the Radisson Blu in Cardiff.

This national event, the first of its kind, will focus on residential child care in Wales and provide an opportunity to reflect on the distance travelled since the Waterhouse Inquiry in 1999. The conference will underline the positive contribution residential child care makes to meeting the needs of the most vulnerable children and young people in society today. It will also focus on the continuing opportunities to develop residential child care as a positive resource.

The programme will feature a number of high-profile speakers and include the experiences of children and young people who have been in residential child care. There will also be a range of workshops to showcase examples of good and innovative practice, including workforce development.

For details please contact sandie.grieve@ccwales.org.uk or call 01745 586863.

Bedwetting 1

We do not usually publish in full the surveys commissioned by companies with an interest in furthering their products, but the Drynites article in this issue has clearly hit on an important subject - parents’ embarrassment and unwillingness to talk openly about their children’s enuresis. Over recent years there has been greater openness about many illnesses which were previously taboo - Freddie Flintoff’s excellent TV programme on depression among sports stars being a good recent example. Whether being open will lead to a more level-headed approach and more effective treatment in the case of bedwetting, we do not know, but it is certainly better if parents do not feel a load of guilty embarrassment in dealing with it.

Bedwetting 2

While on the subject, we recall an inspection of a remand home in Glasgow many years ago. One of the inspectors decided to observe the night staff at work. They were a law unto themselves and did things their own way.

In the middle of the night they went round, woke up all the boys who had wet their beds, made them strip their beds and themselves, and marched them naked in a crocodile to the showers and then the laundry, before issuing clean pyjamas and sheets so that they could remake their beds.

“Does this system work?” asked the inspector. “Sure”, they replied. “And how do you know which boys to wake up?” “It’s always the same ones”. Enough said; the day-time managers were completely unaware of this nightly ritual.

Emla Helps Parents Plan

We are told by Emla that the Parent Planner iPhone app, which they supply, is the perfect way to manage your family’s calendar. The Emla Parent Planner, available free from www.ihateneedles.co.uk and the App Store also includes a multi-child, personalised immunisation calendar – once you input your child’s date of birth, their immunisations (based on the NHS immunisation schedule) are automatically added to your calendar. The app will also notify you a week prior to a child’s scheduled immunisation, giving you time to prepare and visit your local pharmacy (which the app also indicates) to buy any products you may need, such as Emla, a numbing cream that can help to numb the pain of the needle.

The Emla Parent Planner app saves information for up to eight children and uses simple icons to help you manage their calendar. And to make sure you have a record of their most precious moments, the milestones function allows you to save photos or video clips, along with notes, within the calendar – ideal for recording their first steps, first words or even just a funny memory of something they’ve said that you’d like to remember.

As usual, we have not tested this product and are not endorsing it, but it sounds interesting, especially if you want to store funny video clips of your children being immunised.

‘Research’ 1

At the Toy Fair it was announced that the following were the jobs which children wished that their parents had:

1 Spy/ detective (29%)

2 Popstar (25%)

3 Olympic Athlete (24%)

4 Prime Minister (22%)

5 Footballer (18%)

The common factor would appear to be being a celebrity. Was this always the case? Did children in the past want their parents to be like George Formby or Lloyd George or Stanley Matthews? Or is it a comment on our current celebrity culture?

‘Research’ 2

The following is the list of the books most read by children, and the average number of times per annum that they read them, according to researchers commissioned by the Early Learning Centre:

8.85 The Very Hungry Caterpillar – Eric Carle

8.71 Cinderella - Various

8.41 Mr Men – Roger Hargreaves

7.72 Peppa Pig – Various

7.49 Postman Pat – John Cunliffe

7.48 The Gruffalo - Julia Donaldson

7.43 Fireman Sam – Various

7.39 Spot the Dog – Eric Hill

7.31 Biff, Chip and Kipper – Roderick and Cynthia Rider Hunt

7.25 Horrid Henry – Francesca Simon

7.14 The Gruffalo’s child – Julia Donaldson

6.66 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

6.65 Dora the Explorer – Various

6.53 Winnie the Pooh - A. A. Milne

6.43 Bob the Builder - Various

6.09 The Cat in the Hat – Dr Seuss

6.09 Fantastic Mr Fox – Roald Dahl

5.88 Charlie and Lola - Lauren Child

5.22 Alfie and Annie Rose Stories - Shirley Hughes

5.21 Aliens love Underpants - Claire Freedman and Ben Cort

‘Research’ 3

A study undertaken by LV has discovered that childcare costs have now reached £62,099 for a child up to 21 years old. Education is only a slightly higher cost than childcare at £71,780 (£30,794 without university).

From the Case Files

I explained to the girls that I shall be leaving the Department; I do not expect any unpeasant developments in this case.

The girls know their place.

There will be many challenges facing those who try to engage these children and families. However, the David Young Community Academy[3] in Leeds and Serendipity Art College[4] in Batley are working together with a Social Pedagogue[5] to develop a project that will address these issues. The main aims and objectives will be to:

• support families;
• develop a holistic culture in school and community;
• increase attendance and achievement in schools;
• reduce NEETs[6];
• reduce the number of young people going into care.

In order to achieve that, the project will:

• develop a social pedagogical approach to education that exhibits passion in the belief that all young people have a rich and extraordinary potential and so are entitled to an education that fits their specific situation and learning styles;
• create a safe and nurturing environment to engage vulnerable young people, who are disenfranchised from mainstream education;
• provide an exciting creative learning experience that prepares them for work and life, while supporting them through the transition into adulthood;
• support young people in voicing their wishes, dreams and thoughts and listen carefully and intently;
• support young people to recognise and to take responsibility for their future, their families, their communities and their world;
• support families, so they are able to support their children to develop and achieve.

Where do we want to end up? What is it what we want to achieve?

We want a well-rounded, confident and independent adult - a good enough adult!

The concept of a good enough adult is transposed from child development theories around the good enough parent. In order to become a good enough adult, children need good enough parenting and a good enough education.

Among other things a good enough parent:

• recognises it is unrealistic and unhelpful to demand perfection;
• provides a low level of criticism;
• delivers a high level of warmth and praise;
• maximises time spent with children;
• involves self in child-focused activities.

Among other things, good enough education:

• recognises it is unrealistic and unhelpful to demand perfection;
• provides low level of criticism;
• delivers high level of warmth and praise;
• maximises time spent with children;
• provides child-focused activities.

Among other things a good enough adult is:

• resilient,
• resourceful,
• empathic,
• conscientious,
• employable,
• a good enough citizen.

Three primary needs[7] have to be satisfied to achieve our goal: family, aspiration and education.

When we have a good enough balance of primary needs, a strong foundation of family and education, together with hope and aspiration for the future, with the child at the centre and with a secure base for growth, we have the building blocks for a good enough adult.

In a perfect world there would be no need to go any further. But we live in an imperfect world full of imperfect human beings; life happens.

If family is taken away or if there are problems within the family that result in failure to provide secure attachment and so a secure base for growth, what happens? We can have a child with high levels of anxiety and stress. We can have a child whose problems could range from challenging behaviour, through attachment issues to aggressiveness and much more. We could also have parents who cannot provide support, stability and encouragement. Result: a child who will struggle in education and life in general.

If education is taken away, we produce a child poorly prepared for adulthood, with low levels of knowledge, a narrow mind, low attainment and poor literacy skills. We have a person whose future is already decided - struggle, low employability and a dead-end existence.

If aspiration is missing, hope for the future disappears. We end up with an unfulfilled adult, not ready to grow up, unable to cope with their deep-rooted problems.

Social pedagogy becomes the second chance opportunity to fill these gaps in the young person’s development and so build the solid social foundations needed for good enough adulthood.

Where does Social Pedagogy fit in this context?

“The nature of these faculties within each person drives him to use them. The eye wants to see, the ear to hear, the foot wants to walk and the hand to grasp. And, equally, the heart wants to believe and love, the mind wants to think. There is in every faculty of human nature an urge to rise from its inert, unskilled state to become a trained power.” Schwanengesang (Swansong,1826):Pestalozzi[8]

The core concept of social pedagogy ‘head - heart - hands’[9] provides the drive for a new process of inclusive alternative education – the Responsive Tripartite Curriculum.

The Responsive Tripartite Curriculum

• Heart: the social curriculum
• Hands: the learning to learn curriculum
• Head: the core curriculum

The Heart - Social Curriculum

First you have to reach the heart in order to engage with the young person, dealing with their unique set of circumstance and unmet needs. Working alongside the young person, sometimes meeting them inside their world of chaos, requires great flexibility, intuition and unconditional regard. Children with chaos of mind have no room for learning; they are too busy surviving! First, they need to feel safe, to trust again and then they can develop the social building blocks. This is ‘moral education’ and without this everything else loses its sense of direction.

Pestalozzi emphasises this:

“But the basic natural development of each of these individual faculties only comes about through its use. Love and faith, the fundament of our moral being, only develop naturally through the fact of love and faith themselves. And as human beings we only naturally develop the fundament of our mental faculties, thinking, through the fact of thinking itself. In the same way we only naturally develop the physical fundament of the faculties we need in our work, our senses, organs and limbs, through the fact of their use.”

The Hands – The Learning to Learn Curriculum

Play precedes imagination, creativity and learning. You need the hands to discover, observe and develop; then, out of play curiosity will arise. Curiosity is the way into learning and education.

Pestalozzi adds:

“A child who has been allowed to develop play resources receives many enduring advantages. First, he/she develops a universal learning skill. Second, play maximizes his/her potential by developing creativity and imagination. Third, her/his relationships with the world and others are based on loving-kindness. Fourth, play promotes joy, which is essential for self-esteem and health. Fifth, his/her learning process is self-sustained based as it is on his/her own natural love of learning and playful engagement with life. Sixth, play creates a basic trust in the world.”

The Head – The Core Curriculum

It is vital not to impose knowledge but to stimulate curiosity, starting from the young person’s motivation to learn and from where the pedagogue teacher thinks the young person “is”. The pedagogue will succeed only by truly understanding the child and understanding that education is always a mutual process of learning together.

But it is vital also always to have in mind the necessary development, the things that need to be learnt. Pestalozzi says:

“The formation of concepts as the basis for mature judgement is central in the development of the mental powers (head). In principle the point is that the child learns to use its senses and gains sense-impressions, which give it the necessary basic understanding to be able to form concepts. This education should also be carried out with the loving care of the educators ….”

When the social foundations are in place and the young person feels safe, curiosity and intrinsic motivation will drive the progress of formal learning.

With the David Young Community Academy and Serendipity Art College which have proven success in changing the way of delivering mainstream and alternative education, there are two courageous educational provisions which want to face the challenges of this time. Also York University and Liverpool Hope University have agreed to assist us in this project. We are at a point where we have the idea, the planning, the people and a concept. What we need to find now is some initial funding to evidence that social pedagogy will work in mainstream and alternative education and will be able to improve the lives and chances of all students and their families.

[2] There are various sources to gain an overview of what Social Pedagogy is; consult the archive of the Children Webmag.

[3] www.dyca.org.uk

[4] www.serendipityartcollege.org

[5] www.amavitam.co.uk

[6] NEET, acronym for “not in education, employment or training”

[7] The authors identified family, aspiration and education as primary needs for being a ‘good enough adult’.

[8] Pestalozzi’s Schwanengesang, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Cotta 1826. This book had been published just a few months before his death.

[9] http://www.pestalozziworld.com/images/HeadHeartandHand.pdf (from page 47 onwards)

One of the more frequent questions that teachers ask is how they can work within the classroom to avoid difficulties with the behaviour of pupils. The question is probably wrong since it holds that even very good teachers always have one whose behaviour deviates from expectations in the classroom. This is also shown by the statistics; amongst the whole population (therefore also in every classroom of each school) there should be somewhere between 2% and 15% of children with difficult behaviour (Farrington, 2007, Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA, 2008, Epstein and collaborators, 2008). Even if we assent to a quite realistically probable 5% this means that actually there should not be even one school classroom where at least one child with deviating behaviour is not included.

It is my firm belief that a teacher (or a pedagogue in kindergarten) should be grateful for every such child. The experiences of teachers and pedagogues, included within supervision groups show (Vec, 2000a) that a teacher learns more in one year (about his expert knowledge and group activity, creativity and flexibility, possibilities and limits, cooperation and autonomy) from only one behaviourally disruptive child than from leading groups of talented and diligent children in ten years.

The present essay is therefore designed for those who want even more children with disruptive behaviour in their groups – either because they wish to learn, or merely because they are short of material to complain about.

What can a teacher contribute in order to have more difficulties with pupils’ behaviour in the classroom?

In principle he can just sit at his desk and wait for behaviour problems to start to happen spontaneously. According to the data, he has assured conditions for that (those 5% problematic ones). The problem lies only in that the forms of expressions of problematic behaviour change from generation to generation. From this, for example, some are trying to assert that in recent times there has been more problematic behaviour. In truth they were just more affected by it; whilst in the past it was orientated more towards coevals and materials, it is now maybe (!) directed more towards the teachers themselves.

You can ensure more problems by holding to a basic principle: do not work professionally. Albeit generalised, you can not work professionally in at least three different ways (which are usually so interwoven that we distinguish them only by several theoretical premises):

• do not consider the principles of good leadership,
• do not consider the principles which derive from an individual child and a group,
• do not consider the principles which derive from a general legitimacy of group dynamics.

How to avoid the principles of more effective leadership?

If we want to have as much as disruptive behaviour in the classroom as possible, it is good to avoid individual practices such as those listed below and, even better, as many as possible (I list only a few of them, but – allow yourself some creativity!):

1. Preparing the room; the appearance of the room itself (McLeod, 2007) can invite certain activities (for instance if there are balls or musical instruments in it, they just call out to be used – in a way the adults wish, and to the whole spectrum of that which we will not approve), directs (the setting up chairs, for instance), calms down or stimulates (for instance colours), gives ‘permissions’ (for instance damaged or broken objects like electrical plugs can ‘give the message’ to the children that it is perfectly acceptably to damage things) etc.

2. Principle of reality rests with the adult, so it is on him, at least in the first phase, to estimate what kind of behaviour, to whom, and in which situations and conditions to permit. If we want to encourage disruptive behaviour, we just leave the decision about all this to the children. Bearing in mind that they do not have much experience with setting rules and that they are, in searching for the consequences of breaking the rules, usually incredibly strict, sometimes even cruel, we are, in this way, on the right track.

3. The rules and framework should be set as clearly as possible, right at the beginning, and as few as possible. Considering the rules is easier for a child if they are understandable in themselves, generally known, accepted and grounded. There is nothing better for disturbing behaviour than to create pages and pages of lists of what is allowed and what is not – since this is what causes anxiety and at the same time directs them towards finding loopholes in prohibitions. The principle “Everything is good which I do not simultaneously forbid” works as a threat because of its undefined nature, and promotes testing of boundaries. We can certainly count on the disruptive behaviour increasing if the rules are not understandable, if they are valid only for you, for a certain group, if they are not grounded, and especially if they are going to sound as if they cannot be (at least within common sense) grounded at all.

4. A certain level of aggressive behaviour should be allowed. When we tackle the problems of aggression, we are going to arouse more with greater pressure – if not at once, it will show through later activities (this is bad because your co-worker who teaches the class after you might get all the glory from the increased problems; however better this way at least, lest your work produces no visible results). The most difficulty with working with those aggressive ones is to judge which behaviour is of ‘manipulative character’ and which is a consequence of recourse. Such behaviour is often a knot of both mechanisms; therefore great flexibility is necessary in leadership. In any case, to increase the disruptive behaviour more evaluation, moralising, estimating in a sense ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘impossible’ etc., is better. It is important, particularly at the beginning, that you never allow or ignore swearing, scolding and other forms of verbal aggression (especially to the adult).

5. An important goal is the gradual adaptation to greater and greater demands and pressures, and teaching acceptable ways to express feelings (since we do not punish a child for mistakes who has just begun to walk and still often falls). We can avoid this principle if we do not allow mistakes, difference and retrograde steps in progress. If we react to regression with a refusal and punishment, we have created splendid possibilities for developing disruptive behaviour in the classroom.

6. It is practical to have some activities in stock which can divert the appearance of disruptive behaviour, or try to direct it in a more constructive way (for instance we can use physical aggression in a game where fighting finds expression, but within precisely defined rules). The behaviour in the classroom can therefore become more disruptive if we try to follow the curriculum regardless of the needs and circumstances in the classroom. It would be even better to come to the class entirely without preparation; not only for reserve activities and methods, but also with old preparation (the ones of two years ago are still good, aren’t they) or even without them (a good teacher can invent an activity for one class on the spot anyway).

7. The more time we devote to solving certain problems and communication in general, the fewer occurrences of disruptive behaviour there will be. Here everything is probably clear: if it is possible, do not talk – especially about difficulties and problems – and problems will appear by themselves. Let me point out that this is a long-term investment. However do not be impatient; ignoring problems sometimes looks like as there will be fewer and fewer, but the lack of time and communication leads to problematic behaviour without fail, so you will be sooner or later drowning in them (if not you, because you act too threateningly, at least your more democratic co-workers).

8. An aggressive response to an adult is most frequently not pointed actually at him but to all that which an adult symbolises to a child. As Redl and Wineman (1984, p. 88) say, children “in essence are engaging with adults as representatives of this world” and later they point out the possibility of an aggressive response because of “fear from love”. If you do not consider this principle you can understand every child’s behaviour as an attack on yourself, therefore you have (which any average adult understands) an entirely legitimate reason to be aggressive to them yourself. (Carroll and Kraus, 2007)

9. In communication and giving messages (especially with criticism) to the child, the adult should not direct towards the person but towards the behaviour. This principle is quite well known and many can avoid it anyway (like the teacher who told the child that he is stupid because he did not know something, or that guide at boy scouts who told one group of children that they are clearly fools and the other that they are wimps). Maybe a warning for those who would want to have behaviour problems as soon as possible: these kind of ‘labels’ do not work well when a child is already convinced that he or she is stupid, a fool or a wimp. They will react appropriately only if, and as long as, they think differently about themselves!

10. Let one of the important goals when working with children and adolescents be the establishment and preservation of contact. To stimulate disruptive behaviour it is therefore good to prevent any establishment of a good emotional relationship with a child. Although I am convinced that you can be very creative in this field, this could still miscarry only because of the adaptable nature of a child. If, despite the effort, a good emotional contact establishes between you and a child, you can destroy it by using contact to achieve another goal (let’s say in a way you ‘squeeze’ it a little, “Now when we are true friends you will indeed not break any school rules!”)

11. Do not expect too much (of yourself and children). If you want to have a lot of disruptive behaviour in the classroom, expect a lot (there is never enough!) from yourself as well as from the children. For this, it is good to be as little as possible together with a child (it is ideal to teach it only once a week since then there is no problem with great expectations – you always have them, want them or not).

Start to fantasise “how it would be beautiful if…”, and then try with all your might (without thinking over whether it is realistic or not) that the children and yourself will fit these fantasies. It is great if you say to yourself that the children’s behaviour in the classroom depends on your leadership – if you work badly the children’s behaviour will be bad and vice versa. We could call this ‘the principle of grandmothers’ (the amateurish or common sense approach to solving problems) which is based on consideration that everything you do has an direct effect on children (like grandmothers ‘know’ that ‘parents are always guilty for the way children are’).

Therefore forget that with your work you only partly affect the behaviour of children, forget too that a lot of other factors affect children’s behaviour (coevals in school and on the street, friends, family, their history, their potential which they brought with them to this world, personal characteristics etc.), expect too much and create conditions for disruptive behaviour!

How to more successfully ignore the characteristics of an individual and group?

We can encourage not only disruptive behaviour but also unpleasant feelings, depression, disappointment in yourself and adults in the classroom when we neglect the needs and wishes of children (therefore that which they aim for) and when we neglect their characteristics (what are they capable of, want, know and what they are limited by). Non-consideration of the level of biological maturity, social experiences and a level of cognitive development is what also effectively reduces the capacity for self-reflection (Downey, 2001). We can get to disruptive behaviour easiest if we can neglect all the needs and wishes and also all characteristics, but since despite the effort only rarely do teachers succeed in this, let us look at a few possible areas of activity. With an individual child and a group we can neglect:

1. The level of maturity and interests of children. It is good to remember that the “child’s play changes with its development. … a child chooses play which is adjusted to the nature of its instinctive impulses and the nature of basic needs…, on the other hand also those which assist the developmental steps in structuring its EGO.” (Praper, 1992, p.176). This means that we establish good conditions for disruptive behaviour when we do those things in the classroom which exceed, or are far below the level of the children’s capability, but above all we avoid those which derive from their initiatives. The rule that children should not bring their toys into school, the latest in their thirdgrade (if they have not become serious by that age, when will they!?) is very valuable, for instance.

2. The initiatives which come from children. But this on the one hand mainly means greater motivation for activity and on the other hand the stimulation of self-motivation, or developing and accepting interests. If you ignore, despise, belittle, ridicule etc. their initiatives you give them a clear notion not only of what you think about their ideas, but also what you think about them as human beings (anyway some ask if children are already human beings or if they first need to learn obedience).

3. How long should some activities last, how long they are capable of concentrating, sitting in rest, concentrating upon listening … If we have a chance, we can start in the firstgrade of primary school – best to demand children sit still behind the desk throughout all hours of the lessons (at the end of the day, we are in school), but if we missed this opportunity we can later still at least encourage their feeling that lessons last at least three times longer than in truth (is there anybody amongst you who cannot deliver the most interesting thing in the whole world in the most boring way – one can even talk about sex without mentioning swelling and wetness!).

4. Preceding signs of conflicts and signals of possible aggression. These we can effectively do in two ways: the first one is more simple (for a beginner) – we simply ignore them, ‘do not see them’, the other is more pretentious (for real professors) – through watchful observation and, even better, by writing into the school register we can discover, recognise and then always suitably encourage them anew. For increasing the problems in the classroom it is, for instance, good to never divert an event onto some other activity but to persist, interfere, disallow conclusion, recrimination … etc.

5. The problem of competition. It is true that beginners are already satisfied by the school itself being innately competitive but with wilful direction towards a competitive atmosphere in the classroom we can somewhat increase the behavioural excesses.

Actually we can make a competition from every activity (for instance who has how many plusses, how many books did somebody read out of the regular requirement, in how many interesting activities somebody is engaged, how many extra calculations somebody did, how many days somebody manages to sit still etc.). And even more! Where the competitive situations are already formed (for instance with every giving of marks) the significance of winning and defeat is increased; in this way we can successfully generate feelings of pride in the more successful ones, and consequently feelings of inferiority in the unsuccessful ones. The latter will usually find by themselves some other area where they will be successful (for instance in fighting, offensiveness, inactivity or at least in spitting).

6. The results: hard work. In connection with previous definition we can do a lot towards more disruptive behaviour if we positively value only the presented results, not the effort the child put into something. Not only with marks (anybody can do this) but especially with encouragement, feed-back informing the child of what we noticed, what we estimate etc. In this way (if we appreciate only results) with the worst pupils, we can ensure that they will not try any more (consequently they will become more problematic). Like this, however, it is less known that even with the more successful pupils we achieve merely orientation towards results (high marks) which usually means ‘to attain the biggest reward with the minimum effort’, and that we even turn ‘the bright ones’ into those who will not have good working habits (which is a great foundation for behaviour difficulties if not already in primary school, then certainly in secondary school).

7. The level of particularity with an individual and particular characteristics of the class as a whole group. Sometimes the class as a whole has particular characteristics which we can use to direct towards disruptive behaviour (for instance certain cultural, socio-economic, behavioural, emotional characteristics, specific experiences from the past etc). As for an individual it is useful to know the Bregant’s (1987) classification of the origins of dissocial problems. We can increase the problems most successfully if we know the source of the difficulties within an individual and then act entirely orientated (which will give a much bigger effect than non-orientated stimulation of the disruptive behaviour). Let us look briefly at the classification of sources of dissocial disorders:

• biological sources; this is innate (for instance smaller/bigger talents in various fields, hyper-kinetics, dyslexia, weak-sight, …); we can increase disruptive behaviour by particularly directing into so-called weak points (for instance the best is to expect a hyper-kinetic to stay still, and with a dyslexic we mark the writing especially attentively rather than the content etc.);
• stemming from the environment (for instance the company of friends, difficult individuals, cultural difference in which a child finds itself, …); if we know that a child is growing up in different cultural norms (for instance any kind of ‘non-Slovenian’) we can induce it to disruptive behaviour if we do not consider its norms, we force Slovenian ones upon it, or merely insult its own;
• exaggerated burdening in a current life situation which a child cannot cope with (for instance a divorce in the family, conflicts with its coevals, or just that we expose the child to unmanageable demands in school);
• a disturbed emotional development: acting in this area is a bit more difficult yet with some practice you can start to well recognise a child’s emotional weaknesses, germs of neurosis etc. In principal you can always awake disruptive behaviour by constantly offering the child new experiences to show it is not worthwhile to trust people in general and particularly adults (do not worry, this works with all types of neurosis so you cannot miss!).

How to use the legitimacies of group dynamics for increasing disruptive behaviour in the classroom?

The legitimacies of group dynamics are bound to many factors, the most important amongst them are certainly:

• formation of group structures (relationships, communication, group roles, social power etc),
• expressing various processes in a group (processes of social power or so-called forcing, adjustment, forming of norms, conformation and changing of norms) and
• appearance of certain typical (usual) phases in the development of a group.

In continuing I will present merely a few critical points from these three areas, which would be good to break if you are trying to have more disruptive behaviour in the classroom:

1. The progress of the development of group dynamics – as in the sense of bigger and bigger demands from meeting to meeting as well as in each individual meeting. “Only when a child adequately satisfies its needs for safety and love (as in a family as well in a circle of coevals) will it orientate towards satisfaction of ‘higher’ and more mature motives (efficiency, status, appurtenance to a group) whilst the one in whom these needs are not satisfied will show signs of stagnation (non-interest in work, indifference to others, isolation) or even regression (bizarre and anti-social compensation, compulsive daydreaming, aggression)” says Havelka (1988, p. 63). For more distress and conflict in the classroom your activities should be directed from complex ones to simple ones, from abstract to concrete ones, from more difficult to more understandable ones, from ones which demand greater co-operation, maturity, responsibility to more individually directed, immature, irresponsible, from very personal, disclosing, to those which are non-personal and non-threatening ones etc.

2. Adjustment of activity. (Schneider Corey, Corey, 2006). An activity does not stop with cessation of its execution, but it only slowly dies away; therefore they need to be chosen carefully, with a proper succession, duration etc. For an effective increase of disruptive behaviour, you simply introduce an activity in which children will get very relaxed, excited and turn wild before any serious work. It is great also that the tiresome activities last as long as possible – sooner or later one will ‘burst’. With it the ones with younger children have an advantage since they do not need so much patience; for raising problems in the first grade is sometimes enough to force children into 20 minutes of copying the same diagonal lines into their notebooks.

3. Contagiousness of behaviour. The behaviour of children (particularly those who have a special status in the group) is becoming a directive for what is desired in the class, ‘fine’, suitable (from coevals’ point of view), acceptable (better put, normative) … You can stimulate problematic behaviour also by not reacting to it (like at that school where at first teachers did not intervene with the conflicts outside the school building, then with the conflicts caused by ex-pupils in the school itself, and soon after they did not need to intervene within their classrooms).

It is important to remember ‘the threefold principle’; if the disruptive behaviour appears for the first time, it could be accidental; when it appears for the second time it could be coincidental, but when it appears for the third time you are well on the road since this behaviour has already become the norm in the group. Therefore you should by no means react on the first appearance of disruptive behaviour because children can take that as a clear sign of putting boundaries (and to your regret improve their behaviour)! If you do not react for the second time some of them are going to be in some doubt, but at the fourth appearance of disruptive behaviour you can react since there is a very small probability that you will influence a change in behaviour!

4. Current situation and momentary frame of mind. You can provoke disruptive behaviour even from diligent children if you simply do not consider flexibly what is appearing momentarily in the classroom (curiosities, interests, needs, requests, anxieties, …), if you do not link it with your prepared contents and methods. Keep to your plans, do not ever have varieties or substitute methods prepared – at the end of the day a good teacher takes care of the consistent execution of the curriculum, doesn’t he!?

5. Planning activities. When we draw children into this they become more motivated towards the achievement of planned goals, they also feel bigger co-responsibility for them (therefore they try harder), they break rules less, if we truly include them into their education etc. If we want to achieve non-motivation, rule breaking etc. we draw them up on our own for them (if it is just possible, let them be unattainable!).

But if we cannot avoid that (sometimes headmasters are just unpleasant and they want us to act this out democratically with the pupils), so let’s manipulate! Manipulation is clearly simple; we set up the rules and then we lead children (you know, one just needs ‘to put words in the mouth’ of the ring-leader) to take our demands as agreements. Therefore we can ‘agree’ in a class that from now on nobody will be late anymore, that everybody will always do their homework, that they will love and help each other etc. Just think how simple: you present the rules (which nobody can hold for more than a month) as agreements, children, parents and the headmaster will be happy, and you can enjoy wonderful experiences with the breaking of those ‘agreements’.

6. A problem always has priority. If we do not solve a problem, in each case, because of its persistence (energetic, emotional …), in one way or another it prevents or disturbs a continuation of a planned activity. If you want more difficulties, leave the problems to deal with themselves – tell pupils that they will be able to talk about them with their class teacher. If you are their class teacher tell them that you will talk after school, or even better sometime next week during class hour, or even better at the end of the school year.

7. Phases in the development of the group. You can increase disruptive behaviour by simply not knowing the characteristics of the phases which the group goes through. It is even better to use for each phase of the group those forms of leadership which work most destructively.

In this way we can act for instance in the initial phase when every group needs to establish safety and orientation so there is as little intelligibility, structuring, that the basic rules and directives of activity are not set etc.

In the phase of conflicts which follows it is good to forget that this phase appears in every group as the way a group establishes the structure of roles and status of individuals. So we will have a good feeling that we are single-handedly responsible for formed conflicts, and the consequence will be that we will put a lot of energy into something which most frequently dies away spontaneously.

And we can be very sorry for ourselves, too. If we know that this phase in the group is followed by the phase of establishment of cohesiveness and mutual trust and a working phase, we also know what to do to prevent that (for instance, instead of stimulating the group intentionally in the field of constructive activity and orientation towards productivity, we encourage them to think and talk over and over again about the relationships, how do they feel in the group, about their feelings towards other individuals etc).

It is important also that we forget about due preparation for consolidation of the group, since only like this will they keep the impression that a lot remained unfinished and unspoken for a long time. (Vec, 2000b)

References

(I am actually in doubt if I should mention them, since the less you read the more you contribute to disruptive behaviour in the classroom, but considering that you ‘have got through to the end of the article you are probably very eager – so let it be for you – if not because of anything else, so that you at least know what to avoid):

Bregant, L. (1987). Disocialnost pri otrocih.(Dissocial Children). Psihoterapija 15. Ljubljana: Medicinska fakulteta. (Faculty of Medicine).

Carroll, R. M., Kraus, L. K. (2007). Elements of Group Counselling. Back to the basics. Denver, London, Sydney: Love Publishing Company.

Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA. (2008). Conduct and Behavior Problems Related to School Aged Youth. Los Angeles. Retrieved 28.10. 2011 from: http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu

Downey, J. (2001). Psychological Counselling of Children and Young People. In Woolfe, Ray and Dryden, Windy (ur.) Counselling Psychology. (str. 308–333). London: Sage Publication.

Epstein, M., Atkins, M., Cullinan, D., Kutash, K., and Weaver, R. (2008). Reducing Behavior Problems in the Elementary School Classroom: A Practice Guide (NCEE #2008-012). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved 28.10. 2011 from: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/publications/practiceguides.

Farrington, D. P. (2007). Origin of violent behavior over the life span. In D.J. Flannery, A.T. Vazsonyi, & I.D. Waldman (Eds) The Cambridge Handbook of Violent Behavior and Aggression (pp. 19-48). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Havelka, N. (1988). Psihološke osnove grupnog rada. (Psychological Bases of Group’s Work). Beograd: Naučna knjiga.

Havelka, N. (1988). Psihološke osnove grupnog rada. (Psychological Bases of Group’s Work). Beograd: Naučna knjiga,

McLeod, J. (2007). Counselling skills. Berkshire: Open University press, McGraw-Hill.

Praper, P. (1992). Tako majhen pa že nervozen!? (So Small and Already Nervous!?) Ljubljana: Educa.

Prothrow-Stith, D. (1987). Violence prevention. Curriculum for adolescents. Newton: Education Development Center, Inc.

Redl F., Wineman D. (1980). Agresivni otrok. (The Aggressive Child). Ljubljana: Svetovalni center za otroke, mladostnike in starše. (The Counselling Centre for Children, Adolescents and Parents).

Schneider Corey, M., Corey, G. (2006). Groups: Process and Practice. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.

Vec, T. (2000a). Nekateri vidiki supervizijskega procesa pedagoških delavcev: specialistična naloga. (Some Viewpoints of the Supervision Process of Pedagogical Workers : specialisation degree) Ljubljana: Filozofska fakulteta. (Faculty of Arts).

Vec, T. (2000b). Skupinsko - dinamični procesi v skupini disocialnih mladostnikov. Group – Dynamic Processes in a Group of Dissocial Adolescents. Panika, Panics, 1 (5), 10–18.

 The huge growth of statutory kinship care in the last decade in Australia is now well documented (AIHW, 2011). This growth has preceded policy development and as a result, kinship families have had little support until recently. Australian Federal and State Governments are now responding; in Victoria, Australia, funded kinship support programs in community organisations are in their second year of operation.

Research to date shows that kinship care brings many benefits. Carers show great love and commitment; children feel a strong sense of belonging; and there is greater stability of care and likelihood of siblings being placed together (Connolly, 2003). There are also clear warnings of the vulnerability of a model of care that is predicated on caregivers who by comparison with foster carers are predominantly older, with more health problems, materially poorer, and more likely to be sole carers (McHugh and Valentine, 2010; O’Neill, 2011).

The nexus of the extended family and child protection intervention brings both a means of ensuring safe and secure care, but also risks of unintended consequences. Among these are the risks posed by ‘careism’.

The British children’s rights advocate Dr Michael Lindsay, who himself grew up in care, coined the term ‘careism’ to describe discrimination against children in care (Lindsay, 1998). The unique aspects of kinship care arguably give a window on the ingrained nature of careism in our society. An example was provided by a grandmother who described with faint amusement the requirement to start preparing a ‘leaving care plan’ with her 14-year-old grandson. How many Australian or British families start planning for their child to leave home at 18 these days, far less starting such a conversation in the early teens? More likely is a conversation about the young person’s particular interests, and how they might be pursued in post-secondary education – with the support of family home life.

Kinship research to date has largely focused on the experiences of caregivers, usually grandparents. Few kinship studies have included the views of children and young people. The right of children to be involved in decisions that affect them and to have their views heard is increasingly recognised by the Victorian government (State of Victoria, 2005; Department of Human Services (Victoria), 2007). Their insights need to contribute to a body of knowledge to better inform developing policy and practice in protective kinship care. Nevertheless, some of their views are confronting.

The University of Melbourne (Australia) has been engaged in a collaborative research project exploring family contact in kinship care. One aspect of this research was to solicit the views of a range of family members. Here we focus on the views of 21 children and young people with experience of kinship care. Interviews were a moving experience for the researcher. A clear set of themes emerged in their view of family life and interventions designed to keep them safe.

‘Normal kids with normal families’

A big theme was a sense of normality: one of the key strengths of kinship care. Young people^[1] understood families to be diverse in nature.

It was clear that for children, the family is who they say it is, not defined by a conventional definition of nuclear family. Brothers and sisters were defined according to the significance of the relationship rather than the number of shared parents. Cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents were also important. Pets are part of family life. Family is family even if there is no ‘shared blood’.

The theme of normality permeates young people’s views about when and how they want to maintain their family relationships.

Relationships with mother and father

Young people reported many difficulties with their parents. Although there were some workable arrangements, most stories included keenly felt disappointments. Children frequently spoke of feeling let down by their parents. Fathers were frequently missing, or had died. The loss of the father frequently also meant the loss of connection with his side of the family. With one or two exceptions, parents’ partners rarely appeared to be interested in the children.

Forced contact arrangements

At all ages, children wanted some control in their family relationships, and a family-friendly environment to visit in. On occasion when desperate, they would take decision-making into their own hands, with all that entailed.

The centrality of brothers and sisters

Children often spoke about how important their separated sisters and brothers were to them, even sometimes when they have not lived together.

Again, prohibitions on contact were not always effective.

The wider family

It was clear that children and young people were being nurtured by frequent, informal contact with their wider family network. They want these relationships recognised and supported. They may also be needed in an ultimate sense.

However, often young people do not find it easy to assert their wishes.

So what needs to change?

Kinship care is a private domain thrust into a ‘public welfare’ space. It provides greater opportunity than other forms of care for children and young people to break the rules and get away with it, if we are insensitive to their feelings. While children may meet some of their needs for protection or nurturing this way, taking the law into their own hands is an act of desperation. It indicates a perception that adults are unable to attend both to their basic human need for connection to significant family members, and for protection from contact that is too painful. It has its own emotional cost: young people describe the depression and lack of self-esteem generated by a sense of abandonment. Their actions may or may not serve their best interests.

We still have a lot to learn about how to protect children from emotional abuse. Such abuse often runs a poor second in our thinking to physical and sexual abuse, but may equally cause huge pain and suffering.

Some clear messages emerge. Children and their families, however constituted, need to be respected as normal. We must acknowledge and support the full range of children’s significant family relationships. We should take children seriously when they indicate that some relationships are too painful. Children grow and change, and so do their circumstances and feelings. Unworkable contact arrangements (including contact visits under supervision in the offices of a government department), and unworkable ‘no-contact’ orders may incite young people to break orders. Above all, children and young people need some agency in decisions about their relationships. One size does not fit all: arrangements to support family relationships need to be individually tailored in partnership with children and families, and change as needed. Flexibility is essential.

Many family relationships will remain fraught, and children need to manage them with help from their caregivers and case managers. All risk cannot be prevented by court decisions. However, there is a better chance to mitigate risk through building relationships with children and then using counselling, mediation, influence, information and creativity – all the skills of trained human service practitioners. This is challenging work. Given the huge demands of protective response and involvement in adversarial court processes, child protection workers are not well-placed to provide such support. Kinship support program staff need to be adequately trained and resourced to take this on for all children in statutory kinship care.

Kinship care is a unique model of care, not a type of foster care. It offers great possibilities to children to stay within their families, to feel like ‘normal kids’ and to sustain networks of support for life. However, it is complex. Insufficiently supported caregivers are embedded in the same family network as the parents from whom children have been removed, with all the relationship challenges that entails. They may struggle simultaneously with age-related issues and at times, feelings of powerlessness with regard to two generations of caring. Care arrangements need careful assessment working in partnership with children, caregivers and where possible, parents. Ongoing, flexible monitoring and support as needed is essential for the duration of childhood. Anything less is to expose children to the risk of further family stress and dysfunction, which is only likely to increase as everyone in the family grows older.

Currently, the fledgling model of kinship care, with all its potential but limited resourcing, runs the risk of providing support that is too little, too late. Much more needs to be done if the real needs of kinship families are to be met and children are to thrive. There are considerable economic savings in kinship care; it will be important to reinvest these savings in shoring up the commitment of kinship carers with the needed support so that they can stay the course, and do it well. The kinship children must not become the forgotten children.

Well supported, kinship care might indeed be the best thing that has happened to child welfare for a long time – ‘care’ coming full circle and returning to the family and community. Hopefully it can teach us something about how to respect children ‘in care’ as normal, and to reduce careism. We may thus aspire to community standards such that all children in care are seen, like other children, as worth nurturing and guiding into adulthood, not sent out into ‘independence’, vulnerable and with little support, at age eighteen.

Meredith Kiraly is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne and is currently undertaking a short‑term contract at the Office of the Child Safety Commissioner, Victoria, Australia. She has a long history of practice and research in out of home care.

Acknowledgements

I thank the children and young people who were willing to give their time and views on sensitive areas of their lives to inform kinship care policy and practice for the future, so other children may have greater support.

Professor Cathy Humphreys oversaw the research and provided endless patient guidance.

The support of the Child Safety Commissioner (Victoria), Bernie Geary, and the assistance of a number of his staff is acknowledged with appreciation, as is the various community organisations who helped with access to children and young people.

This opinion piece has been adapted for reproduction with permission from the Editor of Developing Practice (Australia), where it was published in November 2011 (Issue Number 29).

References

AIHW. (2011). Child Protection Australia 2009–10. Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

Connolly, M. (2003). Kinship Care: A Selected Literature Review. New Zealand: Department of Child, Youth and Family.

Department of Human Services (2007). Charter for Children in Out of Home Care. Melbourne.

Lindsay, M. (1998). Discrimination against young people in care: the theory of careism. Childright, November, 11–14.

McHugh, M., & valentine, k. (2010). Financial and Non-Financial Support to Formal and Informal Out of Home Carers. Sydney: Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales. Final Report for the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.

O’Neill, C. (2011). Support in Kith and Kin Care – the experience of carers. Children Australia, 36(2), 88–99.

Children, Youth and Families Act (2005).

^[1]   All names have been changed to protect confidentiality.

So it was that she began. She agreed that I could take notes, and I waited to hear how she would start the story. The start is foundational in every way. Her opening words were, “We always knew that there was something not quite right about my son”. And then the story flowed. At fifteen he started taking cannabis. He was diagnosed at the Bethlem Royal Maudsley Hospital as being on the autistic spectrum and put on the anti-psychotic drug, Risperdal. That had worked well for some years, but when he had refused to take it because it had caused such weight gain, his worrying behaviour resurfaced: hearing voices, being paranoiac about neighbours, and destroying furniture. She was worried out of her mind.

