goodenoughcaringblog

The economic apartheid continues unfettered : government minister says it is right that poor families "have to move to a part of town they can afford to live in."

2012-01-23T06:41:00.000-08:00

Last night, 22nd January, 2012, Chris Grayling, the Conservative-led coalition government's employment minister said, while defending the government's Welfare Reform Bill, that the reforms would force poorer families to find new accommodation. Mr Grayling argued these were families "who would have to move to a part of town they can afford to live in, but," he insisted, "surely that is right."
These remarks are a consequence of the government's decision to place a £500 per week cap on the welfare benefits any family can receive regardless of the family's size can. Opponents of this aspect of the Reform Bill - who include among their number of bishops of the Church of England and some members of the Liberal Democrat party, including its former leader Lord Ashdown - argue that this cap places children who are born into a larger family at a disadvantage.
Sources : "The Independent" at http//independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/welfare-reforms and Pienaar's Politics broadcast on BBC 5 live on January 22nd, 2012.

January 23rd, late news extra : the House of Lords has voted against the £500 a week cap but government ministers remain determined to push the £500 cap through the House of Commons.
Source : BBC Radio 5 live news, 20.30, January 23rd, 2012.

This news and opinion item first appeared on January 22nd, 2012 on the goodenoughcaring website homepage at http://www.goodenoughcaringcom

The parliamentary epetition to re-establish the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care has closed. Where now for residential child care?

2011-12-28T06:49:00.000-08:00

The epetition, initiated by David Lane on the No.10 Downing Street website asking the government to re-establish the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care or its equivalent to provide leadership, support and advice for residential child care services has closed and has attracted insufficient signatures to be considered a subject for debate in the House of Commons. It was perhaps predictable that residential child care would not raise the 100,000 signatures needed for this to happen. At least the petition provided an opportunity to publicise residential child care's need for greater recognition and support. However, the number of signatures the petition garnered, 268, may be cause for disappointment. This is not because 256,645 have signed to end "all the financial welfare benefits of those convicted of a criminal act" during the riots early this year, not because 134,638 have signed to end "mass immigration" nor indeed because 39,173 have petitioned to insist that all Formula 1 motor races should be on "free to air" television. All these may tell us something about what is currently important to those who are signing petitions but they are issues which have a greater constituency than residental child care. No, the disappointment may be that the number of signatories for re-establishing the NCERCC represents such a sparse response from a population which even at a minimal estimate includes 100,000 adults residing in the United Kingdom who have been, at some time in their lives, in residential child care or residential education (excluding the private "public school" system) and probably more than 25,000 people who are or have been directly or indirectly employed in the residential care and education sector. Given this (admittedly estimated) number the total of 268 signatures on this petition might be thought exceedingly low. This may tell us that relatively few people in this sector of care had felt they benefited from the services provided by NCERCC but certainly the responses received by goodenoughcaring relating to the closure of NCERCC were unanimous in their praise for the Centre. It may be saying that most are content with the recognition, training and support they receive. Another conclusion might be drawn that those who have been in any way involved in residential child care are almost invariably critical of it, or indifferent about it. Alternatively,the result may not represent criticism or indifference but simply demonstrate a lack of awareness of government epetitions, yet the possibility remains that the relative dearth of signatories is a reflection of the pessimism within residential child care; a sense of "Why bother ? Our resources will be cut whatever we say or do." If this were so, it would be an unhelpful pedestal on which to be stuck, given that in these times services to children and young people are diminishing at a significant - not to say alarming - rate, and at the best of times residential child care services have not ranked high on a politician's list of vote winning issues. Now may be a good time, for all those involved in residential child care, including those who support it as teachers, as publicists, as administrators and as politicians to fall in line with the spirit underpinning David Lane's petition. This calls for the development of an articulate and cogent argument for the provision of high quality residential care for those children and young people whose needs it can undoubtably be the best at meeting.

Evidence that determined and well thought out argument can bring change is evident in Essex County Council's decision to postpone its plans to close 7 of its 8 children's homes following an application by a 17 years old young man for a judicial review of the Council's closure plan. The young man argued that the authority, in taking the decision to close the homes, had failed to take account of his individual needs. The High Court Judge thought the authority's decision to close the homes by December 15th was unreasonable. Essex County Council has now issued a legally enforcable undertaking not to close any of its homes as long as those homes are needed by its "settled" looked after children and young people (Lauren Higgs,CYP Now November 28th, 2011). This change of policy may only represent a postponement but the young man's determination to stand up successfully for his right to have continuity of care in his children's home is a triumph for him and a fillip for residential child care.

This opinion piece first appeared on December 27th, 2011, on the goodenoughcaring website home page at
http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/

Flying through an ethereal letterbox near you : issue 10 of the goodenoughcaring Journal lands on December 15th

2011-12-01T05:21:00.000-08:00

The new issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal goes online in mid-December. The new issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal goes online in mid-December. In our last issue John Stein wrote about the influence of mothers and so one of the themes of this next issue is the relatively less considered matter of fatherhood and aspects of this are explored in a poem by Jan Noble and in articles by Joyce Carol Oates, Alex Russon, Mark Smith and John Stein. Marion Bennathan writes about nurture groups in schools and Cynthia Cross recollects the nature of residential child care in the 1960s and compares it with current practice. Jeremy Millar makes a personal assessment of the work and thoughts of Chris Beedell while Moira Strachan discusses the relevance of a child observation placement toward her development as a social care worker. Noel Howard has written a moving review of Danny Ellis' CD 800 Voices : the heartache and the healing. John Molloy's remarkable review of Richard Webster's book The Secret of Bryn Estyn which is currently on this page in the section about Richard Webster will also be published. News of further articles will appear here within the next few days.

This notice first appeared on the goodenoughcaring homepage at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ on December 1st, 2011

International Seminar on the History of Child Care

2011-09-12T06:50:00.000-07:00

Child Care:Learning from History

An International Seminar on the History of Child Care will be hosted by Scotland's New Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children and the Child Care History Network (CCHN) on Monday, 7th November, 2011 at Jury's Inn, Glasgow.

The aim of this international seminar is to consider issues concerning the history of child care, in particular focusing on lessons which have been learnt which can affect current and future practice.The seminar will be based partly on the experience of the host country, Scotland,while speakers and participants from other countries will also be involved. It will cover statutory, voluntary and private child care services, and both personal and organisational histories.

The seminar will present an exciting and varied range of speakers.

The content of the seminar will be of relevance to managers of child care services and practitioners, as well as regulators, academics and researchers. There will be additional activities before and after the Seminar, including the opportunity for study visits to local projects on Tuesday 8th November.

Confirmed Speakers,in programme order, include:

Professor David Divine (England): Formerly James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies, Dalhousie University, Canada, 2004 - 2009, currently undertaking furtherpostgraduate study at Durham University.

Keith White (England): Director of Mill Grove Residential Community in East London.

Mark Smith (Scotland): Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Edinburgh and formerly lecturer at the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care.

Moyra Hawthorn (Scotland): Lecturer at the New Centre.

Zachari Duncalf (Scotland): Research Fellow at the New Centre. Angela Davis (England): British Academy funded post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of History at the University of Warwick.

Beno Schraepen (Belgium): Graduate of the University of Ghent and founder of INCENA (the study centre for inclusion and enablement) in partnership with the University of Antwerp.

Delyth Edwards (Northern Ireland): Completing a PhD at the School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work, Queens University Belfast.

Christine Oliver (England): Senior Research Officer at the Thomas Coram Research Unit.

Renuka Jeyarajah-Dent (England): Director of Operations / Deputy CEO at Coram, the UK’s oldest children’s charity.

Ian Milligan (Scotland): Senior Lecturer at the New Centre.

Ann Kirson Swersky (United States): Independent scholar. Her current research was carried out on the records of the Monson State Primary School in the Massachusetts State Archives.

Shurlee Swain (Australia): Professor at the School of Arts and Sciences at the Australian Catholic University in Victoria.

Sue Owen (England): Director of the Well-being Department at the National Children’s Bureau and formerly Director of National Children’s Bureau’s Early Childhood Unit.

Kristian Bredby (Norway): Director of the Sanitetsforening Brusetkollen in Oslo.

Jim Goddard (England): Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Bradford and Secretary of the Care Leavers’ Association.

For further information :

General enquiries should be made to the Office for the New Centre:

Tel: 0141 950 3683

Email: "sirccevents@strath.ac.uk"

"www.sircc.org.uk/CCHN"

"www.thenewcentre.org.uk"

"www.cchn.org.uk"

This item first appeared on the home page of the goodenoughcaring website at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ on September 11th 2011.

A petition for the return of the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care

2011-09-05T06:58:00.000-07:00

David Lane has written to tell us of a petition on the No. 10 Downing Street website asking the government to re-establish the NCERCC or an equivalent body to provide leadership, support and advice for residential child care services. This petition is being supported by the Institute of for Childcare and Social Education and the Social Care Association. David asks everyone who supports this to sign up to the petition as soon as possible and to tell others who may be interested about the petition. To sign up, Google "petitions" or go direct to www.epetitions.direct.gov.uk. The title of the petition is NCERCC.

It is to be hoped that substantial support for the petition will send the government a message. Since every person signs individually and everyt person's name counts, David believes that it is "something to which everyone concerned can lend their support." If you require more information contact David at DCL.Davidlane.org

Many readers will recall the general dismay which ran through the world of residential child care in England when at the beginning of 2010 the last government surprisingly called a halt to the funding of the palpably successful NCERCC and gave over some of the Centre's functions to a private consortium called "Tribal". The current government decided to pull the plug on the Tribal contract but since that time residential child care has not been offered any support to fill the void created by the closure of the NCERCC. We support the ICSE and SCA in their call for a return of the NCERCC.

This news and opinion item first appeared on the home page of the goodenoughcaring website at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com on September 4th, 2011.

Richard Webster

2011-08-08T04:08:00.000-07:00

A look back at the “The Secret of Bryn Estyn – the making of a Modern Witch Hunt” by Richard Webster (Orwell Press 2005) (Paperback 2009

by John Molloy

The death of Richard Webster in July 2011 was marked by a number of obituaries in the British Media and on websites. They drew a picture of a very sincere, conscientious scholarly man who scrupulously attempted to expose one of the great injustices of our time – an alleged witch hunt that resulted in the imprisonment of many innocent social care workers. Although I was familiar with some of the press coverage at the time of the North Wales investigations in the 1990’s and with Ty Mawr in particular I was not aware of the publication of “The Secret of Bryn Estyn” until Richard’s death, earlier this year. The warmth expressed in the obituaries and the strength of support for his work left me feeling slightly uncomfortable. My understanding was that he had exposed a witch hunt, and that arising from “The Secret of Bryn Estyn” this “witch hunt” theory that all the upper echelons of society, (the press, police, courts, and government itself) were conspiring against social care workers, believing them to be paedophiles, child abusers, paedophile rings or whatever. With this in mind I set myself the task of finding out what the secret of Bryn Estyn was. I read the book.

Trawling through the obituaries I was struck by one comment in Mark Smith’s tribute to Richard Webster that he “couldn’t help but think that there is something quintessentially English about his life.” I think this comment helped me understand some of where Richard Webster’s passion, zeal, and commitment came from in undertaking such a detailed comprehensive review of the facts. It also helped me understand where some of his arguments led him astray.

The Waterhouse Tribunal was set up in 1996 arising from a decision made by John Major, the British Prime Minister, following the outcry in the British media about the allegations coming out of North Wales and Gwent. It is important to place this in the context of the culture of the time. Richard Webster chose not to do this in his book. John Major had replaced Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister in 1990. In her time as Prime Minister, Thatcher through her Chief Press Secretary Sir Bernard Ingham often used the media to influence the public through leaks and briefings, using misinformation as a tactic. This was designed to cause public outrage, demonising and defaming anyone who dared defy Thatcherism. This in turn influenced the courts and gave licence to the police to operate heavy handed tactics. Without this tactic we might not have seen the brutality of the police in dealing with the N.U.M. at the behest of John McGregor and the National Coal Board, the brutality of police in dealing with the press workers because of the move to Wapping, the vilification of Liverpool fans at the Hillsborough Tragedy, the operation of a “Shoot to Kill Policy” in Belfast and indeed Gibraltar, not to mention the wrongful convictions of Annie Maguire, The Guildford Four, and the Birmingham Six through the manufacturing of evidence. These stand out as some of the most extreme examples. I could easily add many more. By the time of the emergence of the scandal in North Wales, the press (especially the tabloid press) had almost assumed a role of being another arm of Government. While the circumstances of children’s homes in Wales was something new and unique in their own right, this trial by media, and resultant unsafe convictions through the courts, following corrupt police investigations, was not new.

It was in this context that a strong left wing anti-authoritarian, anti-police, atmosphere grew up particularly amongst some of the more extreme members of the Labour Party. These were branded in the media as “The Looney Left”. One of the more infamous areas where this thrived was in the Merseyside area, where Labour leader Derek Hatton stood out as an infamous example. By coincidence Merseyside and nearby Chesire experienced more police trawling investigations than any other area outside of London. This was the context in which the North Wales Children’s Homes scandals emerged. I think it is a mistake to look at the “Secret of Bryn Estyn” without looking at this wider context. With this in mind if we accepted Richard Webster’s assertion that there was a witch hunt, it would have to be in the context of saying that this was just one more witch hunt in an ocean of others.

