Sometimes it’s best to keep it in the oven a little longer : issue 14 of the goodenoughcaring Journal will be on the table for December 18th, 2013

Hungry and perceptive visitors to our kitchen will notice that the oven is still on and our assortment of savouries will not be out on the table until Wednesday, December 18th. Some recipes demand a slower cooking time, but we are sure you will agree the wait is well worth it. This is perhaps the finest menu we’ve ever presented. The flavour of this issue is imbued in the main by the work and ideas of Clare and Donald Winnicott and their influence on our thinking about how children develop, and how social work can help troubled children and their families. We also have other dishes for those who wish to explore a wider cuisine.

More than a baker’s dozen of authors have drawn generously from the contents of their Winnicottian and other larders. Kiaras Gharabaghi writes  about the quality of the professional education for Child and Youth care . John Burton writes about compliance and abuse in care settings,Cynthia Cross considers the Donald Winnicott’s thoughts about residential child care, while Luci Ashbourne asks how we can understand the the organisational re-enactment of traumatised children and young people. John Fallowfield cites Donald Winnicott among others in his essay about child development and observation in social work, Joel Kanter writes about Clare’s and Donald’s notion of the social worker/therapist as 'transitional participant' when in relationship with children traumatised by dislocation, Patrick Tomlinson cites Winnicott’s game "The Squiggle "in his article about communicating with traumatised children, and Charles Sharpe refers to Clare Winnicott's interview with Alan Cohen, and the writings of others to consider what she has to offer residential child care. Jeanne Warren’s essay is a consideration of the Scottish philosopher, (and contemporary of the Winnicotts) John Macmurray’s and the American educationalist, Nel Nodding’s ideas about the education of children. Charlotte Witheridge writes about the application of psychodynamic thinking to residential work with children and Mark Smith questions the application of the psychodynamic approach to residential work with children.

Bob Royston presents an article in our series of childhood of memoirs adding to our new bake's relish with an account of a period in his life living in a ‘country club.’ John Stein adds spice our new bake with recollections of Richard T. Cass, the first social worker he ever met and tells us about what he learnt from Richard, Kevin Ball puts forward a framework that should assure quality in residential child care as he gives a comprehensive explanation and evaluation of the role of the Regulation 33 visitor, and Sara Kirkwood's article about children's experiences of foster respite care in a Scottish hutting community rounds off our classic fare, though “The Girl from the Workhouse” an article from a magazine ‘conducted’ by Charles Dickens is a fascinating petit four.

We hope visitors to the goodenoughcaring website and readers of the Journal will agree that they are in for a pre-winter holiday treat.

Three cheers for the increased support to children in foster care ! Now let’s do it for those in residential care

The current United Kingdom Conservative led coalition government has not altogether covered itself in glory in its treatment of troubled families and troubled children and so the announcement made today, December 4th, 2013, by the government minister for Children and Families, Edward Timpson, that children being looked after in foster care in England will continue, if they so wish, to have their foster care and support funded until the age of 21, is one to be welcomed. This is something that foster carers and others involved in the care and education of children looked after in the care system have long called for.

Mr Timpson, whose own family fostered nearly 90 children, stated that the government would pledge £40m to this initiative over three years and the measure will be introduced during the third reading of the Children and Families Bill next year. I congratulate Mr Timpson. His intention will give us something of which, as a community, we can be proud.

There is of course another smaller, though significant, group of looked after children. These are children in children's homes and they are perhaps the most vulnerable group of young people in our community. They are children who for a variety of reasons are not available for foster care. Too frequently their difficulties are seen as 'more problematic' rather than - as they should seen - ‘different.’ So the residential care they are provided with becomes, quite wrongly, understood as a of 'last resort’ sump of care when it is clear that for these children it is a ‘first resort.’ It is what they need. Let us hope that within a very short period of time the government will announce a similar level of support for children and young people who are in residential care beyond the age of 18 years. Their needs for further support may well be different, perhaps more expensive, but if such support is provided it will be a further welcome sign that as a community we are attempting to edge towards becoming civilised. We will have demonstrated that we are as determined to establish, as much as we can, positive future prospects for young people in residential care, which are equal to those now being put in place for children growing up in foster care.

Information source BBC news at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25201336

This opinion piece first appeared on the home page of the goodenoughcaring website at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com on December 4th, 2014

Comments

John Stein writes : 

I agree with your comment about residential child care being 'first resort' rather than last resort. I couldn't agree more. (Except that I strongly prefer the term, 'residential treatment' to residential care). Virtually every child I met in residential placement needed coordinated treatment in the life space. 'Care,' especially here in Louisiana, implies 3 meals a day and a roof and a bed with an adult with no more than a high school education to look after them. After all anyone can care for kids. That attitude is all too pervasive in our social work profession here, and it runs the programs.