At my request we went back over the story. He had struggled at school both in his studies and his relationships. He preferred playing with Lego to playing with his peers. He eventually got in with a rebellious group, hence the cannabis. And he got virtually no qualifications.

So what was he good at, I mused? What did he enjoy doing? There was no doubt about it: anything to do with electronics, apparently. Without instructions he could understand and connect seemingly any circuit or device. This is the sort of work that he would very much like to do.

As she talked with me it had become very apparent that the mother loved and cared deeply about her son. This came through in what she said, what she didn’t say, and the feelings that I had about her son through her. But I had no idea about the relationship between her son and his father. This was a complete blank. He was not sitting with her, and he did not figure in the story apart from the very first word: “We always knew…” When I mentioned this she responded so quickly that we were obviously into an area of very strong feelings: her son blamed his father for everything, especially for not stopping him taking cannabis. I continued to listen and note, putting a line for emphasis beside this part of the story.

Were there other children? An older brother who was married and living in the USA. There were no such issues in his case.

What about work, I wondered? He had a job at a garage, but the others there teamed up against him. How did that show itself, I mused? They coughed as a way of ridiculing and annoying him. And as it happened, he couldn’t stand his father’s cough either. Things were becoming a lot clearer and very alive. It was almost as if the son was in the room.

The mother continued to speak freely and with perfect English, but her family roots were in another continent and culture. She didn’t refer to this, but it was there for me to see. I wondered about her son’s identity. She thought that he probably saw himself having more of her family roots than British or English.

And so it was that the person and story emerged: his story, through her. It turned out that he and I had met briefly, and that he might like to see me again.

It was yet another very human story: I have been privileged to listen to so many. And it was one that she was relieved to tell me. As I listened I was seeking to do everything to hear the particularities, the nuances, the texture, context, relationships, and especially the feelings in and through all this. Gradually a person had taken shape, a son that she loved so much, for whom she had done all that she could, for whom she had made many sacrifices (not her word) for him, and towards whom she was understandably very protective. An individual son, and an individual mother.

And yet, I found myself on well-tried territory at the same time. Over the years we have lived alongside, and sought to help and support several young people who have had to negotiate similar trajectories of culture, ethnicity and religion. They have all had to struggle (that is not too strong a word) to find their identity in a confusing life-trajectory, very different social contexts, and amidst competing claims and loyalties. They get mixed messages from others, and have to tread a lonely, ill-defined path. Is it totally surprising that they tend to feel paranoiac or “hear voices”, take cannabis and relate most readily to those outside the mainstream?

Again and again I have been alongside them, seeking to listen to, hear and understand them. As I have done so, my respect for each one has always grown. It has been like the pioneering journey of an explorer of hitherto unknown areas of the planet. They must teach me, of course, because their personal journey and their identity is one that only they can travel and know in any deep sense.

But this leads me to mention one of the hidden gems of British therapy, Nafsiyat (www.nafsiyat.org.uk). It is an intercultural therapy centre that takes seriously exactly such issues of inter-cultural journeying and the tensions this implies in the search for meaning and identity. Why, I wonder, is it so little known and utilised?

How can we possibly listen to people’s diverse stories without realising the unique and very lonely, individual paths and choices they are taking?

As for the mother and her son: she wrote after our evening together to say: “Thank you so much for the time you spent listening to me. I did feel listened to.” Perhaps that will be the experience of her son too in his own time.

My hope is that in time there will be emerging communities of those who are able to share their inter-cultural stories in settings informed by professional wisdom.

Meanwhile I suppose this has helped me to understand the nature and story of Mill Grove a little better, because it is just such a setting. It was where I grew up, and I may not have understood this aspect of my own story fully enough.

Elusive Data on Closures

One of the few practitioners to understand what was happening was John Burns, the Principal of Kingswood Community Home with Education, Bristol, and President the Community Homes Association between 1976-77. He told the Association conference in 1976 that the CHEs were then in the position of being between the hammer and the anvil, with central government answering pleas for assistance by saying the problem was to be solved at local level and the local authorities being deprived of the resources needed to sustain CHEs (Burns, 1977).

The Government Department directly concerned with overseeing the CHE system, the Department of Health and Social Security, seemed evasive and uncertain about what was happening to the CHEs. This was well illustrated in 1986 in a DHSS response to an enquiry about closures by the National Union of Teachers:

“Shortly before and during the period in question changes in the provision of community homes have taken place. As local authorities moved from planning provision on a regional basis towards planning their own provision to meet the needs of children in care it has become less easy to classify particular community homes as CHEs. While a number of the former approved schools, which originally were referred to as CHEs, have closed, their functions have been taken over by other community homes having more than one role.”

Whilst there was naturally some accuracy in this statement there was also some avoidance of the basic issue. A large number of CHEs had definitely ceased to function and had, as part of the process, to inform the DHSS when this happened. When similar enquiries to the DHSS had been made by the author in 1984 about the number of closures, no reply was received. (A response to the question tabled in Parliament by Guy Barnett was answered in positive terms, stating that on 31 March 1986 there were some 89 CHEs in existence; this calculation was based on the use of the term CHE in its broad definition, as noted in the letter to the NUT above.)

Further difficulties in obtaining relevant data were met when local authorities were questioned about closures in a survey of 40 authorities by the author in 1984. Although 29 replied with some information none of the information was given in any great depth. A more detailed set of questions was presented to 11 local authority and voluntary agency providers of 21 CHEs. Responses were received (in 1986) from agencies responsible for 16 CHEs. Supplementary information about a number of specific closures was also obtained from Maurice Logan-Salton in 1987. (Logan-Salton was Chair of the Criminal Justice Committee of the Conservative Monday Club and a local authority social worker. He had written frequent letters of protest at closures to local and national newspapers and had elicited correspondence from many in authority.)

A Clearer Picture

By these means it has been possible to obtain a clear indication of the scale of the closures and the outcome of such events, both for those CHEs involved in closure and for the Community Homes with Education system in general. Most of the closures were effected with the minimum of fuss or resistance. The Association of Community Homes seemed unable to do anything to stem the tide. This was partly due to the loss of the cohesion that the Approved Schools had experienced when they lost their status as a completely separate system under the auspices of the Home Office. It was also, in part, the result of the Heads of the ex Approved Schools trying to hold on to their former special status. Because of this they spent a considerable time arguing about whether they should merge with the ordinary staff’s association (see, for example, correspondence in the Community Schools Gazette, March 1975).

In Denial

It was not until mid 1975 that the Association for the Heads and Matrons and that for the Staff came together to form one Association, the Community Home Schools Association. By that time the die was cast. The new Association never really established any generally agreed policy on closures. Indeed they appeared, in their Executive Council, to be preoccupied with negotiations to ensure that their salaries did not become assimilated into the lower pay structures of the mainstream community home system rather than with the closure issue In their salary contention they were successful. They also succeeded, in 1980, in securing an increase in annual leave from eight weeks to fourteen weeks for staff paid on Joint Negotiating Committee scales. All of these achievements, of course, escalated staff costs, the major element of expenditure in any CHE budget.

The teacher/care staff difficulties continued to be an issue, a result of separate pay and conditions of service arrangements. With the increased emphasis on care many of the teaching and senior staff felt their status was being undermined. These divisions proved a serious distraction from the basic issue of survival.

For many, the prospects of closure seemed highly remote, a view expressed by David Evans, the President, of the Association of Community Home Schools (Evans, 1975):

“So here I am apparently trying to talk us all out of a job. I doubt if anyone here would be less than delighted if we could close down all our establishments tomorrow. But the simple fact is that we cannot, nor are we ever likely to. To do so would depend upon the public at large being prepared to tolerate and accept responsibility for a disruptive element in their midst.”

While the staff of the CHEs and their professional association remained preoccupied with conditions of service issues, growing financial constraints and increasing advocacy of community-based methods for dealing with delinquent children started to gradually to have an impact, and local authorities and voluntary agencies began to close their CHEs.

Reality Bites

The year that marked the beginning of the trend to closure was 1978; thereafter the closures occurred yearly with increased pace. By 1990 there had been 79 closures and more were planned, although a few then operated under different names, including Crouchfield (formerly Herts Training) and Polebrook House (Desford). As a result, only 24 CHEs remained open in 1990 and others were due to close shortly.

A breakdown of the data on closures, as summarised in the table below, indicates a number of clear trends. It shows that the Voluntary (Assisted Status) CHEs had been more prone to closure than the local authority and/or controlled status establishments. The number of local authorities managing CHEs fell from 51 in 1978 to 14 in 1990 and the number of voluntary agencies fell from 15 to 4.

This trend shows that it had become increasingly the exception for local authorities or voluntary child care agencies to manage a CHE, whereas, less than a decade previously, it had been the norm. Other factors that emerge from figures are that those CHEs which moved to becoming co-educational closed more rapidly than the single sex CHEs. This could have been an indication that developing a mixed CHE was part of a final attempt at survival or that the CHEs functioned better as single sex establishments.

A Closer Look at Outcomes

In 1985 I sent out short questionnaire to 40 local authorities and voluntary agencies who provided CHE establishments, seeking information about closure from 1974 onwards. Respondents were asked to give closure dates, reasons for closure, the impact on the children resident in the CHE, the outcome for staff and the subsequent use made of the building. Twenty-three local authorities and six voluntary agencies responded with data about 34 CHE closures which represented 51.5% of the total closures up to 1985. This was therefore, a significant source of data on the closure trend at that time.

All but seven of the 34 CHEs were owned or controlled by local authorities. The local authorities represented were from all Regions, except Wales, and collectively show a national move away from the use of CHE provision. Some authorities which had maintained a high number of CHEs were shown to have gradually divested themselves of them, for example Hertfordshire and Avon, while others tried to rationalise resources by merging two or more into one establishment, for example in Cheshire.

Only one of the voluntary agencies in the survey, National Children’s Home, showed a continuing commitment to residential care and education, by changing the role of its CHEs to that of special school. The Catholic CHEs indicated that their powerful and persistent case for a specialist denominational provision in the days of Approved School service had collapsed. This was probably because with regionally, as opposed to nationally, managed services the argument for denominational provision was more difficult to sustain. In addition, a general disregard of religious affiliation in the placement practices of local authorities had become the norm

Redundant or Redeployed Staff

The consequences of closure for staff of local authority managed CHEs were that most were redeployed to other posts within the local authority. Sometimes, by agreement, the posts were in areas of work distinctly different from previous employment, such as advisory work on child care or work in services for the elderly. Only one voluntary agency in the survey, the Hexham and Newcastle Rescue Society, is recorded as requiring all of its staff to take redundancy or early retirement. The fact that the vast majority of the staff of CHEs were able to be offered other work, voluntary redundancy or early retirement eased the closure process considerably. Had the CHEs been, like their predecessors the Approved Schools, part of a separate national network of services this would not have been possible to the same extent.

Most respondents in the survey looked more deeply into the reasons for closure beyond attributing it to falling numbers, though five respondents did give this as their answer. Some replies undoubtedly masked issues that sometimes lay behind the official explanations for closure such as the political in-fighting, the need to balance budgets, and the relief, in some instances, at laying down the burden of running large and complex resources. The majority of replies (17) gave change in child care policies as the main reason for closure.

Regional Planning Abandoned

The drop in the population of children in care meant that some providing authorities did not need the resource. A few replies pointed out that what was being offered was a regional resource and that user authorities were now choosing not to send their children to the CHE (e.g. St Benedict’s and Kneesworth). Three gave the merger of child care resources within the local authority as the reason for closure. One (the National Children’s Homes) stated that ‘closure’ was in reality was a change of use to a special school. These responses underline the fact that most CHEs were part of a regional service so that even had the provider wished to continue, once demand from some parts of the region dropped, CHEs became vulnerable to closure.

It has to be acknowledged that, with a general loss of confidence in the value of residential care and with strong economic pressures, it required a great deal of resolve and a strong nerve to persevere in offering such services. Certainly, for voluntary agencies, the risk of persevering with a CHE was even more daunting and potentially more economically devastating than for a local authority.

Overtaken by Events

The DHSS had, through its Development Group, devoted much time and effort throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s in an endeavour to ensure that staff, philosophy and buildings adopted a more child-centred approach. Many buildings had been structurally modified or added to at considerable expense. It was very regrettable that staff were dispersed and buildings disposed of in ways that often seemed to add little to the child care service as a whole or bring any significant financial recompense to that service. The closures were rarely part of a carefully planned child care strategy.

Many of the buildings in which the CHEs operated did not belong to the local authority managing the service. They were often the property of well established trusts and when the CHE closed it was not for the local authority to dispose of or make use of a particular building, since it had to revert back the trustees. The majority of properties in the survey were sold or disposed of and put to a variety of other uses, unrelated to child care. A further survey, however, (Jenkins, 1987) of 12 closures suggested greater child care use for former CHEs, (8 out of 12 properties being used for this purpose).

The dispersal, redundancy or early retirement of the staff of CHEs and the loss of so many buildings to the child care service over such a short period, and with only limited alternative child care developments suggests a considerable squandering of a large part of the inheritance of the specialist residential child service.

Although there continues to be a network of boarding schools for children with special needs, there is little evidence that there has been any planned move to make provision for young people who could been sent to CHEs to be accommodated in special schools.

Based on material from book “Yesterday’s Answers” by Jim Hyland.

• our children accessed therapy
• therapy was supported by the care and teaching teams
• all interactions with the children were thoughtful and therapeutic.

By therapeutic I mean that the interaction’s purpose is to help meet the children’s emotional and psychological needs rather than the needs of the adult or the system/organisation.

All of the children at Appletree have been severely abused, neglected and traumatised. Although they are aged between six and eleven years on admission, their emotional and psychological needs are those of a baby or toddler. They need to experience unconditional love, understanding and care which we expect to give a very young child. They also need the security of firm boundaries and sensitive explanation about how important it is for us to keep them safe. Once they have experienced this we can then begin to help them to make choices and grow into more age-appropriate experiences.

I initially worked with a clinical psychologist who was part of the team who looked at referral papers and then advised on individual programmes for the children. Although we considered her working individually with children we decided that this would better be done by a team. I approached the NSPCC as specialists in helping abused and neglected children. They provided our children with individual therapy for ten years and when the team closed the therapists chose to continue to work with us. They continue to have regular, expert supervision and external consultation.

It was soon clear that one of the most important issues to address is that therapy can not exist in a vacuum. Team members could not just drop children for therapy and expect some ‘magic wand’ to be wafted by the therapist and the child to be ‘fixed’. In fact, often a healthy therapeutic journey would include a child getting more angry, upset or distressed. We adopted the approach that the NSPCC therapist would work with the child’s keyworker in the same way that they work with birth, adoptive or foster carers. They would talk regularly and share ideas and information to work in partnership to help their child. Where appropriate, they would work together to promote attachment.

This is effective but the child has a team of carers and whilst the key worker is important, all carers need to be able to interact therapeutically. We therefore decided that the NSPCC therapists would offer consultation to the whole team of carers to help share information, ideas and agree how individual children would most helpfully be treated. These discussions inform the children’s placement and action plans.

There are, however, issues which arise within teams which do not relate to children’s individual therapy. There can be disagreements about how to interpret and respond to a child’s difficult behaviour. ‘Splitting’ between adults is common but requires a forum where it can be identified and a united response agreed. Certain children can and do arouse strong feelings with individual team members. This is understandable but again an exploration of this in a safe environment is vital.

We agreed that our psychologists would provide this safe environment. They meet with all of our care, teaching, management and facilities teams away from the children. These clinical consultations were initially viewed with varying degrees of suspicion. There was a general wary-ness which at its most extreme was expressed as “I don’t need my head examined”. Gradually over the years a culture developed which began to value these opportunities to explore difficult issues in a supportive and non-judgemental way. A couple of indicators of our success were the momentous day when the management team arrived for consultation only to find we had got the wrong date and we went ahead with consultation anyway. The second was when our clinical psychologist was off sick and the first agenda item on the care team meeting was “Who’s going to do our clinical now then”?

The final part of our clinical programme is the extension of our training to include regular day-long sessions led by our psychologists and our children’s therapists. These ensure that all the team members learn about the theory of child psychological development, attachment and trauma symptoms. This can then inform and underpin their practice and their consultation sessions.

Mother’s Day origins

Mother’s Day can be traced back to the ancient Egyptians, who held an annual festival to honour the goddess Isis, the ‘mother of the pharaohs’. In Rome and many other societies, honey cakes were eaten and flowers were given in honour of the ‘great mother’ goddess Cybele.

With the development of Christianity, people honoured the Virgin Mary by returning to the church in which they were baptized on the fourth Sunday in Lent. In the late 15th century, the practice became ‘Mothering Sunday’. It was later widened to enable working mothers to be reunited with their families. The tradition of celebrating motherhood eventually blossomed into what we now know as ‘Mother’s Day’.

There are lots of ways to show mums how much they are valued and appreciated. Here are just a few.

Planning

To ensure that the occasion is an enjoyable and memorable one, planning and preparation is vital. According to retailers, Mother’s Day is the second busiest period after Christmas, so allow plenty of time for shopping. Mother’s Day is also a busy time for amusement parks and restaurants and advance booking is therefore essential. Long distance calls also peak on Mother’s Day, so keep the telephone handy.

Breakfast in bed

Start Mum’s day with breakfast in bed. Smiley pancakes, heart-shaped toast or a slice of Simnel cake accompanied by a cup of tea, her favourite book or magazine will give Mum the chance to relax, or maybe open her cards and gifts.

Cards

Mum will appreciate and value a homemade card much more than a bought one. Toddlers can personalise the card with hand prints or scribbles. Older children can make up a special message or poem. Cards can be put on her breakfast tray or left around the house for Mum to find. The children will be inspired to try out imaginative ideas and Mum will treasure the keepsakes for many years to come.

Gifts

Homemade gifts are more meaningful and unique than shop-bought ones. Ideas might include homemade biscuits, dried lavender or soap wrapped in muslin and tied with a ribbon, a family photograph in a homemade frame, a friendship bracelet or a hand-decorated mug that Mum can use everyday. When the children see Mum smiling, they will know that their efforts have been worthwhile.

Voucher

Mum may like a gift card so that she can select the perfume or jewellery that she wants. However, a ‘help’ voucher, which includes promises to wash up on Monday, a foot rub on Tuesday, setting the table on Wednesday, or good behaviour all week, will be appreciated even more.

Household chores

Giving Mum the day off will show her how special she is. Whether it involves emptying the washing machine, putting away toys, preparing lunch boxes for school the next day, brushing teeth, making the beds or doing homework without being asked, Mum will enjoy the break. It will also give the children the chance to model adult behaviour, which is good for their development, and it will give the whole family more time to have fun together.

Flowers

In the UK, a bunch of spring flowers, violets, carnations or roses are traditional Mother’s Day gifts. Other popular flowers include orchids, which come in different colours, shapes and sizes. If Mum enjoys gardening, take her to a garden fair or nursery, where she can choose her own arrangements or plants. Alternatively, a bouquet of paper or tissue flowers will encourage the children to try out their creative skills and provide a lasting reminder of the occasion. Whichever flowers or plants Mum receives, she is sure to love them.

Outing

One of the best Mother’s Day gifts is spending quality time with the family. Ideas might include a trip to the zoo or beach, a nature ramble, a cycle ride through the countryside or a walk through a wild-flower meadow. End the outing with lunch or afternoon tea in Mum’s favourite pub or restaurant. If the outing is carefully planned and packed with entertaining things to do, it can be a wonderful experience for the whole family.

Picnic

A picnic hamper filled with mouth-watering food from smoked salmon to gourmet cheeses and chocolate truffles will be a special treat for Mum. The children can prepare heart-shaped biscuits and sandwiches and Mum will enjoy sampling the finished products. Dad can supervise the preparation to ensure that the play is safe.

Take Mum on a woodland picnic. The sun filtering through the trees will be a memorable sight. The children will enjoy exploring and they will burn off excess energy and sleep better at night, which gives Mum and Dad a chance to enjoy quality time together. If it rains, lay out the picnic on the living room floor.

A special treat

Although it may not be possible to take Mum to Paris, pamper her with an evening meal complete with French food, twinkling lights and French music playing in the background. The children can make the decorations, set out the table and help with the washing up. Themed bunting, plates and table decorations will add to the ambience, and Mum will appreciate and treasure the occasion.

Bubble bath

Treat Mum to an anti-stress bubble bath complete with scented candles. An inflatable bath pillow will provide the ultimate in comfort, although Mum may not want to come out of the bathroom.

Favourite film

At the end of the day, snuggle up with Mum under a quilt and watch her favourite DVD together. Chocolate-covered strawberries and popcorn will go down well with the whole family. Simply giving up time to be with her will make Mum feel loved and valued.

Family photograph

Have the camera charged and ready to capture the occasion. Mum will keep the photographs along with special cards, homemade gifts and other Mother’s Day mementos. When Mum looks through the memories, she will reminisce about the day when she felt so special.

Dr Lin Day is the founder of www.babysensory.com.

Baby Sensory is the only provider of baby development classes designed specifically for babies from birth to 13 months. The classes are run in over 400 locations throughout the UK and in 12 countries including the US, Australia and Spain and has most recently launched in China. The Baby Sensory programmes have been developed in the UK by Dr. Lin Day (PhD Dip. Ed. BSc. PGCE. M. Phil), who has worked with babies and young children throughout her career. All activities are excellent for developing physical, social and emotional, and language skills, co-ordination, awareness of the world, a love of music and the concentration needed for further development. The programme is also suitable for babies with physical or learning impairments. Currently one in 55 babies born in the UK attends Baby Sensory classes.

The lawyers argue that these problems are such that it is time for everything to come out into the open. “There is now overwhelming evidence that religious organisations are too compromised by their own failings to police themselves effectively. The only way to address the scandal of sexual and physical abuse in these organisations is through a comprehensive public inquiry, and we urge ministers to order this without delay”. The lawyers were supported by the Minister and Clergy Sex Abuse Survivors, who also alleged that there had been cover-ups.

We have argued on a number of occasions in the Webmag that if the Roman Catholic Church is to hold to its own beliefs and practices it needs to confess, repent and seek forgiveness. The mechanism of confession is a regular part of Catholics’ way of life and it enables people to come to terms with their failings and make a fresh start. It also reflects good restorative practice, helping people face up to their social obligations and make amends.

Why should the Church itself not make a similar confession, and seek to make reparation? We are not talking here about money, but about restoring faith in the Church. People need to be able to trust the Church - both the local priests and the hierarchy which supports and controls them. The problem may be that the people to whom atonement should be made are the victims of abuse and their families. The Church is used to being the righteous party, handing out the absolution; it is not used to playing the role of the sinner, seeking forgiveness from those it has harmed.

Public penance is painful, as Henry II found out after Thomas a Becket’s murder. In this case, penance needs to be done both for the physical and sexual abuse of children and the hierarchy’s defensive cover-up. It will be a hard lesson but the inquiry sought by Richard Scorer and his colleagues may give the Church the opportunity to make a fresh start.

The current system is slow and unnecessarily bureaucratic. Potentially suitable adopters are often turned away because they may not be the right ethnic match, may be overweight or may have smoked. Adoptive parents can wait up to a year or more to be approved, which leaves thousands of children in care waiting months, and even years, for a family.

The new expert panel is made up of representatives from across the adoption sector, including the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies, British Association of Adoption and Fostering, Adoption UK, and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services. The group will work with Martin Narey, the Government’s Adoption Adviser, and provide recommendations in March on a new, more efficient process to be introduced later in 2012.

The group has been asked to:

• Consider arrangements for an improved recruitment process for adopters and ensure those who do come forward are not lost to the system.
• Streamline the training and assessment process, building on existing good practice.
• Remove bureaucracy and over-prescription regarding the information to be collected about prospective adopters.
• Provide set timescales for training and assessing the suitability of adopters, along with a new national assessment form based on a concise but robust analysis of capacity to care for a child in need of adoption.
• Suggest what, if any, new monitoring and evaluation mechanisms would need to be put in place to measure the success of the new system.

Tim Loughton said, “The assessment process for people wanting to adopt is painfully slow, repetitive and ineffective. Dedicated social workers are spending too long filling out forms instead of making sound, common-sense judgements about someone’s suitability to adopt. Children are waiting too long because we are losing many potentially suitable adoptive parents to a system which doesn’t welcome them and often turns them away at the door.

“I am determined to change this. I have this week set up a new expert group to look at radical reform of the assessment process. I want it to be quicker and more effective at approving adoptive parents and matching them with children. We cannot afford to sit back and lose potential adoptive parents when there are children who could benefit hugely from the loving home they can provide.

“In October, to mark National Adoption Week, the Prime Minister said he was determined to reduce the time it takes for a child to be placed with an adoptive family. On average, a child waits two years and seven months to be adopted. The Government is determined to reduce this significantly.”

Martin Narey said, “The more I have visited local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies over the last few months, and on Ministers’ behalf, the more exercised I have become about a parental assessment process which is not fit for purpose. It meanders along, it is failing to keep pace with the number of children cleared for adoption, and it drives many outstanding couples to adopt from abroad. I am simply delighted that the Children’s Minister has decided to set it aside and start again.

“This is a significant moment. We made the system work more quickly in the past and have increased adoptions, only for numbers to fall back again. But this will, I believe, ensure a permanent increase.”

The Government is working on a wider programme of reform to overhaul the adoption and care system. More details will be set out in the New Year on the proposals for improving the system.

Tags

Despite more than half a million children suffering from the common condition in the UK, the study, conducted by bedwetting experts DryNites, shows parents continue to keep their child’s bedwetting quiet.

Parents admitted feeling upset and stressed about how bedwetting is affecting their child, with many worried their infant is unhappy, embarrassed and put off having sleep-overs with friends.

DryNites, who spoke to more than 1,000 parents across the UK, are aiming to break down the barriers surrounding bedwetting by getting mums and dads talking about the issue with their children and other parents.

Child Psychologist Emma Kenny, who is supporting the campaign, said, “While your child wetting the bed can be quite distressing, parents need to reassure their children that this is a very normal, natural part of growing up, and they are in no way at fault.

“Children who are experiencing bedwetting need support and encouragement, and this is more likely to happen if their parents feel able to discuss the subject. Bedwetting regularly affects a fifth of five-year-olds, so it’s a lot more common than many parents might think. By talking about it to their children, other parents and professionals, worries ease and parents get the support they need to reassure their child.”

The report has also revealed that 63 per cent of children aged between 13 and 16, who still wet the bed, feel embarrassed. Furthermore, a quarter of children who wet the bed feel unhappy, while a fifth feel anxious and confused.

With 23 per cent of parents who have a child aged between six and eight-years-old blaming themselves for their child’s bedwetting, as well as some admitting the issue makes them tired and frustrated, this is all the more reason to take the taboo out of the issue.

Stephanie Madrell, DryNites brand manager, said, “Bedwetting is just as common as asthma or eczema in children, but parents are afraid to talk to each other openly about it. By getting it out in the open and discussing it, parents will find there is a lot of advice and support out there that will help them get their child through this phase of development.”

The most common affects in which bedwetting affects children aged between three and 16-years-old, according to their parents, are: embarrassment (47%), unhappiness (25%), frustration (22%), anxiety (20%) and confusion (20%).

Parents’ biggest concern about their child’s bedwetting is that it could affect their child’s self-esteem (28%), followed by concerns that they may not want to stay over at friends’ houses (25%).

Across the regions, parents in Manchester and Leeds are most likely to feel worried after their child experienced bedwetting, while 73 per cent of parents from Liverpool are unwilling to discuss their child’s bedwetting experiences with other parents.

And today, without telescopes, children can observe the wonders of the heavens and the changing seasons with their own eyes. It is therefore appropriate to teach children about astronomy.

While the subject matter can be observed by children in their daily lives, there are problems in teaching about it. How does one convey the sheer scale of the universe, and the billions of years during which it has been formed? Astronomy has made massive leaps forward in recent years, with the improvement of technology such as radio telescopes, infra-red telescopes, the space-based Hubble telescope and the use of computers to analyse data.

It is interesting to see how much we have learned in recent years. The realistic descriptions we can give of marble-sized raindrops on Titan and diamond storms on Neptune would have been amongst the most outrageous Sci-Fi worlds described in the 1970s. Now we know these things are a reality.

The subject is therefore enormously complex, and putting these mind-blowing data into a modest volume which can be understood and assimilated by children will have been a daunting task. DK chose to approach it by limiting the fields which they dealt with, by sticking basically to the solar system and by introducing the human scale by suggesting to readers that they are space travellers on a treasure hunt to visit different types of heavenly body - planets, asteroids and so on. While this is an ingenious device, if the book is meant to teaching scientific fact, it has to be acknowledged that space travellers cannot at present travel further than the moon, and there is no clear boundary in the text between the facts and the fiction.

Limiting the book’s scope meant that a lot had to be omitted. Despite this being a solar system guide it took in black holes, nebulae and dying red giant stars. But within the solar system Dr Dartnell could have included the Oort cloud (the birthplace of comets) and the heliosphere (with a reference to Voyager perhaps), and as a joke he could have included a treasure hunt for Planet X.

Maybe there should have been a separate book about the universe. There would be plenty of other material - seeing stars born, captured galaxies, globular clusters, double stars, exoplanets and so on.

DK have set very high standards in their books and it may seem overly harsh to carp, but there seemed to me to be two problems with this book.

The first is that it is not clear what age group is the target readership. In places the book is quite sophisticated, reflecting the complexity of the subject matter, but in others it seems to be aimed at the very young. Similarly, if this is a taster to get young children interested, there is probably too much detail on some small points, but not enough information for older or interested children. It must have been hard to get this balance right, but I have the feeling that the book sits uneasily with a cheek on each of two stools.

The second is that the subject matter is fascinating and does not need to be talked up. DK design work is first-rate; in this case I felt that the book tried too hard to impress and ’shouted’ at me. I also found that the attempts to be cool by sticking in the occasional word like ‘whatever’ detracted from its impact, and I doubt whether their insertion will have made the subject more acceptable to children. With subjects like this I think it is better to use straightforward language. It needs to reflect a scientific approach, rather than treating the subject matter as the latest fashion fad.

These are perhaps quibbles about fine-tuning, but I hope that DK find them useful if they read this review. This is a good quality product but probably not one for children to read by themselves. Shared reading could lead to discussion about the solar system, and teachers or parents would ideally need to be knowledgeable enough to answer factual questions about the things the book could not include. This could lead on to questions such as “Why are we here?”, “Where did the universe come from?” “What was before the universe”, “Are there aliens?” and such like.

Instilling a sense of wonder and stirring up the questions and thinking about our place within the universe is more important than having factual answers. This book gives some of the facts, but more importantly it could well encourage a life-long interest in the subject. After all, despite (or perhaps because of) all the technological advances, astronomy is a science where amateurs can still make discoveries and contribute to scientific knowledge.

Dartnell, Lewis (2012) My Tourist Guide to the Solar System … and Beyond

Dorling Kindersley

ISBN 978 1 4053 9142 9

Since it is a Dorling Kindersley book, the design work and the construction of the book are excellent. It is sturdy enough to be used and re-used by children. For those who want to copy some of the designs, some of the pictures show ideas from different viewpoints to make copying easier. Copying will develop skills of observation, analysis and dexterity.

We hope, though, that the book will mainly trigger children’s imagination. As the Introduction says, “With a bucket of bricks and a bit of practice, you can build just about anything!” This is important not only for the child’s enjoyment but also in contributing to his/her creative thinking processes. There are children of earlier generations who were brought up on Meccano and became engineers or on Minibrix and became architects. In every country future generations will need children who have been encouraged to be creative and use their imaginations, using the mediums to hand. Lego is a proven medium, and this book will help children, parents and child care workers in getting children interested.

And, by the way, Lego Duplo have just brought out some kits to help little children learn how to stack, sort and build; nothing like starting young.

Lipkowitz, Daniel (2011) The Lego Ideas Book

Dorling Kindersley, London

ISBN 978 - 1 - 40535 - 067 - 9

Tags

- normal development and behaviour,

- understanding children’s difficult behaviours,

- common behavioural problems,

- medical and psychiatric conditions,

- finding solutions to problem behaviour,

- surviving parenthood,

- sources of help,

plus conclusions and useful information.

The book is clearly and logically laid out and has summaries of the key points for each section. The information at the end provides lots of contact details for specialist services. The advice which Dr Jayson offers is good common sense, consistent with professional thinking, and the book should be of real help to its main target readership. I did not find anything in the book with which I disagreed and I can recommend parents to buy it. It has already been revised a number of times, an so it must be reaching a sizeable readership.

We decided to review this book, however, because of its claims to be of use to professionals working with children, and in this respect we have a few points of unease.

The first is that some of the advice is so bland and obvious that it hardly merits saying, such as the first key point, “Understanding your child’s behaviour will put you in a better position to deal with the situation”(p.3) or “Other problem behaviours include stealing, aggression and truancy” (p.73) or “Get help if you do not succeed” (p.143).

Much of the advice is generalised. It might be argued that this is inevitable, but if the book is really to be considered for professionals it needs more factual detail, and greater concentration on serious problem behaviour. The book is more useful where it is more factual, such as the ages at which children might be expected to develop skills, or the table about the amount of sleep children require (p.43).

The second main point is related. A way of countering the danger of overgeneralisation would be to include short case examples of problems and how they have been overcome. This would ground the general observations in real situations with which readers might be able to identify.

Thirdly, the book appears to be aimed primarily at parents of young children, with only passing references to older children and young people. The introduction mentioned “teachers and youth workers” as possible readers. I am not sure if this is meant to cover all varieties of child care worker but, in view of the emphasis on younger children, the book would probably be of more use to play group workers and nursery nurses, for example, than youth workers and residential child care workers dealing with young people.

Fourthly, perhaps in concentrating on younger children, the book has not really dealt with serious behaviour problems. Where there are problems, it is usually recommended that help is sought. This is good advice for parents, but not enough for professionals.

Fifthly, some contentious problems seem to have been ducked or under-represented. There is nothing in the index about smacking or punishment, and the only reference to control focused on a parent who was losing it (pp.135 ff.). So Dr Jayson neither condones nor rejects smacking. I think that a book like this needs to take a reasoned stance on this subject to help parents know what to do, and the consequences of different approaches, especially as the summertime riots are being blamed on parents not smacking their children.

There are only a dozen lines on drug abuse, giving only the most general indications of what parents might need to look for. Again, sexual problems, including gender identity, sexualised behaviour and sexual abuse are all encompassed in two pages.

Finally, the author was obviously having to talk about boys and girls, and this presents a drafting problem. In law I understand that references are made to ‘he’ and ‘him’ on the understanding that this covers both sexes. Alternatively, authors can use the clumsy ’s/he’ and ‘him/her’ or write everything in the plural about children, but this cuts out references to single children. Dr Jayson decided to go for random use of both genders, which I found quite comprehensible but also slightly irritating. There is no easy answer.

In summary, this book is fine for parents, and will be suitable for some professionals starting work with young children, but it will be of limited use to those whose bread and butter is having to deal with young people presenting serious problem behaviour.

Jayson, Dinah (2004, updated 2008) Understanding Children’s Behaviour

Family Doctor Publications

ISBN 978 - 1 903474 - 20 - 4

The theme was triggered by Chris Durkin’s contribution, where he suggests that the unemployed should be involved in planning job creation.

Valerie Jackson lifts the lid on education at home. It has the potential strength of suiting education to the individual child, but did you know how unregulated it is?

Keith White writes about everyone’s fundamental need for a secure base of some sort, in Finding a Safe Place.

Jim Hyland has contributed the tenth in his series on the history of the approved school service, looking at alternatives such as intermediate treatment. Seeing the way that the best laid plans gang aft agley is instructive.

Finally, in times of recession, a really practical piece by Dr Lin Day

on cost-cutting tips for new parents - saving money while keeping baby safe.

And there is not only the impact on those who are unemployed but on their families, affected by the loss of income or its secondary effects on the out of work breadwinner. And the impact on the young too, who are now feeling less optimistic than ever before about the possibility of getting employment, even after investing time in higher education.

The most obvious moral is that we need to create jobs. Both the last Labour government and the current Coalition have passed measures, for example to fund apprenticeships or payments to employers to create jobs. There are still huge numbers of young people who are unemployed, though, with dismal prospects for those leaving school in the coming years. It could be argued, therefore, that more radical measures are needed. The cost to the economy of benefits to the unemployed, treatment for alcoholics and drug users and imprisonment of offenders must surely be less than a system of job creation which gives a guaranteed job to everyone until they are twenty-five - by which time, they will have had the opportunity to develop a CV, to adopt a way of life structured by work and to avoid the worst spin-offs of unemployment.

The days of large-scale jobs that employed most of the workforce are now over. The mills, shipyards and pits are closed, and farming is not labour-intensive. The answer has to be on a smaller scale, as Chris Durkin suggested.

One of the points of the Big Society is to create stronger local communities. While there can be loyalty to a large employer, it is in the immediate group of colleagues that a worker gains their place, whatever the status of the job. It is in the platoon, or the office, or the workshop, that friendships are formed and people are valued for what they can contribute. It is at that level that the unemployed need to find a niche. It may, therefore, be in the small and medium-sized businesses that heavily subsidised jobs could have most impact and be of most use.

Unfortunately, employers often find that the school leavers who approach them for jobs are not ready for work. It may be that standards of literacy and numeracy are not high enough. It may be that the young adults have no real idea about how to present themselves to employers. It may be that they do not realise what work entails - the need to be reliable or punctual, the boring bits, the need to be part of a team, the need to deal with people courteously when they are really irritating. There are now schemes which are helping people - young people in particular - to face these hurdles and land jobs. There should be greater investment here.

If this makes sense, we need the government to take a bolder lead than they have to date. Certainly we face difficult economic times, but what sort of society do we want to emerge from the recession’s aftermath? One which values individuals, and helps them through hard times? Or one which leaves them to find their own feet or sink?

As far as we are concerned, we want young people to feel that they are valued and have something to contribute to the wider society through their work. They in turn need to give value for money, and to face up to the demands of employment. But it is for the government to create a structure which enables the wider market to create the jobs.

Otherwise, we risk having a generation without hope, and that is a heavy price to pay. It will be visible at times in the headline-hitting feral riots, but more generally it will show in the statistics of health problems, in depression, in earlier mortality. The price will be paid in more than cash. 2012 could be the time for the tide to turn.

Starting out

I was quite surprised how easy it is for anyone to decide to home-school a child. I thought we would have to put forward a strong case for why we wanted to remove this particular small person from her school. I discovered that it is so simple, and often parents are not obliged to inform the authorities what they have decided to do. The Education Act of 1996 states that education is compulsory, attendance at school is not.

“Under Section 576 of the Education Act 1996, a parent is defined in relation to a child or young person as also including any individual:
(a) who is not a parent of his but who has parental responsibility for him, or
(b) who has care of him. As parents are responsible for ensuring that their children are properly educated, it is their decision whether to use schools or provide education at home. It is important to note that the duty to secure education is stated entirely in Section 7 and nowhere else. Provided the child is not a registered pupil at a school, the parent is bound by no other constraints. In particular, there is no obligation:

• to seek permission to educate ‘otherwise’;
• to take the initiative in informing the LEA (Local Education Authority);
• to have regular contact with the LEA;
• to have premises equipped to any particular standard;
• to have any specific qualifications;
• to cover the same syllabus as any school;
• to adopt the National Curriculum;
• to make detailed plans in advance;
• to observe school hours, days or terms;
• to have a fixed timetable;
• to give formal lessons;
• to reproduce school type peer group socialisation;
• to match school, age-specific standards.”

http://www.underhill.nildram.co.uk/law.htm

Problems in school

The decision to home educate was made in light of this particular child’s experience at two private schools with very small class sizes – the first had five children and the second had seven children with a teacher and classroom assistant – where despite the information given to each school about her compound diagnosed challenges, which included dyspraxia and an inability to eat quickly or consume enough calories to sustain her energies, my grandchild was regularly isolated from her classmates at break times so that she could eat the high calorie food prescribed by the nutritionist.

As you can imagine, this food would have been a joy to most other children. It consisted of chocolate, high energy/calorie drinks and nuts, all of which were banned by the schools, who refused to compromise despite telephone discussions with the nutritionist. She was also informed that she must eat her food, whether snack or lunch by a certain time otherwise she would go hungry.

This pressure on a child whose eating is slow and laboured at best meant that in order for her to keep up with the other children she ate very little food at lunch time or snack time and as a consequence, by the time she was collected in the afternoon, she was too tired to eat anything at home. In both schools she lost weight dramatically and we were concerned that she would eventually be hospitalised as her weight was well below the norm. She also became very lethargic which compounded her learning ability.

Added to that, her dyspraxia and spatial confusion meant that traditional teaching methods did not work on her. She was given words to learn and despite trying really hard, she could not remember a single one. It was quite a frustrating time for us all. She was expected to do at least an hour’s work each evening. This became impossible. She arrived home at four-thirty, we tried to get her to eat some food but often she was too tired and was not able to even chew. Then she was bathed and in bed for six in order to gain a good night’s sleep to start her day at seven each morning.

She was taken from her first school as her teacher admitted that she had no experience of working with a child who had dyspraxia. She was often left to ‘get on with things’ by herself.

She was then enrolled in a school where they had children who had dyspraxia or similar challenges so we thought she was going to be fine, and she was for a while. We then discovered that lunch times were short – thirty minutes - and it was not possible to have a member of staff available for her during that time to make sure she ate. It took some time to persuade the teachers that she could not have a free choice of food as her favourite foods have too few calories. Apples, pears and cucumber are top of her list. They could not or would not accept that she had so many health-related difficulties as she always masked her fatigue by sheer determination to be part of the group. We noticed that she was beginning to lose weight again, and in fact she now weighed only as much as a two-year-old child.