When describing Peter Howarth’s shock at being convicted Richard Webster wrote:

“One dimension of British Society which is not always understood by those who observe the workings of our judicial system is the intensity and dept of the faith which most ordinary people have in British justice.” (p 372)

Earlier he had described how Peter Howarth had chosen to rely on a duty solicitor to defend him because of his mistaken belief that because he was innocent he would not be convicted. The fact that Howarth, among others, had left themselves open to allegations being made against them by their professional practice, in particular by insisting on the wearing of a pyjamas with no underwear by residents while visiting his flat, did not help. The fact that three other adults who had worked for the same or related organisations were charged with and later convicted of similar offences did not help either. On the one hand the actions taken by Peter Howarth did not just express a deep faith in English justice. It was the action of an extremely naive man. “The secret of Bryn Estyn” goes some way towards attempting to correct the miscarriage of justice suffered by Peter Howarth. Unfortunately, Peter Howarth had died in Prison before Richard’s book was published.

The facts as Richard Webster presents them, that led up to his conviction and apparently subsequent death in prison are more frightening than any theory around witch hunts. In summary, one disgruntled former manager who lost her job because of her record of poor performance, made a number of third party allegations. The police investigating them found her allegations to be untrue. She enlisted the help of a former resident from a children’s home, who, acting as her acolyte, sought to involve others. The former manager met with a journalist, who when facing a tight deadline, for whatever reason stated, did not do the correct research. This same woman met with two anti-police labour councillors. From the interactions of these five people, and their different individual motivations, ten years of trauma, trawling, interrogation, convictions, deaths, and suicides emerged.

Initially, that quintessential intensity and debt of faith in British justice seemed well justified. The police were very appropriate in how they investigated the early complaints. As the allegations changed, and the press began to talk of a police cover up, the reactions of the police became very defensive. It was this that changed the entire climate. Although Richard Webster presents the facts in great detail, I found it frustrating that his constant referring to a witch hunt, took him away from stating that at some point, the police acted as if Social Care Workers were just collateral damage. The goal of the police was to deal with the rumours that “had circulated that the force was riddled by freemasonry and that this, together with the participation of its own officers in an alleged paedophile ring, had been one of the principle motives for an alleged cover up.” (p 436)

In order to clear their name, the police had to be seen to be investigating the allegations and had to get convictions. “The Secret of Bryn Estyn” is a very detailed account of how they went about this, deviating from all previous accepted practice, perverting the course of justice, regardless of the implications for others of their actions.

What Alison Taylor and her acolyte Ryan Tanner had begun, was now out of their hands. Thanks to the salacious journalism of Dean Nelson, and the interference of Labour counsellors Malcolm King and Dennis Parry, a police trawl began, taking on a life of its own.

Richard Webster stated when talking of the Waterhouse Tribunal that:

“The North Wales police were acutely conscious that one of the main reasons the Tribunal had been called into being was that allegations had been made against them.” (p 436)

Having read his account of how the North West Police went about the trawling for allegations, in order to clear their own name, Richard Webster has made a very strong and compelling argument that the methods used were inappropriate, unjust, and corrupt. I don’t believe he used these words, but in every detail he recorded how allegations were sought, how they were edited, and in Chapters 66 and 67 how information was either withheld or disregarded if it damaged the case for prosecution.

“Careful study of the ‘unused evidence’ made it quite clear that the case presented in the trial had been arrived at through careful editing. For obvious reasons the prosecution had discarded the more blatant fabrications.” (p 486)

The account given implies either that the defence legal teams were all inept or else there were major breaches of the appropriate disclosure protocols. What is described in the book must surely represent a major corruption of the justice system on the part of the investigating police.

Rather than look at the witch hunt theory, it could be argued that if the Waterhouse Tribunal was not aware of the inappropriate investigation practices, then some of their rulings would be reasonable, rather than be part of a conspiracy or witch hunt.

For example in “note 516” it is stated by the Tribunal that:

“Our approach has been that, in the absence of a successful appeal, the convictions are evidence that the offences were committed and that it has not been within our jurisdiction to question the correctness of those convictions, unless possibly fresh evidence were to be tendered going to the root of the convictions.” (p 668)

I believe this to be a sensible argument given that if the Tribunal was not to take on the role of an Appeal Court, which it was never designed to be, then it had no other choice than to accept the legitimacy of the convictions, given its implicit trust in the integrity of the police investigation. Whereas Richard Webster writes that the Tribunal Chairperson, Sir Ronald Waterhouse dismissed the undertaking of a detailed examination of each specific allegation as being “impracticable and wastefully expensive”, Richard goes on to say “that a fundamental principle of justice was ignored” (p423). The predisposition to accept the police investigation’s evidence without proper scrutiny is understandable if we look at Richard Webster’s comments quoted earlier on the deep faith British people had in the justice system. One of the most striking examples of this was seen earlier in an unrelated rejection of an appeal by the Birmingham Six in 1979. Lord Denning, in his ruling rejecting the appeal stated:

“If they won, it would mean that the police were guilty of perjury; that they were guilty of violence and threats; that the confessions were involuntary and improperly admitted into evidence; and that the convictions were erroneous…. That was such an appalling vista that every sensible person would say, ‘it cannot be right that these actions should go any further’.” Lord Alfred Denning (from the Appeals Court Transcript 1979.)

When we look at the comments made in 1999 in “You told me you loved me” – a booklet published by three police forces in the Merseyside, Cheshire and Liverpool areas explaining the process and guidelines for Police Trawling in cases of institutional child abuse it is stated that:

“ Critics have pointed out that these operational methods represent a departure from normal police practice. This may be true but the methods have been scrutinised by the judiciary in trials without criticism to date.” (p 492)

If Richard Webster’s assertion that evidence had been altered, edited, or omitted in order to secure convictions then any scrutiny “by the judiciary in trials” was bound to end “without criticism to date.” The fact that this document recognised criticism of their techniques may well have reflected a growing unease within the police forces involved. However, it was not until 2000 with the collapse of the prosecution of David Jones, a well known football manager that a serious discrediting of the process took place.

It is difficult to fathom how the trawling experience took on a life of its own. What started out as a normal investigation became contaminated by allegations of a police cover-up and then in their desperation to accumulate quantities of allegations, it was further contaminated by police forces and local authorities talking of compensation.

Be it greed, revenge, selling newspapers, or making political gain; none of this seemed to matter anymore. The corrupt trawling process became a monster that could not be stopped. That deep faith that people had in the justice system was ill-founded.

I believe that in trying to make the argument that there was a witch hunt, Richard Webster does not join the dots up. Instead by using emotive words like “witch hunt”, he distracts the reader from the much more real worry about the power of the police to corrupt the justice system to meet their own ends.

This was one aspect of the book that I found frustrating to read. “The Secret of Bryn Estyn” is a very significant review of how the investigations were mishandled, and gives a real explanation as to how so many allegations were made against social care workers, not just across Britain but in many other countries as well. We owe Richard Webster a dept of gratitude for the immensity of the task he achieved in completing this review. My frustration with the book is that from time to time, he slips into a type of pamphleteering with highly emotive or unfounded comments. By extrapolating his findings from his British experiences he seems to assume that all other police trawls were as equally unreliable. I was astonished at his claim that:

“In the English speaking world alone, the number of false allegations of sexual abuse made in all contexts in the last thirty years must certainly be numbered in hundreds of thousands and has already reached millions.” (p 550)

It is difficult to see how he could have reached such figures other than by just guessing. Such a comment takes from the credibility of his research and leaves him open to a counter charge, to the one he makes of the police in their publication “You told me you loved me” (1999) that “at no point is the problem of false allegations even discussed”. It would be easy to criticise “The Secret of Bryn Estyn” for the scant and at times patronising acceptance that some allegations were true. One comment he makes in the chapter “Fragments of a Witch Hunt” stands out:

“Once again it must immediately be acknowledged that some of the allegations which have been made against Roman Catholic Priests – possibly the majority of the early ones – are genuine. Others, including a number based on bizarre recovered memories are quite evidently false.” (p 542)

Such a comment leaves me gasping in wonder at how anyone would have the resources to be able to carry out the research that could lead to such a conclusion! Surely the older convictions, because of the length of time elapsed would be the least convincing? The Cloyne Report 2011, which included a review of previously withheld records of abuse by Catholic Priests in the Diocese of Cloyne (Ireland) included many recent cases of abuse that the Diocese had tried to cover up. These were generally not the subject of police trawling or promises of compensation.

I am very mindful of the fact that “The Secret of Bryn Estyn” is a colossal work that goes some way to explaining what emerged from North Wales and damaged the image of Social Care Workers throughout Britain. I would argue that despite the great detail and comprehensive research, trying to prove the existence of a witch hunt takes from the real strength of this story. It is a very clear depiction of Social Care Workers being used as collateral to clear the reputation of the police. It is also a clear depiction of the discovery that the faith that ordinary people had in their justice system was ill founded.

In saying this I am reminded of the old sit-com character in “Till death do us part”, Alf Garnett, and his great sense of National pride and loyalty to the Royal family. I always found it ironic that some of those who are so praising of the institutions of state are often those most excluded by them. While it is really important that Social Care Workers should not see themselves as victims of witch hunts, I was moved by one section in particular when Richard summarised what might well be the real “Secret of Bryn Estyn” or even Social Care in general when he talks of this episode as constituting “one of the most terrible instances of collective ingratitude in our recent history” He goes on to explain:

“For decade after decade, we expected that one of the most poorly regarded and poorly paid groups of workers in our society would look after some of the most difficult and disruptive children with conscientiousness and care. To an astonishing extent this is what tens of thousands of dedicated workers actually did. They worked in obscurity, often with immense patience and generosity, to give such children a second chance. (p 574)

It was their altruism, idealism and “the sense of service they owed to society” that made them so vulnerable. They were easy prey for a police force wanting to save their reputation. They were not the victims of a witch hunt. Five people with their own individual agenda started the process. It then took on a life of its own. Ten years of trauma ensued. Aspects of it still go on today. No one gets over wrongful convictions. Families grieve those who died. Those who lied still have to face their Maker.

Finally, let me finish with an often used quote attributed to Sir Bernard Ingham, Thatcher’s Chief Press Secretary, when talking of the media. He said:

“Many journalists have fallen for the conspiracy theory of Government. I assure you that they would produce more accurate work if they adhered to the cock-up theory.”

Richard Webster’s “Secret of Bryn Estyn” is a very important book. Social Care Managers, in particular, should read it carefully. It is hard to understand how the dismissal of one person could have such devastating consequences. There are lessons to be learned from almost every chapter. We owe Richard Webster a debt of gratitude for the time, the dedication, and the passion he brought to this work. His death brought his work back into the limelight again. May he rest in peace.

Mark Smith writes

I returned from holiday earlier this month to an e-mail telling me that Richard Webster had died. I had never met Richard but had three or four telephone conversations with him and felt I knew him. He was a warm and open man whose curious and probing mind was all too evident even at the other end of a phone. Yet, although I felt I knew Richard, on hearing of his death I realised that I actually knew nothing about him, other than the rather stark biography offered on his website richardwebster.net, telling that ‘Richard Webster was born in 1950 and studied English literature at the University of East Anglia’.Bob Woffinden’s obituary in The Guardian, www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/31/richard-webster-obituary was, in that sense, very welcome in giving a bit more detail on Richard. I can’t help thinking that there is something quintessentially English about his life. The village postmaster, turned bookshop owner cum writer, writing, in Woffinden’s words, not for profit, ‘but to set down a scrupulously accurate record.’In his quest for this scrupulously accurate record, he exposed what is one of the great injustices of our time – the witch-hunt that has resulted in thousands of care workers and former care workers being investigated for abuse and the questionable convictions of perhaps hundreds of these.

This story is set out in Webster’s magisterial book ‘The Secret of Bryn Estyn’ (2005), which delves into the child abuse allegations and inquiries that erupted in North Wales over the late 1990s. The real secret of Bryn Estyn, as Woffinden says, ‘was that there was no secret at all; it was just an ordinary community home where staff did their best to look after difficult adolescents.’

One of the attractions for me in Richard’s writing was its reassuring solidity. When he committed any contentious argument to print you could be sure that he had at least a couple of lever arch files to substantiate what he was saying. And when he calls what has happened in respect of investigations against former care workers a witch-hunt, you can be sure that the use of the term is not a throwaway line, but is rooted in his deep understanding of cultural history. The strength of argument in ‘Bryn Estyn’ and Richard’s other writing is compelling. While many may not like what he has to say, because it deconstructs and destabilises received accounts of abuse in residential child care, I have not come across anyone who has been able to contest his evidence.

What is missing from Bob Woffinden’s obituary is any reference to Richard’s role in the unraveling of the Haut De La Garenne episode in Jersey. As events there were beginning to break, Richard phoned me to ask what I thought of it. I put my neck out and suggested that no bodies or unexplained human remnants would be found. He agreed and hung up saying he would need to go over to Jersey. The result of that visit and some fairly elementary detective work uncovered the fact that the finding purported to be a piece of human skull was in fact a piece of wood or coconut shell.

