Visitors to the goodenoughcaring.com site who watched the programme “Question Time” from Derby on BBC 1 last night, (Thursday,3/3/11) may have heard Iain Duncan Smith, the coalition government’s Secretary of State for Work and Pensions say as an aside to a plea for the recruitment of more foster carers, “that as many children as possible should not be in care homes because ultimately they do not do them any good at all.”
Iain Duncan Smith is right to stress the need to recruit more foster parents for troubled children but there is a significant number of children who, temporarily or more long term, cannot live with their birth families and who, for a variety of reasons, would not have their current needs met in a foster care placement. For them good quality group residential care is less threatening and also has the resources which can accommodate and provide for their complex developmental needs. This is not to be complacent about, or to deny the difficulties residential child care faces, and at the best of times residential child care is a problematic project. In a sense that is how it should be for if it were otherwise something would be seriously wrong.
Iain Duncan Smith is not the minister responsible for children’s homes but he is a rightly respected and influential voice in the coalition government on matters concerning the most needy and vulnerable members of our community. This is why his remark is disappointing for it is surely not stretching things too far to conclude that his views represent the government’s position on this matter. It is disappointing too because he should know that there are many examples of good residential child care being provided throughout England but these are not encouraged or developed further because there is a lack of consistent political commitment and support to the residential child care sector.
The recent Ofsted report on children’s homes in England, Outstanding Children's Homes (2.3.11) highlights examples of the good residential child care practice but implies that the lack of consistent suppport to the sector is reflected in the inconsistency of service provision which Ofsted found. The report recommends that exceptional practitioner leaders in residential child care should be encouraged to spread their practice by being placed at the forefront of the development and training of residential child care workers. Those directly involved with residential child care are wary when they are provided with neat general solutions to the unique and dynamic difficulties faced by individual children but Ofsted's recommendation is to be welcomed if it is intended to free residential child care workers from being manacled to laid down procedures that satisfy the demands of political and senior management “heavyweights” but which, as Mark Smith (2009) and Jim Rose (2010) in their different ways so eloquently demonstrate, do nothing to meet the real personal and intimate needs of children.
This week in Community Care (3.3.11) Camilla Pemberton observes that Ofsted’s report comes after a period of time when support to residential child care in England has been severely reduced. The National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care closed last year when the Labour government withdrew its funding. For a time it seemed the private consultancy consortium Tribal would take over much of the NCERCC role until the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat government cancelled the contract with Tribal. This cancellation was broadly welcomed but sadly nothing has been heard from the government about what will be put in place to fill the vacuum left by the excellent service provided by the NCERCC or indeed what will be done to provide the kind of consistent support and leadership for which the Ofsted report asks. In the shadow of Iain Duncan Smith’s remark the government’s silence is concerning.
Sources
Camilla Pemberton (2011) “Ministers need to take the lead on improving children’s homes” in Community Care . Accessed on 3.3.11 at http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2011/03/02/116373/ofsted-urges-ministers-to-boost-childrens-homes-leadership.htm)
Ofsted (2011) Outstanding Children’s Homes Accessed from http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Publications-and-research/Browse-all-by/Documents-by-type/Thematic-reports/Outstanding-children-s-homes
Jim Rose (2010) How Nurture Protects Children : Nurture and narrative in work with children, young people and families London : Responsive Solutions
Iain Duncan Smith statement from “Question Time”, BBC 1 on Thursday, 3rd March, 2011. Re-accessed at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00z2xk8/Question_Time_03_03_2011/
Mark Smith (2009) Rethinking Residential Child Care : Positive perspectives Bristol : Policy Press
A review of Mark Smith's book can be found at www.goodenoughcaring.com/JournalArticle.aspx?cpid=102 An article by Mark Smith 'Loving and Fearful Relationships' can be found at www.goodenoughcaring.com/JournalArticle.aspx?cpid=52
This opinion piece was first published online at http://www,goodenoughcaring.com/ at 2.15pm on 4/3/11
No comments:
Post a Comment