She started to fall over a lot in school where the outside play consisted of very vigorous play. She fell over on her ankle and the school called home and spoke to her mother to say that she was fine. Her mother asked if she had cried and they said she had. This was a very significant statement. Often children with dyspraxia do not feel pain in the same way as other children as their senses are in chaos. The fact that she had cried meant she was quite badly hurt. Her mother took her to hospital where she was diagnosed with a badly sprained ankle. It was strapped up and she was rested at home for a while. She returned to school and the same thing happened again. Off to hospital for a second time where an x-ray revealed a broken ankle.

The final straw

After spending several weeks in plaster, she eventually healed. I think that experience had unnerved her mother, who now doubted the ability of the school to safeguard this child. One afternoon she arrived as usual at the end of the school day to collect the child, only to be asked where she was. After a rather frantic search she was found with a visiting student who had not been cleared by the standard CRB check, in the classroom. As the teacher had only five children in total to look after, it did seem odd that one had been overlooked so spectacularly.

As soon as was possible without losing too much money on school fees, the decision was made for her to be educated at home, by me.

Troubled beginnings

I have to say that I found the task daunting at first for I knew I would be quite tough on her, because I wanted her to be successful. I set up my office as a classroom and every day we sat doing the basic lessons that she would have for her age in a school. We began to explore the outside as I am a keen environmentalist and she discovered the skills of a spider in making its web, the importance of the insects and other mini-beasts in soil and how weather changes with the seasons. We have made a weather station and plan to visit a zoo soon to check out eating habits and camouflage.

I am enjoying my time with her but we still clash from time to time when her attention strays or if she forgets how to write certain numbers or letters. She lets me know in clear ways if I am asking too much of her or being less than sympathetic. We have shouting matches and lots of hissy fits. Despite all of this, we remain the best of friends and share a child-like sense of humour.

Recently I was inspected by the Home Education Advisor, and we are doing well. I was told that I would not need to be inspected often as everything was as it should be. We were told about other situations where the parents had decided to home educate their children with little or no understanding of what that might involve.

I don’t know how long this arrangement will continue. I would like to see her integrated into a caring and supportive environment with other children eventually. She attends an after-school-club three times a week and also goes with her mother to a huge variety of home education experiences with the other children in the locality so she doesn’t lack friendships. We will have to see how this works.

His childhood had been disturbed by a number of factors including separation from his mother who spent much time in a mental hospital. Quite out of the blue as far as I was concerned the son continued, “He found his safe place”. I knew that he had settled in the West country and rarely if ever returned to the place of his roots in East London, but there was more to it than that: he had found a centre, unshakeable, reliable, a base for friendship and exploration, in the security of the ideal world of mathematical formulae.

The second strand appeared at the meal table. For some reason we were talking about our very first memories. Everyone chipped in and, although I didn’t mention it, I was reminded more than once of Marcel Proust’s A La Recherche du Temps Perdu. There were just the same elements: bedtimes, dusk, domestic sounds, particular places with their own smells, and fragments of seemingly unconnected slivers of recollection reassembled by association. One of those who had remained silent the longest, as we ate our fish and chips, when prompted about his first memory, after a pregnant pause said, “The first thing I remember is my father being taken away by the police.”

And that was it: nothing more was said. I was sitting beside him and recalled quietly the time that he had first shared that memory with me, where it happened, and at what time of the day. The others were sensitive in the way they handled this: they gradually re-started the conversation. It occurred to me both at the table, and then on reflection, that this young man had also found a safe place. In that setting he had felt able to share something that was true, though traumatic. He and his story were accepted without qualification or enquiry. Was it, I wondered that this is the essence of what a safe place means? Perhaps you only know that you have found it when you realise there is nothing you are afraid to share.

The third strand was of a different kind, and ran in parallel with the first two. On a trip to Glasgow to give a paper (that was published in the December 2011 edition of Children Webmag) I discovered, in the unlikeliest of places, a small branch of W.H. Smith, a Russian novel by a writer of whom I was completely and inexcusably unaware until that moment. Vasily Grossman’s massive Life and Fate cannot but be compared to Tolstoy’s War and Peace. In my view it is one of the great novels of the twentieth century. I had just passed page 600 (still some way to go!) at the time these two conversations occurred.

The novel is set in 1942 and centres on the historic battle of Stalingrad. In one episode Hitler is pictured walking alone in the forest of Gorlitz near Lithuania with a drizzle falling as he tries to take in the fact that his advance has been halted. The enormity of everything begins to sink in. “At first he had found it soothing to be alone in the forest, but now he began to feel frightened. Without his bodyguards and aides, he felt like a little boy in a fairy-tale lost in a dark, enchanted forest … His childhood fears had re-emerged through the thick darkness of decades … He wanted to scream, to call for his mother, to close his eyes, to run.” (Life and Fate, page 643, Vintage 2006 edition.)

In fact, as Grossman reminds us, Hitler is surrounded by thousands of highly trained body-guards whose only task is to ensure his safety. Not a single hair of his head is at risk. He could not be safer. And yet the Fuhrer had not found a safe place. Perhaps it would be fair to say that his whole life, up to and including his final refuge in the Berlin bunker, was a futile search for an elusive safe space.

The two others had found what he could not: security. The mathematician found it in the elegant beauty of the world of pure mathematics; the young man, in a residential community. But Adolf Hitler never found it. Of course it is not as simple as that, not so black and white. The mathematician was happily married and loved to be with his family and friends; the young man had a reliable job, was a season ticket holder of a successful English Premier League team. But still there remains the truth that while some find a safe place in life, others do not.

What the three had in common was an experience of separation and loss in their childhoods. Yet the outcomes could hardly have been more different. What lessons might there be in all this, I wondered? For years it has been clear to me that all human beings long for security (a safe place) above all else. Ruth and I have spent our lives seeking to help, support, love and care for many who have known disturbed childhoods. We can offer the safe space of our home, the hope of our Christian faith, the reliability of promises kept, and of healthy patterns of life sustained over the years. But ultimately a safe space has to be found, and entered into, by the person concerned.

How many find it we will never know, but it is encouraging to me to discover that safe spaces come in so many variations. Years ago I wrote about a rowan tree growing on the escarpment which forms the eastern edge of Cadair Idris in North Wales. (The Growth of Love, pages 61-62) It found a home, alone, in the most unlikely of places (as far as the observer is concerned). But it is still there and thriving. In our desire to help children and young people find the safe place they desire with the depths of their being, it is vital that our minds and imaginations are open enough to realise that what they find and where they find it will often surprise us.

The sad truth is that some will not find it despite a lifetime of longing and searching, but at the beginning of a New Year let us be encouraged and humbled by the resilience that enables so many to find their own safe place.

No doubt there will be inspiring stories of how some have and will continue to find a safe place in sport, including the Olympics, but that is a subject for another day.

One of the biggest problems in our society is the young unemployed. This is a waste of talent and also human health. Unemployment is not just an economic issue; it has repercussions for a persons health, wellbeing and emotional state. The unemployment statistics tell us the numbers unemployed; what they don’t tell us are the other consequences. It is as much a public health issue as an economic issue and yet we largely ignore the health issues.

Work gives us many things apart from money – it gives us status and companionship and it can also provide interest, stimulation and structure. If, that structure is taken away, or is never put in place, the consequences can be devastating. What I found striking in 2011 was the increasing numbers in our society who have no hope, no future and no sense that things will change.

Like so many problems, merely addressing the presenting problem of unemployment does not address the underlying issues which could be low skills, mental health, housing, drugs, alcohol and many others. To address the issue of unemployment needs more innovative, creative and empowering solutions which involve the unemployed in developing the solutions.

My hope for 2012, therefore, is less posturing and pontificating from above and more involvement: a co-designed approach to an intractable problem. Such an approach may actual contribute to the rebalancing of the economy which all politicians recognise needs to happen.

The number of children coming into local authority care increased annually throughout the 1960s and 1970s, peaking in 1977 at 101,200 children. Although numbers then decreased the actual proportion of children taken into care, per thousand of the population of under 18 years old did not fall until 1983. Similar trends in the number of children placed in all types of residential establishments (including CHEs) emerge with a fall from 34,600 in 1975 to 13,199 in 1990. The Table below illustrates these trends.

Manner of Accommodation of Children in Care, 1979-1989 (OOOs)

Year       1979    1980    1981    1984    1985    1988    1989

Based on data from the Utting Report, 1991

O& A - Observation and Assessment Centre- Others includes living with a parent or guardian or in a special school

The peak occupancy of the CHEs was in 1973. In that year there were 7,100 boys and girls in residence. For the next five years the numbers remained well above 6,000 but thereafter they began, slowly, to fall. The pace of decline increased considerably in the 1980s; by 1990 there were only 1149 boys and girls in CHEs.

These developments are explained by a number of factors. There was alarm at the seemingly non-stop increase in admissions into care and concern about the amount of residential provision available to meet this increase. There was also a growing hostility to the concept of institutional care. There was an increasing awareness that community based provision was much less expensive than residential care, and that it was often a better form of care.

Arguments for Alternatives

The loss of confidence in CHEs was further fuelled by evidence that they were not effective in curbing delinquency for the majority of children, a view supported by arguments based on experiments in child care methods in the United States of America that suggested that institutions were now a largely outmoded approach. Other factors in the trend away from residential care were the increased power of field social workers to determine the placement of a child in care, and the loss of authority by the magistrates to specify the type of placement for a child coming into care. There had also been a significant increase in the range of alternative strategies available for the management and placement of children in care, for example, fostering of adolescents on remand, intermediate treatment, and cautioning of offenders. This resulted in residential care being but one of a range of options.

Fostering Advocated

The expansion of the fostering and adoption services began to be seen as the best alternative for children unable to live in their own homes. Thus the proportion of children in care ‘boarded out’, as fostering is still officially known, rose steadily from 32.0% in 1973 to 41.5% in 1982, and 56.9% in 1990. The publication of Children Who Wait (Rowe and Lambert, 1973) probably marks the beginning of the growing emphasis on substitute family care. Rowe and Lambert identified children in residential care who they considered were in need of placement with families. Over the country as a whole, it was claimed, there were up to 6,000 children of pre-school or primary school age who were in the care of social agencies and who needed a substitute family. It was observed that “since adolescents were not very often placed with new parents the study had been limited to those children who had not yet reached their eleventh birthday”. The fact that the study was concerned with the under eleven year olds was quickly overlooked and instead was applied to children of any age.

The First CHE Closure

Kent County Council sponsored one of the earliest projects aimed at finding foster families for adolescents and claimed considerable success in doing so. Its Director of Social Services, Nicholas Stacey, was amongst the first of those in senior positions to advocate the reduction of residential child care. He spoke of these developments at the annual conference of the Association of Community Home Schools in 1976. A somewhat jaundiced account of his speech is given in the Community Home Schools Gazette (Stacey, 1977), which reported that he commended the merit of Kent’s own scheme of professional fostering, stressing that it needed to be planned and supported with a great deal of expertise and care. He linked the development of professional fostering to the closure of North Downs CHE, for which Kent had had responsibility, and pointed out that Kent spent £3m per year on 1,000 children in institutions out of a budget of £20m for the whole of Social Services provision. This was “unacceptably disproportionate”. North Downs CHE was probably the first casualty of this new approach, borne partly of expediency and partly out of loss of confidence in the efficacy of the residential system.

Nancy Hazel and Rosemary Cox launched their professional foster parent scheme for Kent in March 1973. In their prospectus they stated that the aim was to test out how far the treatment functions at present performed by residential establishments for children and young persons could be transferred to persons living in private homes in the community. In doing so they introduced the notion that foster parents should receive a professional fee.

Other local authorities and voluntary child care agencies soon began to develop similar schemes. In one of its later reports, Community Provision For Young Offenders (North West Region Social Services Agencies, 1981a), the DHSS Development Group turned its attention from its previously almost exclusive concern with CHEs to consider the emerging community alternatives. There were accounts of ‘remand fostering” which started in the Wirral Local Authority in 1981 and involved the placement of young people on remand from the Court into foster care.

There were also reports on ‘Contractual Fostering in Bolton’, which graphically illustrate the implication of policy changes in terms of reduced use of residential provision and reallocation of finances. Bolton cut back on its use both of conventional children’s homes and its reliance on out of Borough CHE placements, from 242 to 161 in the former case and from 51 to 7 in the latter. As a result of this action £378,000 was saved, of which £244,000 was reallocated to employ 12 extra social workers and 20 contract foster parents.

In 1982 the London Boroughs Regional Planning Committee published A Survey of Special Fostering Schemes in London.  The survey showed that on 31 March 1982, eight London Boroughs had special fostering schemes intended for delinquent and disturbed children aged 11 years and over and that the number of children on placement across the eight schemes was 102. According to the information provided the children in placement would most likely have been in some form of residential care, including CHEs, if the schemes had not existed. There was further evidence that the total number of children placed in such schemes by the local authorities could be more than doubled.

Examples of Alternative Care from Abroad

Much of the thinking and practice on the concept of fostering for delinquent children had originated in the United States and Sweden. Hazel and Cox (1973) discussed the merits of the child systems in these two nations. In Sweden 80% of children were placed in foster homes and in Massachusetts, USA, there were moves towards a policy of deinstitutionalisation, particularly for delinquent children and adolescents. Both Sweden and Massachusetts had rejected the concept of ‘residential warehousing’. ‘Massachusetts’ became the rallying cry of many who wished to see the demise, or at least a major reduction, of residential provision for young offenders in Britain. Terms like ‘decarceration’, ‘decriminalisation’ and ‘de-institutionalisation’ were used by many who saw Massachusetts as a sign of what could be achieved with a resolute approach.

Joan Cooper, in her capacity as Director of Social Work Services, wrote a brief factual account of her visit to Massachusetts (Cooper, 1976). Her conclusion was somewhat tentative:

In short there has been a major shift from custodial and large scale institutional response towards smallness in scale and variety of provision. For historical and cultural reasons the shift in Massachusetts has been achieved through the purchase of service within an existing and well developed private sector In this country for historic reasons, greater variety exists within the public sector.

Cooper’s conclusions seem to suggest that the situation in Massachusetts was not directly applicable to England and Wales.

What Really Happened in Massachusetts?

An account of the developments in Massachusetts by one of the main participants in those changes, Yitzhak Bakal, confirms that the comparing of the system with that in England and Wales was not entirely appropriate (Bakal 1973).  Bakal was a senior administrative officer of the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services, the body charged with the responsibility of the management of young offenders. It is clear from his full and cogent account of the dramatic developments in Massachusetts between 1969 and 1973 that many of the developments were a mixture of expediency, desperation, and daring innovation against a background of political squabbling, image making and liberal thinking.

Until 1969 the Division of Youth Service (DYS) had been responsible for managing five large training schools and four detention centres. Bakal recalled that the programmes in the institutions were poor. There were no certified academic or educational programmes and vocational training was limited, offering outmoded skills. Clinical services were almost non­existent. In addition, staff members were untrained and unskilled. The treatment inside the institution had been at best custodial and at worst punitive and repressive. The staff used force on occasions and Bakal gave examples of recalcitrant  children being made to drink water from toilets, or scrub floors on their hands and knees for hours on end. Solitary confinement was also used extensively.

In response to public and media pressure the DYS tried to introduce more liberal and permissive regimes. When these failed it was decided to take more radical action and make a virtue out of a necessity. Thus, Bakal records, that the Department abandoned gradualism, “During the January 1972 legislative recess Miller used his Commissioner’s discretionary powers to officially close the institutions’. The training schools were fully occupied at the time of the closures. Those offenders who could not be immediately paroled, placed or referred to community programmes were housed temporarily on the University campus.

On the face of it this exercise would seem analogous to the closing of all CHEs overnight; there are dangers, however, in making such a comparison. In the first place, unlike the CHEs, institutions closed were used by the Courts specifically for young offenders. Secondly, there were residential units, other than the training schools for the young offenders. These were  known as group homes, many of which were run by privately managed agencies. In closing the training schools the DYS was divesting itself of the burdens of managing publicly owned institutions, thus opting out of the politically embarrassing dilemma of having to choose to support either a harsh or a permissive regime for these establishments.

The Table below shows the distribution of young people in the care of the DYS after closures of what Bakal refers to as the ‘reform schools’. There can be no doubt that a bold and imaginative change had occurred in Massachusetts in its management of its young offenders, but to say that it had closed all its institutions is highly misleading. It did close most of its own institutions and it did aim at a policy of much greater reliance on community based provision, but it certainly continued to make a significant use of residential care.

The Placement of Young Children following the Closure of

Massachusetts Institutions

Based on figures presented in Bakal, 1973

Reflections on the Efficacy of the 1969 Act

In the early 1970s there was continued concern about the best ways of responding to the problems of juvenile delinquency. The House of Commons had appointed an Expenditure Committee to examine the workings of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969. The results of the deliberation of’ this Committee were contained in the Eleventh Report of the House of Commons Expenditure Sub-Committee published by HMSO in July 1975. This Report reflected the somewhat confused position of those responsible for dealing with juvenile delinquency in England and Wales at that time. Community Homes with Education, as such, were not discussed in any great depth, but there was a tacit acceptance that they would continue to play an important role in the future management of young offenders. This is well illustrated by the concern of the Association of Directors of Social Services Departments, expressed to the Committee, about the constraints placed on their building programmes for community home facilities.

To those who argued that the majority of young offenders grow out of offending the Report caustically observed:

To say children grow out of crime, however, is small comfort to those who are the victims of juvenile misbehaviour and some sections of the community are clearly unprepared to wait for this to happen. Some attempt must be made both to hasten the process in the case of certain offenders and to deter others from embarking on criminal activities, to contain the hard core of persistent offenders and to punish some offenders. There is a limit to the amount of delinquent behaviour which the society is prepared to tolerate.

The Justices’ Clerks’ Society, who saw the developments of juvenile crime management in the USA as a warning to our system rather than as an example, told the Committee that they “thought that if a level of toleration were to be sought (to offending) it would rise inexorably, citing the American experience as an example”.

The Committee had clearly tried to take all points of view into account, since it concluded by recommending more secure provision and a secure care order for persistent offenders already subject a care order, more accountability of social workers to Courts, and urgent attention to non-residential forms of care. i.e. to intermediate treatment, day care, supervision and fostering. It urged that experiments in fostering disturbed juveniles should set up in each Regional Planning Area.

This approach pleased few people. Thorpe et al. (1980) observed that the recommendations relating to custodial facilities and the powers of the juvenile courts were primarily concerned with prosecution and custody as one strategy for managing delinquents, while those relating to the development of intermediate treatment and localised liaison procedures between the police and social services implied a strategy of decarceration and decriminalisation. Thorpe et al. described these as “contradictory recommendations”.

The Government responded to the Committee’s proposals in a White Paper in 1976 in Observations on the Eleventh Report from the Expenditure Committee. Particular note was taken of the recommendations on residential care and it was agreed that there should be, within the framework of the 1969 Act, a major shift of emphasis towards non-residential care including supervision, intermediate treatment and fostering.

Another highly significant shift of emphasis was evident in the way in which residential care was bracketed, by exponents of community based provision, with custodial provision. Thorpe et al. (1980) equated residential care with custody. “We argue for a policy of ‘decarceration’; the removal of the majority of juvenile offenders from residential care, or custody”.

Many social workers also regarded CHEs as custodial institutions, not significantly different from detention centres and borstals. This indicated the measure of ignorance and prejudice, due partly to the image many retained of the Approved Schools and partly to their very limited experience of the system following the reorganisation of the Social Services Departments in 1971. As many social workers were to play a key role in the new Community Home with Education system, their attitudes were important for its smooth operation. This change of attitude by a number of social workers, social work teachers and criminologists, reflected a growing ideological view concerning care away from the child’s own home.

Ideological Viewpoints on Dealing with Delinquency

Adams et al. (1981) gives a lucid account of the varying ideological viewpoints of those concerned with policies for dealing with juvenile delinquency. Four main strands of thinking were identified, which often overlap: the justice, the treatment, the educational and the social change approaches. The justice approach emphasises the authority of legal institutions and the need to punish or control deviant youth.

This was in line with the conservative ideology. The focus is on personal responsibility, right and wrong, and the jurisdiction of the courts.

The treatment and the educational approaches fit most readily into the liberal ideology, given prominence in the policy developments of the 1960s. The treatment approach, which has strongly influenced the developments of the social work profession, has been based primarily on the concept of individual or social pathology. The educational approach emphasises the normal processes of maturation, which need to be nurtured and stimulated.

Finally, Adams argues that the social change approach is based on the belief that there needs to be radical change in the way in which society is ordered, suggesting that the roots of crime lie in the structure of society. Adams also noted the concern of radical thinkers with the ‘welfare’ and ‘child saving’ approach. He quoted the group Justice For Children, which observed that:

…judicial impartiality and fairness, especially in sentencing, have been severely hindered by the welfare approach. There is also an increasing body of opinion which believes that ‘treatment’ can have a negative effect on a child and his family.

In the context of these conflicting views of juvenile delinquency, and the concerns for economic restraint, the CHEs began to be subject to increasing scrutiny. As Adams et al. had shrewdly observed, “Wherever professional conviction coincides with the direction dictated by financial constraints, it always proves a powerful combination”.

The  success of the vociferous body of opinion dismissing the contraposition of the CHEs to the juvenile justice system is demonstrated by the Report of the Parliamentary All-Party Penal  Affairs Group (1981). This study contained no consideration of the role of CHEs in any future provision. It was dismissive of residential care, quoting a number of studies (Clarke and Cornish, 1975; Thorpe et al., 1976) to demonstrate the failure of residential care to curb reoffending. The study also observed that “there has been a sharp rise over the years in the rates of recorded crime among young people”.

Concern about Rising Crime

A debate in Parliament on crime (July 1986) indicated that this was a matter of concern to all political parties. The chief opposition spokesman on home affairs was clearly reflecting general concern, while at the same time attempting to embarrass the Conservative Government, when he said “a black cloud of lawlessness hung over Britain today and the country is suffering the worst crime wave ever known”. To substantiate his claim he pointed out that in the last seven years theft had risen by 30%, violence against the person by 42%, burglaries by 52% and criminal damage by 73%.

The Home Office British Crime Survey of 1984, based on interviews with 11,000 people showed that half the women interviewed said they avoided going out alone at night. In 1983 there were 19 attempted or actual break-ins per 100 homes on the poorest council estates. Two-thirds of the incidents in the survey were unrecorded by the police. The clear up rate for crime had generally been declining. The National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NACRO) in a paper on Burglary (1985b) noted that “the clear-up rate for burglary is low, 28% of recorded offences in 1984 and has been going down - in 1974 it was 34%”. It also noted that “69% of those found guilty and cautioned were young offenders (under 21); 30% were juveniles (under 17), a higher proportion than for any other offence category”.

The trend, however, has been to play down these concerns and even use selective statistical figures to, consciously or unconsciously, distort the actual overall picture in respect of juvenile delinquency. NACRO (1985a) observed that the number of known juvenile offenders was 10% lower in 1983  than in 1974 and that the rates of offending had levelled off or declined since 1982 for all age groups except females aged 14 to16 years. These figures refer to apprehended offenders. They ignore the fact that the crime rates continue to rise, that the number of offenders caught has dropped, and that many offences are not reported to the police.

The Association of Directors of Social Services (ADSS) (1985) observed that the picture was one of a juvenile justice system which has no clear philosophy, and which makes children pawns in a struggle between competing objectives. They believed that the ideals of justice and welfare are not contradictory and ought indeed to be complementary and mutually embracing. Tutt (1982) summed up the situation well, when he suggested that “in the conflict of approach to juvenile delinquency, justice versus welfare, ideology becomes more significant than empirical evidence”.

Tutt observed also that the decline in the use of Care Orders was radically affecting the residential provision of local authorities. In 1971, when there were approximately 7,500 young people, boys and girls, in open CHEs, there were fewer than 100 long-term secure places for young people in the CHEs. With the decline in the number of CHEs long-term secure places have increased rapidly and, in proportional terms, dramatically; in 1980 some 300 long-term places in security were provided for children and young people. These figures exclude the growing numbers of young people in security in prison department establishments (Borstal and junior detention centres).  

Thorpe et al. (1980) described CHEs, as “custodial institutions” and claimed that the majority of children had  been placed in them unfairly, “not just unnecessarily and damagingly”. He stated that most children in CHEs were there as the result of a ruling of the Court under Section 7(7) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969. This enabled the Court to make a child subject to a Care Order as a direct response to a criminal offence. It is argued that the children placed in care under this Section were placed against the true spirit of the 1969 Act as stated in Section 1(2) of that Act. Courts have used Section 7(7) of the Act, thus avoiding the application of the criteria set out in Section 1(2). If, the argument runs, the criteria of Section 1(2) were applied, then the majority of young delinquents would not have had Care Orders imposed on them. The additional criteria set out in Section 1(2) of the Act states that the Court must also be satisfied that the child is in need of care or control which he or she is unlikely to receive unless the Court makes an Order under this section.

Thorpe and the Lancaster Centre devised their own criteria to test the validity of the ‘care and control’ rider when applied to the Section 7(7) cases. These asked:

Is the child a danger to himself and or his community? Does the child have a home in the community which can, with appropriate support, provide an adequate degree of care and control? Does the child have any specific medical, educational, vocational or psychiatric needs which can be dealt with only in a residential context?

These guidelines do not appear to be entirely consistent with the use of the terms ‘care and control’ in the Act. In the earlier part of Section 1(2), care is described in terms of, amongst other things, ensuring that the proper development of the child is not being avoidably prevented or neglected, and control as not being beyond the control of his parent or guardian. Thorpe’s ‘care and control’ criteria seem therefore artificially narrow. There is no consideration of the absence of consistent interest in and care for a child, nor is there any reference to break-down in family relationships in the child’s own home or to a loss of control in a children’s home or foster placement.

By using their check list Thorpe and associates were able to ‘demonstrate’ to three local authority Social Services Departments that between 70.5% and 90% of groups of children committed to care under the terms of Section 7(7) of the Act would not have been so committed had their criteria been applied to them. Whilst Thorpe was right to challenge the growth of the practice of placing children in care via the Section 7(7) provision, there is insufficient evidence that, the check list was an adequate measure of the appropriateness  of that decision or that children and young people in CHEs were wrongly placed. Indeed case histories in a survey of children in the North Region CHEs, carried out in 1980, record long chronicles of disturbed and difficult behaviour and multiple failures of alternative measures and suggest that the children were rightly placed under the terms of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969.

Thorpe et al. (1980), however, concluded that Community Homes with education:

.. .far from preventing delinquent careers, actually promote them, at eventual considerable cost to both the community and the individual delinquent and that moreover, such provision and expense often prevented the development of vital intermediate treatment services.

Intermediate Treatment

Intermediate Treatment, like CHEs,  seem to have long vanished from our social care vocabulary but this was certainly not so in the 1970s and 80s.

Intermediate treatment is described in the report of the Parliamentary All-Party Penal Affairs Group (1981) as a way of reducing delinquency:

…by involving young people in constructive activities, offering them opportunities for achievement, improving their social skills, bringing them into contact with mature adults who can exercise a positive influence on them, providing counselling both individually and in groups and involving parents of delinquents in taking more responsibility for their children’s behaviour.

Intermediate treatment began after the Children and Young Person’s Act 1969 and was to be understood in a variety of ways . Many saw it as having a role in both the prevention and treatment of delinquency. As a result much energy was spent in trying to determine where the balance should lie between intermediate treatment as a treatment and as a preventative measure. The Department of Health and Social Security Guide  to Intermediate Treatment (DHSS, 1972) did not  mention delinquency and even in 1974, Joan Cooper, Director of  DHSS Social Work Service, was still lending her authority to a very generalised, if not amorphous, interpretation of the concept (as cited in Adams et al., 1981);

Intermediate treatment is  intended for a whole age range from 0-18 years. Within it can be encompassed an informal ‘play group’ for an ‘at risk’ 3-year-old under supervision or an opportunity for motor repair work in a group for a 16-year-old traffic offender.

Perhaps because of this somewhat muddle-headed approach, intermediate treatment was slow to develop into a real option for magistrates to use when placing Supervision Orders on delinquents.

Adams et al. (1981) observed that “many local authorities relied almost entirely on the goodwill and enthusiasm of social workers to provide it (intermediate treatment) in their spare time”. He provided some useful data on the number of young people involved in intermediate treatment. Reference is made to an estimate by the National Youth Bureau of 20,000- 25,000 young people being involved in intermediate treatment during the year ending March 1979. Only one in six was actually subject to an intermediate treatment requirement, though up to two thirds were on some kind of Court order, usually plain supervision. It  was also noted that the planned total expenditure on intermediate treatment by local authorities at the year ending March 1980 was £4.5 million, although hidden extra expenses probably took the amount to well over £5 million.

As for the staffing of intermediate treatment, it was calculated that by the middle of 1979 there were about 650 specialist staff in the United Kingdom and that 84% of those engaged in intermediate treatment were usually social workers with caseloads. These figures are a clear indication of the relatively slow growth, low expenditure and inadequate planning of the use of intermediate treatment as a significant alternative to residential care.

Intermediate treatment continued, however, to grow in the estimation of Social Services Departments as a preferred option to residential care for many young offenders. An example of the reasoning of departments is given in a DHSS Report (North West Region Social Services Agencies, 1981b). Trafford Social Services Committee was advised by its officers that residential placements can reinforce delinquent attitudes and that discharge from residential care broke the relationship with the residential worker at a critical time for the young person.  Moreover, residential care was extremely expensive.

The annual cost to the Department of maintaining 83 offenders in residential institutions was £340,000 and Community Home with Education placements were, at the time, costing £11,513 per year per child. The cost per place at the proposed intermediate treatment day centre, based on eight children and allowing a staff/child ratio of 2/1 would be £5,933. The centre would provide a specialist intensive method of social work, incorporating education over a period of 12-18 months for 14-16 year olds. The children would attend the centre four days a week and spend Fridays either in ordinary school or in work experience. There were persuasive arguments for most Social Service Committees.

By 1984/5 with the closure of many CHEs and with additional central government support, expenditure on intermediate treatment according to the National Youth Bureau, had grown to £19,730,000. Although this was a substantial increase on expenditure in the 1970s, it did not reflect either the amount of money saved by the closure of CHEs or the growing need for extra measures as a result of the continuing growth in delinquency.

Arguments about the effectiveness and nature of intermediate treatment continued.  Denne and Peel (1983) reported on a comparison of the offending careers of young people placed in CHEs and those placed on intermediate treatment from the Wakefield area. The researchers concluded  by claiming that “on the basis of this study, the transfer of resources from residential care to the intermediate treatment sector appear fully justified”.

Yet the findings did not necessarily make it clear that this claim was justified. The main benefits suggested were that only 67% of the intermediate treatment sample reoffended, compared with 79% of the CHE sample. Denne and Peel (Community Care March 1983) also recorded that, in both samples, 40% reoffended during placement. Two very significant facts were given little attention. First, the average length of placement in a CHE was 18.8 months while on intermediate treatment it was only 7.7 months and secondly that whilst only 9% of reoffenders in CHEs went to detention centres, borstal or prison, 23% on intermediate treatment were sent to penal establishments.

Others, equally committed to the ‘care in the community’ approach, have a less positive view of intermediate treatment. Stevens and Crook (Social Work Today Sept.1986) claim that “Intermediate treatment is to become the lame duck of the juvenile criminal justice system”. Despite the replacement of social skills training and outdoor pursuits with new approaches under slick headings such as ‘heavy end’, ‘offending work’, ‘the correctional curriculum’, ‘tracking and alternatives to custody ‘projects’ and ’schemes’, confusion remains and the phrase ‘intermediate treatment’ had become a convenient label for a ‘rag bag’ of social work approaches. Stevens and Crook conclude that “after 17 years, intermediate treatment is a concept with no useful role to play in the management of the juvenile criminal justice system in England and Wales”. Their local authority, Northampton, has rejected intermediate treatment since 1983 “in favour of a strategy of corporate action, planning, efficient management and monitoring”, which also sounds rather nebulous.

Thorpe et al. (1980) have also expressed scepticism toward  the ‘welfare approach’ in the use of intermediate treatment. They suggested that preventing delinquency is not a matter of singling out hapless children at random from disorderly families and setting up what amounts to adolescent playgroups. Rather, they argue, good social work practice with juvenile offenders consists of developing carefully researched strategies with both communities and individuals with very specific objectives and practical actions in mind.

Much store was set by central government on intermediate treatment as a viable option to residential care. The All Party report of the Parliamentary All-Party Penal Affairs (1981) observed that the Director of Social Services for Essex had said that the closure of a Community Home with Education in Chelmsford had saved the authority the gross sum of £400,000 per annum and he added that “closure provides a real incentive to look at alternative forms of care of a non-custodial nature”.  The All Party group also reported the observations of Sir George Young, an Under-Secretary at the DHSS at the time, (February 1981):

At present the development of I.T. (intermediate treatment) is too patchy. Some areas can boast a wide range of activities provided from a variety of sources; in others almost no facilities are available. Everywhere, I.T. at the ‘heavier’ end - that is for youngsters convicted of more than just petty crimes and beyond the reach of many programmes - is very sparsely available.

Intermediate treatment was a grand sounding term and under its umbrella some imaginative schemes for young offenders were developed. Many more ill defined schemes also emerged with little or no assessment of their efficacy. There is much to support the critics of intermediate treatment and it may be that by its generalist approach, more damage than good has been done to the cause of effectively managing young offenders in the community.

All of these debates about options to residential care contributed to the collapse of the CHE system, as shall be considered in my next chapter.

Based on material from Jim Hyland’s book Yesterdays Answers (1994).

Bibliography

Adams, R., Allard, S., Baldwin, J. and Thomas, T. (1981) A Measure of Diversion?  National Youth Bureau.

Bakal, Y. (ed.) (1973) Closing Correctional Institutions. Mass, USA:

Thorpe D. et al. (1976) A Study of the Implementation of the 1969 Children and Young Persons Act. University of Lancaster.

Thorpe, D., Smith, D., Green, C.T. and Paley, H. (1980) Out of Care: The Community Support of Juvenile Offender. Allen & Unwin.

Tutt, N. (1974) Care or Custody? London: Dorton, Longman & Todd.

Tutt, N. (1982) ‘Justice or welfare?’, Social Work Today, 19 October.

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Expectant parents can spend thousands of pounds on baby clothes, toys and other essentials before the birth. However, as many experienced parents will know, most items can be obtained at little or no expense and without depriving babies of anything that they really need. In fact, a new baby needs relatively little, except clothes, love, warmth and food.With help from friends and family, and a little creativity, new parents can get by on even the strictest budget. The following 20 top tips may save you a fortune:

1. Don’t buy a bigger car. All that you need is a back seat for your baby.

2. Aim to breast feed your baby. This is not only good for your baby, but it also saves money on formula milk and other sterilising gear.

3. Before buying baby clothes, toys and other items, invite your friends around for a baby shower. Keep the tags and receipts so that you can exchange unwanted gifts for things that you want or need.

4. Borrow the cot, pram, baby bath and other essential items from friends who have had babies. Most will be more than willing to free up space in their homes. There is no need to buy a cot or high chair until your baby needs them.

5. Search out classified advertisements, car boot and NCT sales, charity shops and eBay.co.uk for toys, cots, prams and other large items. Most are in pristine condition and will cost a fraction of their original price.

6. Buy second-hand baby clothes. Because babies grow out of them so quickly, they are usually in mint condition.

7. Invest in reusable nappies. They are better for the environment and washing them in a machine is easy. If you decide not to use cloth nappies, ask experienced parents to recommend an inexpensive brand. Buying them in bulk can save money and you may gain a few extras free.

8. There is no need to spend money on decorating your baby’s nursery. Within the next year or so, you will be redecorating it again. If you don’t want to miss out on the fun, choose a neutral colour and put up some bright pictures to visually stimulate your baby.

9. Cut and hem bed sheets for cot and pram bedding. As a general guide, a cot is half the size of a single bed and a pram is about a quarter the size.

10. Avoid buying things that you don’t need straight away. You could end up with items that you never use. Once your baby has arrived, you will probably find that friends and family have bought most of the things that you need anyway.

11. Look out for special offers, competitions and coupons online. There are plenty of sites that offer free baby things.

12. Avoid spending money on expensive baby toys. Safe household objects such as plastic measuring cups and spoons or a plastic spatula will provide just as much interest.

13. Draw black outlines of faces on white paper and laminate family photographs. After the birth, they will keep your baby stimulated, happy and entertained.

14. Use a dressing table as a changing area for your new baby. A soft blanket will serve as a changing pad and rubber underlay will keep it in place.

15. Make your own sling or baby pouch. There are plenty of sewing instructions that can be downloaded from the internet.

16. There is no need to buy a baby bouncer or support seat. Your newborn baby will gain more benefit from lying face down on a soft blanket or quilt during supervised waking hours. Toys can be sewn along the sides for extra interest.

17. Make full use of the library for music and books and free story time for babies.

18. Share your favourite music with your baby before and after the birth. It is well known that newborn babies are soothed by the sounds that they heard in utero.

19. To keep your baby clean, all that you need is a good supply of cotton wool and warm water. A large bowl or sink will be ideal for bathing your baby.

20. If you decide to co-sleep with your baby, this will reduce the need to buy a crib or cot. However, you may want to consider having a Moses basket on hand for the first few months.

Safety

It is worth investing in a good quality car seat and cot mattress. You need to be completely sure that a second-hand car seat has not been damaged in an accident and that the fixtures and inside are safe. If you know the history of a second-hand cot mattress, and you are sure that it has been stored well, that it is firm and without marks or stains, it might be safe to use. However, if you are in any doubt, buy a new one.

A new breast pump is an essential purchase. A second-hand pump may contain dangerous organisms from the previous user.

Check that the brakes on a second-hand pushchair or pram work properly. They must contain the British Standard sticker BS7409. If not, they may not meet the latest safety standards.

Check that second-hand toys bear the CE or Lion mark and that they do not have finger traps, magnets, buttons, beads, small parts or sharp points that could present a serious hazard. If the toy fits through a kitchen roll cylinder, then it is not safe. Toys that have long cords should also be avoided, since they can cause strangulation.

Avoid buying second-hand mains powered electrical items or clothes with a drawstring neck.
If you do have doubts about the safety of a second-hand item, carry out an online search to be sure that it is not a recalled product.

Dr Lin Day is the founder of www.babysensory.com.

In the Editorial we celebrate our twelve years of publication. A lot has happened in that time, and we have published over 2,100 articles. We wish you a Happy Christmas and encourage you to buy the Children Webmug. Give yourself a Christmas present.

News Views includes Scotland Street School Museum, the influence of individuals, Tell Us Once, adoption and Prime Ministers, character and child care, Youth and Policy, possible Ph D topics and ‘research’ (mainly about busy mums).

We are printing a paper given by Keith White at a recent conference run jointly by CELSIS and CCHN on his research into residential child care in Scotland and England.

Then there is a moving personal account by John of his childhood and how he coped with severe physical disability - the positives he encountered and the problems.                                               

Valerie Jackson writes of taking pride in the profession of being a teacher - not ‘just a job’.

In his regular column Keith White writes about the paramount importance of character.

The ICSE Professional Insights column looks at their Manifesto, and challenges child care workers to join and set the pace.

There is a report on Nottingham University research into childhood obesity, and another from the Anti-Bullying Alliance about the theme of the recent anti-bullying week - verbal bullying.

Family Doctor Books have provided information about their publications relating to children’s health.

Valerie Jackson has reviewed two books for children on adoption - Me and My Family and Dennis and the Big Decisions.

This month sees the close of Robert Shaw’s definitive series of Key Texts. First he has provided an overview article of some of the lessons to be learnt from the digests of the seventy-five Key Texts which he has prepared over three years. His final two contributions are Andrew Kirkwood’s Leicestershire Inquiry and the study of services for teenagers undertaken by John Triseliotis and others.

Where do we go next? The Children Webmag Board has been considering the future of the magazine, and appreciates that the sheer volume of material published to date means that there is an enormous variety for browsers to consult. Do you have views about ways in which the Webmag should develop? Would you like to write for the Webmag? Or would you like to edit it? Please send in any ideas you may have.

In the meantime, Christmas is coming. Why not send all your friends a Webmug? - a coffee mug specially designed by Tony Cantale and produced by Stubbs Mugs of Sheringham to celebrate the names of people who worked with or for children and young people, and challenge your friends to identify the seventy-one names on it.

We wish you a Happy Christmas and every success in 2012.

Glasgow is a good place to hold a conference and a good city for a weekend break. With Kelvingrove, the Burrell, St Mungo’s, the Necropolis and the spandy new Transport Museum there is plenty to see and there are lots of good restaurants and shops.

For Children Webmag purposes, we are focusing on the Scotland Street School Museum. It is a school on the south side of the Clyde, just across the road from the Shields Road Subway Station. It was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh - with recognisable features of his style - and it cost £34,291 to build. Built between 1903 and 1906 for boys and girls, it is a three-storey building, designed for 1,250 pupils, but when inner city decay blighted the area, there were fewer than 100 on the roll, and in 1979 it was closed.

Which provided an excellent opportunity for it to become a museum, with traditional classrooms which are laid out to show how things were in Victorian times, in the 1950s and so on. There is a room displaying all the designs and working drawings, and of course there are a café and shop. We can recommend it to anyone interested in the history of education, or the older visitors who want to remind themselves about what schools were like in their day. It is regularly visited by parties of school-children, though we suspect that they are not subjected to the use of the taws to make their visits realistic.

