Sunday, 20 June 2010
Good news from the National Children's Bureau
The National Children's Bureau's announcement to continue to support the service provided to young people in residential child care and to continue to support the residential child care workers who look after them is welcome news. We hope the new service, National Children's Bureau Residential Child Care (NCBRCC) to be headed by Jonathan Stanley will flourish and that it will develop upon the resourceful service formerly provided by the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care (NCERCC). The National Children's Bureau is to be congratulated for toughing out the difficult situation which arose as a consequence of the previous government's decision to withdraw funding for NCERCC and it is to be hoped that in not ruling out reconsidering the funding of consultancy companies to provide support for residential child care that the new government may now consider diverting funding toward NCB's new project. (Posted June 10th,2010).
Nirvana ? Not yet, but the new issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal will go online on June 15th
Where has the adventure and romance of childhood gone ? Where is that utopian country - once the domain of children - of days of dawn to dusk playing, building dens, wide games in the woods, dressing up, playing Mums and Dads, making things your parents couldn’t afford to buy and pledging lifelong loyalty to friends ? Many believe the new experience of childhood is cocooned within four wheel drive people carriers, computer games in the bedroom, designer birthday parties and the avoidance of strangers and this all with an intent to protect our children from a dangerous community which is probably as much of a fantasy as the memory some of us sustain of a childhood where the sun shone all day and if it rained it did so when we were asleep. None of these notions represent a truth and there have always been children who have not experienced a childhood of the kind many of us fondly “remember.” Children who have suffered poverty, the loss of parents, who have lived through war and violent civil unrest, and those who at an early age become the primary carer for a parent have been deprived of a childhood. For these children life has always been about harsh adult reality and seldom about play and so they have missed a great deal.
Yet it is a curious phenomenon that most political manifestos, and the majority of therapies which claim to be life changing and life affirming promise the achievement of an elysium whose very perfection most red blooded human beings might view as anathema, while children who have nothing, deprived of play and love cannot even imagine those things which most of their peers take for granted as part of what is naturally given to them in life. Vulnerable people are too often seduced by promises of joy tomorrow which are rarely fulfilled. Like memories of an idyllic childhood, political and therapeutic promises can be unreliable.
In the new issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal which goes online on June 15th there is no promise of Avalon but there are ideas and examples about how life might become better for children and adults who have encountered difficulties. In an array of articles, stories and poems representing life as it is lived, John Burton, Kay Cook, Cynthia Cross, Thom Garfat, David Lane, John Molloy, Jan Noble, Jane Kenny, John Stein, and Jillien Viens write about the joys and tribulations of childhood, parenting and caring. Also in this edition will be the winning entry of our writing competition which is a short story by Tiffany Dawkins. An additional item will be the publication of Charles Sharpe's interview with Leon Fulcher and Thom Garfat. (First posted 7th, June, 2010)
Yet it is a curious phenomenon that most political manifestos, and the majority of therapies which claim to be life changing and life affirming promise the achievement of an elysium whose very perfection most red blooded human beings might view as anathema, while children who have nothing, deprived of play and love cannot even imagine those things which most of their peers take for granted as part of what is naturally given to them in life. Vulnerable people are too often seduced by promises of joy tomorrow which are rarely fulfilled. Like memories of an idyllic childhood, political and therapeutic promises can be unreliable.
In the new issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal which goes online on June 15th there is no promise of Avalon but there are ideas and examples about how life might become better for children and adults who have encountered difficulties. In an array of articles, stories and poems representing life as it is lived, John Burton, Kay Cook, Cynthia Cross, Thom Garfat, David Lane, John Molloy, Jan Noble, Jane Kenny, John Stein, and Jillien Viens write about the joys and tribulations of childhood, parenting and caring. Also in this edition will be the winning entry of our writing competition which is a short story by Tiffany Dawkins. An additional item will be the publication of Charles Sharpe's interview with Leon Fulcher and Thom Garfat. (First posted 7th, June, 2010)
Sunday, 13 June 2010
The Dutch auction of children in residential child care
In a recent article by Lauren Higgs, Residential care providers urged to work together to stop closures published on May 4th in the Children and Young People Now Daily, Raphael Silver, a member of the Law Society’s Children Panel suggests that private sector providers of residential child care should band together to resist local authorities who are pooling their budgets and working together in order to purchase residential child care services more cheaply.