The issue of historical abuse is, I believe, one on which the very future of residential child care rests. We need to be able to come to an understanding of our past that is based upon the kind of reasoned and balanced evidence that Webster provides. For that reason,I consider ‘The Secret of Bryn Estyn’ to be one of the most important books to have been written on residential child care, although its scope extends to offer fascinating insights into the human condition more generally.

Professor Jean La Fontaine, who was instrumental in dismissing earlier satanic ritual abuse scares calls ‘Bryn Estyn’‘an extraordinary book … gripping and coherent ... a major achievement ... Webster has admirably succeeded in what the police … and two successive [inquiries] failed to do: discover what really happened.’ Evening Standard. Christian Wolmar, the journalist who wrote an earlier book on abuse in children’s homes, is also a somewhat grudging convert, noting that ‘It is unarguable that Webster has a powerful case. The book will make uncomfortable reading for all those involved in investigating these cases, from police and lawyers to journalists and judges. Webster's forensic skill ... could well have been used by all of them, too. . . [His] detailed exposition of how the "scandal" unfolded, despite scant hard evidence, should be required reading for newsdesks.' ?This last point becomes all the more salient in light of what we now know was going on at ‘The News of the World’. One can only wonder about the role of networks involving journalists, police and those alleging to have been abused in care in constructing a particular version of residential child care’s past. Richard’s work provides an important antidote to such accounts. Hopefully, it will receive the attention it deserves after his death.

Mark Smith's review of Richard Webster's book "The Secret of Bryn Estyn" can be accessed at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/JournalArticle.aspx?cpid=143

Comments

John Molloy writes "I am reluctant to make any comment on the death of Richard Webster because I know nothing of the man or his writings. Having read all the positive comments about him, I intend to get a copy of “The Secret of Bryn Estyn” and to read it carefully. Mark Smith’s obituary, and the contributions that have followed, have raised a number of interesting issues for me that leave me feeling a bit uncomfortable.

"I was horrified when I first read of the allegations of satanic abuse in the Orkney Islands. Equally, I was shocked by the out-of-control ‘crusade’ nature of what happened at Cleveland. These two scandals in particular helped to influence my thinking in dealing with issues that emerged in a centre where I worked where a number of sexual abuse allegations against two male staff emerged. The British experience helped to “keep me honest” in how I approached my situation. That said, my reading of the numerous enquiries into sexual abuse in Britain did little to prepare me for what I was experiencing in Ireland. I read aspects of every report published around that time, or at least the commentaries on the reports. That was because, with the exception of the Hughes Report into allegations about Kincora, there were no reports available in Ireland at that time. It was not until the mid- 1990’s that the first emerged. The issues raised in the Ryan Report, the two separate Murphy Reports (swimming coaches and clergy), Madonna House, Kilkenny, etc had not as yet surfaced.

"The salacious interest in ritual satanic abuse here did not manifest itself in the Irish media in the same way as in Britain. There was nothing salacious for the media to frenzy-feed on here, given that catholic priests and brothers, and indeed nuns were a dominant grouping in the abuse of children in Ireland. There is a well perpetuated myth in Ireland that no one knew of what was going on. It is self-evident that this is not true. Apart from the abusers and the abused, there were those who knew of the culture that existed in Ireland throughout the nineteen forties, fifties and sixties in particular. Even in our National schools, the stories told and experienced by those of us who went to Christian Brother Schools of sadism, brutality and “being interfered with” were widespread. Everyone knew. Nobody cared. As school boys in the nineteen sixties we even joked in school about why we had to sit on Brother O C’s knee to have our homework corrected!

"The media were gutless, as were the authorities, be they in education, policing, or care. The culture of Catholic control did not allow for stories to be published, and even worse, I would argue, that in Irish Society, there were many who assumed that a good education made it acceptable.

"While there seemed a crusade at times in Britain that went over the top in trying to 'out' all kinds of child abuse, I believe the Irish experience to have been a far more insidious and dangerous scenario.

"There are few things worse than allegations being made about a person. Regardless of the facts, there are usually two immediate camps formed. One represents those who can believe no bad about the person, the other represents those who believe no good about the person. Usually the person involved falls between both in isolation, lost in a limbo of having lost their reputation regardless of how good all their previous work was. Where the allegations are false this isolation and devastation takes on a much greater significance.

"My experiences, in Ireland, are that there is no great malevolence in what happens – just a total lack of awareness of the impact of what that devastation and isolation is like. Social Work investigations are carried out in a slow dragged out manner where the powers that be show a reluctance to bring the matter to closure ‘just in case’…. It often takes threats of legal action to get the matter sorted.

"I read the comments about people being 'regarded as guilty until proven innocent.' I do not find such language useful in this area. While the expression 'innocent until proven guilty' is a legal phrase used widely in every day use, we need to remind ourselves that it is a phrase that only has relevance in the context of justice dealt out by the Courts. It is a fact that a number of high profile cases of inappropriate sexual activity, allegations of abuse, and use of child pornography have gone to court in Ireland where cases have collapsed on technicalities. We have to say that in these cases the person has not been proved guilty. In legal language they are therefore innocent; innocent 'in the eyes of the law'. While I do not know how the British legal systems work, (I dare not mention Birmingham or Guildford) I am aware that in Ireland it is very difficult for any one of middle class back-ground who can afford good legal council to be convicted, unless they prove really inept in the defence of their abuse, or carrying out of their abuse.

"I stated some of the comments made in respect of the death of Richard Webster made me uncomfortable. Most were made in a British context with which I am not familiar. Over my thirty five years in this line of work allegations were made against me. One of these was a very serious allegation and caused me great distress. I fought to have my name cleared and did so successfully. When I consider what some of the young people in my care have experienced at the hands of staff members I have worked alongside, I have no doubt that the balance of justice still hangs in favour of the perpetrators. My distress is a price I was more than willing to accept. While we may talk of the hundreds who have been falsely accused, our real energy should be devoted to building robust systems that protect both young people and staff."

Mark Smith responds " I agree absolutely about the feigned surprise at what was or wasn't going on, especially in Ireland. This is the one point I would maybe depart from Richard Webster - I think he should perhaps have considered that there was what we would now call physical abuse (which was probably in the past thought of as discipline). The divide between abuse and 'normal' upbringing is one that interests me. It raises a whole load of
other questions about assumed effects of such abuse or treatment - one of my worries is that we risk constructing 'victims' and then not being able to offer them the promised 'release' or whatever it is a therapeutic discourse promises ."

Noel Howard writes about 'the death of Richard Webster', " We all accept the truism that there are two sides to every story. Saddened by the death of Richard Webster it strikes me that he was someone who critically saw that there are often many sides to every story.

"I read The Secret of Bryn Estynin the summer of 2009 and alternated that with reading extracts from the voluminous Ryan Report which had been published in May of that year.All I will say is that it was a disconcerting, challenging and uncomfortable experience reading both. With the benefit of hindsight I can say it was an extremely worthwhile experience. It has crystallised for me much of what I believe to be necessary in creating a culture where natural justice has a part to play when allegations of sexual abuse against those who work with children are made. Indeed, and this perhaps does need to be said ad nauseam, it is perhaps the only highly significant area where the accused is guilty until proven innocent contrary to one of the fundamental principles of our system of justice. Unfortunately, and this has also to be said over and over again, any genuine, critical questioning of particular abuse allegations can leave one very much on the margins in an atmosphere and climate (particularly in Ireland for obvious reasons) where so much has emerged in recent years around the institutional and clerical abuse of children. Indeed, we have not seen the last of such reports in Ireland, though they do not all have to do with children in care.

"But back to Richard. Of course anyone involved in working with children should read The Secret of Bryn Estyn. It’s a real page turner and I believe anyone who has read it must have paused on many occasions and asked “how could this have happened?” Richard was far from an apologist for child abusers – he simply contested that, yes, child abuse does take place, it takes place in society at large and in some residential units. In subtitling the book on Bryn Estyn The making of a modern witch hunt he clearly saw how bureaucratic self justification, innuendo, half truths, downright lies and the suggestion of compensation led to the lives of innocent caring adults being shattered. The bungled efforts to find and convict the abusers dragged those innocent of any wrongdoing into a nightmare that has to be read about to be believed.

"The UK legal system, as with Ireland, is there to convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent. In relation to child abuse allegations those innocents become victims of another kind – good people falsely accused or forever guilty by association who must often question what naïve, altruistic motive made them become part of a profession in the first place that just might change the miserable, blighted lives of children in care. After years perhaps of doing just that and doing it well, the merest hint of suspicion can bring them and those close to them down, never to recover. Some such idealists appear in Richard’s book on Bryn Estyn.

"Others also appear. In the light of recent revelations around News International in the UK we can appreciate a little more the lengths to which “respected” individuals in various “respected” walks of life will go to facilitate others in getting and making a story that satisfies the whetted, prurient appetites of those who believe that there is much more wrong with human nature than right.

In his forensic, patient analysis, Richard has much to say about how the characters and lives of good people can be shredded when suspect agendas are set, often masquerading as a search for the truth. His detailed study of the Waterhouse tribunal and report is fascinating and all in all, The Secret of Bryn Estyn classically shows how those at the highest level in their respective professions sometimes just cannot see the wood for the trees.

"I was fortunate to have had the privilege of exchanging a few emails with Richard. He referred to the twelve years he had spent, unintentionally in the first place, researching the Bryn Estyn story. He felt he had had enough after all those years and said “I am also, I have to confess, battle weary, and sometimes feel that I have been engaged in a war which cannot be won – not at least by conventional means.”

"He elaborated on his battle weariness in an email to a colleague in Europe to which I am privy. It’s really a beautifully haunting line considering all he had done. It goes “Sometimes you just want to take your tin hat off and get back to tilling the soil in the fields you left before you went off to war.”

Like so many others who do good things and fight their own private wars Richard probably felt he never won the war he engaged in. Yet, somehow I feel he did. For those who have faced false allegations Richard’s victory was not a pyrrhic one. In his outstanding study of what really happened around Bryn Estyn and other care homes at the heart of his research, he succeeded in finding what two high powered enquiries and the police did not - the truth of what really happened. For that we should be eternally grateful.

"Interestingly, he said his real study was human nature and he certainly unearthed the very best and worst of that in the Secret of Bryn Estyn.

Only the actions of the just, Smell sweet and blossom in the dust. (James Shirley 1596-1666)."

Cynthia Cross comments, "I went to the launch of Richard Websters book, 'The Secret of Bryn Estyn' at Portcullis House Westminster on 10/03/2005.
"To most people it must seem a long time after the closing of New Barns in 1992, due to a child protection inquiry, and the subsequent acquiting of all 7 defendents in February 1996 after 3 months in Bristol Crown Court; but some things never go away. New Barns was a unique therapeutic community for children, practicing shared responsibility between adults and children. Nearly all adults lived in as the job was seen as living with children, and using every situation that occurred in daily life as therapeutically as possible. All workers were part of the therapeutic team and whether they were primarily teacher or child care orientated they were paid on the same pay scale .... I could go on.
"The work of Richard Webster was extremely important to us; he was someone who was not only prepared to challenge the validity of some of the attacks on residential care,(When some people were implying and sometimes openly saying that all residential child care workers were suspect) but also put in the research work to prove his point. He was therefore heard and respected by a number of important people. The book launch hosted by Claire Curtis-Thomas was an example of this.
It is sad that he died so young, we have lost a valuable ally."

Max Smart comments, "Such sad news to read of Richard Webster's death, and I am grateful for this highly illuminating and reflective obituary by Mark. My take on Bryn Estyn affair is similarly controversial. My gut reaction to the issues of historical abuse is not to deny that some abuse took place and that victims of these abuses have been scarred and traumatised.However, some context has to be placed on accounts, such as time and culture of society at the time. If no such context is placed then the lens in which abuse is viewed and measured is from the luxurious position of hindsight, where care practice and culture is different than the time it was taking place. If the time and context of the culture is not taken into account, then if our care practices are viewed 40 years down the line, it may look as if our practices were like the "Spanish Inquisition". Secondly I'm concerned that current methods of investigating historical abuse seem to turn "natural justice" upon its head. Natural justice would assume innocence until proven guilty. Historical abuse appears to view alleged perpetrators as guilty until proven innocent.Thirdly, I always assumed that police on receiving a report of a crime being committed, investigate it, attain evidence as to alleged guilt or innocence and proceed to the judicial stage on this evidence if it is required. This seems markedly different in the way that enquiries are handled when it comes to investigating historical abuse, where police appear to contact people to seek out a crime. When this is combined with the apparent incentive of "compensation" it can become a significant source for concern about whether the ends of justice are met. Finally, it concerns me, that just like the "Ryan Report" in Ireland, and likely the "Time to be Heard" report due in Scotland, it seems that the great financial beneficiaries here are lawyer who have made miilions. So I have many mixed feelings about the way that historical abuse has been considered. There is not a shadow of a doubt that the abuse of children and young people, whether it be in residential care or foster care, is unacceptable and is to be utterly condemned, and those who commit it should be accountable, and those who suffered should have justice. However, the unintended consequence of the hysteria created in some of these scandals, is to discourage males going into care work and at times to create sterile care environments where people are afraid to touch a child for fear of allegation".