In passing we noted a sign to the effect that the headmaster had two infant mistresses. It is amazing what difference a slight change in intonation can make to meaning. English has so many nuances to trip up a non-native speaker.

The Impact of the Individual

In his overview of the Key Text series this month, Robert Shaw concludes, “This all suggests that a key source of good practice is a good model and therefore that perhaps the route to improving the quality of care is not more training but the identification, as in a number of artistic professions, of those who are masters or mistresses of their art and the creation of opportunities for those who also wish to become top practitioners to work alongside them.”

This rings true for us. Back in the early 1970s the quality of training in residential child care related highly to the tutors who ran the CRCCYP courses. It was they who not only gave their students the factual material they needed but encouraged them as professionals and challenged them in their personal growth. One could see the impact of the tutors as individuals; fortunately they were an excellent group. They also acted as a group and were highly influential in pushing up standards of residential child care.

Developments at CCETSW did away with the CRCCYP and there has not been a group of trainers with comparable influence since. In any case, CCETSW felt that it was wrong for trainers to be individually influential and that it was more in keeping with equal opportunities for them to stand back, selecting students and assessing them less subjectively.

Tell Us Once

In a single appointment at their local authority, a person can notify all the relevant government departments and service authorities of their circumstances - births, deaths, changes of address and so on. Under the scheme, up to eleven different services can be notified on users’ behalf, making it a much easier way for them to report to the relevant authorities. Tell Us Once is already in place in many UK regions and should be rolled out to 96% of the country by March 2012.

Tell Us Once claim to be saving the government and the individuals who need to provide information both time and a lot of money. Overall, if the current arrangements were continued, the savings to customers and government are estimated to be £1.1bn over 10 years. We do not, of course, expect to see where the savings go.

For more information about Tell Us Once, please visit: Reporting a birth: www.direct.gov.uk/birth-tellusonce Reporting a bereavement: www.direct.gov.uk/death-tellusonce

Why Adoption?

As a minor sideline in the political scene, it is intriguing that John Major, Tony Blair and now David Cameron have all taken a direct interest in adoption. Tony Blair even took the highly unusual line for a Prime Minister of chairing a committee on the subject. Far be it from us to deny the importance of adoption - it can be life-changing for both the adopters and the adopted children, - but in terms of volume it is a relatively small-scale service within children’s services, and there are plenty of other services which also have a dramatic impact on the lives of individuals but which do not get the PMs’ attention, such as treatment for self-harming or secure accommodation.

We suspect that adoption has the image of being a discreet and straightforward service, which can be readily grasped and the PMs may feel capable therefore of having a personal impact and being seen as providing a positive helpful service, if only the idle and stupid professionals can be exposed to their politically honed leadership, drive and magnetism.

Character

In his In Residence column this month Keith White writes of the importance of character. For the last thirty years in child care in the UK we have emphasised policies, standards, criteria, systems and procedures at the expense of character, personality, motivation, commitment, values and attitudes. There have been good reasons for trying to be explicit in our policies and trying to set higher standards but this approach has also resulted in a sort of emotional and spiritual dumbing down.

Keith points out that some of the great names in child care did things for which they might now be disciplined or dismissed. In the electronic age massive amounts of information are available, and one danger is that if professionals feel that they are under perpetual scrutiny they may do only the things for which they will not be criticised, and they will probably do much less that is really creative, imaginative or risky in children’s interests.

Do we want child care professionals who are grey and unrisky, or lively and perhaps at times making mistakes? Research done by a team from Brunel University in the early 1980s in the residential care of people with learning disabilities showed that it was the units’ own practices which were limiting the scope of the residents. This surprised staff and enabled them to review what they were doing and to take greater risks in the interests of the residents. Are our national policies now limiting what can be done for children and young people by hobbling the imagination of the workers?

Thinking Seriously about …Youth Work and Policy

Youth and Policy’s fourth ‘thinking seriously’ conference, at YMCA George Williams College, Canning Town, London, on Thursday 15 March 2012, will explore current youth policy and consider its implications for the youth work field. The conference aims to bring together political, academic, managerial and practice perspectives for open dialogue about policy affecting young people and youth work.

Over recent months, many events have taken place with subsequent policy implications for youth work organisation and practice. Following the implementation of Coalition spending cuts, the Select Committee on Services for Young People, and the riots of summer 2011, a conference to reflect on these events and their consequences in early 2012 is timely and useful. Youth and Policy hope that the conference will present a challenge to practitioners, managers and academics to consider the new landscape, and how policy and practice might be better shaped in the light of evidence and experience.   Contact Tracey Hodgson (Y &P) at conferences@youthandpolicy.org.

Hoping to do a PhD?

A significant proportion of young people leaving care at 18 go back to their parents or move to live with another relative. In making the move, the young people may be turning to someone whom they see as caring and reliable, though some do return to abusive parents (probably on a different footing, however, as they are now young adults).

A retrospective study of these moves might usefully show whether such placements might have been successful if the young people had been able to move there earlier. If so, why were the placements not made? And are there any messages for social workers placing children now?

‘Research’

We have had another crop of findings from surveys, and if you want a Ph D subject but don’t like the last suggestion, how about a meta-analysis of all these small surveys, to see what they tell us about bringing up children today.

1 Busy Mums Milk&more, the local delivery service from Dairy Crest, have discovered that “hardworking mums spend 27,250 hours and 31 minutes running around after their families in their lifetime, meaning that after having kids, women spend a third of their waking life looking after them”.   (This is broken down as Food shopping – 4,155 hours 49 minutes, Cooking – 3,603 hours and 36 minutes, Tidying – 2,620 hours 48 minutes, Washing – 2,442 hours 57 minutes, Washing Up - 2,180 hours and 42 minutes, Ironing – 1,787 hours 45 minutes, School Run – 1,740 hours 57 minutes, Cleaning the oven – 1,694 hours 9 minutes, Helping with homework – 1,544 24 minutes, Cleaning the bathroom – 1,506 hours 57 minutes, Appointments – 1,432 hours 4 minutes, Running kids to after-school clubs – 1,301 hours 2 minutes, Paying bills and sorting repairs – 1,240 hours 12 minutes.)   We like the apparent precision of the findings and their implications. Do mothers really spend 10% more time on cleaning ovens than helping with homework? Does food shopping take so much more time than cooking? And if these are the figures for “hardworking mums”, when are they producing the figures for the lazy ones?

2 More Busy Mums   Meanwhile Argos, advertising their Mums’ grottos (or should the plural be grotti?), have found out that nearly one in four buy their own Christmas presents. You may think that is sad, but their survey also revealed that 31% of mums start preparing for Christmas before October, 56% buy between 11 and 50 presents in total at Christmas, while 67% receive 10 or fewer in return. Even sadder. Nearly one in five spends more than 24 hours in total shopping for Christmas presents, so it’s no wonder then that 48% say they find Christmas shopping a tiring experience. Really sad. And what happened to Christmas shopping in the milk&more survey?

3 What Recession? Computershare Voucher Service found that despite increasing financial pressures, parents are refusing to scrimp on gifts, with 16% revealing they expect to spend over £300 in total on their kids’ presents this year, a further 19% shelling out between £200-£300 this holiday and 5% saying that they are planning to spend over £500. HSBC, though, found that 21% of parents were going to have to borrow to cover the cost of Christmas.

4 Waste Food   While British surveys focus on busy mums buying food and presents, an American survey points out that between Thanksgiving and Christmas Americans generate an extra 5,000,000 tons of waste. What is more, Western countries throw away 222,000,000 million tons of food each year - about the same as the total food production of sub-Saharan Africa. The Worldwatch Institute offers ten bits of advice to reduce food waste, all of which are pretty obvious to anyone in the UK who was around in World War II, such as portion control and re-using left-overs.

5 Hygiene   Another jolly seasonal research finding from the Hygiene Council was that 48% of Britons are wary of greeting people by kissing them on the cheek if they look ill, but 55% of respondents admitted to having used a dish cloth for longer than they should, resulting in the potential spread of bacteria round the home, and 40% of 16-25 year-olds admitted to having not washed their hands after going to the toilet. Is there room here for a Sugar-style entrepreneur to set up sensors in toilets which tell people off if they try to sneak out without washing - or perhaps squirt purple dye over them so that we know not to shake their hand?

6 Favouritism   Bounty, an advice service for mothers, has found that most parents have a favourite child. “Parents of two children treat their youngest as the favourite”, they say. “The study of 1,803 parents shows that 59 per cent of the time, parents will subconsciously choose the youngest child over the eldest”. And we were taught at school that when there were two, there was a younger and an older one. Our own survey indicates that a high percentage of press releases contain grammatical errors.

From the Case Files

(About a four and a half year old boy) Fines and gross motor developments within normal limits for age   Been caught speeding in his pedal car?

Tags

Scotland Street School Museum Education Influence of individuals Tell Us Once Adoption Prime Ministers Character Youth and Policy Kinship care Housework Waste food Hygiene Favouritism

Introduction

Forty years ago I did a comparative study of children’s homes in Edinburgh and Kingston upon Hull. It was set in historical context.[i] The fact that it has not been published is a great advantage today: because you haven’t read it, what I share will be coming fresh to you! For the record, I undertook the research as part of my preparation for living at Mill Grove and caring for children: so it was intended as a very practical resource for one who has spent the rest of his life, and continues to do so, in what is called in the UK residential child care.

In preparation for this presentation I re-read the thesis (surprised to see its length and detail), and noted things that struck me as interesting or remarkable in 2011. Forty years on I find that I now bring to the material a whole range of new perspectives: in philosophy, social work, sociology, social theory, politics and child care. Legislation, systems and structures, even patterns and ways of thinking and communicating, have changed. The critical reflection of the thesis itself, together with the data it contains, combine to provide historical material upon which we can all reflect.

Of course with a 500-page thesis (how did it get through, I wonder, without my examiner Professor Bob Holman, querying its length?!) I must be selective.

It was, unlikely as it may sound, Malcolm Muggeridge who taught us undergraduates to ask what future historians might make of our contemporary scene. Of course we cannot know, but the endeavour at least helps us to escape from rigid or slave-like adherence to the zeitgeist, fashions and assumptions of our day and age. You will see how I have tried to go about this challenging and rather daunting but nonetheless creative task.

This paper is in two parts. In the first I will reflect on seven aspects of the thesis that struck me on re-reading. In the second I will allow some child care pioneers to return the gaze by using the findings as categories they may use to reflect critically on our contemporary scene. It’s an act of imagination, but as I hope we shall see, without imagination we will serve our children and our society very poorly.

PART ONE

Seven Reflections on the History of Child Care in Scotland and England

In the very varied history spread over centuries, and from urban areas in the lowlands to the highlands and islands, here are seven things that stood out for me. One of the benefits of the way I did my research was that I used primary sources, historical and contemporary, wherever possible.[ii] For the record, I was able to consult a good number of primary sources in Scotland and England,[iii] to study in some detail the era of the Children’s Departments (1948-1968 roughly speaking), and then to be a participant observer in twenty residential homes or units, including nurseries, small group homes, large homes and hostels. Please bear in mind that this is not an attempt to summarise the history, but rather to select and reflect on a few examples and themes from it. I have left out far more than I have included, and leave you to guess what has been omitted!

(1) The Marginalisation of Children

My primary reaction has been an overwhelming sense that whatever was going on, whatever was done for children, their welfare and well-being were not paramount.[iv] It is clear that they were part of political, social, religious and economic systems in which they were effectively nobodies. If they were boarded out, it was because something had to be done with them, not least get them out of a particular locality. They died in huge numbers and no one seemed to ask questions as to why. 93% of babies who came into workhouses in England as babies in 1763 had died within two years. In one workhouse not one of 53 babies lived to see adolescence. The death rate of infants in workhouses was put at 82%.[v]

Half a century later in Edinburgh, in St Cuthbert’s in 1834, of 73 children who left the poorhouse, 8 died.[vi] The statistics are recorded with no explanation or remorse. Had there been Serious Case Reviews at the time, the bureaucracy would have imploded under their weight!

All through the records there are stirring examples of people who see children as real human beings with names and feelings, fears and gifts, and they have left their traces, but they are operating in conditions and structures that are not of their own making.[vii]

Where the children lived, the nature and size of the places in which they lived, who cared for them, and what happened to them when they left: all these were determined by representatives of systems that did not have children in the centre of their vision.

The Poor Law was not devised with children in mind, for example, but poor children were affected by it in every way and every stage of their lives. The voice of the child is mostly silent: they are often not seen, but in those cases where they do, they are certainly not heard. It simply does not seem to occur to boards and organisations to ask their views.

One of the concepts commonly used in the discourses of the 19th and 20th centuries is that of ‘institutionalisation’. It has come to mean batch living as typified by poorhouses, hospitals, prisons and schools. What this meaning misses is the way in which they institutionalise or embody the values and beliefs of a society towards certain groups - in this case, poor children. Anyone who knows the work of Michel Foucault (and I did not when I did my research) knows what I mean.[viii]

Residential nurseries are a case in point. They still existed when I did my research and who knows whether the material may one day be used by a budding Foucault of the future? Many of the staff had in mind the idea that they were providing normal family life and were being mothers to the children, while the places were organised contrary to what we now see as in the best interests of the little children. For example, there were different shifts putting them to bed at night, and waking them up in the morning.[ix] Such places are better explained by, and therefore reveal, the way society was organised and its prevailing values.

The dominant colours of the places where children lived are significant: grey, brown and dark green. They share a common DNA with schools, hospitals and workhouses.

And in all of them play is undervalued, while work, discipline and cleanliness are exalted. What sort of society is it that fails to see the centrality of play in the lives of children?[x]

(2) The Meaning of Childhood

This leads us on to ponder what people had in mind when they thought about or interacted with children. I did my research at a time when the sociology of childhood was ‘pre-paradigmatic’. Childhood was a sub-set of education, family, adulthood. This means that the data drawn from centuries indicates how rarely there was any critical analysis or thinking about what might be going on, and why. They continue with their routines and structures without seeming to ask what was best for children. And if there is little critical reflection on the nature of childhood, it follows that there is little need to question what you are doing to and for children, and why.

There is no development of the philosophy of child care, and holistic thinking and policies are therefore not possible. Health, education, care, religion, and family life are either dealt with as it were along tramlines, or coalesce without notice. When one becomes dominant in the organisation of child care, the others immediately take a back seat. Joined up thinking is for the most part not even a dream. There is nothing resembling social work or family therapy, and child development theory is rudimentary. Many individuals, whether carers or policy makers, clearly had what they saw as the needs of children in the forefront of their minds, but this did not dent the perceived and prevailing wisdom.

If you had to find a way of describing this you might turn to Peter Moss and his felicitous contrast between ‘children’s services’ and ‘children’s spaces’. All through the history that I re-read were descriptions of what was being done for, or to, the child. The essential nature of such a child is a “poor child, not in the sense of a child who is economically disadvantaged…but in the sense of the child who is lacking, deficient, dependent, passive, incomplete, malleable, without agency: the child needing…surveillance, regulation and control”.[xi]

Peter Moss is describing children in general, but child care is primarily about poor children, poor in terms of health, wealth and social capital. Read in this light the children that were written about and cared for in my study are very poor children indeed. The data are a revelation of the prevailing ideologies of childhood.

My re-reading of the data left me feeling constricted: I longed for any evidence that the children are, as it were, allowed to breathe, to laugh, to play, to sing, and to flourish.

(3) Cost and the Logic of Economics

Some may wonder why I have taken so long to get to what historians like Eric Hobsbawm would see as the nub of the issue! Whatever may be written, and however enlightened the theories, there is, as Karl Marx would not have been shy to point out, an underlying economic logic or structure. In this context it is not irrelevant to point out that the European and indeed world political discourse has for some time been virtually monopolised by economics!

The children looked after by the kirk sessions, the Poor Law authorities, local authorities and voluntary organisations were predominantly poor.

The systems, and the people who administered them, whatever their motives, were wrestling with the inexorable pressures of poverty.

And they were responding in ways that were as cost effective as possible: that is the bottom line, sometimes stated, but always held in mind.

This is a truth that should be universally acknowledged: no organisation or system sets out to help children irrespective of cost. But it has not always been given due weight in the histories that have been written. Horrible and offensive though it is to say it, the high rate of baby deaths in workhouses and poorhouses had a positive effect on the balance sheet.

Let me give one or two rather less emotive illustrations of the role of economics in child care provision.

In 1851 the Managers of the Poor, St Cuthbert’s, Edinburgh, compared the respective merits of three types of child care: boarding out (foster care), residential care and Industrial Schools.

They used five categories in their analysis: social status (stigma), moral and religious principles, education, industrial habits, bodily situation/hygiene.

Industrial schools came out as the best option on all scores. But guess what: all the children were then boarded out! Why? Was it cheaper, I wonder? It cost in the region of 2s/4d a week, compared to 4s/6p in poorhouses, and more in Industrial Schools. (25 p as against 50p!)

A detailed study done in Edinburgh in 1904 compared two different types of provision for children in Glasgow and Govan. It concluded that, though more expensive, the provision in Stobhill Hospital for children should be followed with these words:

“Your sub-committee consider that the well-being of the children outweighs the interest of capital expenditure, as there is even financially the ultimate gain of accruing in lives ever so little towards a higher plane.”

The foundation stone was laid on 11 March 1913, but the plans never came to fruition.[xii]

The Poor Law is one of the most pervasive influences on child care in the UK, and has, of course, to do with much more than economics and poverty. Yet think of the brute economics of the system. In some workhouses in England in the 19th century children made up 30% of the population. Yet what were the principles guiding the operation of these institutions? Less eligibility and the workhouse test: everything was done to make life uncomfortable in order to deter people from entering the places! What sort of setting is that for children? And who even asked about them. We have the simple triumph of economics. And when children are boarded out in families or voluntary homes, the economic case for both is transparently obvious.

(4) The Motif of Separation (thanks to Foucault)

Those familiar with the work of Foucault, especially on madness, know of his argument that there is a deep-seated imperative that leads to the separation and classification of people into types. It is not possible to read the data in my research today without seeing the underlying desire of a society to separate its poor children from the rest of society. This happened by boarding out (into far-flung parts of Scotland), by placement in poorhouses and later by placement in children’s homes. Let me try to identify some of the elements of this thinking and ideology.

(4.1) The fear of contagion

Rarely did things get spelt out as clearly as the St Cuthbert’s Parish Managers’ Report of 1852:

“It has to be kept in mind that the children to whom this question relates, are pauper children. They are the offspring generally of the most debased class of society. Their hereditary and acquired dispositions and principles are in consequence of the worst and most pernicious kind. Now to disseminate such children over the country is in some measure to sow it with the seeds of moral evil. Their vicious principles and example are calculated to contaminate all they meet with their presence, and will, in consequence tend to spread demoralization wherever they reside.”[xiii]

The location and organisation of all child care, including children’s homes and children’s villages, cannot be understood unless and until one realises this perspective. Whatever is done must be considered not only in terms of the perceived effects on the children, but also on the rest of society. Think of uniforms, of crocodile formations, of regulated visits.

(4.2) The attraction of “clean new starts”

Another side of this fear of contagion is the desirability of clean air, and well-run institutions. This is well known and we do not need to detain ourselves here. Think of reports on George Muller’s Homes, or the Bridge of Weir.[xiv]

Thus it was that children of a very young age were placed in care (of various sorts). Residential nurseries were established in Edinburgh in 1936. And I observed how they ran during my research in the late 1960s. They were run by nursery nurses, and the staff told me how different the conditions were from those from which the children had come. It was deemed that children of an early age (under fives) are not prejudicially affected by institutional life! [xv]

Residential schools for the poor, usually called hospitals, were a feature of Scottish welfare from the 17th and 18th centuries. These offered the boys and girls who gained places new starts in life.[xvi]

Voluntary children’s homes began in large measure as an alternative to the poorhouses: separating children from other paupers; but they also separated them from neighbourhoods and communities as well as families.

(4.3) Emigration

This has received much attention since I completed my research, but this very dramatic form of separation was practised throughout the child care system in Scotland and England. So in 1834, 6 boys, and 5 girls leaving St Cuthbert’s poorhouse went to the USA. That was 15% of the total.[xvii]

(4.4) Gender separation and life chances

One form of separation that is taken for granted is that between the genders. All children, male and female, tended to be from poor families and communities, but their life chances differed depending on whether they were male or female. The care system, whether in Scotland or England, was in effect training girls to be domestic servants.[xviii] There is a lively concern with education and apprenticeships especially in Scotland, but all girls were destined to be servants, so the quality and level for them was basic.

(4.5) Separation between residential and field staff

At the time of my research, the era of the Children’s Departments was coming to a close, and social work was about to dawn, hence the terminology. What is clear to me now, but was not at the time, is that the very deep perceived status and professional gap between the two groups reflected, among other things, the substantial nature of the separation of the children from their families and communities.[xix] There was a similar sense of isolation or separation of the residential staff from their organisations and headquarters. This mirrored, and possibly increased, the sense of separation that the children felt.[xx]

(4.6) Separation of staff from rest of the world/life

Staff who lived in children’s homes told me that they felt cut off from everyday normal life. And this was obviously a reflection of the reality of the nature of the life of the home and children.[xxi] In 1852 a Board of Supervision Report set out sound principles that should undergird boarding out: yet hundreds of children for over 100 years found themselves in settings that separated them from what it described as “domestic intercourse”, companionship of peers, and everyday life in a household.[xxii]

(4.7) Separation of child and staff in homes from the life story

It may surprise us to know that there was a very lively debate in the 1950s over whether staff in children’s homes should be told about the life stories or backgrounds of the children for whom they cared. The reason? The fear that this might prejudice them against the children. One member of staff told me that she had not known when she worked for Barnardo’s whether children had parents or not. So entry into a children’s home for a child meant that the separation from home and community might be reinforced by a loss of a shared personal story.[xxiii]

(5) The Place of Formal Religion in Residential Child Care

The pattern of life in all types of care stressed the importance of religious training and observance. At Daniel Stewarts, Edinburgh for example, on a Sunday, you would have one hour of religious teaching and attend two services, lasting 2 hours and 1 ¾ hours respectively. Red House Home Report confirms that this is common.[xxiv]

But the very existence and size of children’s homes cannot be understood without reference to formal religion. The influx of Irish Roman Catholic immigrants from the 1846 famine onwards helps to explain the growth of Roman Catholic orphanages such as Smyllum. By 1910 Smyllum in Lanarkshire had 700 children in it. Why so big? Because there were so many Roman Catholic children needing care, and not enough suitable boarding out[xxv] places in R.C. families.

When I interviewed staff in 1970 the place of Christian faith was assured: children went to church, and children were encouraged in the Christian faith.

None of this seemed anything other than normal or reasonable at the time. I found little or no trace of anyone questioning such assumptions.

(6) The Influence of Training and Theory on Practice

Come to think of it, this was an underlying theme of my research! And what did I find? That it was only in one or two cases in 1970 that I saw the effect of healthy theory in practice. There was a Barnardo’s home, Blackford Brae in Edinburgh, where the house-parents assisted by the headquarters staff, tried to work out, and through, a form of therapeutic child care. It was the outstanding example in the whole of my work.[xxvi]

And the residential nurseries were closed very soon after I studied them: Bowlby would have been mightily relieved. All the evidence I gathered in, and from them, confirmed his research: however well-run, and however good the staff, they had prevented bonding between biological parents and their children, and also between others who might have become significant in the children’s lives. Video clips would have revealed all the tell-tale signs of separation-anxiety.

(7) Forgotten Housefathers

And now what may come to some as a complete surprise: a chapter of my thesis was on housefathers in children’s homes.[xxvii] And I realise that this section is likely to be of considerable historical interest. They are liminal figures all round, and in many ways keep the whole thing going. In the ideological contrast between institutional care and family foster care, they are invisible. They are not paid; they are not line managed.

They are the forerunners of fathers in foster homes, of course: in the system, but not of it. They represent the cooks, the handymen and the gardeners in therapeutic communities and large homes: without formal roles in relation to the children, and therefore tending to be much more attractive and less-threatening to relate to.

Perhaps they could be said to be representatives of the great traditional truth that we neglect at the peril of our children and our societies, that it takes a whole village to raise a child. They are the hidden villagers; the unsung heroes (and, in some cases, no doubt, villains). Once we move from services to spaces, we open up the possibilities of an untold number of roles and variations.

This reminds me that the Children’s Officers in Hull and Edinburgh used to go on holiday with some of the children in their care, and that I found an early example of what has been called ‘corporate parenting’ in Hull in 1593. It was originally called Cloth Hall, and later Charity Hall. This is a fine example of a ‘village’ seeing how different people could combine their resources to help raise poor children.[xxviii]

PART TWO

Returning the Gaze through the Eyes of Korczak and Ramabai

So these are just seven selected and necessarily sketchy reflections on the research. What does one do about it? How do you learn from it so that you are wiser, and your understanding and relationships with children are more sensitive and insightful?

Looking back on my study reminded me that although I have long been interested in the pivotal roles of vision and leadership in residential child care, my data did not lead me to people or places (with the one notable exception I have mentioned) where I could develop my thinking.

So I am led to pose the question about where and how some of the great pioneers in the field of residential child care and education might have related to the narrative that I have been drawing from. For the benefit of children now and in the future we must have those who will be prepared to swim against the tide, to pioneer new forms of child-friendly spaces in what is always a changing social and cultural context. Where and who are the pioneers today: not the lecturers and writers, but those engaged in daily practice and reflecting on it?

Some of you know that I listed and described many of the giants on whose shoulders we stand in a paper delivered at a SIRCC Conference in Glasgow in June 2007.[xxix]

With them in mind I find myself with a host of unresolved questions:

Could any of my heroes and heroines have survived in the places and systems I have described?

Is a children’s home that is part of a bigger department or organisation already compromised?

How can a state or profession create a coherent vision of care which does not stifle individual gifts, and contradict local conditions?

Where would these people be today and what would they be doing?

How are their practice models, examples and inspiration being transmitted today?

What is happening to training today?

It takes a whole village to raise a child: has this got anything to do with corporate parenting?

Two of these pioneers have been of particular importance to me for different reasons:

Janus Korczak, from Poland

Pandita Ramabai, from India.

I guess that you will have your own: it might be worth listing them and comparing notes, but use your favourites for this final exercise.

Let me close by looping back on history, and imagining today’s scene through the eyes of two of these pioneers. What would the pioneers have made of today’s scene, I wonder? This is an exercise in imagination, and what I say is intended to open up the process, not define it.

(1) The Marginalisation of Children

It might be argued that post the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and extensive work on Safeguarding Children, the Voice of the Child in Care and so on, we have learned from history and got this one right at least. In the spirit of our times we are poised to tick that box! But that would be to lack both the necessary understanding of our contemporary world, and also the appropriate humility.

UNICEF reports on the well-being of children in the UK are not encouraging. Were these pioneers around today how would they operate in the outcome-driven, tick-box culture which we have allowed to develop? What is the lot of poor children in their own homes and neighbourhoods? How central are they to the main economic and political discourses? How much attention is being paid as we focus on the Euro crisis, on the legacy we may be leaving to future generations? Is the commissioning of children’s services a model appropriate to the creation and support of the village that it takes to raise a child?[xxx] When will we listen to what children and young people say about the positives of residential care, for example?

I hear the voices of Korczak and Ramabai leading a chorus of UK pioneers asking: where are the living practice examples and models of places where children are in the midst? Where are the radical challenges to the whole system and systems, that are lived out alongside children and young people? I hear Korczak on the railway station platform with the oppressive totalitarian Nazi regime seemingly fully triumphant and squeezing everything and everyone into its vicious mould challenging the system. And then stepping forward, so that, in the ultimate marginalisation that was to take them to the gas chambers, he was with them.

(2) The Meaning of Childhood

What of the risk-averse culture that surrounds childhood? How child-friendly would these pioneers find our ways of life? With possibly the major effort and energy going into child protection (Is that all we now have to offer? I have been asked), are we not in danger of restricting children’s spaces? How are they to enjoy learning from mistakes as well as achievements? We now have notices warning the children that nettles sting, and brambles prick. Where will it end, I wonder? What do these signs tell us about our view of childhood, I wonder? At a period in history when the development of electronic communication draws children and young people to screens of varying shapes and sizes, how well are we doing when it comes to spontaneous, active outdoor play? What and who are prepared to confront the consumer-driven exploitation of children, young people?

I see Ramabai playing with children in the garden of her sadan, I see them on the roof under the canopy of the night sky wondering at the constellations, I hear them splashing in the river and the sea. Whatever the meaning of childhood it is a precious gift to the whole of a society, and we are to be alongside children and young people wondering with them, laughing and playing with them, as together we explore the meaning of life, death, the micro-worlds of insects, and the macro-worlds of outer space.

(3) Cost and the logic of economics

We find ourselves wrestling with the imperative and logic of poverty and economics, however we try to massage the figures and the reality.

We like to think that we have left Poor Law thinking and categories behind. But that is far easier said than done. The shadow of the principle of less eligibility hangs over all that we do. This is where we need and welcome the observations of those from other nations and cultures on the British scene. The pioneers knew all about economic realities, and they found ways to create the spaces they needed to operate in what they saw to be people-friendly ways.

I see the smile on the faces of Korczak and Ramabai as they hear us talk of the economic pressures of our societies past and present. They knew better than us the harsh, grinding realities of poverty and wealth: the inescapable links between the two. And yet they found ways of realising their visions, by generating wealth financial and social. Is it possible, I imagine them thinking, to realise a children’s republic in a state system? Or is it necessary to operate outside the formal machinery of state to live with complete integrity among, with and for children?

(4) The Motif of Separation (thanks to Foucault)

We would like to think that we have moved on from a fear of contagion, but this is not so obvious when we consider the juvenile justice system.

We have realised the impossibility of clean starts thanks in the main to attachment theory. But have we been overly attracted to behaviour therapy and management, as distinct from psychotherapy?

We are probably happiest when we think of the progress we have made with gender, but have found the prevalence of teen-age pregnancy adversely affects the life-chances of many females in the care system.

Why has parenting become seen as that which can only be done by biological or substitute parents? Where is the whole village in contemporary British child care?

I think I trace a smile on the faces of Ramabai and Korczak: yes, this analysis is sound, they seem to imply. And everything we tried to do can be seen as an attempt to combat such separations. Korczak is remembered as the carer whose memorial in Jerusalem is in the form of a single piece of wood in which he is united with the children with whom he lived. Ramabai’s whole vision was of an inclusive community where human relationships were restored in a space that she had so carefully, patiently and lovingly created near the great city of Pune.

(5) The Place of Formal Religion in Residential Child Care

We do not give formal religion anything like the prominence it had, beyond trying to match children and carers in the most basic of ways. This raises the question of what we might venerate and sacralise in its place. The sacred in any group or society is often invisible to the insiders, but palpably obvious to the visitors and strangers. Are contracts and individual packages of care, independence and autonomy worshipped at the expense of social and communal interdependence? Has a visit to the shopping mall replaced the attendance at church services? What is the routine today?

I have pondered how Korczak and Ramabai would have responded to such thinking and questions. What is clear to me is the piercing awareness each had of the manifestations of the sacred in all societies and social groups, and their determination to allow space for each child to explore everything from the recesses of their hearts and to the infinity of life beyond death, without fear. They saw beyond the confining orthodoxies that so beset the human species.

(6) The Influence of Training and Theory on Practice

How coherent is our philosophy of childhood, education and care? Attachment theory: relationships; the use of self in therapy; therapeutic communities.

There is a wealth of wisdom and experience: why do we find it so hard to use it?

There is a corporate lack of memory, and inability to learn lessons from history: short-termism. Where has our corporate memory gone? It seems as if social work as some of us understood it is a relic of history.

Our failure to embrace social pedagogy and the continuing separation of care from education suggest that we have still not learnt from the residential schools. Why does education and learning suffer so much when children are looked after?

Like all the great pioneers Ramabai and Korczak had an insatiable appetite for learning, especially with and through children. They searched libraries and academic disciplines for working models, and then sought to put them into practice, always ready to modify them in the light of critical reflection, and with the active engagement of children and young people. But they saw that there is no single discipline that does justice to the nature of childhood: properly speaking it must in some way embrace all disciplines.

(7) Forgotten Housefathers

How well do we connect what we are trying to do with other areas of civic and social life? We have units dotted around towns and cities, but are they actually isolated? Do they actively engage in the life of their communities? And vice-versa? One person, one vote. Individual packages of care. How vibrant is our life together? Communities? Peer groups? We are strong on human rights, but what effect does this have on civic and social life?

I wonder if it is in this sort of role that the pioneers would have chosen for themselves! Both Ramabai and Korczak sought to create villages: social spaces in which there was a role and place for everyone, all aspects of social life. And their lives are testimonies to the creative ways in which they welcomed the contributions of those that other systems might have excluded. What they had in mind was more like a compost heap than a bee-hive!

Conclusion

This paper has been an essay on the subject of learning from history. Looking back to see what others did and, more importantly, assumed about child care. And then allowing two representatives from the giants on whose shoulders we stand to return the gaze on our own time, our assumptions, values and practice.

As you have no doubt gathered, it has been a rather personal journey of discovery about what I took for granted just forty years ago!

You have allowed me to indulge in this way, and I welcome your constructive critical reflection. It is never easy to look at ourselves with sufficient distance to enable critical reflection. But I hope you see how valuable the exercise might be, even if I have not demonstrated it adequately.

I have spent a goodly part of the past ten years trying to set out a coherent philosophy of child care, at the same time as trying to practise it. (I think you can work out which is the more challenging task!) It can be found in the book The Growth of Love and its companion Reflections on Living with Children. It occurs to me that I am still trying to distil and set out not only what I have learned from daily interactions with children, but also from history. And in time The Growth of Love will become history. But its purpose was to learn more so that what we think and how we live is better suited to the gifts and needs of the children and young people with whom we live.

We owe it to children today as well as future generations at the very least to record our thoughts and our dreams. Who knows if and when it will be read: but at least we tried. The conditions may not have been of our own making, but we have attempted to do our best.

Most of you will know the poem History Lesson by Steve Turner:

History repeats itself.

Has to.

No one listens.

Perhaps we are bucking that universal and vicious circle today. Thank you for listening!

Notes

[i] Keith J. White, “Residential Child Care Past and Present” University of Edinburgh, M. Phil. 1973

[ii] No doubt much has been written since I did my research at Edinburgh University from 1969-1973, and I deliberately tried to work directly from my limited data in order to reflect on them directly: without the mediation as it were of other research.

[iii] My focus was on Scotland, but I drew from England too, and what I say here will encompass data from both countries.

[iv] It was probably not until 1925 that the idea that the welfare of the child was paramount was first articulated. 1925 Guardianship of Infants Act (15 & 16 Geo V c 45)

[v] Jonas Hanway, An Earnest Appeal for Mercy to the Children of the Poor, London 1766; also Parliamentary Report 1767, PP Vol XXXI (Nov 11^th 1766-March 10^th 1768, pages 248/9

[vi] 1835 St Cuthbert’s Minutes, page 64

[vii] There are some excellent and moving reports including those by Lady Davenport-Hill, London 1889, Hannah Archer

[viii] The most obvious example to illustrate this point would be Histoire de la Folie, 1961. There are uncanny parallels between the history of how society treated lepers and those then deemed mad, and the treatment of orphans and poor children, including sending them abroad on ships.

[ix] Keith J. White, pages 401-404

[x] Keith J. White, page 445

[xi] Peter Moss, From Children’s Services to Children’s Spaces in Keith J. White (ed) The Changing Face of Child Care, NCVCCO 2000, page 21.

[xii] 1904 Edinburgh Minutes, Appendix, page 3. See Keith J. White 80-84.

[xiii] Keith J. White, page 52

[xiv] Report on Mullers, Keith J. White page 121

[xv] Keith J. White page 82

[xvi] Keith J. White pages 26/7

[xvii] 1835 St Cuthbert’s Minutes, page 64 See Keith J. White page 62.

[xviii] Keith J. White pages 62-63

[xix] Keith J. White page 165

[xx] Keith J. White page 253

[xxi] Keith J. White page 442

[xxii] Keith J. White pages 57/8

[xxiii] Keith J. White page 185

[xxiv] 1874 Report of the Red House Home (page 8) See Keith J. White, page 77.

[xxv] Boarding out (local or distant) included placement in voluntary homes (notably Roman Catholic orphanages) 20% in later 19^th century…Keith J. White page 56

[xxvi] Keith J. White pages 459/60

[xxvii] Keith J. White pages 427- 439

[xxviii] Keith J. White pages 98/9

[xxix] Parts of the paper were published in the Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care (2007 and 2008), and the whole paper is available on www.childrewebmag.com Issue 91/July 2007, and in Reflections on Living with Children, pages 163-174.

[xxx] I still find the Barnardo’s project in Somerset compelling: a whole community needs to be involved, but that requires a non-contract model of operation. A. Newman et al “Removing Disabling Barriers and Promoting Inclusion” in Children and Social Exclusion, Keith J. White (ed) NCVCCO 1999 pages 109-123

Being born at a time with such a severe congenital disability was not easy and it was inevitable that I should be taken into care. My blood parents were not able to be the mother and father they craved to be through poverty, chronic illness and the crushing burden of already having lost a child.

My arrival was hardly the stuff of joy. I have always held a great sympathy for them. I was admitted to Barnardo’s at 18 months after extensive surgery. I emotionally thrived and was fortunate to be informally adopted by a worker at the Barnardo home, Judith, who became my surrogate mother until her untimely death in 1999.

Judith was part of that great army of women at those times who worked in residential childcare as a lifelong vocation, sacrificing personal relationships and home life. She was never able to adopt me because my blood mother always refused to agree to it. Judith became my mother, providing key elements of nurture, safety, security and constancy. Despite living with over 50 other children, she always stood out for me and would always take me back to her family home in the West Country for memorable carefree holidays. On reflection I had a wonderful childhood – something I am acutely aware was not a common experience for many children brought up in residential care.

My formal schooling did not start until I was 9 years old - by chance when a visiting Governor of a residential special school noticed me and arranged a place at the school. Judith remained a major figure in my life and would visit often in term-time and take me to her family home in school holidays. My parents insisted on maintaining contact and considerable influence, however. This jarred with their inability to take parental responsibility for me. My mother was, understandably I suppose, jealous of Judith and I think this was the root cause of my mother’s refusal to let her adopt me. My blood parents were physically and emotionally increasingly distant from me. But they always loomed.

Then disaster struck. On leaving school, Barnardo’s rolled out a policy of ‘repatriating’ estranged children in their care to blood parents irrespective of the relationship (if any) that existed and the length of time the child had been in care. Without notice I was moved from the Barnardo home that was my home and where my real mother lived.

I was taken to a children’s home hundreds of miles away, nearer the home of my blood parents. A process of gradual reintegration started, with me spending more and more time in an alien environment with people who did not want me or I them. Apart from the sense of the crushing loss of Judith (she was effectively barred from making contact with me during this time) I had no roots, friends or security. It was a dreadful time and was only resolved by my reaching young adulthood and my blood parents divorcing which rendered the ‘happy family home’ fiction into dust. It was a bizarre childcare policy – bordering on the inhuman and illogical.

At this time I was lucky to have a forward-looking Local Authority social worker who stepped in and arranged for me to move into local independent living where I could make choices about my life. The first one I made was to re-establish a home at Judith’s family home. My development continued exclusively through the segregated Special Education sector until the late 1970s when I attended a mainstream Sixth Form College to study science A levels.

I got the necessary grades which enabled me to take up my first choice of university. My university years were the perfect ground for somebody whose life had so far been largely segregated to explore and enjoy an integrated lifestyle. This was its greatest gift to me. On graduation, I entered the world of work and after roles in banking, Local Government and Central Government I joined a large national disability charity, where I developed and headed up its influential policy, parliamentary and campaigning department for many years.

About 10 years ago I made contact with the Barnardo’s After Care service They had a new policy of letting people brought up within Barnardo’s to see their care files. This service was the brainchild of its visionary boss, Roger Singleton, who felt that people knowing about where they had come from was an important, indeed vital, step in understanding who they were. I met Roger many times later on professionally in my adult years up to his retirement six years ago. I think we both found our encounters deeply satisfying, knowing the journeys we had each taken in our lives.

In 2008 I was diagnosed with a progressive and untreatable neuropathic disease of the gastric system. This worsened over 2009 and on the advice of my Consultant I stepped back from full-time work. I am not idle, however. I now hold a number of national public appointments which keep me well occupied.

I feel very blessed with the opportunities I have been given. I strongly believe that being ‘admitted’ to Barnardo’s was a hugely positive step. I was able to thrive, learn, develop and manage my physical disabilities. I have been equally blessed with a good career and supportive friends. But I end with a tear – for the far too many care leavers who were not granted these chances and opportunities. Their life chances are scandalously diminished. This places my own story in stark perspective and readers of my tale should not take false comfort for a system which fails more than it succeeds.

Education and Training

What concerns me most is that a number of individuals coming into the industry have little or no interest in children and see it merely as a ‘job’. I find this difficult to comprehend, as working with children can be the most exhausting and most stressful experience in one’s life. The responsibility we have for these children and our future is formidable. We become their role models, their friends and teachers. We often see more of them than their own parents and we know them in a different environment away from the constraints or permissions that home offers.

We have a part in shaping the future of each child we work with. I do not see how that can be boring, a time-filler or something that anyone with no qualifications or insight can achieve.

Sharing Best Practice

When I see or hear about excellence in practice I want to tell everyone and share the secret methods! There is nothing to compare with the first impressions of walking into a child-centred room where everything is there for the purpose of stimulating, encouraging, reassuring and rewarding children, whatever their difficulties or challenges, whatever their race, culture or family background. An inclusive environment is actually quite hard to create. It indicates the mind of an intuitive practitioner with theoretical knowledge to support their instincts for what children need and want.