In our experience the Dutch auction of children who need places in children's homes has been occurring in one way or another for a number of years. Essentially what happens is that individual providers are implicitly and discreetly warned that if they don't squeeze their fees local authorities won't place children with them. In response providers are forced to cut their costs or go out of business. For obvious reasons providers resist cutting costs on feeding, clothing or keeping youngsters warm and sheltered - although sometimes this has occurred - and so what is cut is the most important resource of residential care - staffing. Less experienced, less well trained staff and so less expensive staff are recruited and training budgets are slashed and all this is done in a service where it is generally acknowledged that staff training is seriously under-resourced.
It is not necessary to have ideological sympathy with the private provision of residential child care in order to be motivated towards pointing out this lack of concern for the quality of care children and young people receive. For better or for worse governments have encouraged the private sector to fill the void left when the voluntary and the statutory sectors beat a partial retreat from residential child care and for the forseeable future private sector provision is a necessary and significant part of the service. It is generally understood that those who operate a business wish to make a profit and of course few of us are reluctant to collect our wages, salaries or fees at the end of each month and neither would we quietly stand by if someone arbitrarily decided to cut our earniings.
In Lauren Higgs’ article, Roy Williamson, the executive officer of the Independent Children’s Homes Association comments that because of their strength in unity local authority commissioners “can play providers off against each other” and in some instances “have driven prices down so far that they risk putting providers out of business”. Roy Williamson argues that while providers are “ not unrealistic about the state of public finances…… we all want what’s best for quality. We have to look at how we can work together and have open discussions between providers and commissioners.”
Meanwhile, many individual providers and registered managers remain silent on the matter fearful that any comment will not go down well with the local authorities who are referring to their children’s homes.
In the recent general election campaign all the political parties have been careful to insist that if elected investment in front line services for children will not be reduced. It is a shame that their colleagues in local government do not feel able to act in unison with them. Perhaps there is a tacit understanding that children in residential care – recipients of a service already in reduced circumstances - are exempt from any of the positive consequences of noble political commitment. (Posted, May 10th, 2010)
Link
Lauren Higgs CYP Now Daily at http://www.cypnow.co.uk/Archive/1000764/Residential-care-providers-urged-work-together-stop-closures/
In our experience the Dutch auction of children who need places in children's homes has been occurring in one way or another for a number of years. Essentially what happens is that individual providers are implicitly and discreetly warned that if they don't squeeze their fees local authorities won't place children with them. In response providers are forced to cut their costs or go out of business. For obvious reasons providers resist cutting costs on feeding, clothing or keeping youngsters warm and sheltered - although sometimes this has occurred - and so what is cut is the most important resource of residential care - staffing. Less experienced, less well trained staff and so less expensive staff are recruited and training budgets are slashed and all this is done in a service where it is generally acknowledged that staff training is seriously under-resourced.
It is not necessary to have ideological sympathy with the private provision of residential child care in order to be motivated towards pointing out this lack of concern for the quality of care children and young people receive. For better or for worse governments have encouraged the private sector to fill the void left when the voluntary and the statutory sectors beat a partial retreat from residential child care and for the forseeable future private sector provision is a necessary and significant part of the service. It is generally understood that those who operate a business wish to make a profit and of course few of us are reluctant to collect our wages, salaries or fees at the end of each month and neither would we quietly stand by if someone arbitrarily decided to cut our earniings.
In Lauren Higgs’ article, Roy Williamson, the executive officer of the Independent Children’s Homes Association comments that because of their strength in unity local authority commissioners “can play providers off against each other” and in some instances “have driven prices down so far that they risk putting providers out of business”. Roy Williamson argues that while providers are “ not unrealistic about the state of public finances…… we all want what’s best for quality. We have to look at how we can work together and have open discussions between providers and commissioners.”
Meanwhile, many individual providers and registered managers remain silent on the matter fearful that any comment will not go down well with the local authorities who are referring to their children’s homes.
In the recent general election campaign all the political parties have been careful to insist that if elected investment in front line services for children will not be reduced. It is a shame that their colleagues in local government do not feel able to act in unison with them. Perhaps there is a tacit understanding that children in residential care – recipients of a service already in reduced circumstances - are exempt from any of the positive consequences of noble political commitment. (Posted, May 10th, 2010)
Link
Lauren Higgs CYP Now Daily at http://www.cypnow.co.uk/Archive/1000764/Residential-care-providers-urged-work-together-stop-closures/
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