Nigel Hinks comments, "I am ashamed to confess to not knowing the name of Richard Webster. Having read both obituaries I felt moved by his portrayal, and also another premature passing. There is a counter view that should perhaps be distanced from any response to any individual's pursuit of justice and balance, or anything perceived as directly challenging such tributes to Richard Webster. There has to be due recognition of how unbalanced and prejudicial media reporting has whipped up frenzy, and methodical evidential reporting is crucial in challenging this form of journalism.Yet we also know that abusers sought out these settings for their systematic criminality. To condemn all on the basis of irresponsible enquiry, designed for headlines alone, is equal to indifference.
"My position, as a young social worker in the early 70's, seeking to intervene in the damaged lives of children and young people, is tinged with the regret and guilt of unwittingly delivering them to the doors of such institutions (in North Wales) and to (some of) those hiding behind their labels of 'specialist carers'."

Bob Forrest comments, "I was sorry to hear about Richard Webster and pleased that Mark mentioned his contribution to the debunking of the Jersey farce.It's such a pity that Webster's work is relatively unknown to the general populace.I of course mentioned The Secret of Bryn Estyn to Eddie Frizzell, who chaired the Scottish government's investigation into the Kerelaw affair and I am still trying to get my copy of it back from my MSP. It is sad that so many people in influential positions still refuse to allow facts to influence their opinions.
"A couple of years ago I sat in on an employment tribunal considering the sacking of 2 Kerelaw teachers. A witness for Glasgow Cuty Council,one of the education directors, was asked by the teachers' lawyer why he believed the one witness who said "black" as opposed to the seven witnesses who said "white".He replied that he believed the seven were in collusion. When asked whom he would have believed if seventy witnesses had said "white", he said that he would still believe the one who said "black" because the others were in collusion!!As you could imagine there was an audible gasp from the public gallery! I immediately emailed Frizzell to suggest that he and his team would benefit from a visit to the employment tribunal to gain some insight into Glasgow City Council's thought processes but in the event Glasgow threw in the towel the very next day and accepted that the teachers had been wrongfully dismissed!!
"The sad thing is that no lessons ever seem to get learned from the Bryn Estyn,Shelburne,Kerelaw experiences nor indeed from Orkney,Cleveland and goodness knows how many others."

Jeremy Millar comments, "There is certainly a fear factor present in challenging the establishment orthodoxy. My instinct tells me that rampant abuse was never an issue but that small pockets of abusive practice probably did exist either in the shape of a ‘charismatic leader’ or a rogue individual able to charm and dupe residents and colleagues. My take on the whole issue is more structural in relation to the way anglo american society views children and oppresses them in adult dominated settings. The answer is to empower children to challenge abusive adults and expose their practice to scrutiny. Social pedagogic approaches work in this way and promote inclusiveness for children. It will come as no surprise that I practised this position as a young person. A teacher at the school was persecuting a sister of my best mate because of my mate’s dislike of his attitude. We organised a rota whereby 2-3 of us would follow this teacher everywhere he went in the school at 5 paces behind. We would meet him coming out of the staff room and follow him to class and so on. He tried to address us but we totally blanked him. He quickly laid off the sister but couldn’t take any measures against us as it would have been humiliation in front of his colleagues.

"Once you have been empowered through direct action it never leaves you and I believe that adult society is subconsciously scared of offering this option to children. Instead we promote procedural approaches to conflict resolution that don’t deliver and develop apathy and cynicism. The young people who take direct action outwith the procedures are pathologised and come into care where their legitimate rage is held up as their problem. We drug them, lock them up and gently browbeat them into accepting their lot and their potential seeps away bit by bit as they drift in the system."

This article first appeared on August 3rd, 2011 on the home page of the goodenoughcaring website at

http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/Home.aspx?cpid=1

Poor Kids

2011-06-01T02:22:00.000-07:00

On June 7th 2011 BBC television will screen a documentary film, Poor Kids, which tells the stories of four of the 3.5 million children living in poverty in the United Kingdom. The UK has one of the worst child poverty rates in the industrialised world, and successive governments have struggled to deal adequately with this problem. The film highlights who these children are, and how and where they live. On the goodenoughcaring website we have, together with many other organisations and publications, drawn attention to this under-represented and all too often under-nourished group of children. We cannot so far claim to have had a great deal of positive influence. We hope that this film may be more successful. The film gives voice to the overall problem of child poverty by observing how four youngsters, from different areas within the UK, Courtney, aged 8, Paige aged 10, Sam aged 11 and Sam's sister Kayleigh, aged 16 cope with having little or nothing. In an honest and telling way they show how having no money impacts upon their lives : lack of food, being bullied and having nowhere to play. The children are indignant about their situation but unless we as a community really confront their problem with them, their indignance will not be enough to help them in the future. Their own thoughts on their future are sobering.
Sam's 16-year-old sister Kayleigh puts a context to the probability of this bleak future, as she tells how the effects of poverty led her to take extreme measures in trying to escape it all.
The director of Poor Kids, Jezza Neumann, has put the children on centre stage, and they command it with honesty and directness. We urge everyone to watch.

The film will be screened at 22.35 on 7th June, 2011 on BBC 1, except in Northern Ireland and Wales, where it will be shown on the same day at 23.35.

While on the theme of televison journalism, considerable controversy has arisen about the ethics of televison journalism and the latter's relationship to social care services following the screening of an investigatory Panorama programme about Winterbourne View hospital/care home. We have set up a time limited blog (closes on 15/6/11) for anyone who wishes to comment on the issue and we will forward the responses to the BBC and the Panorama production team. You will find the blog at
http://tvjournalismsocialcare.blogspot.com/

This article first appeared on May 30th, 2011, on the goodenoughcaring website home page at
http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/Home.aspx?cpid=1

No free parking for kids in Wandsworth

2011-05-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

The London Borough of Wandsworth council has announced it is to charge £2.50 for each child who wishes play in the Adventure Playground in Battersea Park.* This initiative will bring extra money into the council coffers, although in the coming year Wandsworth council is cutting its services to children to the tune of £3.5 million.

The new charges at Battersea will be fine for children whose parents can afford the entrance fees, but it's a shame for those children whose parents are out of work or in low paid jobs. Apart from limiting the opportunity to play for the children of less well off parents, this Wandsworth initiative also seems to fly in the face of the Department of Health's Change4Life programme which promotes the idea that healthy children need exercise.
Is this action by the Wandsworth council a symbolic and a practical representation of what we really think these days about children and in particular the children of parents who are not affluent ?

*See the Evening Standard report at http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23949345-you-want-to-go-into-the-playground-that-will-be-pound-250-please.do

This opinion item first appeared on May 13th, 2011 on the goodenoughcaring website at
http://www.goodenoughcaring.com

Being too critical of parents

2011-04-24T03:14:00.000-07:00

Parents who both consciously and intuitively reflect carefully on their own behaviour towards their children are likely to be adults who have come to terms with most of their own anxieties. It is probable that as children they were cared for well enough. Often the parents of children considered to need additional support to look after their children are not so free of the anxiety insecurity brings. This is not to place blame. These parents are frequently prisoners of their own upbringing and all too often the victims of an acquisitive society where status based on wealth is a predominant value. Their own experience of family may offer them little to fall back on when they struggle with the give and take of relationships which are so much a part of healthy family life. They may not feel able to create the kind of family environment which provides good social examples,consistent warmth and underlying harmony as well as intellectual stimulus and challenge, because they have not experienced these in their own childhoods. As children they suffered a deficit of love.
Now, and for the longer term, as a community we have a responsibility to help these parents, and to work towards a community which will not cultivate the alienation they experience. We are all responsible for creating the kind of community we have. These are our difficulties just as much as they are their difficulties. This is not to deny that in the meantime there is a pressing shorter term problem which is to tend to the needy children of these families.

First published on April 17th, 2011 on the goodenoughcaring home page at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/Home.aspx?cpid=1

Brief and disparate reflections on attachment theory, the good enough mother, womanhood and the social care of children and young people

2011-04-17T11:47:00.000-07:00

During the 1950s and 1960s working independently but contemporaneously John Bowlby and Donald Winnicott developed different theories about the psychological and physical growth and wellbeing of children. Bowlby's theory of attachment and Winnicott's notions of the good enough mother and the facilitating environment remain influential in the study of child development.

Attachment Theory

Bowlby's work along with that of the many others who have continued to develop a theory of attachment has been fruitful in raising our awareness of the significance of the attachment relationship between a baby and its principal parenting figure, who is usually the baby's mother. The newly-born baby seeks out a caregiver and the caregiver's response to the baby’s quest influences the development of the baby. For instance the securely attached infant feels that his caregiving figure is accessible and responsive to him when needed, while the anxiously attached infant cannot assume that his caregiver will be responsive and so he adopts strategies to circumvent the perceived unresponsiveness. Such a strategy may result in a baby denying the emotional tie with a caregiver, or it may be manifested by the baby's need to amplify their signs of distress in order to ensure he will be heard (See Ainsworth and Bowlby,1965).

Winnicott's facilitating environment and the good enough mother

Winnicott's idea of a facilitating environment created for a child by a "good enough mother" who is supported by the adults around her, rests easily alongside Bowlby's theory of attachment.
Bowlby wrote,

"intimate attachments to other human beings are the hub around which a person's life revolves, not only when he is an infant or a toddler or a schoolchild but through his adolescence and his years of maturity and on into old age." (Bowlby, 1980, p.442)

For Winnicott this hub is provided by unconscious processes within "an ordinary mother who is fond of her baby" (Winnicott,1952) : a "good enough mother", who learns best how to look after her baby not from health professionals and self-help books but from having been a baby herself ."She acts naturally, naturally " (Winnicott, 1988). Winnicott suggests that during pregnancy a mother develops "a state of heightened sensivity" which continues to be maintained for some weeks after the baby's birth. When this heightened state passes, the mother has what Winnicott calls a "flight into sanity" and she begins to be aware of the world which exists outside of her state of "primary maternal preoccupation" with her infant (Winnicott,1975). Nonetheless the good enough mother continues to provide an environment which facilitates healthy maturational processes in her baby. She achieves this by being the person who wards off the unpredictable and who actively provides care in the holding, handling and in the general management of the child. The good enough mother provides physical care and meets her baby's need for emotional warmth and love. She also protects her baby against those parts of her from which murderous feelings are brought forth when, for example, her baby screams, yells and cries continuously. By containing her own hateful feelings about her baby, and using them to intuit the baby’s terror and hate, the good enough mother facilitates her baby's feelings and expressions of omnipotence by adapting to his needs until such time as he gradually begins to feel safe enough to relinquish these feelings. At this stage the process of integration can start and the baby begins to develop a sense of "me" and "not me" (Winnicott, 1975). To achieve this shift from the baby's total dependence to relative dependence the good enough mother has, by a gradual process, to fail to adapt to her baby's needs in order that the baby can begin to learn to tolerate the frustrations of the world outside of himself and his mother (Winnicott,1965).

Winnicott always argued that mothers knew better about the needs of her baby than experts. He suggested that there were,

"very subtle things that the mother knows intuitively and without any intellectual appreciation of what is happening, and which she can only arrive at by being left alone and given full responsibility..." (Winnicott1988,p64).

Criticisms of Winnicott's good enough mother

With his notion of the "good enough mother" who intuitively knows best about her baby, Winnicott intended to take the pressure off women who became mothers but critics have argued that Winnicott in his idealisation of the good enough mother has placed an expectation upon the "real" mother that she must shoulder most of the responsibility for the care her baby. Furthermore she is held responsible for how well the baby flourishes.

On being a woman and a mother

In recent times a number of female writers have borne witness to this responsibility. For instance recently, Rachel Cusk, at the same time as encapsulating many of Winnicott's ideas about motherhood, observes,

"Becoming a mother reveals a woman's capacity for numerous things : virtue, self-sacrifice, anger, foolishness, love. Some of these qualities will never before have been tested - she may not even have known that she possessed them. Some of them will take their shape exactly from what she was offered by her own mother, though she may not remember being offered them. And some - anger is one - will find forms of their own, of which she feels herself the only progenitor" (Cusk,2011, p36).

For Cusk, "The baby comes and everyone panics, looking for the woman who's going to take care of it." and this she argues is the principal source of a woman's anger when she has a baby,

"because she has lost the power of autonomy and free will in her own life. From the first moment of her pregnancy, a woman finds herself subject to forces over which she has no control, not least those of the body itself. This subjection applies equally to the unknown and the known : she is her body's subject, her doctor's subject, her baby’s subject, and in this biological work she has undertaken she becomes society's and history's subject too. But where she feels the subjection most is in the territories,whatever they are that in her pre-maternal life she made her own. The threat to what made her herself to what made her an individual : this is what the mother finds hardest to live down. Having been told all her life to value her individuality and pursue its aims, she encounters an outright contradiction, a betrayal - even among the very gatekeepers of her identity, her husband or colleagues or friends - in the requirement that she surrender it" (Cusk,2011.p36).

Even in times when there are more plastic views about how the task of caring for a baby is assigned, when both father and mother at different times may have leave of absence from work to be the baby's primary parenting figure it remains impossible, as Cusk suggests for a woman to escape the biological implications of maternity.

Cusk acknowledges that her feelings may be influenced by her experience of being mothered and recent commentators on attachment theory have indicated that the quality of parenting figures' to attachment to their children is influenced by their own childhood experience of attachment figures (See for instance, Fonagy 2001).