A Fine Example

I visited a setting recently where the lead practitioner donned a brightly coloured cloak and a witch’s hat and walked around the rooms calling out, “Story time, story time”. The children flocked to her side and when she eventually settled them down in a quiet corner, she proceeded to tell the most amazing story of Anansi the Spiderman and how he got his thin legs. Out of her cloak she produced visual clues as the story progressed. She had spider webs, cooking pots, beans and other items all hidden from view until the moment they appeared with a flourish then promptly vanished again. Each child, whatever their age, gained so much from that experience: the joy of a social gathering, the satisfaction of understanding some if not all of the language spoken, the pleasure of being transported to a different time and a different country. The list is endless.

Is there a Future?

I met with a number of colleagues last week and we were expressing our concern that yet again, the funding for child care and children’s education is ring-fenced or non-existent. Training for child care is less popular than ever. Financial payment for being a child care professional is very low and not likely to rise. Higher qualifications specifically for practitioners who wish to take a management route do not necessarily lead to bigger and better employment prospects and in truth there is nothing bright on the horizon. Yet, we all remain - and willingly - so that we can be part of such a huge event, the modelling and shaping of the next generation.

As you can see, the saying, whatever its source and history, has stuck in my mind. And it came back to me in Glasgow recently when David Divine was speaking at a conference, Learning from History (convened by the Child Care History Network and CELCIS - the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland). He was talking openly about his experiences of life in the children’s home called Aberlour, and also of the research he was doing on the memories and reflections of some of his contemporaries who were cared for there. I had known of Aberlour, and had indeed written about the history of residential child care in Scotland. In fact I had visited the home, when Gerald Barlow was the CEO. Much of what David said confirmed my existing knowledge and the importance of the setting; the place came flooding back to me as he spoke.

But there was one big difference hearing of the home from his personal experience: he was clearly impressed and influenced, perhaps above all, by the characters of the founder Canon Charles Jupp and those who succeeded him: Reverend Walter Jenks, Reverend C A Wolfe (“Wolfie”) and Reverend C W Leslie. They embodied and communicated an ethos that every child, whatever his or her origins or status, had the ability to grow up and flourish in society. It was not just that David Divine was talking about the characters of these four leaders of Aberlour: he was a living testimony of and to them. I had the sense that I was meeting a person who had in some way imbibed and digested something of their characters. Their nature and beliefs had in some way rubbed off on him. And they were all obviously “characters” in the sense of being charismatic leaders.

Now this is something that is vitally important in any form of child rearing or teaching: children need and respect characters. You can use the term role models to get the flavour of what this means, but it is about something more, something deeper than merely this. At the conference David Lane produced some of the Children Webmag mugs he had commissioned, and on them are dozens of the names of pioneers in child care. And every one of the names that I knew belonged to a person who was a character in this sense. It was not just that they believed certain things, taught particular systems or theories, but that they possessed characters for which they are esteemed and remembered.

In any form of child-rearing or learning that is based on relationships and where the key element of the “use of the person” is recognised as the most important resource in the whole process, it is self-evident that in the final analysis it is character that counts. The very beings or souls of these pioneers shone out, and shone through everything that they did. And we can say this without in any way suggesting that they were saints or without faults. The thing about character is that it can transcend and outweigh blemishes and flaws. It is not dependent on perfect performances, theories or deliveries.

Yet we skate over this in our contemporary world. You could be forgiven for thinking that training, knowledge, systems and proficient management were the keys to good child rearing. They have in common the quality that they tend to relegate character to the margins. The argument (if indeed there is a coherent philosophy) seems to be that if you are sufficiently trained then you will be effective in child care. Yet we all know, if we think about schools and teaching, that the effectiveness of a teacher is always primarily to do with her character and personal qualities. Highly intelligent and/or qualified teachers who do not gain the respect of the class if their personalities, integrity and characters, are, to put it bluntly, virtually useless.

Why is it that we have relegated character to the margins so decisively, I wonder? Are we afraid of something? Perhaps we realise that no one today would get away with the spontaneity, risk-taking and actions of our forbears. I remember someone saying of David Wills, for example, that he would never get away with what he used to do in today’s climate. Perhaps we have lost sight of vocation or calling in child care.

Be this as it may, I am writing this piece on the exact anniversary of the founding of Mill Grove on 20 November 1899, and members of what we call the Mill Grove family have been returning home to celebrate. There were two founders of Mill Grove 112 years ago: Herbert White, my grandfather, and Rosa (“Ma”) Hutchin. Those who remembered them talked of owing everything that they are today to their characters: they were role models, not just of life and action, but of attitudes and personality.

Fashions (and their associated vocabularies) in child care as in teaching are notoriously short-lived and fickle. So I am not sure if “preparation for independence”, “life skills” and “resilience”, are still all the rage, or even whether they are politically correct! But of this I am sure: in the final analysis whatever a child is taught and knows, it will always be his or her character that counts in the long run. In fact, when we talk of resilience, I think we are inescapably bound to refer in some way, however indirectly, to the character of a child.

I look at legislation, training, policies, standards, and Ofsted reports, and wonder how it can be that we fail to do justice to what we all know to be true.

Once we have celebrated Founders’ Day at Mill Grove, Advent and Christmas are always just around the corner. So it is that as soon as I have finished this article I must devote myself to creative thinking about Advent Sunday. As I wish all the readers of Children Webmag a very happy Christmas, it occurs to me that whatever we may know or think about Jesus, those who knew and know him best, were and are attracted above all to his character. Would that it might find its way in its fullness into every follower and every group that calls itself, like the four leaders of Aberlour, “Christian”.

The ICSE established the following objectives at its last General Meeting in March 2011. Some are major long-term aims; others are more immediate. The ICSE wanted to:

* Challenge the short and long-term damage caused by cuts in services;

* Promote good management, leadership, training and support for childcare staff;

* Promote good professional practice developments, including social pedagogy and restorative practice;

* Focus on extrafamilial / residential care;

* Focus on managers of services;

* Enhance the status of the childcare profession;

* Promote registration of childcare managers of services;

* Recruit members so that elected Board can be established.

Action Plan 2011-2012

Its plan consisted of about a dozen specific pieces of action, many of which it has carried out.

* The ICSE has developed strong links with the Social Care Association so that those who join obtain dual membership, with all the benefits open to other SCA members. Vic Citarella, the Clair of the ICSE, has also participated in SCA’s meetings.

* Members have been recruited, but not yet in the numbers we would like.

* An email list of members and supporters has been drawn up.

* The ICSE website has been redesigned and maintained.

* Monthly articles on Professional Insights have been provided by ICSE Board members in Children Webmag.

* Articles on child care have appeared in the SCA’s magazine, Social Caring.

* Active links have been maintained with a number of other professional organisations.

* The ICSE has acted as a focus for the campaign to re-establish NCERCC or its equivalent, including a meeting with Tim Loughton, Minister for Children, plans for a wider inter-organisational meeting and the promise of a speech by Tim Loughton at a conference.

* Plans to elect a new Board in March 2012 are due to be activated soon.

Is this Enough?

No. The ICSE needs to be a much larger and more active organisation, but just as oak trees grow from acorns, we have to start from modest beginnings. The current Board has done what it could over the last eight months. It now needs re-inforcing with people prepared to take the Institute forward. As cuts bite, the need for a professional lead is greater than ever.

It is widely suspected that the current wave of obesity among children will result in greater rates of cardiovascular disease and diabetes over the next few decades. But a second systematic review of research into childhood obesity and metabolic disease in adult life has shown there is little evidence of a direct link and suggests that treating obesity during childhood will remove any risk of lasting harm.

This new study, and the second of its kind carried out by nutrition experts at the University of Nottingham, has strengthened their original findings that we could in fact be more at risk of health problems if we are lean as children and become obese as adults. Unexpectedly the work suggests that there could even be a slight protective effect if we are overweight as children and reduce our Body Mass Index (BMI) in adulthood.

The research, funded by the Organix Foundation, and published online in the International Journal of Obesity, warns that as a result dieticians and nutritionists are missing an important at-risk group.

This second review has been performed by Louise Lloyd, a graduate student in nutrition, Dr Sarah McMullen, lecturer in Human Nutrition, and Professor Simon Langley-Evans, Chair in Human Nutrition, all based in the Division of Nutritional Sciences (School of Biosciences). The Division carries out research which focuses on the basis of the individual response to diet, development and ageing.

Their review shows that previous studies suggesting that childhood obesity permanently raises risk of disease failed to take into account adult BMI. As a result, there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate links with long-term risk which are independent of adult BMI.

The researchers reviewed eleven academic studies which considered the health of thousands of people living in westernised countries. They say that when adult BMI was accounted for, people at the lower end of BMI in childhood who became obese later in life actually had the highest chances of high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Professor Langley-Evans said, “There is substantial evidence that childhood obesity tracks into adulthood and it is clear that adult obesity puts us at higher risk of metabolic disease. We are not therefore suggesting that childhood obesity is without consequences. Targeting childhood and adolescence for prevention and treatment of obesity is wholly appropriate in order to establish a healthy weight moving forward into the adult years. However, we have found that the nature of the relationship between early BMI and adult disease risk is very complex. People at the lower end of the BMI range in childhood and go on to be obese as adults seem to be at particular risk. Therefore, by focusing on children who are overweight or obese for the promotion of health weight management we may be missing an important at-risk group.”

Overweight and obesity are associated with a range of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers. The World Health Organisation has estimated that around a third of coronary heart disease and ischaemic stroke cases are attributable to excess weight. As the prevalence of excess weight and obesity continues to increase there are significant implications for population morbidity and mortality with the increase in childhood obesity of particular concern.

Dr McMullen said, “We conducted the reviews because we were interested in the impact of obesity during childhood on long-term disease risk. We were surprised to see that when we adjusted for adult body mass index the relationships disappeared and, in fact, many of them reversed. Our analysis of the research as a whole goes against many of the conclusions from the individual studies. Most surprising to us was the finding that it is those who are relatively lean in childhood but go on to be obese during adulthood who are at particular risk.

“We must be very clear about one thing — obesity does have a very negative impact on health in many different ways. We know that people who are obese during childhood are more likely to be obese as adults, and this has a direct impact on their health and wellbeing at that time. It is generally assumed that an earlier onset and longer duration of obesity is associated with a greater cardiovascular risk, which has increased concerns about childhood obesity trends. However, very important questions remain as to the nature of the relationship. For example, it isn’t clear whether weight loss interventions in adult life can fully ameliorate the risks associated with childhood obesity or whether an independent effect of childhood obesity remains, irrespective of the degree of adult weight.”

The two reviews can be found at:

http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ijo2011186a.html

http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v34/n1/full/ijo200961a.html

This year’s Anti-Bullying Week theme was ‘Stop and think: words can hurt’ and the Anti-Bullying Alliance called on everybody to challenge casual name-calling and the use of derogatory words. According to their figures, based on a survey involving 845 children, one in four children have been verbally bullied in the past year.
The research was released to mark the start of the Anti-Bullying Week campaign which begins on 14 November and highlighted the worrying trend of verbal bullying and the casual use of derogatory language - a widespread

phenomenon not just amongst school children, but in society as a whole.
The results show that around a quarter (26%) of 11-16 year olds had directly experienced verbal bullying, with the vast majority (79%) happening at school. Almost 40% of respondents also reported being bullied online or by mobile phone.
81% of secondary school pupils think verbal bullying is a problem in their school and two thirds (66%) say they have witnessed some form of verbal bullying in the past year. More than 1 in 8 (14%) of 11-16 year olds have considered missing school for fear of being verbally bullied.

The results also show that 54% of respondents would turn to a teacher for help and advice, highlighting the important role of teachers and schools in tackling bullying behavior.

Ross Hendry, Chair of the National Children’s Bureau’s Anti-Bullying Alliance, said, “These figures highlight how much of a problem verbal bullying is. Sometimes there is a tendency to see verbal bullying as being less serious than physical bullying. But the emotional and psychological impact can be just as damaging and may affect young people’s self-esteem and confidence to the point where they don’t want to go to school.

“The figures also show that most verbal bullying takes place in schools. It’s imperative that the school community - teachers, carers, parents and pupils work together to build and maintain an ethos of respectful behaviour so that children and young people are kept safe from all forms of bullying. Casual name calling and the use derogatory language – so common in our schools and in society more generally - can lead to verbal bullying being seen as acceptable.”

The Anti Bullying Alliance brings together over 130 organisations from the voluntary, public and private sectors, who are committed to tackling bullying work together to reduce bullying and create safer environments in which children and young people can live, grow, play and learn. ABA is based at the National Children’s Bureau. For more information visit www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk

The Anti-Bullying Alliance offers the following advice.

For children and young people

• Bullying is not your fault. It is always wrong and you do not have to put up with it.
• Let someone know what is happening as soon as possible. Talk things through with a friend, your family, or your teachers.
• Do not do or say anything in response to the bully. Stay calm and remove yourself from the situation wherever possible. If it is happening through your phone or the internet, keep a copy of the messages or images but do not reply or respond.
• Keep a note or a diary of what is happening.
• Be confident – you have done nothing to deserve this.
• Be assertive.
• You could say, “This is not funny. This is bullying. This is wrong.”
• Think who can help you – young people or adults.
• Seek help from other young people e.g. school might have a peer mentor or buddy scheme.
• Say to someone, “Please would you watch what is happening here” and ask them to help you report the incident.
• Sometimes it can help to talk to someone outside of the situation. You could call Childline on 0800 11 11

For Parents

• If you think your child is being bullied, don’t panic– try to keep an open mind. Your key role is listening, calming and providing reassurance that the situation can get better when action is taken. Provide a quiet, calm place where they can talk about what is happening.

• Listen and reassure them that coming to you was the right thing to do. It may not be easy for a child to talk about being bullied so it is important to try to find out how they are feeling, what has happened, when and where. Though at this stage it is not so much about establishing a set of facts as encouraging, talking and listening.

• Assure them that the bullying is not their fault and that you are there to support them. Remind them that they can also have the support of family and friends.

• Find out what the child or young person wants to happen. Help them to identify the choices available to them and the potential next steps to take; and the skills they may have to help solve the problems.
• Discuss the situation with your child’s school. The law requires all schools to have a behaviour policy which sets out the measures that will be taken to encourage good behaviour and respect for others and to prevent all forms of bullying among pupils.
• Parents can get advice and support from the Family Lives Parentline on 0808 800 2222 or at www.familylives.org.uk.

Family Doctor Books produce health information books - handy pocket-sized books of about 150 pages which are well laid out and very easy and entertaining to read. The books’ contents flow easily with each chapter building on the previous chapter, taking the reader along a journey of discovering more and more about the subject, with helpful explanations, hints and tips and exercises. All the books are written by NHS consultants and published in association with the British Medical Association.

There are 38 titles in all - the ones that may be of interest to child care workers include:

• Childhood Illnesses
• ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia
• Understanding Children’s Behaviour

Childhood Illnesses

The first problem is to recognise when children are ill. It can be very confusing; one minute they may seem really unwell and the next they are up and running around. The book starts with a general description of fevers or infection followed by chapters describing illnesses that affect particular systems of the body. Each of the six chapters starts with a description of the anatomy of the relevant body system. The last chapter explores the concept that ‘prevention is better than cure’.

ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia

The book covers Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Autistic Spectrum Disorder and Asperger’s Syndrome, Specific Learning Difficulty (Dyslexia) and Developmental Co-ordination Disorder (Dyspraxia).

Understanding Children’s Behaviour

This book is intended for anyone bringing up, caring for or working with children - parents, carers, teachers or youth workers alike - but it is addressed mainly to parents, with extra sections on surviving parenthood. The chapters cover

normal development and behaviour, understanding children’s difficult behaviour, common behavioural problems, medical and psychiatric conditions, finding solutions to problem behaviour and surviving parenthood.

Family Doctor Books are all:
• written by NHS consultants,
• presented in an easy to read, illustrated style,
• only £4.95,
• published in association with the British Medical Association,
• available from pharmacies nationwide and from www.familydoctor.co.uk.
To date more than five million copies have been sold.

- The first deals with the adoptive family and how they introduce themselves to their new child. There are pages to write about what the local area has to offer and who is in their family including all important pets.

- The second section is for the child to write about what they would like in their new home and new room.

- The third section is linked to what has happened since the adoption process was completed.

I found this book to be useful but at times rather confusing. It would depend on how much contact, if any, the child has with members of their birth family. For example, there is a page dedicated to birthdays but which family’s?

What it does allow is the opportunity for the child with a trusted adult to talk about issues that may be bothering them or things they are not comfortable with in the new family set-up.

I did appreciate the guidance enclosed in the book on a separate page which stresses that “In every case, how the book is used must remain the child’s choice.” This is such an essential but often omitted aspect of the adoption process.

I can imagine that such a book may sit for years on a book shelf until such time as the adopted child may wish to reflect on life thus far. Adolescents could use it to make sense of how their lives have panned out, especially when they can look back and see their beginnings and what has happened to them since and before adoption.

It is an optimistic and practical book which I would suggest that every adoptive family of a child over the age of three acquires for future use.

Maye, Jean (2011) Me and My Family - a book for adopted children and their families to get to know each other

BAAF

ISBN: 978 1 907585 37 1

The book relates this to the situation of a child who may be asked what they want for their future and, where there is a problem in making a decision, the judge will take on the role of decision maker.

This is a book that would be helpful for children who are experiencing something similar in their lives. The fact that their parents are unable or unwilling to care for them is an issue for a number of children.

Although we do not know the actual result of the decision, it gives an insight into the process leading to fostering and adoption and how children are moved on. The language is clear and straightforward and the analogies of helpful pigeon and clever owl will make sense to young children.

I would recommend this book for children who are Looked After as an introduction to the changes that may occur in their lives soon.

Sambrooks, Paul (2011) Dennis and the Big Decisions

BAAF

ISBN: 978 1 907585 173

Among the retrospective reports, the Leicestershire Inquiry (Kirkwood, 1993) is the best written, the Hughes Report (Committee of Inquiry into Children’s Homes and Hostels, 1986) into abuse in Northern Ireland comes a close second and the Monckton Report (Home Office, 1945) into the death of Dennis O’Neill a close third. All three could be read with profit by a student today. Among prospective reports, the Black Report (Children and Young Persons Review Group [Northern Ireland], 1979) takes the crown with the Skinner Report (Social Work Services Inspectorate for Scotland, 1992) a close second and the Kilbrandon Report third (Committee on Children and Young Persons, 1964).

Among the academic texts The adolescent girl in conflict (Konopka, 1966) is outstanding; it combines an interdisciplinary understanding with a deep commitment to her research subjects and the identification of issues which were not to receive further attention for another twenty years. Though there are several other examples of good research, none of them really come close.

Among the personal accounts, Anton Makarenko’s (1936) is outstanding, as Mr Lyward commented, for its honesty, Tom O’Neill’s (1981) for his capacity to relate personal experience to wider social and professional issues and Frederick Lennhoff’s (1960) for his understanding of how to develop a sense of responsibility in those for whom he was responsible. That is not to say there is not much to learn from other personal accounts but that these each bring something special to their personal stories.

However, the most interesting thing about undertaking this series has been the issues it has raised which have run through so many of the texts.

The medicalisation of care

The medical model of care was explicitly introduced by Mary Carpenter (1853) but did not really begin to take off until the twentieth century, reaching its apogee in the 1960s with the Longford Report Crime — a challenge for us all (Labour Party Study Group, 1964). In the 1970s the backlash against the Johnson administration’s welfare spending in the US led to a demand for demonstrable outcomes from interventions and the development of focused social work interventions (Reid and Shyne, 1969; Reid and Epstein, 1972) which had a knock-on effect on residential establishments which increasingly came to be expected to produce short-term outcomes rather than offer long-term care. This reinforced the medical model which was subsequently taken up by child protection practitioners, in part to justify, as some residential workers had done earlier in the century, the exclusion of parents from the care of their children.

In fact, the evidence that the medical model is ineffective had been accumulating since the first half of the twentieth century with the reports of the Home Office Children’s Branch (Home Office, 1923, 1938). To these were added the research by Taylor and Alpert (1973) and Fanshel and Shinn (1978) that parental involvement is the most significant factor for successful outcomes of care. Around the same time came the evidence brought together by Clarke and Clarke (1976) that short-term interventions without a long-term positive change in the child’s wider environment are ineffective. These general conclusions were implicitly supported in the research by Rowe et al. (1989) and Wiener and Wiener (1990).

Administrative and managerial failures

Common features of every retrospective report are administrative and managerial failures. The proposed solution is normally training but, as O’Neill (1981) points out, this made no difference for Maria Colwell, whose death occurred in strikingly similar circumstances to that of his brother thirty years earlier.

While we know that overwhelming people with paperwork doesn’t work (Crowther, 1981), even when the requirements were far less onerous than they are now, people simply didn’t carry them out (Home Office, 1945). Unfortunately, as far as I am aware, there has been no study of why people do not carry out the most simple requirements.

In relation to management, we can be on surer ground. Fieldwork and residential work are different types of work and need different styles of management (Drucker, 1955; Woodward, 1980). But that has never been recognised in the UK’s management schools, let alone in social services and social work departments where fieldwork structures tend to be applied to the management of residential units.

Residential units benefit from much more horizontal decision-making (Woodward, 1980) and the involvement of the head of the unit in direct interactions with the residents which become a model for how other staff should interact with the residents (King et al., 1971). It is worth noting that several books written in the first half of the twentieth century advocating a particular therapeutic approach (Bazeley, 1928; Neill, 1937; Wills, 1945) described heads who were involved in a high degree of interaction with the residents. Other accounts of apparently successful child care (Makarenko, 1936; Lennhoff, 1960; Bettelheim, 1974; O’Neill, 1981) also share this feature.

Conversely, the worse practice (Levy and Kahan, 1991; Kirkwood, 1993) was associated with managers setting bad examples of practice which their staff sometimes exaggerated in their own work. As both the managers in the last examples were qualified social workers, we can be sure that social work training does not insulate people from bad practice.

This all suggests that a key source of good practice is a good model and therefore that perhaps the route to improving the quality of care is not more training but the identification, as in a number of artistic professions, of those who are masters or mistresses of their art and the creation of opportunities for those who also wish to become top practitioners to work alongside them.

Parental involvement

The evidence for the significance of parental involvement (Home Office, 1923, 1938; Taylor and Alpert, 1973; Fanshel and Shinn, 1978; Wiener and Wiener, 1990) which appears overwhelming in two of these studies has to be set against the evidence that alternative care can also be successful without parental involvement (Wolins, 1969; Millham et al., 1975). The answer may lie in another finding which crops up twice nearly half a century apart - that children benefit from having access to a constant adult whom they trust (Brosse, 1950; Triseliotis et al., 1995).

For most children that adult will be a parent and another adult, whether a foster carer (Berridge, 1985) or a residential worker (Kirkwood, 1993), who seeks to intrude on that relationship will be rejected by the child. On the other hand, when that relationship is not available, an adoptive or foster carer who is prepared to offer the individual relationship a child wants will be welcomed by the child (Tizard, 1977). Nor will children necessarily see that relationship as a permanent alternative to a relationship with their parents; most of the children whom the Juliens cared for during the Second World War went back to their parents after the war (Shaw, 2008) and Lucy, who had blossomed while she was fostered by the Robertsons, was very happy to go back to her mother, a fact which greatly encouraged her mother who had been depressed before the separation (Robertson and Robertson, 1971).

It is therefore very unfortunate that social workers in the 1970s so vigorously opposed the introduction of visitors for children in care who had no contact with their parents because they saw them as rivals for the children’s affections and threats to their control of children’s lives. As Triseliotis et al. (1995) point out, a social worker can become the constant adult in whom the child comes to trust but that is not a relationship which can be forced on the child; it has to be chosen by the child just as it has to be chosen by the child if the adult is a residential worker or a foster carer.

Gender

Apart from Konopka (1966), gender is a side issue in most texts and yet there are enough clues in the texts as a whole that we need to recognise both the different contributions and the different needs of girls. For example, Bazeley (1928) identifies the different strengths of girls in a community while Makarenko (1936) does not hesitate to identify the potential for stigmatising girls in a mixed sex community. Hoghughi (1978) is particularly helpful for identifying how much girls in trouble differ from boys in trouble both in their presenting behaviour and in the ways in which they handle themselves.

But each of these examples can be viewed as unrepresentative of residential care as a whole and policy is largely driven by boys’ rather than by girls’ needs; so the girls’ approved schools which continued to have a very high success rate (Richardson, 1969) were abandoned because of the declining success rate of boys’ approved schools. Unfortunately, texts like Nicholson (1968) and Critchley and Fann (1971a,b), even though they are about young women, tend to identify the gender issues tangentially or by implication.

There is certainly a gap in the literature for a comprehensive account of girls’ needs and experiences of care.

The care system

Cawson and Martell (1979) and Blumenthal (1985) tackle the consequences of the failure of the wider care system most trenchantly but it is also a theme in Hoghughi (1978) in relation to secure provision, Reinach and Roberts (1979) in relation to assessment, in Cliffe and Berridge (1992) in relation to closing residential homes and in several of the abuse reports in which a blind eye appears to be turned to evidence of abuse or abusive interactions. One problem, which Triseliotis et al. (1995) seek to address, is that most research, and most reports, are only concerned with an aspect of the care system rather than with the wider care system. So, for example, comparisons of foster and residential care such asTrotzkey (1930) or Wiener and Wiener (1990) which give us a broad brush view of their strengths and weaknesses need to be complemented by more detailed studies such as King et al. (1971), Millham et al. (1975) and Berridge and Cleaver (1987) which delve more deeply into the potential contributions of different interventions to the care system and how we can address the adverse outcomes for children described by Cawson and Martell (1979).

In retrospect, that could be one of the most important justifications for having brought together this diverse collection of texts under the general heading of ‘Key Texts.’ The hope must be that those reading them will be inspired to recognise the need for individual interventions that meet children’s different needs and the need for a wider child care system that is sensitive to those needs.

References

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Berridge, D (1985) Children’s homes Oxford: Blackwell

Berridge, D and Cleaver, H (1987) Foster home breakdown The practice of social work 16 Oxford: Blackwell See also Children Webmag April 2010.

Bettelheim, B (1974) A home for the heart London: Thames & Hudson See also Children Webmag August 2010.

Blumenthal, G J (1985) The development of secure units in child care Aldershot: Gower See also Children Webmag December 2009.

Brosse, T (1950) War-handicapped children: report on the European situation Publication No 439 Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

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

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.

Children and Young Persons Review Group [Northern Ireland] (1979) Legislation and services for children and young people in Northern Ireland: Report of the Children and Young Persons Review Group (Chair: Sir Harold Black) Belfast: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office

Clarke, A M and Clarke, A D B (Eds) (1976) Early experience: myth and evidence London: Open Books See also Children Webmag May 2010.

Cliffe, D and Berridge, D (1992) Closing children’s homes: an end to residential childcare? London: National Children’s Bureau See also Children Webmag September 2011.

Committee of Inquiry into Children’s Homes and Hostels (1986) Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Children’s Homes and Hostels (Chairman: His Honour Judge William H Hughes) Belfast: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office See also Children Webmag June 2011.

Committee on Children and Young Persons (1964) Children and young persons, Scotland: report by the committee appointed by the Secretary of State for Scotland, etc. [Chairman: Lord Kilbrandon]. Cmnd 2306 Edinburgh: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office See also Children Webmag April 2011.

Critchley, A and Fann, B (1971a, May) Group work with adolescent girls Child in Care 11(5), 17–23 See also Children Webmag October 2010.

Critchley, A and Fann, B (1971b, June) Group work with adolescent girls Child in Care 11(6), 11–14 See also Children Webmag October 2010.

Crowther, M A (1981) The workhouse system 1834–1929: the history of an English social institution London: Batsford

Drucker, P F (1955) The practice of management London: Heinemann

Fanshel, D and Shinn, E B (1978) Children in foster care: a longitudinal investigation Guildford: Columbia University Press See also Children Webmag March 2009.

Hoghughi, M S (1978) Troubled and troublesome: coping with severely disordered children London: Burnett/Deutsch See also Children Webmag October 2010.

Home Office (1923) Report on the work of the Children’s Branch London: Home Office

Home Office (1938) Fifth Report of the Children’s Branch London: Home Office

Home Office (1945) Report by Sir William Monckton KCMG KCVO MC KC on the circumstances which led to the boarding out of Dennis and Terence O’Neill at Bank Farm, Minsterly and the steps taken to supervise their welfare, etc Cmd 6636 London: Home Office See also Children Webmag February 2011.

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.

Kirkwood, A (1993) The Leicestershire Inquiry 1992: the report of an inquiry into aspects of the management of children’s homes in Leicestershire between 1973 and 1986 Leicester: Leicestershire County Council

Konopka, G (1966) The adolescent girl in conflict Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall See also Children Webmag September 2010.

Labour Party Study Group (1964) Crime — a challenge to us all: report of the Labour Party Study Group (Chairman: Lord Longford) London: Labour Party See also Children Webmag May 2011.

Lennhoff, F G (1960) Exceptional children: residential treatment of emotionally disturbed boys at Shotton Hall London: George Allen & Unwin See also Children Webmag August 2010.

Levy, A and Kahan, B J (1991) The Pindown experience and the protection of children Stafford: Staffordshire County Council The Report of the Staffordshire Child Care Inquiry 1990 See also Children Webmag September 2011.

Makarenko, A (1936) Road to life: translated by Stephen Garry London: Stanley Nott Originally published as Pedagogicheskaia poèma See also Children Webmag February 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 See also Children Webmag March 2010.

Neill, A S (1937) That dreadful school London: Herbert Jenkins

Nicholson, J (1968) Mother and baby homes: a survey of homes for unmarried mothers National Institute for Social Work Training Series 13 London: Allen & Unwin

O’Neill, T (1981) A place called Hope: caring for children in distress Oxford: Blackwell See also Children Webmag May 2009.

Reid, W J and Epstein, L (1972) Task-centered casework London: Columbia University Press

Reid, W J and Shyne, A W (1969) Brief and extended casework London: Columbia University Press

Reinach, E and Roberts, G (1979) “Consequences”: the progress of sixty-five children after a period of residential observation and assessment Portsmouth: Social Services Research and Information Unit See also Children Webmag July 2010.

Richardson, H (1969) Adolescent girls in approved schools London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

Robertson, J and Robertson, J (1971) Young children in brief separation: a fresh look Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 26, 264–315 See also Children Webmag October 2009.

Rowe, J, Hundleby, M and Garnett, L (1989) Child care now: a survey of placement patterns Research Series 6 London: BAAF Publications See also Children Webmag April 2010.

Shaw, R (2008) Children, families and care: reflections on the first sixty years of FICE Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books

Social Work Services Inspectorate for Scotland (1992) Another kind of home: a review of residential child care Edinburgh: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office The Skinner Report

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.

Tizard, B (1977) Adoption: a second chance London: Open Books See also Children Webmag January 2010.

Triseliotis, J, Borland, M, Hill, M and Lambert, L (1995) Teenagers and the social work services London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office

Trotzkey, E L (1930) Institutional care and placing-out: the place of each in the care of dependent children Chicago: The Marks Nathan Jewish Orphan Home See also Children Webmag November 2008.

Wiener, A and Wiener, E (1990) Expanding the options in child placement Lanham MD: University Press of America See also Children Webmag January 2010.

Wills, W D (1945) The Barns experiment: an account of the organization of a hostel for boys in Peebleshire London: Allen & Unwin

Wolins, M (1969, January) Group care: friend or foe? Social work 14(1), 35–53 Reprinted in M Wolins (Ed.) (1974) Successful group care Chicago: Aldine

Woodward, J (1980) Industrial organization: theory and practice (Second ed.) London: Oxford University Press

Appendix : Key Child Care Texts: Chronological List

Mary Carpenter (November 2008)

Elias Trotzkey (November 2008)

Raissa Page and George Clark (December 2008)

Advisory Council (December 2008)

Barbara Kahan and Geoff Banner (January 2009)

Karen Vander Ven (January 2009)

Homer Lane (February 2009)

Anton Makarenko (February 2009)

David Fanshel and Eugene Shinn (March 2009)

Delores Taylor and Stuart Alpert (March 2009)

Bengt Nirje (April 2009)

King, Raynes and Tizard (April 2009)

Mr Lyward (May 2009)

Tom O’Neill (May 2009)

Harold Skeels (June 2009)

Martin Wolins (June 2009)

A S Neill (July 2009)

David Wills (July 2009)

August Aichhorn (August 2009)

Bruno Bettelheim Love is not enough (August 2009)

Alec Clegg and Barbara Megson (September 2009)

Jane Rowe and Lydia Lambert (September 2009)

James and Joyce Robertson (October 2009)

Donald Winnicott and Clare Britton (October 2009)

Fritz Redl and David Wineman (November 2009)

Trieschman, Whittaker and Brendtro (November 2009)

Pat Cawson and Mary Martell (December 2009)

Geoffrey Blumenthal (December 2009)

Barbara Tizard (January 2010)

Anita and Eugene Wiener (January 2010)

Howard Polsky (March 2010)

Millham et al. (March 2010)

Berridge & Cleaver (April 2010)

Rowe, Hundleby and Garnett (April 2010)

John Bowlby (May 2010)

Clarke and Clarke (May 2010)

Freud and Dann (June 2010)

Virginia Axline (June 2010)

Reinach and Roberts (July 2010)

Stein and Carey (July 2010)

Lennhoff (August_2010)

Bruno Bettelheim (A home for the heart) (August_2010)

Jill Nicholson (September 2010)

Gisela Konopka (September 2010)

Critchley and Fann (October 2010)

Masud Hoghughi (October 2010)

Butler: (Perinatal mortality) (November 2010)

Davie: (Birth to seven) (November 2010)

Curtis training (December 2010)

Clare Winnicott ( December 2010)

Fogelman: (Britain’s sixteen-year-olds) (January 2011)

Fogelman: (Growing up in Britain) (January 2011)

Monkton (February 2011)

Curtis (February 2011)

Underwood (March 2011)

Ingleby (March 2011)

James Latham Clyde (1946) (April 2011)

Kilbrandon (April 2011)

Crime – Challenge to us all (May 2011)

The Child, the Family and the Young Offender (May 2011)

Children in Trouble (May 2011)

Maria Colwell (June 2011)

Hughes (June 2011)

Black Report (1979) (July 2011)

Skinner (1992) (July 2011)

Butler-Sloss (Cleveland) (1988) (August 2011)

James John Clyde (Orkney) (1992) (August 2011)

Levy Kahan (1991) (September 2011)

Cliffe and Berridge (1992) (September 2011)

Thérèse Brosse (October 2011)

Fletcher-Campbell (1997) (October 2011)

La Fontaine (1991) Bullying (November 2011)

La Fontaine (1998) Speak of the devil (November 2011)

Kirkwood (1993) (December 2011)

Triseliotis (1995) (December 2011)

he conviction of Frank Beck on 29 November 1991 resulted in the establishment of two inquiries, one into the way in which the police had dealt with the allegations against Frank Beck and this one into all aspects of the management of children’s homes in Leicestershire County Council between 1973 and 1986. It was thus not concerned with the facts of the allegations but with the ways in which the social services department had come to employ the various people, including Frank Beck, against whom allegations had been made and how it had responded to those allegations. The trial also prompted the government to set up the Warner committee (Committee of Inquiry, 1992).

At the time, the case was also the subject of a fierce debate with some people, including Lord Longford, supporting Frank Beck’s protestations of innocence and others arguing that he was even more of a monster than the facts presented at his trial had suggested. Frank Beck’s death in prison on 31 May 1994, apparently of a heart attack, made it difficult to pursue these lines of enquiry though D’Arcy and Gosling (1998) have tried to do this.

Key points

Requirements for monthly visits and six-monthly full reports on children’s homes had not been satisfied and there was no formal supervision of Officers in Charge.

The appointment of Brian Rice as Director of Social Services in 1980 left the department without a senior manager with child care experience.

Apart from a period between 1978 and 1982, all corporal punishment was banned in children’s homes; in spite of this The Beeches daily log recorded over 500 incidents of children being hit by staff between 1979 and 1986.

Suspension pending investigation was never used in disciplinary proceedings.

Frank Beck implemented ‘regression therapy’ for which he had no relevant experience and for which he received no supervision; he continued to use it when he moved to The Beeches in spite of being told that it was inappropriate for The Beeches.o this.

Key points

Requirements for monthly visits and six-monthly full reports on children’s homes had not been satisfied and there was no formal supervision of Officers in Charge.

The appointment of Brian Rice as Director of Social Services in 1980 left the department without a senior manager with child care experience.

Apart from a period between 1978 and 1982, all corporal punishment was banned in children’s homes; in spite of this The Beeches daily log recorded over 500 incidents of children being hit by staff between 1979 and 1986.

Suspension pending investigation was never used in disciplinary proceedings.

Frank Beck implemented ‘regression therapy’ for which he had no relevant experience and for which he received no supervision; he continued to use it when he moved to The Beeches in spite of being told that it was inappropriate for The Beeches.

•  Nearly all staff in the homes of which Frank Beck was Officer in Charge were young, single people introduced by Frank Beck.
•  Early warnings of problems were ignored even when they came from reliable sources.
•  An investigation undertaken in 1978 was ignored by senior managers.
•  Much of what Frank Beck did did not go through the normal channels.
•  There was a series of complaints against Frank Beck, one of which resulted in a court case in 1982; only one of these prompted an investigation and no connections were made across the stream of complaints; he was even approved as a foster parent while awaiting trial.
•  Following the conviction for sexual offences of the Officer in Charge of another home, the recently appointed Deputy of The Beeches took two complaints by staff members to the Personnel Department whose suspension of Frank Beck prompted his resignation.
•  The Director, Brian Rice, subsequently supplied two references to Frank Beck without mentioning his suspension or resignation.
•  Allegations against other members of staff in the department were generally handled without a proper investigation.
•  Mr Rice resigned following an inquiry which revealed lack of confidence in him; his successor took appropriate and positive action to address the issues.
•  The people primarily responsible for the situation persisting were Dorothy Edwards, Director at the time of Frank Beck’s appointment, who had built him up and Brian Rice, who had failed to act decisively in the face of overwhelming evidence of problems.

Content

In Chapter 1 Introduction, he describes how in 1973 Frank Beck received a CQSW from Stevenage College and was appointed Officer in Charge of The Poplars, Market Harborough; in 1975 he was appointed Officer in Charge of Ratcliffe Road, Leicester and, after acting as temporary Officer in Charge of Rosehill, Market Harborough in early 1978, became Officer in Charge of The Beeches, Leicester Forest East, a post from which he resigned in 1986.

In 1989 allegations from Mrs Outhwaite to a social worker led to her making a police statement in March, after which statements were taken from 383 witnesses, not all alleging abuse. In May 1990 Frank Beck, Peter Jaynes, George Lincoln and Colin Fiddaman, who died before his trial, were arrested. On 29 November 1991 Frank Beck was found guilty on seventeen counts, Peter Jaynes on four and George Lincoln on one.

The Secretary of State set up the committee which produced what came to be known as the Warner Report (Committee of Inquiry, 1992) and Leicestershire County Council appointed Andrew Kirkwood to undertake an inquiry which went beyond the Frank Beck case while the Police Complaints Authority undertook an inquiry into the police handling of complaints. He notes that the period covered was prior to Working together (Department of Health and Social Security, 1986) and his inquiry’s purpose was not to evaluate the validity of earlier complaints but to establish what management did about them. Almost all the witnesses had attended voluntarily and, while the inquiry had been undertaken in private, the report had always been intended to be public; so, where it was not already public knowledge, children and adults who had been victims were given anonymity in the report.

Part 1 of the report covers the background.

In Chapter 2 Background 1973–1980: Miss Edwards’ directorship, he covers the general legislative background, the County Council, the office of the Chief Executive and the key personnel and their responsibilities in the Social Services Department. He notes that the senior managers’ responsibilities were unbalanced and nothing was done to address that imbalance, that the requirements for monthly visits and six-monthly full reports on children’s homes had not been satisfied and that there was no formal supervision of Officers in Charge, though concern about child care standards had led to a review in 1980–81 of child care provision.

In Chapter 3 Background 1980–86 Mr Rice’s directorship, he notes that Brian Rice’s mental health background had left the department with no-one with expertise in child care in senior management. Though the child care review proposals coincided with the Labour Group’s aspirations, they were suspicious of Brian Rice and both Dorothy Edwards and Brian Rice had discouraged members from visiting children’s homes; those visits that did take place were not concerned with child care matters.

Among the proposals from the child care review was the possibility of more secure provision but Labour members, advised by Frank Beck, passed a motion declining to open any secure accommodation, a move which may have strengthened Frank Beck’s position. Though a three-year strategy was adopted on 29 November 1982, a Social Services Inspectorate inspection in 1984/85 spoke of a “lack of clear strategy for residential care” and a lack of “consistency or coherence” (p. 28). By 1986 there was such low morale among staff that the Child Care Resources Team set about developing written procedures, regular meetings of homes managers, regular meetings of Officers in Charge, formal supervision, monitoring, individual care plans and improvements to the physical conditions in the homes.

In Chapter 4 Methods of control in children’s homes. Policy and practice, he summarises the existing regulations and notes the Director’s recommendation in 1973 that there should be no corporal punishment other than in Woodlands Assessment Centre and Polebrook CHE. This was revised in 1978 to allow a single smack and modified in 1982 following the withdrawal of caning from schools and the policy of no corporal punishment was re-affirmed by the Social Services Committee following Frank Beck’s acquittal on a charge of assault. In spite of this The Beeches daily log recorded over 500 incidents of children being hit by staff between 1979 and 1986.

In Chapter 5 Training: residential child care, he summarises the situation and notes the overwhelming need for residential care training.

In Chapter 6 Financial matters, he notes that the Social Services Department was generally well-funded but reductions in Homes Supervisors to save money in 1979–80 were never debated nor reinstated when the budget might have allowed it.

In Chapter 7 Grievance and disciplinary procedures and practice, he summarises the existing procedures, noting that suspension pending investigation was never used and cases were generally referred to the local police in contravention of the proper procedure, while internal investigations were suspended during a police investigation because of police concern at the possibility of contamination of evidence. There was no County complaints procedure until 1987.

Part 2 covers events at The Poplars, Ratcliffe Road and Rosehill from 1973–1978.

In Chapter 8 The Poplars, Market Harborough and the appointment of Mr Beck, he describes how Frank Beck succeeded John Moseling as Officer in Charge of The Poplars. He had introduced a more therapeutic approach and, when he resigned, Frank Beck, the only applicant, was appointed Officer in Charge in September 1973. Peter Jaynes, the Deputy, remained, but all the other staff changed, the new staff all having been introduced by Frank Beck, who also implemented ‘regression therapy,’ of which he had no relevant experience and for which he received no supervision.

In Chapter 9 Treatment: ‘regression therapy’, he notes that regression therapy is not recognised as a distinct therapy and summarises a paper on the subject from Peter Wilson, Director of Young Minds. Frank Beck had derived his understanding from reading and from the film Warrendale and tried to implement it with unqualified staff.

In Chapter 10 The move to Ratcliffe Road, Leicester, he describes how the home was moved in March 1975 to Ratcliffe Road and, though additional staff were recruited, only one, a qualified teacher, had any professional qualifications among all the staff appointed. It was unlikely that all the children who passed through the home between 1975 and 1978 would have needed therapy and the fieldworkers who gave evidence were unable to say what was done in the home other than that it was ‘regression therapy’ and that it was successful. A child who complained was not believed either by the social worker or by the police and children became afraid to say that they had been hit for fear of worse.

In Chapter 11 The role of the visiting psychiatrists, he outlines how between 1973 and 1976 a consultant psychiatrist sat in on staff meetings at Frank Beck’s instigation but did not have any involvement with individual children. His successor said that he had no authority or decision role and he did not have access to senior staff in the department.

In Chapter 12 Early warnings, he recounts how in the spring of 1975, Councillor Dunphy raised an anonymous complaint about mistreatment at Ratcliffe Road and was told that it was part of the therapy. He then met Frank Beck and discussed with a child psychologist at Leicester Family Service Unit what he had told him; after he had spoken to the shadow Chairman of the Social Services Committee and the Director, Frank Beck appeared before the Committee and effectively had his methods approved by the Committee.

The head of another home who complained about Frank Beck’s treatment of a child was told that senior staff would not do anything because “here is someone who will take [hard-to-place kids] without asking too many questions, I dare not upset him” (p. 75).

On 14 November 1975 one of Frank Beck’s referees from Stevenage College visited the Social Services Department to raise the concerns of two mature students about Frank Beck’s methods but no action ensued.

In autumn 1976 a senior member of staff present during police interviews of children who had made allegations of sexual abuse noted in her report that the staff member who had opened the door to her and the children all used an identical phrase to deny the allegations.

In Chapter 13 BC’s complaint of sexual interference 1977, he describes how a child in voluntary care complained to his mother about sexual interference by Frank Beck and Peter Jaynes; he was interviewed by the police but, when the police attempted to interview other children, Frank Beck and Peter Jaynes would not allow this without a member of staff present. In the light of statements from a social worker and a senior manager in support of the home, the Director of Public Prosecutions decided not to prosecute.

In Chapter 14 Rules and prospectus Ratcliffe Road 1977, he describes the creation of some rules for regression therapy and a prospectus for the home.

In Chapter 15 Simon O’Donnell 1977, he recounts the circumstances surrounding the death of Simon O’Donnell who absconded and was found hanged in some gents toilets on 10 October 1977.

In Chapter 16 Mr Beck’s departure from Ratcliffe Road 1978, he summarises how Frank Beck took temporary charge of Rosehill and in July 1978 was appointed to The Beeches.

In Chapter 17 Rosehill, Market Harborough 1977–78, he describes how in 1977 George Lincoln was appointed Deputy in anticipation of the departure of the married couple who had run the home previously. He made major changes before the new Officer in Charge arrived in October and, though staff complained about conflicts between the Deputy and the Officer in Charge, senior staff did not support them and the new Officer in Charge left in February 1978. A letter of concern about George Lincoln from an Area Director and a complaint from a junior member of staff were ignored by senior managers.

In Chapter 18 Mr Beck at Rosehill and the Rosehill investigation 1978, he describes how Frank Beck was appointed to offer 18½ hours to Rosehill following the departure of the Officer in Charge and sexually assaulted George Lincoln on his first evening.

Frank Beck introduced a voluntary assistant to the home whose treatment of the children prompted complaints to prospective foster parents and the school. These were not progressed following a response from Frank Beck but there were further complaints from school via social workers which, though dismissed by the Director, subsequently led to an investigation by Chris Beddoe at the end of which he concluded that children had been hit and that the ‘treatment’ had been instigated by the voluntary assistant who had breached confidentiality and continued to have contact with the children after she had left. No action ensued and Andrew Kirkwood concludes

“The Rosehill investigation of 1978 was the most thorough and most fully documented investigation carried out by Care Branch managers. Its thoroughness owes much to the determination and investigative ability of Mr Beddoe.” (p. 112)

Part 3 covers events at The Beeches from 1976 to 1986.

In Chapter 19 The Beeches, Leicester Forest East 1976–1978, he recounts how the home had been run by a married couple until 1976; in August 1975 a Deputy was appointed and in 1976 a new Officer in Charge took over. In August 1976 a Third in Charge was appointed without the involvement of the Officer in Charge. In the spring of 1977 she complained about what was going on and various problems were identified by different parties over the summer including continuing allegations of violence to children by the Officer in Charge and complaints about the attitude of Deputy. The Third in Charge left and on 16 October 1977 a teacher at The Beeches complained to the NSPCC but the senior management response did not involve interviewing the children or the teacher.

After further evidence in December 1977 of the Officer in Charge hitting children and a threat of industrial action at The Beeches in February, there was a meeting with the Officer in Charge in March; meanwhile the Deputy, who had hit some girls during an altercation gave notice but, after a complaint by staff, the Officer in Charge resigned and the Deputy withdrew his resignation, staying on until October 1978 while the Officer in Charge of another home was given oversight until the appointment of a new Officer in Charge.

Andrew Kirkwood notes that the Deputy’s wife was a part-time teacher at Ratcliffe Road and that Frank Beck had intervened to prevent action being taken against him.

In Chapter 20 The appointment of Mr Beck and The ‘New’ Beeches 1978–1986, he recounts how Frank Beck applied for the Officer in Charge post at The Beeches while the investigation into Rosehill was still ongoing. The Director chaired the interviews and told Frank Beck that regression therapy was not appropriate for The Beeches. His appointment raised concerns among social workers because he had excluded them from Ratcliffe Road. There was a discussion about supervision for Frank Beck but it was left to him to ask for it which he never did.

Of the staff he inherited, the Deputy resigned, one stayed long-term, one became part-time and the remainder left within fourteen months; from 1978–1986 nearly 50 people were employed, mostly young, single and with no experience of residential child care.

In 1979–1980 Chris Beddoe attempted to evaluate his work but was stymied by Frank Beck’s inability to produce records of work. “Much of what Mr Beck did didn’t go through the normal conventional arrangements” (p. 132). Chris Beddoe left the department in 1980.

Instead Frank Beck provided a report which showed that The Beeches was deviating from its original purpose but this was allowed to drift; it was difficult to know which children were at The Beeches at any one time and regression therapy continued, with hitting, changing into pyjamas and staying in their room mentioned frequently in the log book.

Though there was psychiatric support, this consisted of support to the staff meeting rather than seeing children.

The 1985 SSI inspection listed the issues as:

•  lack of effective control,
•  lack of agreed selection criteria,
•  no independent monitoring,
•  treatment should be part of a care plan,
•  treatment should be conducted under skilled supervision,
•  a need for management accountability and control of Frank Beck.

In Chapters 21–23 he covers complaints from a teacher, a member of staff and a foster mother. The teacher complained about a Christmas Party at The Beeches, the staff member about an injury to a child and the foster mother about the regression therapy which Frank Beck was providing for a foster child. In each case there was documentary evidence to support the allegations but senior staff did not bother to read the log books; they simply supported Frank Beck.

In Chapter 24 FL and the trial of Mr Beck 1982–1983, he covers the complaint from a boy’s mother that, on 15 May 1982, Frank Beck had smacked a boy several times. The police charged him and senior managers decided not to suspend him; he was found not guilty on the grounds that the boy was in voluntary care and therefore that the care and control regulations did not apply and that the smacking was proportionate. Frank Beck should have been suspended and there should have been a County investigation because the acquittal was on a technicality; there was long-standing evidence of hitting children in the log books.

In Chapters 25–30 he covers complaints by a student, a staff member and various children.

- A student on a placement at The Beeches in 1982 had raised concerns about the treatment of a child with the child’s social worker; this was followed by a letter of complaint to the Director from the child’s father but there was no investigation.

- A complaint by a child through a solicitor was dealt with by way of an interview with the staff member, not with the boy or after an examination of the log book.

- A complaint by a staff member whose account was confirmed in interview with another member of staff resulted in no action even though Frank Beck was due in court anyway and there was evidence to support the complaint in the authority’s records.

- A complaint by Leicester FSU on behalf of a child on placement from The Beeches was met with an anodyne reply; a further complaint from the Area Director about lack of co-operation from Frank Beck in relation to the child was ignored.

- A complaint to the police by a child who had been at The Beeches for eleven months was ignored by senior management and a complaint from the Emergency Duty Team about the exclusion of four boys from The Beeches and an assault by a member of staff resulted in no action even though there was corroborating evidence in the log book.

In Chapter 31 Working relationships: BD’s case April to November 1984, he covers in detail the events from April 1984 when an arrangement was made for BD to attend The Beeches school on a daily basis to November 1984, when he was admitted to secure accommodation outside Leicestershire, highlighting Frank Beck’s persistent unwillingness to implement agreed plans and his determination to pursue an independent course. Frank Beck he had vigorously opposed the suggestion that children’s homes should not prepare separate reports for court.

In Chapters 32–35 he covers complaints by children and staff.

- When a child told the Duty Officer on 17 January 1985 that he had been physically and sexually abused by Frank Beck while at The Beeches in 1984, the social work manager failed to act.

- When a child subject to an unruly order explained that his behaviour related to Frank Beck’s treatment of him, he was ignored.

- When police investigated allegations of sexual impropriety from a child in foster care, they eventually dropped the case on grounds of insufficient evidence and senior managers took no further action.

- When another student on placement raised issues about Frank Beck’s methods, the only thing senior managers did was to ask Frank Beck to respond.

Part 4 covers fostering.

In Chapter 36 The approval of Mr Beck as a foster parent, he describes how early in 1982 Frank Beck applied to foster two boys whom he had already been taking to his own home; he got approval from fieldworkers on an individual basis at the same time as the police enquiry and before the court case was concluded, in spite of a complaint from the father of one of the boys and an ongoing complaint from a member of his staff. Various lodging arrangements continued to be approved by areas on an individual basis and on 12 March 1984 he was approved as a general foster parent.

Part 5 covers Mr Beck’s resignation

In Chapter 37 The departure of Mr Beck, he recounts how Clifford Savage was appointed Deputy in March 1985 and, becoming aware of Frank Beck’s attitude to County Hall, decided to keep his head down. Another member of staff, a trained SEN, had joined the staff in February 1985 and, when he spoke of making a complaint against Frank Beck, Clifford Savage advised him that it must be watertight. Later that year, an ex-prisoner who had done community service at The Beeches joined the staff and was the victim of a homosexual advance from Frank Beck about which he confided to the SEN.

On 28 February 1986 Mr Scott, the Officer in Charge of another home, was sentenced to eight years in prison for sexual offences and on 3 March 1986 the two men took their complaints to Clifford Savage who, having ascertained that it was pointless to take them to senior management, took them to Mr Nelson in personnel saying that he had oral complaints from other staff.

Mr Nelson was given authority to suspend Frank Beck and on 4 March 1986 he interviewed the members of staff and then Frank Beck, whom he suspended, at which point Frank Beck raised the possibility of resignation.

The following day Mr Nelson and a member of senior management saw the staff and on 6 March 1986 Frank Beck’s resignation was received. Though there was a discussion about whether it should be accepted, it was, and though the police decided that the documents held by Mr Nelson did not support a criminal charge, Frank Beck did not withdraw his resignation.

In Chapter 38 The consultancy list, he outlines the history of the consultancy list of those deemed unsuitable for employment in child care, whose scope changed on 17 July 1986 to allow people in Frank Beck’s situation, that is, people who had not been convicted of an offence, to be added. He notes that no application was made in relation to Frank Beck.

In Chapter 39 References, he notes that two references were supplied by the Director, neither mentioning his suspension and resignation.

Part 6 covers other cases

In Chapter 40 TV’s complaint 1979, he covers the complaint about regression therapy from a child admitted to Ratcliffe Road in November 1978 after Frank Beck had left, noting that this complaint should have raised alarm bells in relation to the earlier investigation into Ratcliffe Road.

In Chapter 41 Mr Davies 1980, he covers the case of Mr Davies who had been employed at a children’s home, had confessed to sexual offences and served a 12-month sentence, after which he had obtained a temporary job in an old people’s home which had been converted into a full-time job until April 1992 when, in the light of Frank Beck’s trial, he had been redeployed elsewhere. He points out that, regardless of whether the actual decisions were appropriate, they had been unsupported by any investigations.

In Chapter 42 Mr Bloxham 1981, he recounts how a staff member had reported concerns about girls seen to be emerging from the room of Mr Bloxham, the Deputy, in distress. These concerns had initially been addressed by trying to manage the rota to avoid the Deputy being on his own but, after the Officer in Charge became aware of possible abuse and the police had taken a statement from one of the girls, Mr Bloxham had admitted sexual offences against five girls, resigned and taken his own life before the court appearance. Andrew Kirkwood comments that there had been no support for the staff in the home or for the abused girls.

In Chapter 43 Mr Pay 1982, he recounts how in 1979 Mr Pay had been appointed Officer in Charge of a children’s home but there had been a series of complaints about excessive drinking, bad language and favouritism of some of the children, which culminated on 2 June 1982 in an interview at County Hall after which he had been suspended and then resigned on obtaining another job.

In Chapter 44 Mr Gasson 1983, he recounts how a young person complained to the police about an assault by Mr Gasson; however, he was not suspended and it emerged when the case was sent to Crown Court that he had previous convictions. The case was dismissed after the young person considered withdrawing part of the statement but the question remained whether the young person’s retraction had been influenced by the fact that Mr Gasson was still working at the home.

In Chapter 45 Mr Scott 1985–1986, he recounts how Mr Scott was appointed Officer in Charge at Rosehill in 1978 and on 29 July 1985 was arrested on a charge of indecency with a teenage boy. In fact, the boy had broken into Mr Scott’s house and stolen a video recorder which was found by police to contain a video of sexual activity between Mr Scott and various boys; a search of his home revealed a suitcase of pornographic books. In February 1986 he was sentenced to eight years in prison on five charges.

Rosehill had been closed on 31 July 1985 with the future of the staff and children handled in a very professional way. However, the Social Services Inspectorate was unhappy with the informal nature of the investigation into the case and asked for a formal investigation to be undertaken; this was never done.

In Chapter 46 Mr Dixon 1986, he recounts how the Officer in Charge had received a report of Mr Dixon masturbating during a film; however, he had only been given a final warning and allowed to remain in post. When the Officer in Charge complained further about the impact of this on those affected, Mr Dixon was moved to another home but, Andrew Kirkwood argues, senior management should have foreseen these difficulties.

Part 7 covers miscellaneous topics

In Chapter 47 The retirement of Mr Rice, he recounts how, in 1986, Councillor James Roberts became Labour Group spokesman and expressed concern about the Director Brian Rice’s performance. Following an investigation by the Chief Executive among senior managers which demonstrated a general lack of confidence, Brian Rice agreed to take early retirement and Brian Waller was appointed to succeed him.

In Chapter 48 Speculation and fact, he deals with some of the speculation at the time, concluding that the Freemasons had had no influence on events, that Frank Beck’s position as a Liberal Councillor had not influenced management, that there was no evidence for a paedophile ring, that there were reasonable explanations for the deaths of various children and that there was no evidence of systematic disposal of records, rather the lack of a policy regarding retention.

Part 8 considers events after 1987.

In Chapter 49 Appointment of Brian Waller as Director of Social Services and subsequent management action, he describes Brian Waller’s 1989 changes to the management team and his 1991 departmental restructuring in the light of the late 1980s legislation and comments that he took positive action following the arrests in 1990 and in subsequent initiatives.

In Part 9: Conclusions, he argues that there was a failure to seek to understand what Frank Beck was trying to do; there were no policies about good child care practice, a lack of structured supervision and ineffectual monitoring. The failures in handling complaints ran through the whole process. Though the senior managers lacked child care experience, the main responsibility lay with the two Directors: Dorothy Edwards for building Frank Beck up and Brian Rice for his management failures. Though strictly speaking ultimate responsibility lay with elected members, there was no evidence that elected members had been responsible for the significant decisions relating to Frank Beck.

The report concludes with a number of appendices.

Discussion

This is a well-written report, which paints a picture of someone whom Dockar-Drysdale (1970) might have diagnosed as an ‘unintegrated child,’ that is, someone who had not developed a clear enough sense of his own identity to be able to see clear boundaries between himself and others. Frank Beck frequently invaded other people’s physical and organisational space while reacting angrily to any attempt by anyone else to invade his own space. He appears to have got to the stage which Dockar-Drysdale describes in which the child acquires a ‘caretaker’ personality, as he was able to charm quite a lot of people, though this does not seem to have been as fully formed as those of some other ‘unintegrated’ children whom I have encountered.

I recall a very experienced child care worker who had spent an evening with an ‘unintegrated’ child saying how draining it was and one suspects that that was the feeling Chris Beddoe had after two years of trying to tie down Frank Beck and completely failing. The lack of connection between what he said and how be behaved is another similarity with ‘unintegrated’ children which makes dealing with them so difficult. In the end, the only thing they respond to is a structured environment in which their behaviour is managed in ways which enable them to develop a sense of themselves as different from other people and other people as people worth respecting. The management of Leicestershire Social Services Department was incapable of diagnosing the situation, let alone creating a framework within which Frank Beck could be managed effectively.

This report echoes the Hughes Report (Committee of Inquiry into Children’s Homes and Hostels, 1986) in four respects that:

ñ there were failures in management throughout the period when the abuse took place;

ñ there were failures of communication throughout the period when the abuse took place;

ñ children’s complaints were not taken seriously;

ñ there was no adequate investigation of complaints;

and the Pindown Report (Levy and Kahan, 1991) in two respects – that:

ñ in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, and

ñ managers will turn a blind eye to poor practice if it saves on ‘out-of-county’ placements.

One danger of demonising Frank Beck is that it excuses people from doing what they should have done. Certainly Frank Beck used all the tools of an ‘unintegrated’ child to keep others at bay and he probably benefited from the fact that these techniques are often very wearing on others.

But the facts are that he was not that clever — he mostly used the same tactic, get your punch in first, to defend himself — and it did not take much to stop him. Mr Nelson, who suspended him, only had the benefit of two complaints; a flick through the log book would have given him an armoury of evidence to use against him. Moreover, Frank Beck, who had managed to fend off so many complaints for so many years, simply ‘rolled over’ when someone confronted him with little more than had been said of him over the years.

It is much more sensible to see Frank Beck’s assaults, whether physical or sexual, as a function of his own inadequacy as a person in a job for which he simply did not have the skills or the patience to achieve what was necessary. Perhaps, while under supervision as a student, he or his supervisor had been able to manage his anxieties about the situations in which he found himself which, once he was on his own in employment, he could not acknowledge, let alone seek help for.

Finally, it is worth pointing out that, with one exception, all those who abused children in Leicestershire would have been given a clean bill of health by a Criminal Records Bureau check. As the Hughes Report (Committee of Inquiry into Children’s Homes and Hostels, 1986) pointed out, pre-employment checks are extremely unlikely to identify potential abusers; the only way to do so is to have open communication among all those in the department so that potential abusers are deterred by the fact that their activities will become known very quickly or stopped for the same reason — which could have happened to Frank Beck had anybody bothered to read the log books at The Beeches.

References

Committee of Inquiry (1992) Choosing with care: quality assurance in social services departments London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office The Warner Report

Committee of Inquiry into Children’s Homes and Hostels (1986) Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Children’s Homes and Hostels (Chairman: His Honour Judge William H Hughes) Belfast: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office See also Children Webmag June 2011.

D’Arcy, M and Gosling, P (1998) Abuse of trust: Frank Beck and the Leicestershire children’s homes scandal London: Bowerdean

Department of Health and Social Security (1986) Child abuse — working together: a draft guide to arrangements for interagency co-operation for the protection of children London: Department of Health and Social Security

Dockar-Drysdale, B E (1970) Meeting children’s emotional needs in residential work Child in Care 10(9), 21–33

Levy, A and Kahan, B J (1991) The Pindown experience and the protection of children Stafford: Staffordshire County Council The Report of the Staffordshire Child Care Inquiry 1990 See also Children Webmag September 2011

Key ideas

• Social workers were only aware of about half the issues in young people’s families.
• Though many more girls than boys reported having been abused, it was an issue for only a few at the point of intervention.
• Young people with family problems were more likely to end up in care, those with community problems under supervision and those with school problems to come from intact families.
• While parents stressed family problems and social workers personal development, these had the lowest priority for young people whose first priority was to remain at or return home.
• Young people with school, offending or family problems tended to end up in residential schools and those with family or behavioural problems in other residential units and were less likely to return home than the few placed in foster care.
• Parents may prefer residential care for a variety of reasons, including the feeling that foster care is a criticism of themselves.
• Young people on supervision received a similar number of visits to those in care with the focus on their current living situation.
• Two thirds of young people moved at least once in the year and 30% three or more times; placement related reasons tended to influence first moves and court/hearings later moves.
• Young people and their parents were equally positive about social workers with the young people appreciating those who did practical things or undertook advocacy on their behalf and parents appreciating those who allowed them to unburden themselves.
• Young people were critical of social workers who broke confidences, didn’t listen or did nothing; parents were critical of social workers who failed to keep promises, could not control the young person or focused too much on the young person.
• Few of the participants thought that young people had benefited from supervision and then mostly those who had a good relationship with each other; both social workers and parents tended to attribute any failings to others, with only the young people acknowledging any failings themselves.
• While groupwork and befriending were viewed positively, referrals to psychiatrists and psychologists were viewed negatively.
• Three quarters of participants agreed on the success or otherwise of residential placements, with parents who disagreed more likely to see them less positively.
• Proportionately more foster placements were rated very positively and very negatively.
• Young people in residential schools were assessed as having had more problems and as having made more progress.
• Young people were equally split in their preferences for residential and foster care and, while most of those in foster care wanted another foster care placement, those who had suffered a foster home breakdown tended to be more negative about foster care than other young people.
• Young people who had left care tended to evaluate the preparation they had had and their level of coping less favourably than social workers did.
• Young people tended to recall only those decisions about which they had had strong feelings.
• Parents’ satisfaction with their involvement in decision-making declined over the year.
• Those living at home or in foster care were most likely to evaluate the year positively and those in independent living least positively; these estimations were more strongly associated with the young person’s sense of self-esteem and their parents’ estimation of the situation than with any of the interventions.
• Young people and their parents were more positive in their evaluation of changes in family functioning, offending and schooling than were social workers.
• Young people’s confidence about the future bore no relationship to anything that had happened in the previous year.
• The small proportion of placements judged successful were more likely to involve an admission to care, family conflict and access to an individual relationship with an adult, whether a family member, carer or social worker.
• Foster placements were more likely to be very successful or very unsuccessful, whereas residential school placements were less likely to be very successful but even less likely to be very unsuccessful; apart from family placements, all other placements were more likely to be unsuccessful.

Content

In Chapter 1 Introduction to the study, they point out that, though there have been studies of particular interventions with teenagers, there has been no study of those actually offered to teenagers. They therefore set out to study the services offered in five local authorities in England and Wales, the views of key participants and the outcomes of the interventions.

Following Parker et al. (1991) they studied both outcomes in a broad sense and developmental progress. When the study started in January 1991, local authorities in England and Wales were preparing for the implementation of the Children Act 1989, while Scottish authorities were awaiting proposals for similar legislation. Local authorities in England and Wales were also affected by the Criminal Justice Act 1991 and those in Scotland by changes in the funding of criminal justice services for over 16s. All social welfare departments were affected by the introduction of purchaser/provider arrangements.

105 young people and 78 parents were initially interviewed for the study, with seven more young people and nine more parents taking part in the second interview. 116 social workers were initially interviewed and all but seven a second time.

None of the agencies had a specific or comprehensive policy for teenagers though all discouraged the use of secure accommodation and most were reviewing different aspects of their provision, often without reference to other aspects.

They then summarise the existing research on development, family and social circumstances and particular forms of intervention, pointing out some of the inherent conflicts between particular approaches.

In Chapter 2 Characteristics of the sample, they say there were 73 males and 43 females in the sample of 13–17 year olds who agreed to participate following a major change in their care situation; 56 declined and some had already left care when the interview was undertaken but that was important in order to take account of unexpected moves and changes of plan. There were no significant differences between the sample and the samples in other studies. Around three-quarters were or had been in care, two thirds only once before, and social workers had previously worked with over half of the others. Girls were more likely to be in care and boys on supervision.

They note that the way in which young people were selected for the study meant the sample was not wholly representative of the issues that young people in contact with social work services might encounter before going on the describe the baseline information they obtained. This showed that a high proportion had behaviour or school problems, often associated with low esteem. Though social workers’ assessments of the young people’s health and family and social relationships tended to be similar to the young people’s, social workers were only aware of around half the issues raised by young people relating to their family situations.

In Chapter 3 Problem definition and the setting of expectations, they recount how participants identified problems in community relationships, such as offending, in the family and at school; parents tended to identify more of these problems and social workers fewer but the young people identified more problems outside these areas than did parents or social workers. Offending was more likely to be a problem for boys and sexual or physical abuse had been a problem for many more girls than boys, but at the time only six of the young people mentioned it. Interestingly school problems were more likely to affect those from intact families.

While family problems followed by community relationships came ahead of school problems as reasons for care, community relationships followed by school problems were the main reasons for supervision.

Parents found the stress of dealing with family relationships very difficult, tending to see themselves as victims and the young person as needing to change, whereas the young people tended to see themselves as willing to make compromises which were not forthcoming from their parents. Social workers tended to take a much more multi-faceted view but in some cases then appeared to lack the confidence to address the problems.

Parents tended to blame ‘bad company’ for offending whereas young people tended to accept personal responsibility for their offending, while not seeing it as a problem that needed to be dealt with. Social workers tended to underplay offending, stressing the young person’s needs, but this could be misunderstood by both parents and young people.

Parents tended to be exasperated by school problems which they sometimes blamed on pressures on schools but there appeared to be no early warnings of, or constructive attempts to deal with, these problems, which meant that they had often grown serious before anything was done. Young people saw the solution in the ways schools dealt with them while social workers’ views tended to be influenced by the theoretical model they adopted of young people’s problems. Parents used a variety of approaches to encourage or enforce school attendance but were frustrated that, when their efforts were unsuccessful, social workers were unable to provide or suggest anything more effective, not least because preventive work with teenagers takes a low priority.

While good practice suggests that interventions should be based on a shared understanding of where each party is coming from, the priorities of each party were significantly different, with social workers stressing personal development, the lowest priority for young people, and parents family relations, the second lowest for young people. Young people’s priority of remaining at or returning home was second lowest for social workers and not on the parents’ radar.

Social workers tended therefore to see the carers as having a primary role and they gave offending a low priority even though it was often the reason for a supervision order. Even where it was given priority, this was far more likely to be the case for male than for female offenders. Young people’s expectations were much more focused on their immediate situation whether that involved remaining at home or school or moving into independence. Where there was some measure of agreement among the parties, it tended to be around schooling before family relationships and offending.

Young people were overwhelmingly optimistic about how things would work out, with two thirds of parents and just over half of social workers also optimistic.

In Chapter 4 Service provision through the year, they describe how the social workers, mostly qualified with up to four years experience though some had more, saw most young people twice a month, usually at a location away from the office. Social workers were more successful in advocacy roles, in keeping young people out of care/custody and in improving general social relationships than in other areas. Though social workers recalled discussing family relationships more than schooling, the young people recalled schooling and future plans.

Though social workers often starting seeing parents as often as the young people, this had tailed off by the end of the year. Joint meetings with the young person tended to be accidental and the focus for social workers in their meetings tended to be on getting the family to change, though parents also raised issues unconnected with the case.

Young people tended to be admitted to residential schools because of school problems, offending or family problems but to other residential units because of family or behaviour problems. Most children who spent a period in residential care did not return home, with those in residential schools more likely to spend longer in a residential placement. Though fewer young people were placed in foster care, nearly half of these placements ended with a return home.

Young people on supervision and their parents tended to receive as many visits from social workers as those in care but the focus in the meetings tended to be on school and living situation issues rather than issues individual to the young person. They might also be offered groupwork, participation in particular projects, befriending, psychiatric or psychological support or educational support, depending on the agency responsible for them.

Around a third of the young people had some time in care during the year, half of these in residential care, a sixth in foster care and the rest in both, while over a third only had supervision; however, the group who received the widest range of services were those who had experienced supervision and then care or vice versa.

Two thirds of young people moved at least once during the year and 30% three or more times. Those living the community were most likely to move but only a sixth of those in residential care remained in the same unit throughout; these were more likely to be those in residential schools with frequent home leave; slightly more remained in the same foster home throughout. While moves for positive or negative reasons related to the placement characterised first moves, court proceedings were more likely to influence subsequent moves.

Residential school placements planned to last for the whole year were more likely to do so and more likely to result in a return home. Moves home were more likely to be planned than moves within care. Young people tended to agree with social workers who said that moves had been related to relationship difficulties with carers but not where the social workers said it was the young person’s behaviour. Young people initiated some of the moves but sometimes regretted the decision later.

Young people were less likely to believe that they needed preparation for independence than social workers were and even less likely to recognise that any steps had been taken to prepare them. About a third of young people expecting to live independently expected the social worker would help them in this, though in practice most preparation for independence was carried out by carers. Social work support for those already living independently varied widely, unlike most other forms of support.

Availability of resources had limited the options for those on supervision and tended to extend the distance from home for those in care.

In Chapter 5 Participants’ views of social workers and their activities, they report that, while social workers tended to attribute success to the responsiveness of the young people or their parents, the young people evaluated the social workers’ interventions particularly in their counselling role as significantly more successful, even though relatively few thought the social workers had addressed the original problem. They were also more likely to blame factors other than the social worker for any failures. Parents evaluated social workers as positively as the young people though some thought they had not been given the attention or the support they deserved.

Though there were variations, overall social workers and young people rated the quality of their relationships similarly and those who had the better relationships tended to do better over the year. Young people particularly appreciated the practical things or the things social workers did on their behalf. They appreciated social workers who could see things from their point of view and there was a general increase in those willing to confide in a social worker over the year. Young people complained most about breaking confidences, not listening, talking and doing nothing and nagging. Some also would have preferred someone of the same gender.

In relation to other professionals, young people were more likely to confide in residential staff than social workers and in some cases in teachers but less likely to confide in group or project workers and least in psychiatrists and psychologists.

However, slightly different results were obtained from a group feedback exercise with social workers getting more negative ratings, particularly from young people in residential schools, Intermediate Treatment workers getting ratings on a par with keyworkers in residential care and teachers poorer ratings.

Though social workers saw their relationships with parents relatively positively, parents largely perceived the relationships as having declined over the year but there was no correlation between parents’ and young people’s views of particular social workers. Parents were most positive about social workers who offered a supportive relationship within which parents were able to unburden themselves and most critical of social workers who failed to keep promises, who could not exercise control over the young person, who focused too much on the young person or who appeared unwilling to help.

In Chapter 6 Participants’ views of supervision, group work and specialist services, they report that, though young people tended to like supervision, few thought they had benefited from it, mostly those with a good relationship with their social worker. They were critical of social workers who only talked, who gave no opportunity for private conversations, who showed little concern or who just nagged. Overall, the assessments of benefit by social workers were similar but there was almost no match between the young people who thought they had benefited and the young people whom the social workers thought had benefited. Parents’ assessments were similar but closer to those of the social workers’ than the young people’s and, like the young people, they tended to associate benefit with a good relationship with the social worker.

Practical help and third party advocacy were valued and young people also valued social workers who tried to exercise a restraining influence. Both social workers and parents tended to attribute failures to others with only the young people recognising failings in themselves as well as in others. Social workers greatly overestimated their help in dealing with family tensions compared with the assessments by young people and their parents but all three parties were in closer agreement over their help in other areas. This applied whether the area had been identified as a focus of intervention or not. Interestingly there was no change in young people’s self-esteem as a result of supervision.

Groupwork tended to be evaluated positively by both young people and their parents but social workers tended to think it had not achieved much perhaps because it had not been part of a clear plan. All parties tended to view befriending positively; however, referrals to psychiatrists or psychologists tended to be viewed negatively with few referrals thought to have brought any benefit.

In Chapter 7 Views of services for young people living apart from their families, they say that they were unable to examine every placement in detail and they did not try to break them down into successful or unsuccessful placements; rather they asked all parties whether the placement had achieved its aims as far as they were concerned and found agreement among all three parties in nearly three quarters of placements. Where there were disagreements, parents always had less positive views of the outcome of the placement, sometimes because they thought it had ended too soon.

Residential placements tended to be viewed favourably, with few considered very unsatisfactory but higher proportions of foster placements were rated very satisfactory and very unsatisfactory. There was complete agreement between social workers and young people that three residential school and three foster home placements had been positive, three of which were ongoing, and that five residential unit and three foster home placements had been negative, all of which had ended. Positive outcomes were associated with high self-esteem at the outset but there was no change in the level of self-esteem as a result of a positive placement. Yet three young people who had substantial difficulties and who might not have been expected to benefit from a placement also had very positive placements.

Parents were most positive about residential care, particular where they saw it offering discipline, while social workers were more likely to have preferred an alternative placement; half of the young people in children’s homes and three quarters of those in residential schools were satisfied with the placement, many of those who were dissatisfied wanting one closer to home. Over the year young people’s views polarised slightly with some, particularly those in residential schools, becoming more positive and some becoming less positive.

Social workers considered that all the residential schools had achieved positive outcomes and, though focusing on different things, the young people tended to agree, pointing to things they had had to do which they would not otherwise have done and the space to work out things with their parents. Young people identified being away from home, being stigmatised for being in care and being bullied, which had affected one in six, as disadvantages of residential care.

The young people who went to residential schools were assessed as having more problems than those who went to other residential units but appeared to make more progress perhaps because they tended to have more family support. Those in residential units appreciated the staff, the other residents and a good physical environment but disliked the rules. One in five complained about the way they had been treated but young people in residential schools were less likely than those in other units to be given information on how to complain.

Absconders, whether occasional or habitual, tended to be running away from a situation where they felt powerless and habitual absconders tended to come from families with more problems. Some absconding was just to see friends.

Parents’ views of what constituted good residential care did not change over the year while social workers highlighted lack of resources, such as educational support in the residential units and supported accommodation for those moving on.

Young people were split evenly in their preferences for residential and foster care; while those in foster care were positive about their placements at the outset, by the end of the year, those whose placement had ended tended to have more negative views. While social workers identified a range of benefits from foster care, the young people mostly focused on the family nature of the placement as did the parents.

Some parents saw fostering as a criticism of themselves and half the young people reported difficulties, including abuse; they were critical of rules and restrictions which they did not see applying in other homes. However even where a placement ended, more young people wanted another foster placement. A key factor in foster care was the quality of the relationships the young people were able to make both with the foster carers and with other children in the family.

Young people in after-care situations tended to evaluate the preparation they had had and the extent to which they were coping less favourably than social workers did. Young people who had been placed away from home had often lost support networks and had housing and money problems as well as experiencing loneliness and boredom. The support of even one person, whether family, friend or social worker, was appreciated though it was rare for social workers to continue support and even rarer for residential workers. Half of social workers said they would have liked to give more help while half of young people said their families had helped and half that they had not; a third had had no help from friends.

In Chapter 8 Decision making and participation, they report that families had initiated 40% of admissions to care with social work services, the legal profession or the young person initiating the remainder; families initiated fewer of the supervisions but interventions initiated by families had the most positive outcomes and those by a multiplicity of agencies the worst.

Social workers thought most young people had had some input into the decision; interestingly young people who were most happy or most unhappy about a decision recalled some discussion whereas those who accepted it did not. Most parents had had some involvement in the initial decision. While social workers and young people generally agreed on who had made the decision to end their first placement, young people were less likely to agree with social workers about ending foster placements and more likely to regret the endings afterwards. Parents were less likely to be involved in later decisions which were more likely to be taken by social workers even where the young person had had a key role in ending the previous placement. Young people’s reasons for ending social work contact varied from it having achieved what was necessary to it being useless anyway.

In group discussions young people raised the difficulties in getting their views heard particularly in meetings. Only a third of those who had been at a Scottish Panel Hearing thought their views had been heard though some thought they could have been more forceful themselves. Though three quarters were satisfied with the eventual outcome, only a half had had any assistance to prepare for the meeting. Young people were also concerned that people were present whom they did not think should know about their private lives.

Around 60% of parents were satisfied with their involvement in the initial decision but only around a half with their involvement over the whole year.

While a majority of social workers thought that young people’s views should be taken into account in principle, they cited lack of resources and the demands of the justice system/Panel as well as the influence of parents as limiting the practicality of what some young people wanted. They tended to think that, while parents had been listened to, their views had not significantly influenced decisions. In practice, however, they could disrupt decisions by lack of co-operation.

Compared with younger children teenagers’ contact with families tended to be organised more informally rather than through specific access arrangements.

In Chapter 9 Progress during the year, they report that the young people had a range of health issues but that the majority of young people, their parents and their social workers rated their health positively and, though there was some confusion as to whether there had been changes for the better or worse over the year, boys were more likely to report an improvement.

Though parents thought a significant number of young people had shown improvements, others showed no change and, though some young people’s esteem went up and some went down over the year, for most it remained the same and there were no significant associations between self-esteem and what had happened over the year.

Just over half the young people had positive attitudes to school and these were more likely to stay on; only a quarter of those who had left had jobs. Those who had been to residential schools tended to stress their educational benefits.

Over half the young people said they got on well with their parents and, if there were any changes over the year, improvements were more likely with mothers and deteriorations with fathers, though this was reversed for step-mothers and fathers. Several young people had found out more about their own family and personal backgrounds, sometimes to their surprise, but none of this had been connected with a social work intervention.

Relatively few young people had actually sought help from their families over the year and were less likely to do so in reconstituted families. Nearly half of the young people lost a key contact over the year though three quarters, particularly those who had been in residential care, said they had added someone, usually a friend. Less than 40% recollected support from a friend over the year.

Taking the year as a whole young people living at home or in a foster home were most likely to be satisfied with their situations with those in independent living situations least likely. However, positive estimations were also associated with the young person’s sense of self-esteem and their parents’ estimation of their situation. There was only a weak association with the social work intervention, suggesting that other factors in a young person’s situation may have been more significant for the young person than the social work intervention. Nonetheless, regardless of whether they had positive or negative views of their progress, they tended to have positive views of their relationship with their social worker.

Interestingly the assessments by the young people and their parents of how far their expectations had been met were more positive in the areas of family functioning, offending and schooling than those of the social workers. Social workers’ assessments of their expectations being met for their living situations, the young people’s for their personal development and the parents for their independence were all less positive.

Young people and their parents credited the young person, the family situation and the social worker equally in their contributions to meeting expectations but parents gave more credit to residential care or a change of school and young people to foster placements.

However, when young people were asked how confident they were about the future, their answer bore no relationship to what had happened in the previous year while social workers’ estimations tended to be more positive for those in residential schools or at home but were also associated with their estimations of the young people’s sense of self-esteem. Less than half of parents were confident that their young people would do well.

In Chapter 10 Overall outcomes, they describe the scoring scheme they used to assess whether the outcome of the year had been successful, concluding that a significant minority had been unsuccessful and nearly as many had made no progress. Success was more likely to be associated with an admission to care than supervision or moving out of care and more likely to be associated with a referral for family conflict and less likely with a referral for offending. However, participants’ predictions of success at the outset were not associated with success.

A third of foster placements were very successful and a third unsuccessful while a fifth of residential school placements were very successful and only a tenth unsuccessful. All the custodial, nearly two thirds of the independent living and residential unit placements and nearly half of the family placements were unsuccessful. Success was also associated with a good relationship with the social worker.

The successful packages of service included single placements and various combinations and sequences of services, in some of which a young person had made a key decision to end a particular service. A key feature in successful placements was access to an individual relationship with an adult whether within the family, a carer or a social worker.

In Chapter 11 Summary and conclusions, they summarise the results of the research before moving on to its implications, namely, that there needs to be policy integration in work with young people along with horizontal integration of services; work with young people needs to be seen as an opportunity to be addressed by specialist teams with a particular focus on those young people who are likely to lack the family support that is available for others. They argue for greater involvement of young people in decisions and greater involvement of social workers in family mediation. This will have implications for training.