Winnicott too acknowledged that a mother may not be good enough. Such a mother might repeatedly fail to meet the needs of her baby and so the baby grows to be a child who complied to his mother's needs and so in order to survive this developed a false rather than a true self.

Attachment theory, the facilitating environment and the care of children not living in with their own families

Yet Cusk's idea of the panic when a new baby arrives may have an unlikely resonance for those such as residential child care workers and foster carers, who are charged with looking after children and young people who have been deprived of consistent attachment figures,and who have not received "good enough parenting". These children can create a panic in children's services departments and sometimes in the wider communities. When we do we look around for the symbolic "mothering figure" - man,woman or groupd - who will take responsibility for them. The trouble is the professional carer's task is that of creating a facilitating maternal environment at a time when a child's development has already been impaired by parental deprivation and inconsistent parenting. The professional carer who is asked to be a consistent attachment figure and a "good enough mother" first encounters the child when the true self is already well hidden and when powerful false self defences are pre-eminent. In this case the nurture, the good enough caring, the consistent attachment provided can never be primary but has to be a real compensation for loss and abandonment before any healing can be done. It is in this sense that the carer is addressing what seems like the panic caused by the arrival of a new baby (albeit one inhabiting for a 5 years old or a 14 years old body) of whom really we know nothing, who we did not experience in the womb and for whom we have as yet no authentic feelings apart from trepidation and perhaps fear. For how can the carer know if she will be good enough to deal with the child's indifference to her responses or to the child's omnipotence in the face of the care she offers ?

References

Ainsworth, M. and Bowlby,J.(1965) Child Care and the Growth of Love London : Penguin Books

Bowlby, J. (1980) Loss, Sadness and Depression , Vol 3 of Attachment and Loss London : Hogarth p.185

Fonagy,P.(2001)Attachment Theory and Psychoanalysis New York : Other Press

Cusk,R.(2011) "From liberty and equality to the maternal grind" in The New Review, The Observer April 3rd, 2011. A review of Shattered : Modern Motherhood and the Illusion of Equality by Rebecca Asher published by Harvill Secker. The text of this book review can be accessed at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/03/shattered-rebecca-asher-motherhood-equality

Winnicott, DW (1952) Letter to Roger Money-Kyrle, 27th November in The Spontaneous Gesture : Selected Letters of D.W. Winnicott London Karnac Books (1987,pp 38-43)

Winnicott, D.W.(1965) The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment London : Karnac Books(2005)

Winnicott, D.W.(1958) Collected Papers : Through Paediatrics to Psycho-analysis London : Tavistock Publications (1975)

Winnicott, D.W.(1988) Babies and their Mothers London : Free Association Books

This opinion piece was first published in March, 2011, on the goodenoughcaring home page at

http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/Home.aspx?cpid=1

where there are many interesting and informative articles related to parenting and childhood development as well as many other aspects of the care and nurture of children and young people

The poor families get poorer, but the United Kingdom media plays down the significance of the March 26th, 2011, TUC protest about public expenditure cuts.

2011-03-27T05:03:00.000-07:00

First posted on March 27th, 2011 on the goodenoughcaring home page at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/Home.aspx?cpid=1 where many other many articles relating to children, childhood, child development, parenting, families, foster care and residential child care can be found.

In London on Saturday, March 26th, reportedly between 100,000 and 500,000 people - among them child care workers, teachers and health workers - protested legitimately and peacefully about the coalition government's decision to cut drastically our health, education, social and other community services. The British media, including the BBC, chose to focus most of its reporting of the event on a small breakaway group which - though it may have had a valid point to make - protested in a more sensational and destructive way.

The overwhelming response to the TUC's call for a protest march came in a week when the coalition government's budget offered little sustenance to those families with children who struggle on a low income. An analysis of the budget carried out by Tom Horton, the research director of the Fabian Society, and Howard Reed, the director of Landmark Economics, shows that many single-earner families with children and families claiming help with child care are set to lose from tax-and-benefit reform. The report claims that "despite government rhetoric about 'lifting the poorest out of tax' many low income families are set to become bigger contributors to the Exchequer." According to the report these losses occur because for many families, the rise in Value Added Tax and the cuts in tax credits outweigh any gains from the budget's proposed cuts in income tax and national insurance.

The cutting of services and the increased financial burdens to less well off families with children impacts upon what the parents in these families can give to their children. Moreover this has an emotional impact. Parents who are struggling financially often become anxious parents and anxious parents make children anxious. Attention should be drawn to this and that is exactly what the peaceful protesters in London were trying to do. It is therefore tragic as well as ironic that at a time when the coalition government backed by the media is defending the rights of peaceful protesters in other countries, our media deflects attention away from legitimate protests about government policies and financial restrictions which not only cut essential resources for our children and young people but also challenge their basic rights.

Note

The full text of the Fabian Society Report can be found at :

http://www.fabians.org.uk/images/FabianSociety-LandmanEconomics_post-Budget_report.pdf

Something to reflect on : the trials, tribulations,struggles and excitement of adolescence

2011-03-27T04:59:00.000-07:00

First posted on March 24th, 2011 on the goodenoughcaring home page at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ where many other many articles relating to children, childhood, child development, parenting, families, foster care and residential child care can be found.

As adults with a responsibility to look after young people who are experiencing the onset of puberty while butting through the storms and languishing in the occasional calms of adolescence, we sometimes adopt a temporary amnesia concerning the trials, tribulations, and the excitement we experienced at that time in our lives. We forget those occasions when we thought or said "When I become a parent I am going to make a better job of the world than my Mum or Dad." Instead an understanding dawns on us of the frustrations our parenting figures felt when we as youngsters thought it unreasonable that we were not, for instance, allowed to stay out late every night. As we rediscover the parenting wheel for ourselves we can appreciate that adolescence is an essential part of the development of both generations. The psychoanalyst, Margot Waddell begins to explore the adolescent phenomenon in this excerpt from her book, Inside Lives .

"......the nature of adolescence and its course are organised around responses to the upheaval of puberty. Adolescence can be described, in narrow terms, as a complex adjustment on the child's part to these major physical and emotional changes. This adjustment entails finding a new, and often hard-won, sense of onself-in-the-world, in the wake of the disturbing latency attitudes and ways of thinking. The means by which this altered relationship to the self may be achieved vary across a very wide range of behaviour, of different modes of defence and adaptation, from being the "conforming", "pseudo adult", "good" boy or girl to being the "tear-away", the "drug addict", the "suicide risk", "bad" boy or girl. It may take several years, or decades,for the turmoil to settle. For adolescents the psychic agenda is a demanding one : the negotiation between adult and infantile structures; the transition from life in the family to life in the world; the finding and establishing of an identity, especially in sexual terms; in short the capacity to manage separation, loss, choice, independence, and perhaps disillusionment with life on the outside."

Reference

Waddell, Margot (1998) Inside Lives London : Karnac Books 2005, p140

Foster Care Controversy

2011-03-14T02:55:00.000-07:00

In response to our opinion piece on the recent Question Time programme which was broadcast on March 3rd, 2011, Stuart Russon writes,

'Following the media frenzy over the Derbyshire couple who weren't allowed to foster because of their religious/homophobic views and following your short article about this programme I was struck - without commenting on the moral dilemma itself - by the general view that seemed to pervade most on the Question Time panel and audience when discussing it. The consensus seemed to be that because the child was under 10 that the religious/homophobic views of the foster parents didn't really matter as the child was too young to be influenced (or "is too young to be considering such adult themes"). Now I've always thought that a child of that age is most susceptible to influence and so it does matter. The child WILL be influenced by the thinking/views of the foster parents and this at a possibly critical time in the child's development. Watching the programme was one of those times when I realise how out of kilter I am with public opinion, as I thought, with all due respect to the couple involved, that it was the right decision although the Question Time audience thought otherwise'.

First posted on the goodenoughcaring home page on March 9th, 2011 at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com where you have access to many articles about childhood, child care, nurture, parenting, children in care, social pedagogy and therapeutic child care.

Government minister, Iain Duncan Smith, claims residential child care fails children

2011-03-09T15:15:00.000-08:00

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

Teachers don't let your students grow up to be prime ministers

2011-03-07T01:48:00.000-08:00

In 1969, a son of Forfar, the Scottish educationalist and founder of Summerhill School, A.S. Neill, was heard to say,

"I'd be very disappointed if a Summerhill child became Prime Minister. I'd feel I'd failed".

What could he have meant ?

Reference : Croall, J. (1983) Neil of Summerfield : The Permanent Rebel London Routledge and Kegan Paul p.400

First posted on Thursday, March 3rd, 2011 on the goodenoughcaring website home page at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/

Do we always know what troubled children need ? Some comments on the thoughts of Hans Kornerup about “predictability”and the way we plan for the care of the ‘unintegrated child.’

2011-02-23T09:24:00.000-08:00

This piece first appeared on the goodenoughcaring Home Page at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com on February 12th. 2011

There is a small but significant number of children, often described as emotionally “unintegrated”, whose behaviour is so deeply troubling and out of touch with social reality that they can no longer live with their birth family. These are children who have experienced traumatic disruptions in their lives from an early age.

Those who have been involved with working with children like this will have attended planning meetings where the received wisdom of the adults asserts, “What this child needs is predictability”. In the book “Milieu-therapy” with Children which he edited, Hans Kornerup makes some observations about this notion of predictability. He suggests however much the statement that a child has a need for predictability is intended to be an expression of the adults’ professional insight, it does not fully represent the child’s predicament let alone the child’s needs. Participants in such a meeting go on to plan conscientiously for the child to have a therapeutic experience which they believe will provide the child with predictability and therefore security. There are times, Kornerup believes, when this kind of statement and the plans which ensue from it might more accurately be understood otherwise. For Kornerup planning for predictability is not sufficient for children whose childhoods have been severely disrupted. For such children he writes,

‘their plans and expectations of the future are vague, almost non-existent, as they live in a timeless, here-and-now existence without prospects, filled with anxiety, confusion and chaos where every change to a new situation (structure) defined by adults creates more confusion, unrest and acting out. Based on this I am tempted to think that the spread of the concept of predictability is perhaps intended in a magical, and inexplicable manner to calm the adults who often find themselves in very difficult, confusing and unmanageable situations that make demands and raise questions regarding their own personality and attributes – “Am I capable of managing this?” ‘ *

For Kornerup unintegrated children ‘with an uncertain sense of their continued existence, can in no way experience surroundings as predictable, - even if they are - in the same way as they cannot contain inner continuity.’

In our view Hans Kornerup’s ideas helpfully demand that those who plan placements for deeply troubled children should not be seduced by spurious scripted, predicted and fixed solutions. Rather they should first hear the child, (with all his or her confusion, anxiety, fear, hate, lack of affect and so forth), second, they should ensure that there is a predictable nature to the structured physical, and material routines of care a child will receive, and, thirdly, they might also acknowledge and accept the unpredictable (to begin with at least) nature of the relationships and emotional containment which are at the core of therapeutic child care.

* From ‘On the Concept of Predictability’ in “Milieu-therapy" with Children: Planned Environmental Therapy in Scandinavia (ed. Kornerup, H.) Denmark Perikon pp279-288

This book is distributed in the United Kingdom by the National Children’s Bureau

Something more to ponder : should the nature of public child care systems be personal or political ?

2011-02-10T03:33:00.000-08:00

This piece was first posted on the Home Page at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com on February 4th, 2011.

Leanne Rose , reflecting in 1990 on her experience of working in a residential resource in Alberta, Canada where she was helping to provide care for Darren wrote,

“I soon learned the reality of the child welfare system, as well as how the system hinders the therapeutic nature of child and youth care. Darren did not receive the treatment that he needed; he had never been able to form a meaningful and lasting bond with someone, nor did he receive the unconditional love he yearned for. It was through Darren that I realized that my position as a child and youth care worker is dependant upon a bureaucratic system. I also came to understand that the therapeutic nature of child and youth care has to exist primarily in the here and now, and that somewhere the consistency of care for children, and our responsibility as a society to our youth, was lost in a politicized system.” *

We are sure child care workers from many different countries and cultures will identify with Leanne’s experience. Twenty years on it seems to us the disconnection illustrated by Leanne between what should be provided to nurture an individual child and what is provided by public child care systems still prevails. We hope that there are some places where this dichotomy no longer exists. If there are, it would be good to hear about them.

* This is a quotation from Leanne Rose's article "On being a Child and Youth Care Worker" We offer our acknowledgment to the Journal of Child and Youth Care where Leanne's article was first published (Volume 5 Number 1, 1990 p. 161-166) , and CYC-Online. Access the full article at http://www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cycol-0401-rose.html

January 25th, 2011, family life, Robert Burns Style

2011-01-28T15:25:00.000-08:00

This excerpt from A Cotter's Saturday Night is Robert Burns' idyll of family life in a small farmer's cottage in 18th century Scotland. A cotter was given accommodation which he paid for by giving his labour to neighbouring farmers who either owned, or tenanted their farms. Does such a family exist now either in fact or in spirit ? Let's hope so.

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;
The short'ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes --
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.

At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through
To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise and glee.
His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonilie,
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile,
His lisping infants, prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,
And makes him quite forget his labor and his toil.

Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in,
At service out, amang the farmers roun';
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
A cannie errand to a neebor town:
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e,
Comes hame; perhaps, to shew a braw new gown,
Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee,
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

With joy unfeign'd, brothers and sisters meet,
And each for other's weelfare kindly spiers:
The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic'd fleet;
Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears.
The parents partial eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points the view;
The mother, wi' her needle and her sheers,
Gars auld claes look amainst as weel's the new;
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.

Their master's and their mistress's command
The younkers a' are warned to obey
And mind their labors wi' an eydent hand,
And ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play:
And O! be sure to fear the Lord always,
And mind your duty, duly, morn and night;
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray,
Implore His counsel and assisting might:
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright.'

But hark! a rap comes gently to the door;
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same,
Tells how a neebor lad came o'er the moor,
To do some errands, and convoy her hame.
The wily mother sees the conscious flame
Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek;
With heart-struck anxious care, enquires his name,
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak;
Weel-pleas'd the mother hears, it's nae wild worthless rake.

With kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben;
A strappin' youth, he takes the mother's eye;
Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill taen;
The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy,
But blate and laithfu', scarce can weel behave;
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy
What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave;
Weel-pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave.

O happy love! where love like this is found:
O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!
I've paced much this weary, mortal round,
And sage experience bids me this declare:-
'If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,
One cordial in this melancholy vale,
'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair,
In other's arms, breathe out the tender tale
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale.'

Is there, in human form, that bears a heart,
A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,
Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?
Curse on his perjur'd arts! dissembling, smooth!
Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exil'd?
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,
Points to the parents fondling o'er their child?
Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild?

Comments

Calum Strathie comments : Thanks for a Cotter's Saturday Nicht. What a wonderful observer of the human condition was oor Rabbie. I'm sure that in another age he would have made use of his communication and interpersonal skills to inspire and activate others. He would have had great pleasure in pricking pomposities and giant egos with his very sharp pen. Just think what he could do with the present government, MPs and lords on the fiddle, bankers or so called 'celebrities' on TV!

Alan MacQuarrie writes : I love The Cottar’s Saturday Nicht, but there must be an element of irony in the last 2 or 3 verses you quote here. Burns was an inspired and insightful poet, but he was also – I’m sorry to say – an appalling sexual predator. People nowadays condemn the kirk sessions who rebuked him for his antics, but they saw themselves as protecting young women from his predatory behaviour. I really don’t know what to think of Burns. He had charm, wit, good looks and endless talent, but he was also a very naughty young man who got lots of people into trouble in the days before contraception. I love his verse, and the wonderful folk-tunes he collected. But I also think he was very naughty and gave little thought to the consequences of his actions for others.

This isn’t a rant. I just don’t know what to think about Burns. So much to enjoy, but …

Alex Russon comments : I listened to Alex Salmond on Desert Island Discs on Friday. He was gushing about Burns I know why now.

Jeremy Millar scrieves : Fit like yersel. thanks for the Burn's day reflection. we will offer a Burn's nicht meal tae twa lassies far frae hame, freends o oor dochter.

Damocles descended : the sentencing of Edward Woollard

2011-01-23T08:10:00.000-08:00

On January 11th, 2011 Geoffrey Rivlin QC handed down a "deterrent sentence" to Edward Woollard and sent him to prison for 2 years and 8 months. 18 years old Edward had acted dangerously while on a protest in London about the increase in student tuition fees and had put the lives of others at risk. On November 10th, 2010 Edward threw a fire extinguisher from the roof of the Conservative Party’s headquarters building at Millbank in London. The extinguisher narrowly missed falling on policemen and other protesters who were on the pavement and street below. The sentence the judge meted out to Edward was intended as a warning to others who might do something like this in the future.
Edward’s impulsive and dangerous deed was outrageous but in essence it was impelled by the same overwhelming excitement which has induced innumerable young people to carry out rash and potentially dangerous acts when for the first time they have become a part of the drama and hiatus of what they believe is righteous protest. In the United Kingdom peaceful and vociferous protest is a right. Protest can also be a part of the adolescent process so necessary for healthy human development. Many of us, however old we are now, may at some time in our lives have experienced the feelings Edward was having that day, but we were lucky enough not to have our impulsive, foolish and at times dangerous acts discovered. Equally some of us may have been discovered but were fortunate enough to be responded to by thoughtful adults who forgave our trespasses with a stern warning together with the opportunity to reflect on just how stupid our actions were. For most of us this response worked.
That’s why it is difficult to understand Judge Rivlin’s harsh, not to say vindictive sentencing of Edward Woollard. Edward, it is generally accepted, has previously been of good character. He is not a hardened criminal. He is not even an experienced activist. This was the first protest he had attended. After the offence was committed Edward accepted the advice of his mother to give himself up to the police immediately. Since the event he has consistently expressed contrition for his act. Judge Rivlin says he took this into consideration but it does not seem to have engendered judicial moderation. For the next 16 months at least Edward will spend time firstly in a Young Offenders’ secure unit and subsequently in an adult prison. Will this help him ? Will making an example of Edward stop other young people doing thoughtless and at times dangerous things ?
It may not be unreasonable to conclude that Judge Rivlin’s decision has shown that the political and financial powers will be defended at all costs. If you threaten them or act to question their legitimacy you will not deal with the scales of justice, you will feel the sword of Damocles descended.

This was originally posted in the opinion section of the goodenoughcaring home page at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ on January 14th, 2011

Something else to consider : an idea from Harold Searles

2011-01-12T15:42:00.000-08:00

The American psychoanalyst, Harold Searles, is something of a free spirit in his field and one of his many contributions to the helping professions is his idea that there is a symbiosis or mutual dependency in the relationship between those being looked after and those who do the looking after. His notion reminds us that it can sometimes be puzzling and threatening for those of us who as a vocation look after children and young people to find that our charges are so accurate in their assessments of our insecurities and anxieties.What is more, they frequently take some pleasure in our discomfort and particularly so when we try to hide how irritating we find all this. In illustrating this phenomenon Searles is noting that our work cannot be defined by simplistic solutions and two-dimensional constructs. It is often, he implies, messy and confused and so we must keep our whole reflective selves in play at all times to deal with this.

To learn more about Harold Searles read Robert M Young at http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers/pap129h.html).

This was first posted on the goodenoughcaring.com home page on December 15th, 2010

Dreamland, broken promises and student protests

2010-12-15T03:53:00.000-08:00

The destruction and violence that went on in London during the protest about the government's intention to increase student tuition fees is to be roundly condemned but there should be no surprise on the government's part - particularly the Liberal Democrat wing of the government - that many of our young people are angry about the breaking of a solemn promise and about their views being dismissed as fantasy.

Over time those who have been personally and professionally involved in the care of children and young people get to know that when parents break the promises they make to their children, the children are upset. If a parent breaks a solemnly made promise it is destabilising for the child because it threatens the trust that is necessary in the relationship between parent and child. When promises are broken frequently there is a significant chance that the child will not only become troubled but may also become troublesome. When you feel powerless, what else is there to do if those you trust to know better than you continually do what they have demanded that you do not do ? for example, break promises.

Once upon a time, not too long ago, students throughout the United Kingdom enjoyed free further and higher education. As a state we should have been proud of this. Now only Scotland provides its young people with free higher education. Many of us who benefited from a free higher education were also provided with a grant to help us with our living expenses, and, as we left home, often for the first time, we were warned by our parents and elders not to get into debt. This sensible advice was sidelined by the big financial institutions' drive to increase their customers' debt and to increase the numbers of debtors. We know how that ended.

Members of the last "New Labour" government should hang their heads in shame for having, in effect, made student debt compulsory and so now it is appalling to see the Liberal Democrat faction in the coalition government fail to pin its pre-election pledges to the mast of free higher education. The government says we cannot afford to provide free post-school education for our youth. It suggests we are financially naive to consider it. If this is so, how can we afford to save the banks from the consequences of what in the heady pre-general election days Mr. Cable described as their outrageous financial activities ? how can we still afford to allow many employees of these institutions to pocket obscene amounts of money in bonuses ? and how can we afford to finance wars (in which many of our young people have already lost their lives) that few want or believe necessary ? If we can afford to do these things and yet cannot give our young people free higher education, then the whole fallacious edifice deserves to fall.

The vote has been counted. Government policy will for the time being prevail but perhaps the many who are sympathetic to the student's cause should continue the protest peacefully, each in his or her own way, to remind the government - intent it seems on marginalising our young people - that the students were and are not on on their own. Their issues remain everyone's issues. It is not, as Mr Clegg would have us believe, our young people who are living in "Dreamland."

( First posted on the goodenoughcaring.com home page on December 10th, 2010).

Freedom cannot be given : Homer Lane’s "outrageous" thoughts about children’s play.

2010-12-10T09:55:00.000-08:00

It may be surprising, though perhaps not to those who have been engaged in residential child care, that it is a vocation which has inspired some of the most original and creative thinking about the healthy nurture of children. One such thinker is the controversial, and for a number of people, the outrageous American Homer Lane who came to England in 1913 to take over the “Little Commonwealth.” Readers may find it fruitful, even if they are ambivalent about its implications, to think about this, one of his many ideas about childhood.

When suggesting that adults should withdraw from their pedestal of authority and allow children to sort out their own difficulties in an environment of encouragement and freedom, he proposed,

“ Freedom cannot be given. It is taken by children and demands the privilege of conscious wrong-doing.”

Lane believed that adults should nurture children’s instinct to play and allow children the time and space to run wild and free with their friends. He thought that we should respect the nature of childhood play and its unconscious, yet fundamental purpose, that is, to help children grow healthily.

Reference

Lane, H. (1928) Talks to Parents and Teachers London Allen and Unwin

Recommended reading

Wills, W. David. Homer Lane: A Biography , London, Allen & Unwin, 1964

First posted on the www.goodenoughcaring.com home page on December 3rd, 2010

We’ve never had it so good : up to a point Lord Young

2010-11-29T08:45:00.000-08:00

Lord David Young, former favourite of Margaret Thatcher and now the current prime minister’s ex-enterprise advisor, suggested that we should all stop complaining because most of us have never had it so good. Up to a point Lord Young. Those millions of us who, for the time being, are still in reasonably well paid jobs or receiving adequate pensions do have it good and it may even be that some of us have never had it so good. We can pay the mortgage on our house. We can feed and clothe our kids. We can even afford to spare some of our cash to give to charities providing for the "deserving" if not the "undeserving" needy for whom the commonwealth of the state no longer wants to take responsibility. Our kids will get places at the new free schools because they have the right social fit. They will eat healthy Jamie Oliver style food and will not become obese because they will have access to increasingly scarce playing fields and expensive recreational resources.

Even if Lord Young’s remarks reflect what the coalition government would really like to say he had to walk off into the sunset because his sentiments didn’t harmonise with the “we are all suffering together equally” propaganda. Should we stop complaining and keep our noses to our own grindstones and not look about too much at what else is going on around us ? Or, should we have a care and provide without condescension for those of our community who are struggling to bring their children up by doing essential jobs which pay them little money, for those whose health does not permit them to work, and for those who are losing their jobs, their homes and their dignity ? These are the people who are increasingly being seen by politicians more as an economic problem than as human beings.

Struggling against inequality seems to have become unfashionable. Have we really been longing for a return of those heady days of the 1980s and 1990s when we were “in it for me and mine” ?

Well, you have to be careful in land of “we’re all in it together.” This is especially so if you not only believe every child is uniquely different, but you also think equality is about making certain that children have, whatever their family background when they are born, equal access to, and an equal share of, all the resources of a society to ensure they grow up physically and emotionally healthy. These days such thoughts will not make you influential. They are considered idealistic. We should dare to say that they are not. Unfearful adults can make this notion of equality happen.

So it is unsurprising to hear the home secretary Teresa May who is also the equalities minister decry the last government’s Equality Act as “socialism in one clause.” True, the Labour government was itself shamefully ineffective in dealing with child poverty and perhaps pushed the Equality Act through as if seeking absolution for the guilt it felt when it found that all the research findings it received concerning child poverty concluded that the gap in income between families from middle class backgrounds and those from poor backgrounds (notice we have left the very wealthy out of this) was getting wider and wider to the extent that it had become impossible for poor families to find a ladder long enough to take them out of the poverty trap.

In response we may wring our hands and say “There’s really nothing we can do about all this.”

Many of us may be having it good, but do we feel good about it ?

(First posted at the goodenoughcaring.com website home page at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ on November 22nd, 2010)

Something to consider : Care in Adolescence

2010-11-22T17:19:00.000-08:00

Reflecting on the vicissitudes of adolescence, D.W. Winnicott wrote

"There exists one real cure for adolescence, and only one, and this cannot be of interest to the boy or girl who is in its throes. The cure for adolescence belongs to the passage of time and to the gradual maturational processes; these together do in the end result in the emergence of the adult person. This process cannot be hurried or slowed up, though indeed it can be broken into and destroyed.

We do need to remind ourselves that although adolescence is something that we always have with us, each adolescent boy or girl grows up in the course of a few years into an adult. Parents know this… and public irritation with the phenomenon of adolescence can easily be evoked by cheap journalism and by the public pronouncements of persons in key positions, with adolescence referred to as a problem, and the fact that each individual adolescent is in process of becoming a society-minded adult is left out of the argument".