Discussion

Excluding reports such as those into abuse and the Skinner report (Social Work Services Inspectorate for Scotland, 1992), this is one of the few reports like Who cares? (Page and Clark, 1977) and Stein and Carey (1986) where young people’s views form a key part of the research. It is also one of an even smaller group in which parents’ views are heard alongside those of their children and the social workers charged with offering them a service.

Each chapter provides a useful summary of relevant background legislation or guidance and previous research which has addressed the topic under consideration. This can be frustrating if you want to get to the research itself but makes the book a much more valuable document for the future than reports which take the current context for granted.

Many of its findings echo earlier findings which are shown to have wider application than just to the situation in which they were initially identified. For example, Trotzkey (1930) had shown that, while children in residential care had more problems than those in foster care, they made more progress in care than those in foster care; Brosse (1950) had identified that those children who had access to continuous adult support had best weathered the effects of war, just as those young people whose placements had been adjudged successful in this study were likely to have had access to an individual relationship with an adult in their lives.

Like their predecessors nearly two decades earlier (Page and Clark, 1977), young people do not regard residential care as negatively as many social workers do and their parents share the feeling, which children pointed to in Berridge (1985), that foster care is a criticism of them.

The weak relationship between success and social work intervention had been foreshadowed in Taylor and Alpert (1973), Fanshel and Shinn (1978), Rowe et al. (1989) andWiener and Wiener (1990) all of which had suggested little or no relationship; so the weak relationship identified in this research might have prompted further research.

On the one hand, the polarisation in the outcomes of foster placements may help to explain the poorer overall outcomes of foster care in Wiener and Wiener (1990) but, on the other, it may suggest that the lessons in how to create a successful foster placement set out in Trasler (1960), George (1970), Thorpe (1980) and Berridge and Cleaver (1987) were still being ignored.

However, the headline finding in this research was the success of residential schools — the form of intervention which many social workers and their managers had consistently sought to eradicate over the previous thirty years. Previous research demonstrating that residential care could be successful relative to other forms of intervention had tended to come from abroad (Wolins, 1974; Wiener and Wiener, 1990); here for the first time was some home grown research making very similar points.

In the end, this research was published at the wrong time; the Conservative government was on its last legs and the Labour government which took power in 1997 had no plans at all for child care. One of its first acts was to remove the presumption of doli incapax from young people, ushering in a decade of largely repressive measures aimed at young people, during which local authority neglect of young people was dealt with through increases in imprisonment (Gibbs and Hickson, 2009).

References

Berridge, D (1985) Children’s homes Oxford: Blackwell

Berridge, D and Cleaver, H (1987) Foster home breakdown The practice of social work 16 Oxford: Blackwell See also Children Webmag April 2010.

Brosse, T (1950) War-handicapped children: report on the European situation Publication No 439 Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

Fanshel, D and Shinn, E B (1978) Children in foster care: a longitudinal investigation Guildford: Columbia University Press See also Children Webmag March 2009.

George, V (1970) Foster care: theory and practice London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

Gibbs, P and Hickson, S (2009) Children: innocent until proven guilty: a report on the overuse of remand for children in England and Wales and how it can be addressed London: Prison Reform Trust

Page, R and Clark, G A (Eds) (1977) Who cares? Young people in care speak out London: National Children’s Bureau See also Children Webmag December 2008.

Parker, R A, Ward, H, Jackson, S, Aldgate, J and Wedge, P (Eds) (1991) Looking after children: assessing outcomes in child care the report of an independent working party established by the Department of Health London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office

Rowe, J, Hundleby, M and Garnett, L (1989) Child care now: a survey of placement patterns Research Series 6 London: BAAF Publications See also Children Webmag April 2010.

Social Work Services Inspectorate for Scotland (1992) Another kind of home: a review of residential child care Edinburgh: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office The Skinner Report

Stein, M and Carey, K (1986) Leaving care The practice of social work 14 Oxford: Blackwell See also Children Webmag July 2010.

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.

Thorpe, R (1980) The experience of children and parents living apart: implications and guidelines for practice In J Triseliotis (Ed.), New developments in fostercare and adoption London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

Trasler, G (1960) In place of parents: a study of foster care London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

Trotzkey, E L (1930) Institutional care and placing-out: the place of each in the care of dependent children Chicago: The Marks Nathan Jewish Orphan Home See also Children Webmag November 2008.

Wiener, A and Wiener, E (1990) Expanding the options in child placement Lanham MD: University Press of America See also Children Webmag January 2010.

Wolins, M (Ed.) (1974) Successful group care: explorations in the powerful environment Chicago: Aldine

Treat yourself - or someone else - to a Christmas present that’s all about child care. 

•  Attractive
•  Affordable
•  A contribution to charity
• And a bit of a puzzle

 If you can read the small print, you will find 71 people named on the mug. They are mostly the good and famous people of the past who have contributed in one way or another to the welfare of children and young people, but there are also some who are not well known - representatives of the millions of people who have looked after children and done a good job without

 achieving fame. How many of them have you heard of? Who should be added?

The flat charge of £10 per mug covers the cost of the mug itself, postage and packing, and a modest contribution to Children Webmag, which is an educational charity.

-

There was a full obituary of Raissa Page in the Guardian recently, which referred largely to her work as a photographer. Here Ros Niblett as written an appreciation of her work as a champion of children’s right to be heard.

In the In Residence column Keith White has focused on transition, concluding that good practice is often thought-out concerned common sense.

Jim Hyland is continuing his history of the approved school system, describing here how the well-intentioned comprehensive regional planning system became a financial and bureaucratic failure. Compulsory reading for all civil servants.

Valerie Jackson tells how her grand-daughter (and she herself) responded to the death of the family dog.

For Anti-Bullying Week 2011 we offer practical guidance for dealing with a problem that can hurt.

Dr Lin Day talks about surprises in motherhood and how babies are hard-wired to survive.

In Let’s Stick Together a large-scale programme designed to prevent marriage breakdown is described.

Noel Howard has sent an invitation to a conference in Ireland in 2012: Social Care in 2012 – Taking Stock

Robert Shaw’s two Key Texts this month are both by Jean La Fontaine - respectively on bullying and the myth of satanic abuse.

Finally, we have four book reviews.

- First, there is an excellent text on neglect by Brigid Daniel and others.

- Secondly, Valerie Jackson has reviewed the history of the playgroup movement over the last fifty years edited by Ann Henderson.

- Thirdly there is the Pre-School Learning Alliance’s celebratory volume of

50 Favourite Stories and Rhymes.

- Finally Helen Nathan encourages parents and children to bake together.

Who is in a position to call everyone together in this way, to work in partnership? It needs to be an independent national body with a track record of co-ordinatory work, and one which is widely respected. In our view, only the National Children’s Bureau fulfils this description. It has the stature and it works with every local authority in the country, but if it is to reach out to the professionals, rather than the services, it needs a system of networking, perhaps based on its membership.

When the National Bureau for Co-operation in Child Care was set up in 1963 it was ‘owned’ by its members. It was they who had seen the need for professionals to get together, to address the problems of the time, to share ideas, to have a common voice and to work as advocates to improve services for children and young people and their families.

These professionals came from many different backgrounds - in the National Health Service, Education Departments, Children’s Departments, the voluntary sector (there was very little private sector work at that time) and so on. They were from many professions and worked in different settings and at different levels of seniority. But they were all concerned to co-operate in the interests of children.

Nearly fifty years on the National Children’s Bureau has a well-respected track record for research, policy development, consultation, training, conferences, publications and, not least of all, consultation with children and young people. (There have been young members of its Board for the last decade.) The NCB has been well led. Mia Kellmer-Pringle, for example, is still widely quoted, and Sir Paul Ennals has had a major personal impact. The NCB has influenced governments; it has generated ideas which have been the foundation of legislation; it has acted as the co-ordinator of coalitions of organisations with specific interests such as bullying or disability. Its role, in its field, is unique.

But the emphasis on all the excellent work described above has sidelined the membership - perhaps in part because most of the Chief Executives have been researchers, rather than people primarily concerned about membership organisations. Originally there were branches in many parts of the country, where professionals from different backgrounds could meet, network and share ideas. It was decided to shut down the last of these branches when John Rae-Price was Chief Executive. Even though its projects are sited across the country, the NCB looked, to some at the time, a London-centred body.

The membership is made up mainly of corporate organisations such as local authorities, health authorities or schools, but there are also a few hundred individual members. Through the network as a whole, there must be some hundreds of thousands of professionals working with children and young people employed in member organisations, but most are probably unaware of their membership or of what the NCB could offer them.

It is our impression that NCB membership has become primarily a way to access its services; the original ‘ownership’ has long gone. The NCB accounts to its members at the AGM, but that is little more than a token gesture; the power and motive force of the NCB rests mainly with the senior staff, monitored and led by the Board. As described above, in many respects this approach has worked admirably, and we would not wish to detract from the NCB’s success.

We suggest, though, that it is time to reconsider the situation. At a time of economic stringency, services for children and young people need their advocates - nationally, regionally and locally. Professionals need to come together to think of new and better ways of collaborating to meet children’s needs, outside the formal structures within which they work. In short the needs which the National Bureau for Co-operation in Child Care faced in the early 1960s are in some ways mirrored today. There are concerns which require professionals to come together and take a common line.

If the NCB continues as at present, it will continue to play an important role in policy development and all the other activities listed above, but it will have missed a trick. There is no other body in which all interests concerning children and young people can come together. The NCB needs the professions to be arguing their cause; it needs the workforce to identify with it (’my NCB’). Otherwise it risks being a really first-rate London-based consultancy, rather than the expression of concerned professionals throughout the country.

We are not suggesting that traditional forms of paid membership will work. These days ephemeral systems of electronic communication work better. But to draw up large contact lists is not expensive and does entail time-consuming mailings. What matters is whether the professionals are in touch, kept up to date, sharing ideas and identifying with the wider campaign.

And in the absence of the NCB, who will draw the professionals together to have a common voice? We suspect, no one. Services for children will remain splintered and weak, and it will be not only the workers but the children, young people and their families who will suffer in the absence of advocates.

Raissa was the person appointed by the National Children’s Bureau, under Mia Kellmer Pringle, to lead the project. It could not have been a better appointment. She was imaginative, brave, and passionate about the rights and needs of children and young people in care. At the same time she was meticulous in her planning of every aspect of the project. She knew that it was crucial to involve and respect the contribution of child care staff if the project were to survive and to continue.

She knew that the young people themselves had to be made welcome and to feel valued if they were to give of their best. She had the excellent idea of using people who had been in care themselves, and who were mostly in their 20s and 30s, as facilitators and catalysts in each group. A small army of support staff, secretaries, typists, social workers, photographers, film makers and editors worked willingly for her, becoming as passionate and interested in the needs of children in care as she was.

Her partnership with George Clark, photographer, typographer and editor, and the Bureau’s publications officer, was outstandingly productive, and the book Who Cares? Young People In Care Speak Out was published under their joint names. When I became involved more fully in the project she was as supportive and enthusiastic about the young people whose voices she wanted heard as she had been in its earlier stages, while allowing me free rein with the groups I ran and the teaching materials we devised.

Raissa was aware that she was not the only person to feel that the needs of young people in care and their right to express them merited all the support adults could give. She was quick to credit the work of other people and was modest about herself and her achievements. Nevertheless, her fiery drive and clear thinking gave great impetus to the growing movement at the time to have the needs and feelings of children in care recognised and acted upon.

Raissa went on to develop another career as a documentary photographer of talent and force. In later life illness and serious arthritic disease meant that she retired from public life to the beautiful house in Wales which she shared with her partner. There, despite her ill-health, she was able to feel a degree of peace and a sense of the worthwhile, nurtured and cared for as she was by Adrianne. The part of her life that she devoted to children in care, however, deserves recognition, and while she would never have wanted that recognition to have any fuss or flattery about it, what would please her most would be the knowledge that some at least of what she fought for on their behalf took root and was still being acted on today.

So what might have been the factors contributing to this safe transition for one as young as this?

First, she had come to our home many times with her older brother and sister, and so she knew the place pretty much inside out: it was familiar to her. These siblings had been transitional supports (if not transitional objects in the sense that Winnicott describes).

Next, she had known my wife and me from her earliest days, and so she was welcomed by familiar and well known figures. She greeted us both with a very broad smile.

Third, we had often been with her, my wife particularly, in her own home and family. So we were not only known to her, but helped to provide continuity between one home and the other.

Fourth, it was her father who brought her, not a stranger, and he had often come with her and her siblings before. They came in a vehicle that she knew and that had her very own seat in it.

Fifth, she brought some significant items or objects with her including the buggy for her doll, spare clothes, and bottle.

Sixth, she had often played here before inside, but particularly outside, and she happened to come on a very fine day, and was very quickly making her way (with buggy and doll) into the garden. The grass, trees, climbing frame, boat, and little Wendy house were obviously very attractive to her.

Seventh, we knew what she was used to eating, and how she usually took her meals. Lunch was a very relaxed affair indeed.

Eighth, her parents had prepared her (in so far as it was possible to do so), and her father was careful to remain with her until it was obvious that she was comfortable with the arrangement.

Ninth, we were looking forward to seeing her and had made space in our home as well as our hearts. (And by the way neither of us had a mobile on, and so we were present for her throughout her stay.)

Tenth, my wife is one of the most empathetic and caring people possible in such situations.

No doubt there were other factors, but ten is a good enough list to be going on with, especially so, if we are thinking about good enough transitions!

It is unlikely, when a child is removed from her home and taken to stay somewhere else, that all ten factors will ever be present. But the point is that organisations, systems and professionals need to have something to aim for in such potentially traumatic and distressing situations.

Just to put you out of your misery: the child in question was, as some readers will already have guessed, our grand-daughter. Otherwise you might have been wondering why on earth a child so young was being separated from home and family.

We need to be reminded, however, that it was common for children that age to be placed in residential nurseries until the 1970s: I know, because I visited such places during the course of my research at Edinburgh University. And such places are common in many parts of the world today.

In some ways we have moved on in the UK, and we now understand a lot more about attachment and bonding. But this does not guarantee sensitivity towards the child’s needs at critical points in their lives.

Ruth and I have lived at Mill Grove for most of our lives, and during that time we have welcomed many children and young people into our home for visits, short stays, holidays, respite, and also for longer periods. Some have spent the whole of their childhood living with us. Whenever there is the possibility of a child moving home and coming to us, we always have in mind a list like the one above. Getting to know and even to trust each other is the key to the whole process, and that is best done in the child’s familiar surroundings and in step with her taken for granted rhythms.

What I am suggesting is perhaps rather radical in the UK. Much of our social policy is a response to things that go (usually very badly) wrong. We then set up a commission to recommend ways of improving the service(s) that will prevent a recurrence of the event (s) that precipitated the enquiry. Professionals are then trained with the recommendations of such commissions high on their priority lists. Rarely do we seem to be able to base what we do in the care system on what might be thought of as good enough parenting, common sense, empathy and love.

It may have occurred to you too that these principles are not divorced from the way we live our everyday lives. We are not dealing with a set of guidelines that apply only to transition from home to a new place. Rather these insights help us to see into the nature of who we are, what we believe, and how we seek to relate to and care for children.

Hopefully that says it all.

The attempts to reform the Approved Schools system seemed to be working well initially, in the early 1970s. Its success was then based on a number of key factors and a major one of these was regional planning. This was a good idea that ultimately failed because of subsequent changes in local government boundaries, finance and child care practice.

Most of what I have recorded to date has been based on my reading of the history of events. In this and later chapters, I have added some data of my own that I obtained through survey, interviews etc. at the time of the later stages of the collapse of the CHE system in the late 1980s.

The 1969 Act and Regional Planning

One of the main strategies established in the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, for bringing the former Approved Schools into the mainstream of child care was regional planning. Joan Cooper, who was Chief Inspector at the Children’s Department, then based at the Home Office, at the time of the passing of the Act, summed up the purpose of the regional planning machinery when she later (1977) observed:

It was conceived as a means of planning comprehensively all types of community home… It was a move towards rational planning (a system rather than a network) based on local and regional needs across the whole spectrum of residential care for children cutting across local authority boundaries for specialised needs.

Section 35, sub-section (3) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 laid down that, “It shall be the duty of the local authorities whose areas are wholly or partly included in a planning area…to establish for the area…a body to be called the children’s regional planning committee”. The part played by this system in sustaining and modifying the CHEs is significant in understanding how they functioned. Some examples will serve to illustrate this.

The Aims of Regional Planning System

The Planning Statement of the West Midlands Children’s Regional Planning Committee (Area No.4) in 1979 stated clearly its aims. These were to estimate future need for facilities for children in care and plan their provision, to ensure by annual reviews that the facilities were adequate, to provide a directory of residential accommodation for children available in the region, and to assist the Secretary of State, by reference in all Regional Plans to assess the national situation of provision. However, the evidence suggests that not all the committees were so clear about their aims, and that few stated them explicitly.

The North Children’s Regional Planning Committee submitted a revised plan in 1978, and whilst affirming its “commitment to the principles which led to the formation of Regional Planning Committees”, the Committee did not go into detail about its objectives, assuming, no doubt, that they were well established. It saw the purpose of its revised plan as the encouragement of both efficiency and good child care practice.

The 1983 revised Regional Plan of the London Borough’s Regional Planning Committee stated that the aim of the plan (rather than the overall aims of the Committee) was to offer a framework of information and policy within which the Regional Planning Committee and individual boroughs could plan their ownways of meeting child care needs. What actually happened should be monitored and plans and forecasts adjusted accordingly.

Most of the Regions were served by Professional Advisers who presented relevant reports with recommendations for action. The decision makers in the Committees were the local authority members who, in turn, were advised by their Chief Officers, usually the Directors of Social Services. The main areas of interest were the CHEs, as the specialist resources which local authorities needed to share. Local authorities without a CHE within their boundaries depended on neighbouring authorities with such provision. Given this mutual interest, the financing of CHEs was a matter of general concern. This concern grew with the increasing costs, and the pressure on authorities to reduce public spending.

The Weak Link in the System

Within the Regional Planning Committee there was firm resolve to maintain the principle that participating local authorities retained the right and power to make their decisions concerning their individual authorities if necessary. As a result there was some resistance to the idea that an independent body, of which they constituted only one part, could make decisions which were binding on them. Joan Cooper (1976) had recognised some of the difficulties when she said:

The machinery has creaked a good deal, partly because it preceded Social Services and Local Government reorganisation and was disrupted by them, partly concerns about setting up yet another bureaucracy, and partly through the reluctance of some authorities to look beyond self-sufficiency.

Cooper, however, remained optimistic that the system would work and would be recognised as a step forward and maintained that it was a move towards a far more rational system than “the uncoordinated opportunist, adventurous developments, with serious geographic inequalities, which characterised the first half of this century”.

Others were less impressed with the Regional Planning concept and its workings. John Burns, Principal of Kingswood in Bristol, in his capacity as President of the Association of Community Home Schools, observed in 1976 that, “In many ways it seems to me that Parliament was naive in expecting this new system to work” (Burns, 1977). Although he acknowledged that, in some instances, regionalism did work, he considered it to be an incredibly patchy system. Burns held that the Secretary of State had failed to use his powers even to ensure that the Plans of adjoining Regions fitted together, saying that in some instances Plans were in actual opposition. In practice, therefore, whatever the Act laid down and whatever the Secretary of State’s powers were, it was clear that a local authority was able to act unilaterally without approval and with no meaningful consultation. Burns concluded that the difficulties encountered in persuading local authorities to co­operate to ensure an adequacy of remand home places during the currency of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 had not been heeded and that either the Minister was not willing to use his powers or, in the face of intransigence from some local authorities, could not.

Over-Provision Becomes an Issue

Towards the end of the 1970s, concerns began to emerge in Regional Planning Committees that CHEs had been over provided for in some Plans. In the North (Area 1) Plan of 1978 it was observed:

If occupancy is calculated on a basis of 100% occupancy, then there is a surplus of about 150 beds in boys and girls schools. Calculated on the basis of an 85% occupancy level, as agreed in the. regional plan, there is a surplus of approximately 35 beds in boys and girls CHEs.

Area 2, Yorkshire and Humberside, stated:

In 1971 we had (in CHEs) 1078 places with a demand for 994 places by 1975. There are currently 985 places available with a demand by 1982 for 772 places, thus giving an apparent surplus of 231 places. The Regional Planning Committee has agreed to the closure of one establishment with a loss of 58 places.

The London Boroughs Children’s Regional Planning Committee observed in its Regional Plan for 1983-88:

There is general agreement that there is an over-provision of places and the Committee is recommended to agree in principle that the number of places should be reduced in 1984 by at least 100, to be achieved by the closure of two or three establishments.

The London Boroughs suggested that among the reasons for the decline in demand for CHEs and residential placements in general were a reduction in the child population, more explicit child care policies, improved preventative services with the growth of intermediate treatment, community service and independent living, more careful scrutiny of the need to receive children into care for professional and financial reasons, earlier rehabilitation of children and continued use of penal disposals for juveniles.

The London Boroughs’ Plan, unlike the others noted above, did attempt to take an overview of the child care services in their Region and set themselves a range of objectives accordingly. They wished to redirect resources from residential care to a more flexible range of community services, to increase the proportion of children in care fostered from 30% to 46% by 1988, to reduce the demand for secure accommodation by developing small open units, with a high staff ratio, within the framework of selected CHEs and to use savings from closures to boost training for residential staff.

The other Regional Plans, referred to above, all mention the need to close some CHEs because of “a surplus of places”. They showed only a limited grasp of the overall development of child care services in their Region. Even the London Boroughs’ laudable attempts to acquire this overview failed to some extent. John Ogden, the Region’s Principal Adviser, pointed out in a letter to the author in 1984 that forecasts were already perceived as being out of date. The demand for places in regional establishments was now “expected to decrease further than anticipated because of changing policies at local level coupled with financial restrictions”. The decision as to whether or not a child was referred to a CHE was left, in the main, to the social worker and/or to Assessment Centres’ case conference recommendations. Later, from the early 1980s, chief officers of Social Services Departments had a specific policy of allowing only a limited number of such recommendations or blocking them entirely.

Pooling of Costs

Often the only tangible benefit for a local authority involved in Regional Planning was the system of pooling costs of the CHEs and access to the Regional Assessment Centres. Each Region had its own particular method of sharing out the costs. In Region 1 North, for example, all local authorities within the Region were, at the end of the financial year, repaid any excess of income from a particular establishment in proportion to the use made of the resource. In the same way any deficit was met by the user authorities, in proportion to their use. This could mean that a local authority which had occupied only 10% of the ‘child days’, as they were known, in an establishment could still find itself with a sizeable request for a deficit payment well into the new financial year. This could be all the more galling if, as seems to have often happened, no budget allowance had been made for this claw-back. Local authorities who were not in the Region did not have to face this prospect but were charged a standard 25% over the charge for regional users. In the early and mid-1970s, when demand was high, this pooling system worked well but, as year after year the user authorities were met with deficits to repay, it became far less acceptable.

In 1981 the Treasurer for the North’s Regional Planning Committee made this point quite clearly in a letter to member agencies:

/ understand that a major objection to the present arrangements is the difficulty encountered by authorities in budgeting for a deficit. It may be possible to help authorities by providing them with an estimated deficit based on actual usage in the first half of the year and projected usage in the second. I would stress however that because of the uncertainty of future usage this could only be a guide.

In the Regional Pooling system for Region 1 in 1978-79 there was a total expenditure of £4,400,158 with an overspend of £350,444. By 1980/81 there had been a dramatic increase to an expenditure of £7,167,403 and an overspend of £876,696.

The London Boroughs, with a larger number of resources and generally high costs, showed an even more dramatic rise in their pooling costs.

Total Cost of Residential Care Provision Offered by London

Region 1973-1983

The London Borough’s Regional Planning Report in 1983 reported that the cost of homes within the regional pooling system were a source of great concern. Expenditure on the pooled establishments had fallen for the first time in 1982/83. Nevertheless due to an unprecedented 22% drop in use, the cost per child per week had risen by over 20%. Much of the high costs were attributable to under-occupancy. Closures were recommended to assist a resolution of these problems. Figures for 1991/92 indicate that costs overall had been kept down in the London Region to just under £14 million for all regional provision. This has only been achieved by greatly reducing the number of places available so that the weekly cost per place now ranged between £738 and £2,798.

From Benefit to Hazard

Thus the pooling system, from being a tangible benefit, became a financial hazard. The Local Authorities were all pursuing policies which resulted in a rapidly diminishing demand for CHE placements. The only way of arresting the escalating costs and ensuring high occupancy would have been for local authorities to declare their belief in the value of the CHE system for more children. This they did not wish to do.

The North Region had put forward a valid reason for the Regional Planning Committees continuing to operate when the prospect of closures had first become a serious issue. In 1981 they proposed that an appraisal should be made of each CHE, listing its particular advantages and disadvantages, including the client group with whom it had had most success. Decisions on closure should only be made once this exercise had been carried out.

This role for the RPCs was also identified by the London Boroughs. They did, however, recognise the difficulties in deciding which of the CHEs should close. The members of the constituent local authorities had the responsibility for making the final decisions but they considered that there no obvious candidates for closure. It was decided to appoint a member working party to consider the issues and make recommendations about which (if any) establishment should close. The working party was comprised of seven members, made up of the Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Leader of the Minority Group together with four others. It was suggested that the working party be advised by the Committee’s own officers, together with the advice of Directors of Social Services and a co-opted member of the voluntary child care organisation. This amply illustrated the number of conflicting interests that Planning Committees attempted to accommodate.

Government Abolishes the Requirement for RPCs

Once closures began, however, local authorities often looked primarily to their own interests and simply announced to the RPCs their intentions, undermining further the value and purpose of such Committees. It was not surprising, then, that when the Government, in its Health and Social Security Adjudication Act 1983, abolished the requirement for there to be Regional Planning Committees with effect from 1 January 1984, the whole edifice of regional planning collapsed almost immediately.

Some Regions, as in the North Area 1, made short-lived attempts to sustain regional planning in a modified form. However, without such arrangements being mandatory, it soon became clear that it was not possible to gain the support of all constituent authorities in any one area. The larger authorities saw themselves as being self-sufficient in most resources; the smaller authorities had few resources to add to any pool and had to cope as well as they could, relying on the availability of surplus resources of their larger neighbours.

Responses to a survey of Regional Planning Committees, showed that the East Anglian RPC was dissolved on 1 January 1984, the West Midlands RPC was “now defunct” (letter dated 20 March 1984), “the South East Children’s Regional Planning Committee was wound up on 31 December 1983″, The Children’s Regional Planning Committee for Yorkshire and Humberside ceased to operate on 31 March 1984 and “at the time of receiving your letter most of our records had already been destroyed or disposed of”. By December 1986 only the London Boroughs’ Children’s Regional Planning Committee was fully active.

In the North West an Association of Social Service Authorities planned to continue with some form of inter-authority co-operation. In effect, however, the idea of groups of local authorities working together to plan services for children had all but vanished in a hostile economic and anti-residential climate. With the collapse of regional planning came the demise of the regional planning secretariat, and its Regional Planning Officers. These officers had often done much useful work in highlighting need, chairing working groups and amassing regional data on a range of child care issues. They were, generally, a sad loss to the child care service.

The obvious immediate impact of the demise of the pooling arrangements was to remove the insurance policy of the provider authorities that any financial losses in CHEs would be met by others in the pool. The loss of this guarantee served to speed up the closure process.

Community Homes with Education were now in the open market and unless their sponsors were either prepared to subsidise any losses or charge high weekly fees they were immediately vulnerable to closure once they became loss-making. What had once been seen as an essential resource in a range of caring and corrective facilities for children and young people was now a highly vulnerable and rapidly vanishing option for impoverished local authorities and sceptical social workers. The loss of confidence in CHEs and the growth of trust in community-based alternatives is the subject of the next chapter.

This year’s theme ‘Stop and think – words can hurt’ offers schools and local authorities the opportunity to challenge verbal bullying and the casual use of derogatory language which can lead to bullying in schools and communities.

ABA wants to encourage schools and other settings to create language charters which clarify what language is acceptable, give children and young people the tools they need to challenge others about hurtful language, find new ways of expressing anger and upset and make a conscious effort to speak positively.

To help plan for Anti-Bullying Week 2011, ABA has put together an online briefing pack containing essential information, advice and practical resources for schools, colleges, youth workers, parents and carers. Anti-Bullying Week posters, sticker packs, pin badges, pencils and rulers are also available from ABA’s online shop to help encourage children and young people to get involved in Anti-Bullying Week.

Sue Steel, Coordinator of the Anti-Bullying Alliance - based at the National Children’s Bureau - said, “The use of offensive and negative language is all too common in our schools and communities and can turn into verbal bullying. This is just as serious as physical bullying and it’s very important that it doesn’t go unchallenged. Through Anti-Bullying Week 2011 we’re asking people to tackle the use of casual derogatory language and prevent it from turning in to bullying.”

The briefing pack is now available to download from www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk

You can help combat bullying by making a donation to ABA at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/AntiBullyingAlliance

A whole-school approach to tackling bullying

A whole-school approach to tackling verbal bullying involves taking the following actions.

■ Identify a lead in the school who coordinates the prevention and response to all forms of bullying – including verbal bullying.

■ Make sure you have an agreed, shared definition of verbal bullying that is understood by all staff, pupils, parents and carers and visitors.

■ Work with pupils to create a communication charter that makes it clear what the rules are with regard to the use of language, and other methods of communication. Ensure it includes all forms of prejudice-related language (see pupil activity 4).

■ Consult with pupils on a regular basis to keep up to date with trends in verbal bullying. If you hear young people using words or phrases that you don’t understand but you think may be offensive, ask them what they mean. It may be that the young people themselves are using words they don’t understand but know are insulting.

■ Make sure that all members of your school community feel confident to report verbal bullying.

■ Make sure that staff and pupils have the skills and ability to challenge the offensive use of language – whether or not it is intended to cause harm (see staff activity).

■ Create opportunities for pupils to use language in a positive way – for example using poetry, rhyme and song to address issues of bullying and prejudice. Also use opportunities in the wider curriculum to discuss the origin and influence of language.

■ If you are concerned that there are particular forms of prejudice-based language that are commonplace between pupils but are unsure how to address this (for example, the use of homophobic, sexist or racist language), seek help from outside agencies such as your local authority equality lead or the Anti-Bullying Alliance and its members (www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk).

■ Make sure that pupils and staff know where to access support if they have concerns about verbal bullying. For online support, young people can also contact Childline www.childline.org.uk or Cybermentors www.cybermentors.org.uk

Verbal bullying statistics

■ A large-scale government survey found that 31% of young people aged 14 had experienced verbal bullying (higher than any other form of bullying).

■ In 2008, 56% of all calls to Childline relating to bullying mentioned name-calling and teasing.

This was higher than any other type of bullying. 10% of calls (of 773 children) mentioned verbal or written threats.

■ Verbal abuse is the most common form of bullying, followed by relational and physical forms.

■ 65% of young lesbian, gay and bisexual pupils in secondary schools (and 75% in faith schools) experienced homophobic bullying. Of those who have been bullied, 92% experienced verbal homophobic bullying, 41% physical bullying, and 17% death threats.

■ In a 2008 survey of 17 years olds in England, more than one in five young people had been threatened or had force used against them in the past twelve months. Males were more likely to have experienced threats or violence; females reported more verbal bullying.

■ 77% of children and young people with a learning disability reported being verbally bullied.

Last week I made the difficult decision to have our very elderly springer spaniel put down. He was almost seventeen and had become incontinent and quite senile, not knowing whether he was indoors or outside. He bumped into familiar objects and ate anything that had fallen on the floor or was left at nose height. He chewed the socks out of my wellingtons and ate napkins that had fallen to the floor. He had turned into a scavenger.

My daughter introduced him to our family. Someone had approached us whilst we were selling goods at a car boot sale to say that there was a rescued springer spaniel puppy looking for a home at the sale. I immediately said no as we already had two dogs – a Rottweiler and a clumber spaniel. I had some experience of springers and knew that they were not the dogs I preferred. As ever, I was ignored and with promises of how she would look after the “poor little thing”, my headstrong daughter sought out the person getting rid of the dog and brought him home.

His first introduction did not bode well. He saw our big, lolloping Rottweiler and squealed. He was then taken into the house where he proceeded to climb onto the dining table and eat what he could find. Our dogs have manners and I could see that this would be an uphill struggle. On top of everything he was also male and I usually have bitches that I find are more compliant for me anyway.

I did not care for him but he decided he adored me and refused to leave my side. When we went out, he cried and despite having two companions constantly with him he did not like to be left. I bought a radio so he could hear human voices and this worked.

He tried to assert his male dominance with the two female dogs but he was doomed never to succeed. They chased him and pulled mouthfuls of hair from his coat. It appeared to be a game they all enjoyed, despite how it might have looked to outsiders. He would initiate the chase and they would ambush him as he raced round the garden. We had him castrated as soon as he was old enough and it didn’t affect his behaviour in the slightest. He considered himself to be male and therefore the leader and refused to accept he was the lowest in rank. We were unsure of his actual beginnings; we only knew that he had been badly treated by his previous owner who was also a breeder. He had to fight for food and there must have been a brutal pecking order for him to work through. We called him Moss.

A Dog’s Life

Moss couldn’t be trusted with adults. He would appear friendly but if you bent over him he would growl. He never bit anyone, otherwise I would not have allowed him to stay. I used to train dog agility and he loved being active. He could race around the circuit, leaping over jumps and through tunnels more quickly than most dogs but he could never be fully relied on to return when called. He never learned to walk to heel and we have the dubious distinction of being expelled from ring craft classes as no one, not even the trainers, could get him to walk to heel without being horizontal.

So Moss found his place in the family. He survived three dogs - we had another Rottweiler when the first one died – he outlived them all and for almost seventeen years we have lived our lives considering his needs. He was terrified of thunder and heavy rain and became quite Houdini-like in his ability to escape from the kitchen where he lived with the other dogs. He has climbed up bookshelves and over cupboards in his frantic bids to get away from the noise. It was only as he got older and became deaf that his panic subsided.

His age also brought about even less humour. He was not the sort of dog to have a game with. Everything was a competition. Despite all of this we cared for him and looked after him. When my grandchild came along, he growled and barked at her any chance he had. I knew he wouldn’t bite her but I was frustrated by his attempts at dominance. We never left her alone with him but there were occasions when she would go into the kitchen for a drink and there he was growling and snarling on his bed.

Deciding on the Right Time

Towards the end of his life, he slowed down considerably. He never lost his appetite and was always welcoming to visitors. He loved men in particular. When I made the difficult decision that he was ready to leave us, I wondered how my five-year-old grandchild would take the news. I needn’t have worried. I was very tearful and still miss him in a strange way. I think it is more the habitual behaviours that a dog demands – regular feeding, going out for walks and toileting, getting up in the very early hours to prevent ‘accidents’ as he got older; going out last thing at night. I still wake up and get out of bed to let him out. I still have to go outside before going to bed.

Realistic Attitudes

When my grandchild was informed. She wanted to know if he was buried or ‘burned’; she was told he was cremated. She then proceeded to have an in-depth conversation with her mother about Jesus, crucifixion, resurrection and burial. For someone who was given no positive predictions for her quality of life this is beyond incredible. She wants to talk about Moss now and then and says that she sort of misses him. She has also asked for a puppy.

We are not considering that currently. It would be nice to have a break from dependent pets. I realised that I have constantly looked after dogs for the last thirty-four years, and I deserve a bit of a rest. Mind you, there is still the chinchilla, nine hens and one miniature pony to take up my time.

• Your newborn baby has the ability to crawl up your abdomen to find the breast. This instinctive ability helps your baby to survive in the new world, but the reflex only lasts for four weeks. It is thought that the action forms a template for later crawling.

• Even if the delivery has been difficult, you may yearn for a second baby within weeks of the birth. Such feelings are due to the influence of oxytocin, which permanently reorganises nerve junctions in your brain. Levels of oxytocin can remain elevated throughout motherhood, which is why strong maternal feelings can persist for months and even years.

• You may be surprised to discover that your newborn baby can hold up his head for a few seconds from day one. If you regularly put your baby on his tummy, he will be able to turn his head from side to side by the end of the first month. The movements may be a little jerky at first, but they will gradually become more fluid.

• Your newborn baby has an inborn survival mechanism which enables him to wake up if his airway is obstructed. This is why you should not feel pressured to get your new baby to sleep too long, too deeply, too soon. If your baby’s sleep state was so deep that he could not communicate his needs, then his wellbeing could be threatened.

• Your baby’s strong sense of smell enables him to locate the nipple and to perceive differences between the smell of your breast milk and the milk of a stranger. You will also recognise your baby’s unique smell. However, this may go undetected if perfumed products are used on your baby’s skin.

The unique bond with your baby may happen instantly or it may take months to grow and develop. Remember that every baby is an individual, and will develop his or her own personality over time. As a mother you have to get to know your baby and likewise your baby needs to get to know you. You (and your partner) may benefit from additional support in the form of baby development classes such as Baby Sensory where you can gain valuable ideas and information.

Having the opportunity to harness techniques which allow you to connect and engage with your baby, is crucial for their development. Sharing concerns and worries with other parents can also re-install belief in your own abilities as a parent. Not feeling alone is crucial for all new parents.

Dr Lin Day has worked with babies and young children throughout her career and founded Baby Sensory – www.babysensory.com .

Baby Sensory is the only provider of baby development classes designed specifically for babies from birth to 13 months. The classes are run in over 400 locations throughout the UK and in 12 countries including the US, Australia and Spain and has most recently launched in China. The programme is also suitable for babies with physical or learning impairments. Currently one in 60 babies born in the UK attends Baby Sensory classes.

Children’s homes are what? - institutions, communities, businesses? It is my aim to look at this from the perspective of the people who work and more importantly live in these places. It is in my view essential to consult with the people and their representatives before making any decision affecting their lives. A decision to close a children’s home therefore should only be made following proper consultation accompanied by clear information about the implications should the proposed closure become a reality.

By consulting properly, I mean take into account the views, wishes and feelings of the young people living at the home. The implications of closure or even a proposal to close can have a major effect on the welfare of the children and young people. Many will have faced rejection and still feel unwanted, marginalised, disempowered and uninvolved in decisions about their lives. Proposed closure can have a very unsettling effect on young people. Try to imagine yourself, if as a child, you were told that you may have to move (but not told where or when).

Of course, young people will often require help in responding to the consultation process and independent support and advocacy will be of enormous benefit in assisting the young person make sense of the consultation process and get their views to the right person and on time. Young people have a right to participate in the formulation and review of their care plans (Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010). In addition, children should have their views wishes and feelings taken into consideration before any decision is made about them (Children Act 1989).

In discussing these matters it is easy to generalise and treat children in care and more specifically, those living in children’s homes as a homogenous group. Nothing could be further from the truth. However, for those young people who find that they are being looked after well, protected from harm, supported and encouraged to do well in education, learn about themselves and make positive relationships with those around them, the closure of their home could be disastrous. It could lead to anxiety, feelings of loss and dissociation and often a backward step in the recovery that they had been making from the effects of issues encountered before coming into care.

If a young person or a group of young people during consultation, oppose a closure and give valid reasons, the provider should take due care to listen to these views. But what if the provider is proposing the closure for financial reasons and has already, as part of their business plan, determined the necessity of the closure? It would seem futile in such cases to oppose the proposed closure, wouldn’t it? The power of a local authority or private company against a young person seems overwhelming. However, the young person could with skilful advocacy garner the support of members of the local authority whose care they are in, seek publicity and media attention to their plight and in extreme cases seek a Judicial Review.

For staff too, the process of proper consultation and information sharing is critical. Staff teams which are successful in promoting and safeguarding the welfare of our most disadvantaged citizens care for young people with skill, energy and an overwhelming desire to make a positive difference. They will often build significant relationships with each other as well as with the young people. This is about team playing and group care. Therefore, they may experience and feel the prospect of closure over months as a slow and painful demise. Their feelings of self-worth may well be affected and their work unvalued by their employer. The anxiety about continued employment will affect their ability to undertake their work without distraction. It will become increasingly difficult to come into work each day with a smile on their face, ready to meet the challenges which present on a daily basis.

The key therefore is good and clear communication, information-sharing and real consultation which does take account of the real concerns of the people affected. Once undertaken properly, consultation should provide a realistic result for all concerned, not just the one which was desired by the provider in the first place. In such terms young people can take control of their lives and where possible reverse unfair, oppressive and uncaring organisations.

Steve Walker is a qualified social worker, ex-residential worker, former manager of residential services and currently a Director of ICSE, and an Independent Reviewing Officer.

“Social Care in 2012 – Taking Stock”

Social Care Ireland

2012 Annual Conference

in Kilkenny

Wednesday/Thursday, 28-29 March  2012

Abstracts of less than 300 words for workshop presentations related generally to the above theme should reach Ann Marie Shier at annmarie.shier@ittdublin.ie  or Vicky Anderson at andersov@itcarlow.ie by Friday, 2 December 2011.

Further details will be posted when available on Social Care Ireland website and brochure and a booking form will accompany the IASCW newsletter in late January 2012.