D.W. Winnicott (1961) “Adolescence : struggling through the doldrums” in Family and Individual Development London Routledge (1989) p79

There is a lengthier discussion about adolescence in chapter 4 of “In Care, in Therapy” at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/WritingsArticle.aspx?cpid=31

(First posted at http://www.goodenoughcaring/ on November 18th, 2010

Something to agree with

2010-11-09T11:15:00.000-08:00

When talking about the qualities of those who work to support and care for troubled children and young people, Clare Winnicott said,

“Acceptance goes very deep. It is not a passive thing, but an active effort on the part of the worker to know the individual as he is, as a person in his own right, with his own life to live, and his own intrinsic value as a human being. This does not mean that we accept or approve all that an individual does or says, but that we try to reach behind the delinquent act and the deceitful language to the suffering in the human being which causes the symptoms that we see. Acceptance in this sense is in itself a basic therapeutic experience. For one thing it is the opposite of rejection, but in a more positive way it implies to the individual a sense of value, of worth, which is essential to life.”

Clare Winnicott (1964) Casework and the Residential Treatment of Children Hitchin, Hertfordshire Codicote Press pp 28-29.

(First posted on the goodenoughcaring website http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ on October 17th,2010)

If you would like to read more about the work of Clare Winnicott and her influence on Donald Winnicott visit Joel Kanter's article at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/JournalArticle.aspx?cpid=91

“We’re all in this together” : a question of child benefits and fairness

2010-10-16T04:43:00.000-07:00

Perhaps we should welcome the coalition government’s assurance of the payment of child benefit to families with two parenting adults whose combined earnings are £86,000 per annum, even though it seems we must also accept - because otherwise it would create too much bureaucracy - that it is better for children who are in families with only one adult earning £45.000 in total not to receive any child benefit at all. It is to avoid bizarre situations like this arising that legislation needs modifying clauses and that we do need sufficient ‘bureaucrats’ in town halls and government institutions to make sure that unjust anomalies like this do not operate and that government edicts are moderated. Of course the officials in council offices, county halls and government ministries may soon no longer be available to help us avoid such injustice.
In any event the new coalition government insists “we are all in this together” and that poor children should not suffer. What a good time to make sure that all children in our community benefit in all things and to the same degree. Would it not be fairer to say that at birth no child should be poorer than another and that families and communities should share their wealth with all children equally ? Is the child of the wealthy captain of industry, or indeed the child of parents with combined earnings of £86,000 any more deserving of our planet’s resources than those of the child of an office cleaner working for £11,000 per annum ?
Is it fair that the prime minister, or indeed a social work team leader is paid more than someone who looks after people who are frail ? What is our response when questions like these are raised ? “What a ridiculously naive notion !” or “Well, up to a point” or “I like the idea, but how practical is it ?”
If a radical gesture towards equality for all children is not acceptable to the majority of people in our community, that may have to be accepted but, given that this is the case, let’s not listen to either politicians or indeed ourselves declaring that we really want to build a fairer society. Let’s all at least be honest if this is our view : we prefer to be richer, better educated, healthier and more powerful than others.
This article is written to a background of worrying news about children excluded from their mainstream schools. To be sure these are predominantly children from our least affluent families. Equally certain is that they are being excluded by mainstream schools which have clearly rejected the tub thumping idea “we are all in this together.”
A growing number of readers are writing to inform us that projects and centres which have been successfully providing for children excluded from their schools are under threat of closure and that many of the staff of these resources have already been served with redundancy notices. Where’s the togetherness and fairness here ?
(Originally posted on the goodenoughcaring hom page on October 5th, 2010)

Comments

Although not directly referring to the above article, David Cameron's thoughts on fairness expressed in his October 6th speech to the Conservative Party conference make interesting reading.

"I think it's time for a new conversation about what fairness really means. Fairness isn't just about who gets help from the state. The other part of the equation is who gives that help, through their taxes. Fairness means giving people what they deserve - and what people deserve depends on how they behave."

David Cameron, October 6th, 2010

Tribal loses residential child care contract : two cheers rather than three ?

2010-09-12T02:38:00.000-07:00

Visitors to the goodenoughcaring site may remember that in March, 2010 we were critical of the last government's decision to award a contract to the private consultancy organisation, theTribal Group. In order to fulfil this contract Tribal agreed to offer extensive support to the residential child care sector. At the same time the government ended the funding for the National Centre for Excellence and Residential Child Care (NCERCC). This was a decision which was met with wide dismay in the sector.
Yesterday, September 7th, 2010 the Department of Education announced,

"The department is today launching a new programme of work to drive improvements in children’s homes, which will be led by the sector and the department. As a result, the department will no longer be awarding an external contract to Tribal to deliver this work."

The department’s statement goes on to say,

"Considerable resources have already been spent trying to raise standards, and while there have been some improvements, there is much more to be done. Therefore, instead of reinvesting in an external contract, ministers have decided that the most effective and cost-effective way of achieving this change is to work in partnership with the sector to review what is working well and to identify areas for improvement."

In our view it is wise of the new government to seek to work genuinely with the sector because the latter carries the necessary expertise which Tribal patently did not. Our hope now is that the government will seek partnership not only with the senior leaders managers of the big statutory, voluntary and independent child care organisations as child care training and education bodies, but that they will genuinely engage with both operational managers and practitioners.
However this is one of those developments which perhaps calls for two cheers rather than three. We are mindful of what was lost at the time of the decision to award Tribal a contract and that was the National Centre for Excellence in Residential child Care (NCERCC). While the government says no new external contracts will be awarded, it is to be hoped that it will be seeking, in its search for the “most effective and cost-effective way” to “raise standards” and achieve change, discussions with the National Children’s Bureau and its residential child care section about the possibility of establishing within the sector something like NCERCC which was an initiative that was generally respected as a supportive and integral part of residential child care in England.
Nonetheless this news gives hope that the expertise which the residential child care sector holds within it will be now be heard, respected and used to develop residential child care services.
This item first appeared on the http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ home page on September 7th, 2010

Comments

Noel Howard writes : It sounds like two cheers as you say but two better than none.

In Ireland at the moment there is a bit of a lull but much of the sentiment which persists about residential child care concerns the embargo on recruitment, cutbacks, closures and amalgamations of services.
Interesting isn't it that the UK government (and a Conservative one at that) has at least listened ? In our Irish the forthcoming issue of Curam there is a piece about Theresa May's welcome "about turn" from the previous government's policy on the vetting of child workers.

David Williams comments :It is good news that the United Kingdom government seems to be making a meaningful attempt to engage with coal face workers and practitioners in the sector as to raise standards and quality of care, although it is saddening to see in the midst of all the bureaucratic clammering the loss of the NCERCC. In Ireland at the moment we also seem to be at mercy of key departmental decisions in relation to re structuring our child protection and alternative care systems. However the Irish Association of Social Care Workers and othewr key bodies in ireland are attempting to ensure the voices of practitioners and more importantly vulnerable young people are heard,

John Burton writes : How do we get government to let the people who do the work to redesign it? It's what they say they would like to do but it's unlikely to happen because they have no experience of what it would really be like. But we can only go on trying!

Alan McQuarrie comments : This is a development which I think we should welcome, though I think there will still be disquiet about the way the UK Government has handled this and the fate of NCERCC. Over a number of years successive Scottish governments have been developing ‘centres of excellence’ for different branches of social care. The Centre for Residential Child Care, now SIRCC, was the first of these in 1994. Now there is talk of merging some of our work, but it is very vague and far off.

Mark Smith remarks : This is good news but as you say qualified good news - I wouldn't be too encouraged by the thought of most local authorities becoming the drivers of residential care services.

Jeremy Millar comments : the vagaries of neo-liberal agendas are a wonder to behold. If only we could separate cost effective from improving practice. Still, if they truly got their heads round real cost effectiveness they would tax the rich invest in disadvantaged communities and narrow the gap between rich and poor. Sadly they have no concept of true social justice.

Making money from the helping services

2010-07-25T22:10:00.000-07:00

Those of our readers who are residential child care workers will know about Tribal Group plc, the consultancy company which took over some of the functions carried out by the former NCERCC. The influence of Tribal and no doubt other large consultancy organisations seems to be growing upon the caring services as their tendrils spread across the territories of a number of government departments. Already the recipient of profitable government contracts related to our health, education and social care services, Tribal’s response to the coalition government’s new white paper for the National Health Service, “Equity and excellence : Liberating the NHS” is positive to the point of the congratulatory and carries a hint of the attitude that might be adopted by someone gleefully rubbing hands together at the prospect of more money running into his or her coffers.

“Equity and excellence : Liberating the NHS” includes plans to abolish primary care trusts and strategic health authorities and to put GPs into consortia in order to purchase care from hospitals and other health providers for their patients. This may or may not be an excellent idea but it is certain that private profit making companies like Tribal have seen it as an opportunity for making money. Kingsley Manning, Tribal’s business development director for health observes that the white paper “could amount to the denationalisation of healthcare services in England and is the most important redirection of the NHS in more than a generation” and perhaps Mr. Manning observes a lot of business development potential in it too. Tribal’s response to the white paper praises the coalition government’s vision as “compelling and logical” before reminding the government that “the practicalities of this vision still need finalising to ensure that local health systems do not suffer during the transitional period” and it goes on to give the government a little reminding nudge that Tribal is standing ready to take on this work. “Tribal’s work within the NHS," so the response goes, "revolves around implementing government initiatives such as healthcare planning and management to ensure that the NHS provides the best possible care to its patients.”
“Why”, we might ask, “can’t people who are already working within the NHS implement the government’s proposal ?” Well,Tribal’s Kingsley Manning has the answer. He tells us the “cornerstone of the government’s argument for such radical change is the NHS’s comparatively poor outcomes?” Can the government really be saying that the NHS is poor ? Furthermore who within the NHS will find it easy to work harmoniously with a private organisation which bases its approach to the NHS on this negative premise ?

Like other private consultancy companies Tribal is an unelected body which has set itself up it seems, as a source of expertise on all aspects of the caring, education and health professions. The work available to the consultants of Tribal and other companies seems to be increasing at a time when it is likely that less well paid workers who work directly in these fields will be losing their jobs. We ask again, “Who are the people who make up Tribal and companies like them ? What is their motive ? What exactly in detailed terms is their expertise and experience? If the consultants of these companies do have a great deal to offer the world of the helping professions and if they have experience of working with proven success within that world, why didn’t they remain in it as employees?

Our interest at goodenoughcaring is the nurture, care, health, development and education of children and their need for consistent and sincere and altruistic attention. There is nothing wrong with making money but should it be the principal motivating force if our main responsibility is to serve children (particularly the vulnerable ones) and their families ? Need we spend more money purchasing the services of private companies when we already have the personnel available to do it within our state provision for health, education and social care? (Originally posted at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com on July 19th, 2010).

References

Details of “Equity and Excellence in the NHS” accessed at http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/MediaCentre/Pressreleases/DH_117360 on July 16th.

Details of Tribal’s response to “Equity and Excellence in the NHS” accessed at
http://www.tribalgroup.com/Aboutus/Pages/newsTribalpublishesresponsetoGovernmentWhitePaperforhealth.aspx on July 16th 2010

Comments

The manager (name and address supplied) of a residential child care resource writes, "I agree with the sentiments of this article. We are at the coal face and the rewards for many staff in residential child care is an unfair salary for a fair day's work. Our rewards bear no comparison with the organisations who are trying to high jack social care on the back of a profit based ideology rather than meeting the care needs of individual children. I fear we will see more of this as this coalition government de-constructs the safety net for the more vulnerable members of society. All my work is now concentrated on dealing with the impending cuts and the drive by all the local authorities who have placed children with us to send as many young people home as they can whether or not the children are ready for this."

Good news from the National Children's Bureau

2010-06-20T04:09:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-20T04:03:00.000-07:00

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)

The Dutch auction of children in residential child care

2010-06-13T07:59:00.000-07:00

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/

Residential child care's struggle for acceptance and recognition : a South African perspective

2010-05-16T09:17:00.000-07:00

Brian Gannon the co-editor of the International Child and Youth Care Network, CYC-Net, has been following the discussions on this page about the decision made by the Department for Children, Schools and Families to cease funding the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care and to provide funding for the private consultancy organisation Tribal and allow it to take a significant role in residential child care affairs in England. Brian sees some similarities between this and recent developments in the Child and Youth Care field in South Africa. (Child and Youth Care is a title which encompasses what is known in the United Kingdom as residential child care).

We do not claim to comment with authority on child care matters in South Africa but we have looked in admiration at some of the innovative practice in residential child care in that country and so it is interesting that although there are honours degree courses in child and youth care in South Africa - indeed people like Thom Garfat and Leon Fulcher have led a masters level programme for child and youth care workers - there still appears to be a feeling of some exasperation among child and youth care workers that their distinct professional discipline has not been given the recognition it deserves. We suspect that this exasperation is experienced in many countries and that it is epitomised by the reaction to the decision of the United Kingdom's government to cease funding England's National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care.