Conference Committee; Ann Morahan & Noel Howard (IASCW), Ann Marie Shier & Vicky Anderson (IASCE) and David Durney & Bernadette Manning (RMA)

Key ideas

• Children define bullying differently from adults.
• Girls outnumbered boys two to one, reflecting the pattern on Childline’s main helpline, but not the pattern of bullying revealed in other studies.
• However, calls to the boarding school line more closely reflected the pattern revealed in other studies.
• Girls were more likely to report psychological and recent bullying.
• Bullying does not disappear with age, but children over 13 tend to think they should deal with it themselves.
• Children emphasised the effects of bullying rather than the bullies’ intentions.
• Bullying often followed a quarrel, a perceived breach of loyalty or a failure to conform.
• Serious physical bullying affected about a quarter of children, more often in boarding schools, whereas theft or extortion was more likely in day schools.
• Most bullying occurred at school but the most serious occurred on the way to/from school or in dormitories or at the weekend at boarding schools.
•  Two-thirds of bullying involves groups.
•  While girls tend not to bully boys, boys bully both girls and boys.
•   There was little difference in the proportions subject to teasing but more boys suffered violence and more girls theft.
•  For girls bullying related to peer problems increased with age.
•  Though comments about ‘difference’ are often included in bullying, the reasons are more likely to be to express power, to carry out retribution or to enforce conformity.
•  Other than in boarding schools, adult interventions that do not identify the victim tend to be successful; however, adults are often unwilling to intervene and children are reluctant to disclose bullying.
•  Over half of the children who used the helplines had already told an adult.
•  Lack of confidence or silence should be seen as despair at the possibility of a solution to the problem.

Content

In Chapter 1 Background, she explains that during its first 3½ years Childline had received over 91,000 telephone calls and several thousand letters, of which over 3,000 had been about bullying. This led to the decisions to open the Bullying Line from 1 March to 31 May 1990 and, because most calls came from day school pupils, for the DES to fund a line for boarding school children from January to July 1991.

Over 7,600 calls to the Bullying Line (BL) were logged, of which 2,054 were long enough to result in case notes being written; there were 10,315 calls to the Boarding School Line (BSL), of which case notes were written for 1,012; 213 of these cases involved bullying. In addition a questionnaire was sent to a representative sample of children in boarding schools.

In Chapter 2 The results from the lines, she notes that the number of calls to the BL in three months was two-thirds the number of calls about bullying in the previous 3½ years and wonders whether the lower number of calls about bullying to the BSL reflects the lack of privacy at boarding schools in view of the high number of logged calls.

She points out that, unlike other studies, there was no adult definition of bullying; the children defined what it was by calling the line and their descriptions covered a wider range of behaviours than in other studies. While the confidentiality of the helpline may have generated more data, on the whole it did not contradict what was already known.

Hitherto, UK research had been based on day schools and, though the data in these two studies was not from a representative sample, it was drawn from the national population and was thus the nearest thing so far to a national survey, something only Norway had attempted to date.

In Chapter 3 The callers, she reports that children were overwhelmingly talking about their own problems; only a few percent said they were calling on behalf of a friend; a number of parents called, along with adults recalling their boarding school days and staff who had views about the BSL; adults reporting bullying are included in the results.

Girl callers outnumbered boys two to one, a pattern not found in other studies of bullying but consistent with the pattern on Childline’s main helpline, suggesting that girls are more likely to take advantage of an opportunity to talk to someone about a problem in confidence. However, bullying accounted for only slightly more of the problems girls phoned about (20%) on the BSL compared to the boys (16%). Moreover, girls were more likely to report psychological bullying and short-term bullying than boys, both of which were often excluded from bullying studies.

There was no evidence that bullying ‘disappears with age’; it peaks among the 11–13 year olds but victims over 13 tended to think they should deal with it themselves. However, the figures may also reflect access to or shyness about using the telephone, particularly among younger children.

In Chapter 4 What bullying means to children, she notes that definitions of bullying often exclude short-term bullying or emphasise the bullies’ intentions, whereas the children emphasised the effects of anything from teasing to serious physical harm and saw in bullying rejection and hostility.

Victims tended to feel powerless and, since bullies generally had greater strength or greater numbers, empowerment was not normally a viable strategy. They also tended to see the cause as some difference in themselves but it was by no means clear that the difference caused the bullying.

The causes of bullying were more likely to be a quarrel, a perceived breach of loyalty or suspicion of having informed staff (whether or not they had); the result was the victim felt alone and vulnerable. Often friends were encouraged to bully after a falling out - this was more common among girls - or following a failure to conform to the peer group. Such bullying prevents the establishment of relationships. 10% of girls reported bullying following quarrels but the problem was the persistence of any consequent bullying.

There was little evidence of institutional bullying in boarding schools but 60% of bullying was by older children of younger and many victims thought they would not be believed by staff. There was also evidence of xenophobic and racist bullying in boarding schools.

Serious physical bullying affected around a quarter of children, more often boys, especially in boarding schools where it appeared to be linked to a ‘macho’ image of boys. Theft and extortion, which might be an end or a means, was more likely to be mentioned on BL calls, perhaps because there were fewer opportunities in boarding schools.

Among the problems in using the term ‘bullying’ to cover such a wide variety of behaviour are that theft and assault are more than just ‘bullying’ and should not be ignored, while dismissing forms such as ‘teasing’ or seeing it as a transient problem may involve underplaying the link between bullying and later criminal behaviour.

In Chapter 5 Where children are bullied, she reports that 75% of those calling the BL were bullied at school, 7% on the way to/from school and 9% in the neighbourhood. The most violent bullying took place on the way to/from school, some of it by siblings, but most of it by school-mates. At boarding school, 9% of the attacks, among them the most serious, took place in the dormitory or at weekends meaning that the child had no safe place to go.

In Chapter 6 The duration of bullying, she points out the weaknesses in defining bullying by duration; some recent bullying is more serious than some long-term and duration is more likely to be related to having someone to talk to. Moreover, there was no evidence that it became more serious with time or that minor problems ‘sort themselves out’ (p. 18); 10% of children had suffered for years and half for months. Long-term bullying was more likely to be reported in boarding schools.

Children tend not to tell because of fear of retribution, humiliation, a belief that they deserve it and the stigma associated with ‘grassing.’ One problem is that asking for help may fail because the adults cannot or will not deal with the situation.

In Chapter 7 Bullies, she notes that a small number of bullies and former bullies called the BL but that the data is mostly taken from victims; nearly two-thirds had been bullied by a group, though it was not clear if the members of the group were active participants or passive supporters; in the light of the hostility this generates, one should consider the dynamics of children’s lives rather than their individual characteristics.

While boys and girls were mentioned equally as bullies, twice as many girls were victims because, while girls rarely bully boys, boys are more likely to be bullies and to bully girls and boys though, in mixed sex boarding schools, children were more likely to be bullied by their own sex.

Slightly more bullies were age-mates rather than older except in boarding schools where there were more older bullies; it appeared that age-mates were more likely to be involved in ‘teasing’ and older bullies in more abusive bullying. Sibling bullying was more likely to occur at home but otherwise followed the patterns of school bullying

In Chapter 8 Kinds of bullying, she reports that there was little difference in the proportions of girls and boys teased but more boys were assaulted and more girls were victims of theft; almost all boys and 58% of girls accuse boys of violent bullying. Violence from girls tended to be associated with peer problems but it was not clear if violence between boys involved friends.

The incidence of teasing (c. 40%) is the same across ages and genders but physical assaults decline with age for girls, and theft and extortion are less likely among younger and older children while peer problems increase for girls but not for boys.

In Chapter 9 ‘Reasons for’ and ‘causes of’ bullying, she says that there is no evidence that individual characteristics ‘cause’ bullying even if restoring confidence may contribute to ending it. References to difference may not be the ‘cause’ but the means of bullying and the number of children saying there was ‘no reason’ for the bullying suggests that one should not look for the reason in the victim but in the social context, for example, to reinforce group identity when any scapegoat will do.

Bullying may be used to:

• demonstrate power (older bullies),
• persecute an erstwhile friend (peer bullies),
• punish deviance or enforce compliance (peer bullies).

It is important not to dismiss relationship problems as just ‘growing up;’ children need to learn how to get on with others.

In Chapter 10 Doing something about bullying, she reports that adult interventions which do not identify the victim usually have positive effects except in boarding schools. Victims’ reluctance to tell may be because of loyalty, fear of getting another child into trouble, fear of retribution or lack of confidentiality. There also appears to be a shared assumption among adults and children that children will deal with it themselves as they get older.

Some children do not believe telling an adult will help; they do not trust adults and some adults are unsure what to do or their interventions had been ineffectual. 50% of callers to the BL and 58% to the BSL had already told an adult and only a third (BL)/16% (BSL) had told no-one.

There are a variety of options for counselling depending on a child’s situation but the worst outcome of telling is no action.

In Chapter 11 Conclusions, she points out that children’s definitions are broad and inclusive; they do not regard bullying as part of growing up and they want it to stop. They often doubt adults’ ability to stop it (justifiably) and are put off by adult trivialising of bullying; any lack of confidence in adults and silence should be seen as symptoms of despair at the lack of a solution to the problem.

Discussion

This short, succinct report, published the year before Andrea Adams highlighted the issues for adults in Bullying at work (1992), set out most of the issues relating to bullying on which subsequent research (Mora-Merchán and Jäger, 2010) has elaborated. Girls are slightly more likely to be victims than boys, particularly in respect of psychological bullying such as cyberbullying, and boys are slightly more likely to be involved in physical bullying but bullying is not a problem that goes away with age, nor is it one that young people should be expected to deal with on their own.

Moreover, the variability of its incidence in different countries (Mora-Merchán et al., 2010) offers support for La Fontaine’s suggestion that context may be more important than individual characteristics.

While it is reassuring that children are more likely to disclose bullying than adult victims of domestic abuse (Walby and Allen, 2004), the reluctance or inability of adults to take it seriously when it is disclosed can create a barrier of distrust between child and adult which can have long-term adverse effects for the child.

However, the key reason for dealing with bullying and for making it easier for children to deal with it is that children need to learn to make and maintain pro-social relationships with other children. Those who are unable to do this are like to suffer social, emotional and intellectual disadvantage which will affect them throughout their lives if they get no relief from it (Ladd, 2005).

References

Adams, A (1992) Bullying at work: how to confront and overcome it London: Virago

Ladd, G W (2005) Children’s peer relations and social competence: a century of progress London: Yale University Press

Mora-Merchán, J A, del Rey, R and Jäger, T (2010) Cyberbullying: review of an emergent issue In J A Mora-Merchán and T Jäger (Eds) Cyberbullying: a cross-national comparison, pp. 271–282 Landau: Verlag Europaische Pädagogik e.V.

Mora-Merchán, J A and Jäger, T (Eds) (2010) Cyberbullying: a cross-national comparison Landau: Verlag Europaische Pädagogik e.V.

Olweus, D (1978) Aggression in the schools: bullies and whipping boys London: Wiley

Smith, P K (2010) Cyberbullying: the European perspective In J A Mora-Merchán and T Jäger (Eds) Cyberbullying: a cross-national comparison, pp. 7–9 Landau: Verlag Europaische Pädagogik e.V.

Walby, S and Allen, J (2004) Domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking: findings from the British Crime Survey Home Office Research Study 276 London: Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorat

Jean La Fontaine was commissioned by the government to investigate the subject and her report was published in 1994. This book provides the detail of the research which underlay the 1994 report.

Key ideas

• Allegations of ‘ritual’ or ‘satanic’ abuse initiated by Christian fundamentalists were later taken up by psychotherapists.
• The initial and more recent allegations involved adults but at their peak around 1989 the allegations involved children.
• Believers and sceptics are drawn from a wide variety of groups who do not always agree among themselves about the issues.
• There are similarities between the allegations and those in early modern European witch-hunts.
• Such allegations are normally intended to explain something which cannot be explained in any other way at the time.
• Allegations tend to arise in periods of general unease, the accused are given traits which are the opposite of being human and the authorities are often complicit in the allegations for fear of being accused of shielding wrong-doers.
• Though there are differences between witch-hunts at different periods, similar allegations of murder, cannibalism and incest were made against followers of Bacchus, the early Christians, the Cathars, the early modern European witches and twentieth century adults.
• Like the FBI in the twentieth century, the Spanish Inquisitor had complained about the lack of evidence in the early modern European period.
• The practices of modern occultists bear no relationship to the practices described in the allegations, which are closer to modern fiction.
• The first UK case took place in Shropshire in 1982; most cases identified thereafter could be linked with social workers’ experience of a previous case, much as early modern European cases were mostly linked with the presence of particular individuals in the locality.
• Whereas the US cases involved middle-class families, the UK cases mostly involved large, deprived families; in only three cases was there a ritual element to the abuse.
• The allegations were often used to justify failing to satisfy normal obligations to families.
• In less than half the cases was there corroboration of the abuse and, in the three cases where ritual had been used, it had been used to persuade a child to comply rather than as part of a recognised ritual.
• Believers use a variety of explanations for the lack of evidence, including the power of the abusers and looking in the wrong places.
• While children may generally tell the truth, young children’s memories are not reliable and their stories are normally subject to interpretation by adults.
• There is plenty of evidence of failures in interviewing and recording allegations.
• Believers are unable to explain why the gender balance in allegations of ritual abuse is roughly equal when it is not for other abuse allegations or why Holocaust survivors are able to remember many of the names and faces of their abusers but survivors of ritual abuse cannot.
• In the UK allegations of ritual abuse have gone through three phases: (a) Christian fundamentalism, (b) social workers and (c) sink estates and adults undergoing psychotherapy, the last being immune to the legal challenges that can be brought against social workers.

Content

In Chapter 1 Introduction: the problem, she describes how in 1988 newspaper allegations of sexual abuse involving witchcraft, black magic and satanism had come from two sources in the US and the UK: child protection workers and therapists and counsellors. They used the term ‘survivors,’ by analogy with the Holocaust, to designate the adults who told these stories but who rarely told them to the police. There was soon scepticism because, as Rosie Waterhouse put it in an article in the Independent on Sunday, “Investigators have produced no bodies, no bones, no blood stains, nothing”.

The believers, including Christians, millennialists, therapists and feminists, tended to dismiss the need for evidence, while the sceptics encompassed a diverse group from those who put the allegations down to mass hysteria to those who denied that sexual abuse took place.

Finkelhor et al. (1988) defined ‘ritual abuse’ as abuse in contexts linked to religion, magic or supernatural symbols or activities but respondents to Jean La Fontaine’s survey defined it in many different ways. In addition, the term ‘organised abuse’ which had originally been intended to cover paedophile rings, was extended to ritual abuse. In practice, in the bulk of the cases she had studied the ‘satanic abuse’ was unsubstantiated and in the three cases where there had been ‘ritual abuse,’ there had been no associations with magic or specific rituals.

She then comments on the similarities of the allegations to early modern European witch-hunts (Ankarloo, 1993): the allegations were relatively uniform and were carried by a common language, Latin in the early modern period, English today. She suggests from the social anthropology of witchcraft that such allegations explain beliefs that have no other explanation in the current social context. Just as witches were associated with sex, food and killing and as having the reverse characteristics of humans, so sexual offenders, serial killers and other extreme offenders are labelled as ‘animals.’

Witchcraft is generally diagnosed retrospectively and witch-hunts seek to cleanse the whole community (Macfarlane, 1970); they tend not to have a formal organisation or structure and the knowledge to enable witches to be identified passes from person to person, adapting to cultural differences. The authorities often accept the allegations because a refusal is interpreted as an attempt to shield the witches. Witch-hunts tend to arise when there is a general sense of unease.

In Chapter 2 The personification of evil: a comparative perspective, she points out that, though the allegations came at the early stages from Christian fundamentalists in the US, this does not explain why they were taken up by non-Christians and by people in the UK. She dismisses explanations based on individual beliefs or on a ‘moral panic,’ which tend to be ex post facto explanations, arguing that the allegations were based on a concept of evil which led to “opposing images, mobilised by culturally hostile factions, supporting or denouncing the allegations, not mainly as a matter of ‘symbolic politics,’ but in order to influence public policy” (p. 21). She points out that the alleged literature of satanic crime is largely unreliable and that there was a general use of sources to attack a political rival.

She then discusses some of the differences between accounts of satanic activities in early modern Europe and in the twentieth century. Witches were seen as representatives of pagans or heretics in the church and witch-hunts were influenced by the attitude of the church, the nature of belief and a social conceptualisation of evil. For example, Christian reformers at the time were targeting necromancy, alchemy and astrology and also rejecting some of the ideas which had arrived from the Arab world as un-Christian and a threat, much as fundamentalists today often view New Age ideas.

They believe that Satan’s followers are involved in murder, cannibalism and incest — the same allegations as were made of followers of Bacchus and the early Christians; today, cults are accused of kidnapping young people, using drugs and sexual orgies much as the Cathars were in the twelfth century. Among the 34 groups listed in her survey as associated with satanism were the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches and rock music.

She argues therefore that witch-hunts are political rather than religious. Normally, there is agitation about bizarre events and then their ‘discovery’ followed by ‘spontaneous’ confessions but there is rarely any consistency between cases in different areas; new technology is used to distribute allegations. She points out that Alonso de Salazar Frias, the Spanish Inquisitor, had stopped witch-hunts among the Basques in 1612, declaring, “These were neither witches nor bewitched until they were talked about and written about” (p. 33). Today the linking of child sexual abuse with the older myths has refurbished the myths but common to both periods is that old certainties were being destroyed.

She concludes the chapter by observing that modern occultism sees itself as distinct from Christianity rather than co-existing and that the anthropology of witchcraft suggests that witchcraft is seen as the causation of misfortune and evidence of the existence of evil beings.

In Chapter 3 Witches, satanists and the occult, she first reviews the literature of satanism pointing out that the first books by ex-satanists in the 1970s do not mention children at all, just drugs, prostitution and sexual orgies.

She then reviews the history of occultists, pointing out that their numbers are inflated by both occultists and their detractors, but that in Britain they come from a wide range of backgrounds, are relatively highly educated and relatively young and three-quarters have no interest in satanism while two-thirds undertake neither rituals nor spells. The main difference is that witchcraft tends to be feminist, anti-hierarchical and ritually permissive whereas satanists tend to be hierarchical, patriarchal and ritualistic. The Wiccans are happy to coexists with Christianity whereas the Satanists tend to be anti-Christianity.

The Wiccans have no fixed forms and no large gatherings and children are not normally present. There are two satanist churches in the US but none in the UK and only around 40 people identified themselves as satanists in the survey. She points to the commercial exploitation of satanism and the existence of individuals who call themselves satanists but without connection to any group, and of disturbed individuals who use the ideas and images of satanism to justify their actions.

She points out that most of those who happen to engage in occultist and related practice and who also sexually abuse would not normally be considered occultists; the existing eyewitness accounts of Wiccan and satanist rituals differ from the accounts given in allegations of ritual abuse. A man who seduced his daughters during a ritual was expelled from the Wiccan coven and ritually cursed.

It is often alleged that drugs are used in order to explain impossible recollections but there is no evidence that drugs are used in any occultist rituals; most of the allegations regarding the use of masks and robes come from Dennis Wheatley novels; masks are not part of rituals and robes only rarely. In other words, the rituals that feature in the allegations do not feature in the normal practice of occultist groups.

In Chapter 4 The extent of the allegations, she notes that Michelle remembers (Smith and Pazder, 1980) is about adult abuse and the first allegations about children relate to the McMartin nursery school, California, in 1984. Finkelhor et al. (1988) say there have been “at least 36 cases”. In the UK the first case of sexual abuse during a ritual happened in 1982 in Shropshire, that is, before the McMartin case; there were then no cases for five years and the later cases were very different but it is likely that the social workers’ experience of the Shropshire case influenced reactions in Cheshire (1987) and Somerset (1988) and allegations peaked by 1989 and decline thereafter. Gallagher et al. (1994) identified 21 or so cases of alleged satanic abuse, accounting for ten per cent of all cases of organised abuse which themselves comprise a minority of all cases of sexual abuse. In La Fontaine’s survey a disproportionate number came from the East Midlands, London and Manchester areas. Indeed, there was a pattern of geographic spread of the allegations from one social work team in Nottingham to surrounding areas.

She notes that in 1582 and 1645 there had been a cluster of allegations in the same area of North East Essex, in both cases at a time of outside intervention — Justice Darcy in 1582 and Matthew Hopkins in 1645. In Nottingham the leader of the social work team and the line manager lectured on the cases while Bea Campbell supported them with four articles in 1990 and two in 1991.

But the cases mainly involved large extended families where successive generations had been mistreated or abused; none of the allegations involved strangers. Indeed, out of the 84 cases in the survey, 18 involved large extended families and 12 small domestic groups; only eight involved organised groups and there was no organised abuse in the three substantiated cases of ritual abuse. The believers argued that the lack of evidence proved the skill of the abusers.

However, there were also significant differences between the US and the UK; until 1994 there were no UK cases involving nursery schools and only one in 1994. (The alleged abusers were cleared by the Court of Criminal Appeal in 2002.) The US parents were affluent middle class; the UK parents mostly deprived. The US parents lobbied for prosecutions; the UK parents were the accused. The alleged victims in the US were younger. The UK families were among the poorest; they often feared social workers and the children were shunned at school; they had mostly not had a normal childhood. Moreover, like allegations of witchcraft, allegations of ritual abuse were not randomly distributed across the population and could be seen as a way of justifying denial of social workers’ normal obligations to the parents.

In Chapter 5 The question of proof, she gives examples of the allegations; the distinguishing features tend to include the presence of the devil or Satan, witches, robes, killing babies or animals and drinking blood but over 60% of the cases had a feature not recorded elsewhere. There was a striking similarity with the accusations against the early Christians and, in spite of the allegations of drug use, no-one had been tested for them. She points out that on 3 October 1613 Spanish Inquisitor Salazar had called for “external and objective evidence” of witchcraft because the issue was not belief in witchcraft but whether the events took place.

While Christian fundamentalists rely on their belief in the devil or Satan, therapists believe they have discovered a new form of sexual abuse for which proof will come; both tend to believe that, if sexual abuse occurred, everything else did; in her survey, only 35 out of 84 cases had corroboration of sexual abuse, of which 60% came from medical evidence, 57% from a guilty plea and 33% from a witness statement. She points out that pretending to have mystical power was a way of persuading the child to engage but in no cases, including the three that included ritual, were genuine occultist or satanist rituals used.

She then discusses the three cases that included ritual pointing out that there was plenty of collateral evidence in these cases but that in the other cases “material evidence was remarkable for its absence” (p. 88). However, there was no evidence of ceremonial dress or there was an alternative explanation for the clothing. No pornographic material or cameras were discovered - the cases where it had been did not involve satanic abuse - and the other evidence alleged to corroborate ritual abuse did not.

In Chapter 6 Explaining belief, she argues that ritual abuse is being used as an explanation for difficult cases, for example, where there is no direct evidence of sexual abuse, sometimes because of the age of the children or because of the bizarre behaviour of the children. The allegations are normally made only some months after the children have been taken into care and this delay or failure to disclose is interpreted as a result of trauma or intimidation.

Sheila Youngson (1993) reports that many staff experience stress, partly because they believe they are dealing with something unprecedented and partly because they believe that other adverse events in their lives are related to these cases, but also that 42% had experienced more positive effects from working with these cases.

Jean La Fontaine notes that many staff believe that satanic cults include members of the police, which creates friction between social workers and the police and that, when ‘experts’ endorse the allegations, sceptical questions are brushed aside. She also notes that none of the children in her survey described anything comparable to Coleman (1994) except in the one case in which Joan Coleman had been involved, that most lists of indications are not based on cases but on other lists and that the absence of corroboration was explained by looking in the wrong places.

She concludes that the slogan ‘we believe the children’ ignores the fact that the children do not describe ritual abuse; rather the adults place their interpretation on the children’s descriptions.

In Chapter 7 Children’s stories, she begins by pointing out that belief in satanic abuse can be explanatory or representative; children’s evidence had not been given special status until the late twentieth century when ‘survivor’ stories were alleged to confirm ‘what children said.’ She argues that this reflects a shift from Hobbes’s view of children to Rousseau’s notion of childhood innocence.

She points out that children’s evidence varies with age and is not always reliable, while small children only provide fragmentary evidence which requires more adult interpretation than the evidence of older children. However, the problem is not whether children can tell the truth - mostly they can - the problem is adult interpretation. Adults may:

ñ misreport what children said,

ñ fail to recognise the sources to which they were exposed,

ñ fail to recognise how ideas are transmitted among children.

Adults want to identify the perpetrators and exactly what the children had witnessed and tend to view the telling as part of a way back to normal life. But very often the child responds because they are in a dependent relationship with the adult.

The Inquiry into the Removal of Children from Orkney in February 1991 (1992) had covered the problems with interviews, but distortions in records could arise from distortion in interviews, distortions of third party records, the use of lists and extreme summaries of interviews or other records.

In Chapter 8 Confessions and tales of horror, she points out that no evidence has ever been produced that the events alleged in spontaneous confessions took place but there has been a shift in that the authors of modern spontaneous confessions have been treated as victims. Also there was a difference between those in the US - by younger children against staff - and those in the UK - by older children against their parents. In the US a small group of psychotherapists were involved with the bulk of allegations but the first disclosures were not normally made to trained people. She notes that counsellors may gain great pride from being chosen as a confidant and that many ‘survivor’ stories are not told by the ‘survivor’ but by someone else, even in their presence.

Though there are normally more female than male victims of sexual abuse, the proportion of alleged victims of ritual abuse is roughly the same, though the allegations overwhelmingly come from women and it has become a feminist issue. She notes that the accounts given by teenagers generally resemble those by adults and that, while the accounts are highly detailed, there is no memory of people present except parents - a difficulty not shared by Holocaust survivors. This amnesia is explained as arising from fear of reprisals but she notes that adult survivors mention even larger numbers of unnamed individuals than teenagers and, where there is a willing listener, there is no end of telling the story and believing listeners sustain belief.

She notes that, though one point of a ritual is that it has to be performed consistently, there was very wide variation in the accounts of rituals and that, in spite of the detail in the published accounts, there was no clarity about what made them distinctively satanist.

In Chapter 9 A modern movement of witch-finders? she points out that most of the UK allegations involved ‘sink estates’ and a shift from a Christian fundamentalist focus on ‘saved souls’ in the 1980s to a psychotherapist and feminist focus on ‘patients’ in the 1990s. The initial phase had involved the Evangelical Alliance, the use of the media by the NSPCC in their July 1989 press release ahead of the Cook Report on the subject and the involvement of Christian social workers, psychiatrists and psychologists.

The second phase had involved social workers using the hypothesis of satanic abuse to explain difficult cases in Congleton, Nottingham and Rochdale and presenting this as a new danger for the nation’s children in part because it was seen as a gender issue in a service sensitised to gender issues. In the face of opposition from the police regarding evidence and Waterhouse blaming the Christian fundamentalists, the believers had dissociated themselves from Christian fundamentalism.

The third phase involved a shift to adult survivors and psychotherapists; though RAINS (Ritual Abuse Information Network and Support) had been founded in 1989, it only displaced the Christian organisations several years later; the therapists presented themselves as ‘experts’ but therapy is both a rewarding profession and easy to enter; this led to the emergence of a new school of therapy based on ‘believing clients’ and emphasising adults’ survivor stories.

In Chapter 10 Aftermath and conclusions, she notes the predominance of therapists, that Michelle Smith had had no memories until the therapy started and the variety of ‘proofs’ adduced including ‘body memories.’ She notes the success of the False Memory Society in bringing court cases in US and that Multiple Personality Disorder had not been accepted in the UK.

She concludes that beliefs in a conspiracy to destroy society are not new and that, notwithstanding changes in the ways in which people view witchcraft and Satan, there are common features with earlier witch-hunts, in particular, the lack of evidence, the assumption that ‘deniers’ are complicit, the association of alleged perpetrators with things that society repudiates, for example, terrorism or paedophilia, and the desire to cleanse community.

She points out that none of those accused were genuine occultists; they were mostly society’s rejects and, though child protection procedures ultimately rejected the allegations on legal grounds, psychotherapy does not face such legal challenges.

She argues that this situation was able to arise because of threats to Christianity from cults, the growth of individualism, the charismatic authority of clinicians, widespread concern at the prevalence of evil, plus nostalgia for the past and threats to traditional gender roles.

Discussion

This book is unusual among the texts which most child care workers will read because it draws on social anthropology and because it takes a comparative approach, not just with child care in other countries or different types of child care within a single country but with events which are likely to be outside the experience of most UK child care workers.

But it is also one of those rare research projects where it was possible to look at all the documented instances of a particular phenomenon rather than just a sample. So those who wish to dispute its conclusions have to attack the methodology rather than the evidence, much of which was provided by those who believe(d) in the existence of ‘ritual abuse.’

Its main messages for child care workers are:

• beware of inventing an explanation for something you find difficult;
• beware of attributing non-human characteristics to those whom you find difficult;
• beware of using those explanations or attributions as excuses for not carrying out your obligations to the child;
• be careful about how you interpret what young children say;
• be careful about how you record interviews or summarise records;
• beware of relying on ‘experts’ in the absence of evidence.

We saw in the accounts by Cawson and Martell (1979) and Blumenthal (1985) how secure units were used to explain away failures in the care system by blaming the children, in the Inquiry into the Removal of Children from Orkney in February 1991 (1992) how the explanations were used to avoid social workers carrying out their obligations to the children and their parents and how particular interpretations of what children had said and poor recording compounded the situation, and in the continuing adulation of Bowlby (1952) and in the events in Staffordshire (Levy and Kahan, 1991) how social workers have relied on ‘experts’ in spite of the lack of evidence for their theses.

Quality child care is not impossible, as King et al. (1971), Wolins (1974), Wiener and Wiener (1990) and Fletcher-Campbell (1997), among others, have demonstrated but it starts from seeing the children and their families in a positive light and not as a difficulty which has to pathologised and then explained away before you can work with them.

References

Ankarloo, B (1993) Sweden: the mass burnings 1668–76 In B Ankarloo and G Henningsen (Eds) Early modern European witchcraft: centres and peripheries (Second ed.) Oxford: Oxford University Press

Blumenthal, G J (1985) The development of secure units in child care Aldershot: Gower See also Children Webmag December 2009.

Bowlby, E J M (1952) Maternal care and mental health: a report prepared on behalf of the World Health Organization as a contribution to the United Nations programme for the welfare of homeless children (Second ed.) Monograph Series No 2 Geneva: World Health Organization Previously published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization 1950

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.

Coleman, J (1994, June) Presenting features in adult victims of satanist ritual abuse Child Abuse Review 3(2), 83–92

Finkelhor, D, Williams, L M and Burns, N (1988) Nursery crimes: sexual abuse in day care London: Sage

Fletcher-Campbell, F (1997) The education of children who are looked after Slough: NFER See also Children Webmag October 2011.

Gallagher, B, Parker, H and Hughes, B (1994) Report to Department of Health. Manuscript

Inquiry into the Removal of Children from Orkney in February 1991 (1992) Report of the Inquiry into the Removal of Children from Orkney in February 1991: return to an Address of the Honourable the House of Commons dated 27 October 1992 [James J. Clyde] Edinburgh: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office See also Children Webmag August 2011.

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

La Fontaine, J S (1994) The extent and nature of organised and ritual abuse: research findings London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office

Levy, A and Kahan, B J (1991) The Pindown experience and the protection of children Stafford: Staffordshire County Council The Report of the Staffordshire Child Care Inquiry 1990 See also Children Webmag September 2011.

Macfarlane, A (1970) Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England: a regional and comparative study London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

Mair, K J (2010) Creating nightmares: a short history of belief in ritual abuse In W Burgoyne, N Brand, M Greenhalgh and D Kelly (Eds) Miscarriage of memory: historic abuse cases — a dilemma for the legal system, pp. 35–45 Bath: BFMS

Smith, M and Pazder, L (1980) Michelle remembers New York: Congdon & Lattes

Waterhouse, R (1990, 16 September) Satanic cults: how the hysteria swept Britain The Independent on Sunday, 3

Waterhouse, R, Kingman, S and Cuffe, J (1990, 19 March) A satanic litany of children’s suffering The Independent on Sunday

Wiener, A and Wiener, E (1990) Expanding the options in child placement Lanham MD: University Press of America See also Children Webmag January 2010.

Wolins, M (Ed.) (1974) Successful group care: explorations in the powerful environment Chicago: Aldine

Youngson, S C (1993, December) Ritual abuse: consequences for professionals Child Abuse Review 2(4), 251–262

I must start this review by acknowledging that I have not read other recent texts on this subject, and I cannot therefore make an informed comparative judgement. I can, however, commend this book.The subject matter is of major importance in the protection of children. More children are placed on Child Protection Registers as being put at risk by neglect than other categories of abuse, and the subject causes major headaches for social workers. So many children are subject to a degree of neglect that they cannot all be removed from their families, and when is neglect so significant that action must be taken? The line taken by Professor Brigid Daniel and her co-authors has been to consider the research, to identify the soundest and most relevant and to sprinkle their findings liberally throughout the book. In all, 20,480 items were considered and 63 were finally selected as being sound, relevant and useful. This is commendable, and provides a strong basis for the authors’ conclusions and advice. The book works logically through six main themes, with a chapter on each: - understanding child neglect, - signs that parents need support, - signs that children’s needs are not being met, - responding to children whose needs are not being met, - helping the neglected child, and - preventing child neglect. For the most part this book is very thorough. Because it is based on such a wide range of evidence, it comes over as a mixture of an evaluation of the research suited to the needs of experienced professionals and a basic teach-in about neglect for social work students. This mixture does not detract from its usefulness to both groups of potential readers. The language is inevitably rather social-worky and at times a bit heavy. To break up the text and prevent it being too stodgy, there are items in boxes at intervals - either case studies or descriptions of key pieces of research. This is a good idea, but some of the boxes stretch over more than a page (e.g. pp. 122-124), which rather detracts from their impact as snappy bite-sized inserts. If anything, I would have liked to see a few more case examples. Having commended the book, let me focus on what appeared to me to be its failings. First, it seemed to me that there was insufficient recognition that neglect, as seen in poor home conditions and inadequate physical care of children, often actually implies a degree of emotional abuse. If parents do not care that their children are dirty and smell and are ostracised at school, for example, it shows a more fundamental undervaluing of the children. It is not just that the family happen to be suffering poverty. This is particularly true when neglect is long-term, and the cumulative impact of lack of parental concern is, I think, often under-estimated by social workers. There is some discussion (c. p. 63) of emotional neglect but, perhaps because of insufficient research on the subject, it does not in my view have the weight it merits. Both neglect and emotional abuse are, of course, ‘abuse by omission’, and are harder to substantiate if social workers need to prove a case for action. Secondly, I did not feel that the book gave practical advice to social workers to help them decide when to act. A distinction is made between the need to take action in the early stages and formal child protection, but I have come across cases where standards in families have sunk by degrees to the point where social workers realise that they should have taken formal action much earlier. This is a problem particularly if there is no incident which precipitates action; social workers seem to become inured to the poor standards in the home, perhaps feeling that the life-style is a matter of the clients’ choice. Allied with this problem is that of families who become less co-operative over time. There may be an assumption that people and families are constant, but they change, and if case files are read covering, say, a decade or more, it will be seen that clients often become more hostile, perhaps in part because of defensiveness in the face of criticism, or in part because of frequent changes of social worker. Some clients become expert in manipulating professionals and getting them to play their game. There are references to this (p.113 and the criticism of passive case management on p. 127) but it deserves more coverage. The point of all these observations is that texts of this sort need to alert social workers to the complexity of the issues and to give them handles for action. In this respect I felt this book fell short. Thirdly, the book focuses on the casework and relational aspects of dealing with neglect well, but there are very few references to practical action. Maybe social workers these days are only expected to talk about things and not actually do anything practical to help families suffering from neglect. But there are times when a depressed or overburdened parent needs a helping hand to get back on track. Cases in which I have been involved recently have included - help by social workers in cleaning houses and decorating, - the provision of daily family aides to make sure that the children get to school on time, - the provision of skips to help shift the rubbish which neglectful parents sometimes acquire, - a social worker getting down to floor level to play with the children, offering a model for the mother to join in when she did not know how to pay, - a teacher who helped a smelly child by providing a shower at school before the school day started, - the provision of small grants at crisis times, and - HomeStart advisers supporting parents (how can one write a book about neglect and fail to refer to HomeStart’s impact?). I am not denying the need to resolve the families relational and motivational problems, but some of the problems are primarily practical, and getting alongside clients can be a real morale boost for them. In particular, I was amazed to see absolutely no reference to the use of family rehabilitation centres as a valuable means of helping parents learn how to look after their children, budget, relate to each other, and cope with the whole range of issues which lead to neglect. The impact of these centres on the lives of families with multiple problems has in some cases been dramatic. I am aware that there is a strand of social work thinking that is opposed to any residential care, but to ignore this range of provision is a serious omission. The book ends with the proposal that neglect should be seen as a matter of public health. This is an interesting idea, but as neglect is the outcome of human behaviour and attitudes it is misleading to compare it with health problems that can be solved by vaccination. It is more akin to mental health and substance abuse problems, and to assume that it can be wiped out like smallpox is, in my view, overoptimistic. This warrants more debate; I would personally prefer a stronger community-based approach, as extended families and neighbours are the ones who often offer support or raise the alarm. Involving and strengthening these networks could support families better and reduce the need for statutory action. Finally, as an Editor, I noted half a dozen slips in spelling and grammar. (I quite liked the notion of abuse being ‘maletreatment’.) None rendered the text ambiguous, but a book of this sort should be error-free. In conclusion, though half of this review describes its shortfalls, it remains an excellent book. Indeed the comments made above essentially highlight the importance and complexity of the subject, and the authors rightly identify several areas as meriting more resarch. Jessica Kingsley are producing quite a flood of interesting texts at present, and they are to commended for publishing this book. Daniel, Brigid, Taylor, Juliet, Scott, Jane, Derbyshire, David and Neilson, Deanna (2011) Recognizing and helping the Neglected Child Jessica Kingsley, London ISBN 978 - 1 - 84905 - 093 - 7

“To our shame as a society, most decisions about educational provision for young children have been made with the requirements of the adults in mind. When women were needed in fields and factories during and immediately after the war, nurseries were provided. As soon as that need was perceived to be over, nursery expansion was no longer supported. People who regretted this decision generally did so out of concern for the adults not the children. The TUC’s Charter for the Under fives in 1977, for example, saw pre-school children as a hindrance to their parents’ full contribution to GDP, and well-run nurseries as a practical solution to this problem.” Ann Henderson

The ensuing chapters chart the importance of the PPA in the lives of children and their families and offer many contributions from such service users. It talks about where playgroups were housed and some of the problems of sharing space and resources. I certainly remember local playgroups being in cold and draughty church halls in my local area. Very few people originally were paid for their services and volunteers were sought and became invaluable. A lot of parents helped out in their child’s playgroup so that every child had someone keeping an eye on them for safety and encouragement.

From these experiences, parents began to identify the importance of play and play environments for small children as a means of developing skills and individuality which would stand them in good stead in their later school years. It was where a lot of mothers in particular were able to develop positive relationships with their children and where they could see other parents doing the same.

Training was offered through leaders and regional officers from the 1970s and this has continued to develop into a nationally recognised qualification.

There have been some troubled times for the movement and it has been, from time to time, its own worst enemy. In a way, this was due to being an intuitive rather than business-minded organisation from the onset. Quality of care and play opportunities where children and their parents could feel equal, accepted and respected was the priority but of course this has to be tempered by the demands of quality assurance and made into something that is assessable and quantifiable.

The history of events in the movement is available at the back of the book and it is obvious how politics played their part in the on going evolution of such a grand institution.

This is an easy book to read, whether from the beginning all through or selecting the chapters in order of preference. The writers who contributed to this book each have their own reasons for doing so and this makes for a varied approach and mind-set.

For practitioners and parents it is a must-read and must-have text.

Henderson, Ann (Ed) (2011) Insights from the Playgroup Movement

Trentham Books 2011

ISBN: 978-1-85856-503-3

The overall impression is of a cheerful book, packed with variety, with some very nice illustrations by a variety of artists (Anja Rieger my favourite). It is well bound with a heavy cover and it should withstand little fingers pointing at pictures. It is the sort of book which every play group, every nursery and a lot of parents should have.

This book is a twin to go with the history of the Pre-School Learning Alliance reviewed by Valerie Jackson in this issue. Brought out by the Alliance to celebrate their Golden Jubilee, the foreword is called Belle’s Big Idea and it tells in simple language how the organisation got going. It is a nice story in itself and is written for children to understand.

Pre-school Learning Alliance (2011) 50 Favourite Stories and Rhymes

Ladybird Books, London

ISBN 978 - 1- 40931 - 225 - 3

On the cover Tana Ramsay is quoted as saying that this is the “most enchanting fairy book I have ever read” and the publisher’s blurb describes the book as “perfect for children aged 4 and up”.The main story line is that a little girl called Flossie Crums is entering a baking competition. There is a subplot about fairies, who appear on every page in Daryl Stevenson’s cute illustrations. It will not spoil the reader’s sense of suspense if I give away the fact that the King of the Fairies is poorly and Flossie makes him better. I found the story line a bit thin and twee, but my wife tells me that it is pitched appropriately for four-year-old girls.

The point of the book really is that Helen Nathan, as a mother of three daughters, wants to encourage children to learn to bake, like Flossie and her brother Billie, and the cake-baking competition is simply an excuse to include seven recipes for cakes. Although they are written as if for children, ending with a list of baking tips, four-year-olds will not cope with either the recipes or the conversion table. Children capable of reading the recipes will probably have outgrown fairies. The recipes are for grown-ups, but the idea of adults and children baking together is excellent - except that the stuff left in the bowl always tastes better than the baked cakes, so why put them in the oven?

Ignore my grumbles. Children should learn how to bake, and the story may get them interested. They can also enjoy spotting the fairies.

Nathan, Helen (2011) Flossie Crums and the Royal Spotty Dotty Cake

Pavilion Children’s Books, London

ISBN 978 - 1 - 84365 - 188 - 8

 The Editorial this month draws together a number of points in other articles and points up the responsibilities facing the child care profession.