Brian Gannon writes : I have been interested in looking over your shoulder at the recent correspondence you have been having about DCSF and felt it has a resonance for child and youth care workers in SA. To illustrate this I am quoting below something which Merle Allsopp, National Director of South Africa's National Association of Child Care Workers, wrote at this time last year in the Association's journal Child & Youth Care Work:

”The first week of May is International Child and Youth Care Worker's Week.Some child and youth care programs here and abroad will have celebrated this occasion recently, using it as an opportunity to recognize child and youth care workers and express appreciation for the very distinct and exacting work that they do.

In the context of this being the month that we especially celebrate child and youth care workers, it is rather ironic that the last week of this month will see the release of the research on the 'Demarcation of Social Services' sponsored by the Department of Social Development and managed by the South African Council for Social Service Professions. Effectively a survey of opinion, the findings of this endeavour will tell us as child and youth care workers whether we exist or not!

This is not a new experience for child and youth care workers - this being defined by popular opinion of others outside the field. The international child and youth care literature from time to time refers to similar situations arising in other countries - with concomitant protests and expressions of outrage being recorded by affected child and youth care worker fraternities.

The outcome of the research and the implications of this outcome may mean that we as the South African child and youth care field have to rework our strategies and approach to achieving recognition for our field. For we have reason to be concerned about the implications, not only of the research, but about the conditions which gave rise to the research. Why question the existence of the profession in the first place? We have an established Professional Board, and consulted-upon draft regulations which will allow child and youth care workers the dignity and affirmation that comes with registration. If we question the existence of the profession, we question the validity of people who identify as child and youth care workers, and we question the existence of the Professional Board. More than anything else, we cast doubt on the contributions made to at-risk children and families by
of some of our most active and helpful social service professionals in the country.

But as I worry about hidden agendas that may be operating in our country in relation to broadening the range of social service professions beyond social work, I think too about something Thom Garfat wrote a while back - on the dangers of letting others define us, and avoiding hooking too deeply into the views that others have of our profession. I am reminded that as child and youth care workers we must remain steadfast in our certainty of the value of our unique profession and what we have to offer young people”.

(Posted April 29th, 2010).

NCERCC : Richard Rollinson’s letter to Sir Paul Ennals, the Chief Executive of the National Children’s Bureau 16th April, 2010

2010-05-05T02:37:00.000-07:00

This was first posted on the goodenoughcaring website at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com on April 20th, 2010

Dear Paul,

NCERCC

I am writing to you to express my continuing concern – and that of many others - about the prospect of NCERCC being wound down now that its funding from the DCFS has ceased. As one of the members of the original committee, along with Bill Utting, which worked hard to develop the proposal that NCB then put successfully to the government for such a Centre for residential care, I have always held a particular interest in how NCERCC has developed. Along with many, many others, I have been delighted with how it has located itself at the heart of our residential sector in so short a time.

You yourself will be aware of this heartening reality. Therefore you will also understand just how taken aback and troubled we are now by the imminent disappearance of this Centre. We also wish to make clear that while we genuinely appreciate the support and institutional base that NCB has provided for NCERCC during its existence, we believe strongly that “ownership” of the Centre extends well beyond NCB itself. It is one of the greatest achievements of NCERCC that it has become already what we had always hoped, a “home base” for our residential sector and capable of being a “critical friend” when necessary in order to generate improvements in such provision. We are not prepared to simply see such an achievement and role drain away now, to be “replaced” by a different government supported activity to “drive through” improvements. [Note the so 90s business language.]

I am forwarding by email too further expressions of concern, anger and dismay that have been circulating since news of the risk to NCERCC has emerged. An important part of this concern is about how we were ignorant of that risk until decisions had been made concerning central government funding and with no opportunity until now to participate in securing alternative funding. Even now we wish to follow this route and believe that with NCB we can achieve such funding – so long as we have time to do so and the Centre does not close up shop, so to speak, before this can be done. It is not an alternative to NCERCC we desire, nor a pale shadow of what it has become. It is the “real article” we seek to preserve and help to grow further.

Given the longstanding support of residential care by NCB across the years – and I have been privileged to be part of several of these earlier NCB based activities – it is our hopeful expectation that your organisation can act even now to secure the continued and active presence of NCERCC in the sector, preferably but not absolutely necessarily from its NCB base. Many of us are fully prepared to participate fully in this effort, and we have some ideas already.

Thank you again for the support NCB and you yourself have given NCERCC over these recent years. I look forward to hearing from you about how by our working together now it can continue to make a difference for our sector.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Rollinson

Independent Consultant in residential child care
Chairman of the Professional Advisory Group of the Charterhouse Group of Therapeutic Communities, of the Planned Environment Therapy Trust and of the Care Leavers Foundation

(Posted 20th April, 2010)

DCSF letter to Charles Sharpe

2010-05-05T02:33:00.001-07:00

This was first posted on the goodenoughcaring website at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com on April 20th, 2010

DCSF
20th April, 2010

Dear Mr Sharpe

Thank you for your email dated 31 March about residential children's homes and an organisation called Tribal. On this occasion I have been asked to reply.

Tribal was awarded the support and challenge for children’s homes project after successfully completing a full formal tender process and has significant experience and expertise in delivering a support and challenge role to public service commissioners and providers.
Tribal’s team includes a strong blend of consultants, analysts and researchers with experience as trusted advisors to the children’s services sector, local authorities and central government. For example, Janet Rich Director of Simplicitas, has 17 years of professional experience in the field including in therapeutic residential care, leaving care and the mental health of looked after children. Janet will be acting as expert advisor to the programme and will chair the Project’s Advisory Group, bringing together key stakeholders in residential care and others. The Tribal team also includes Professor Peter Marsh of Chair in Child and Family Welfare at the University of Sheffield to provide academic expertise and develop a strong evidence base for the work.

Tribal will initially be focusing on engaging key stakeholders in residential care, to provide a seamless transition of support. They will work on developing face-to-face presence alongside a web presence and publication of newsletters aimed at providers and managers to encourage wider sector participation and engagement.

This project will offer an opportunity to support the dissemination and embedding of evidence based practice, play an active role in rolling out lessons from recent pathfinder and pilot activity to raise the quality of care in Children’s homes and act as a catalyst for a the development of evidence based practice within the sector as a whole.

I hope this information is useful.

Yours sincerely

Emma Hutchinson
Public Communications Unit
www.dcsf.gov.uk

Calum Strathie writes I received an identical response to the one Charles Sharpe did from DCSF when I asked it about Tribal and NCERCC except that Pamela Kearns of the Public Communications Unit replied to me and not Emma Hutchinson. I'm not sure if it's a standard response, but it's interesting how they make Tribal out to sound like a jar of Nescafe - "A Strong Blend"! Do any of the names in the blend mean anything to you? The question is "do we want the instant processed variety of Tribal?" or "do we want the fresh roast aroma of the Real McCoy from NCERCC?" There's no contest really.

Pulling the plug on good enough residential child care - DCSF style

2010-05-05T02:28:00.000-07:00

This was first posted on the goodenoughcaring website at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com on April 12th, 2010.
We have had a large and supportive response to our recent report of the damaging blow dealt to residential child care in England by the decision of the Department for Children, Schools and Families to cease funding the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care.

Some of us may have been present at the NCB conference in Birmingham in 2005 when Bruce Clark, then the Divisional Head of the Looked After Children Division in the Department of Education and Skills announced government funding of £731,000 to establish the NCERCC. It seemed then that residential child care had been provided with a strong platform from which to establish its place as a caring discipline.

Over a number of years the idea of the NCERCC was nurtured into being by a group of people and organisations with decades of practical experience, learning, research, development and management in residential child care. It is hard for us as residential child care workers not to feel a sense of humiliation when a consultancy organisation like Tribal with no depth of experience in our field is awarded such a powerful role in our work while the views of those whom we recognise as having deep insight of our professional discipline – residential child care - are dismissed.

Of course in a world dominated by a relatively small number of people seeking high financial rewards we understand that a large commercial consultancy like Tribal may claim expertise in anything in order to win a contract. To present a tender for a contract like the one Tribal has been awarded a commercial body can usually persuade an academic - with a curriculum vitae which suggests some interest in child care issues - to climb on board. We do not know if this is the case with Tribal, though its description of its current expertise does not include residential child care.

It may be that Tribal matters are a sideshow in this. The overwhelming majority of responses to our report identified the real villain of the piece as the DCSF. In pulling the plug on the NCERCC, not it seems despite of the latter's good work but, so it claims, because of it, DCSF is pulling the plug – in the way that its predecessors have done over many decades – on any informed and genuine intention to provide good enough residential child care. (Posted, April 12th, 2010).

Comments

Richard Rollinson writes, “Many of you will know I endorse the positions set out by Adrian Ward and Charles Sharpe on the goodenoughcaring website. After a conversation with John Kemmis, [of Voice for the Child in Care ] I have agreed to write to Paul Ennals at the National Children’s Bureau where NCERCC was based to emphasise the depth and intensity of the dismay felt by so many across our sector. Before NCERCC residential child care was seen as the "poor relation" of children's services and government/social policies. In light of all these comments, my communication to Paul will be brief, and forwarded with it will be the communications amongst ourselves to give it the reality and strong feeling it represents in our collective view. I am encouraged that neither a holiday period nor the start of an election has dimmed our strength of feeling”.

Adrian Ward comments, "I agree wholeheartedly with the concerns you have raised, and feel that DCSF has acted in a wholly destructive way towards NCERCC and the whole sector. There was no consultation whatsoever about the diversion of funds from NCERCC's remit into this 'Support and Challenge' programme, and as far as one can see DCSF is taking no responsibility for the consequences of its actions. NCERCC has helped to create and develop some outstanding projects such as the Children's Residential Network which have brought real value to young people by promoting and supporting good practice, and the risk is that this work will be lost, as I'm sure NCB doesn't have the money to continue any funding".

John Burton writes, "Politicians are guided by self-interested groups and have no idea of the results of their decisions. This doesn’t absolve them from responsibility. All government policy can be seen as a sophisticated system of denying accountability and passing it down to the lowest level possible – to people who are actually trying to do the work with commitment and belief. And the new legislation and guidance then makes it even more difficult to do the real work. Look at the Care Quality Commission response to the failure of inspection at the care home where Rachel Baker was convicted of manslaughter last week. It is high time we spoke out and I applaud your opinion piece".

Chris Taylor comments, " NCERCC has done well on what seems like quite a small budget, and residential care needs a unifying and professionalising voice. I know nothing about Tribal, but note that although they claim their "expertise spreads across many markets" they do not mention any form of childcare, let alone residential care. They do offer a range of services in education, perhaps a return to the old Children's Homes with Education model. I also doubt that NCERCC will be the only casualty of the desperate need to reduce both deficit and debt...residential care has always been a soft target".

What is Tribal ? and what does it have in store for residential child care ?

2010-05-05T02:23:00.000-07:00

This was first posted on the goodenoughcaring website on March 31st, 2010

Yesterday, (30.3.10), the Department for Children, Schools and Families sent out a press release which announced the awarding of what it calls “ the delivery of the Support and Challenge for Children’s Homes” to a consultancy group called “Tribal”. In changing the focus of its funding for residential child care, the government has given Tribal financial backing and has withdrawn funding from the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care. At the same time the DCSF acknowledges that the National Centre has been doing a good job. We are left to wonder in whose interests this decision has been made.

The editorial group of goodenoughcaring.com has long experience of residential child care but none of its members has heard of Tribal or how it gained its reputation as a “talented multi-disciplinary team with a wealth of expertise and knowledge in residential care and previous success of delivery of similar programmes of work”.
The note attached to the press release provides little evidence in its description of Tribal’s personnel that the latter has wide experience of residential child care. Initiatives of this kind should be led by people who have in-depth experience and real insight of the discrete and sophisticated role of residential child care work.

Our fear is that as a consequence of this decision residential child care will be steered, despite all the efforts of recent years, by a managerialist ethos which, though it may occasionally meet some notional paper target, has never yet provided children with better quality care. If you wish to find out more about Tribal ask the Minister for Children, Schools and Families. The email address is : dcsf.ministers@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk

** Press release address :
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/safeguardingandsocialcare/childrenincare/childrenincare/ (Posted March 31st, 2010)

Comments

Calum Strathie writes ,"There was something very soul-less about the language used [in the DCSF announcement, 30.3.10] which all runs counter to what NCERCC has been promoting for all these years - i.e. practice excellence and humanity. To withdraw their funding after praising them for their 'good work' makes the praise sound more than a little bit hollow, and I'm sure that NCERCC would be the first to agree that there is much work to be done in the residential sector. The press release talks a lot about 'evidence based practice' but I wonder what evidence DCSF have used to justify this decision? In any case I question the whole notion of 'evidence based practice' and I feel that far too much credence is given to this idea. Surely we should be talking about values based practice and evidence based policies. Evidence can 'inform' practice, but I doubt that it can change actual face to face practice - only good training and quality supervision can do that - unless, of course, the evidence is practice based. What now for NCERCC? Can it continue in some form?"

Richard Rollinson comments, "I am greatly concerned, less about Tribal, but more about NCERCC. The reality is that the project Tribal have won by tender bid is a mere shadow of the much deeper, broader and more integrated purpose and role/task of NCERCC in the residential sector. As the chairman of the group Momentum (which had a good number of people long committed to high quality residential care), that paved the way for the successful NCB bid to host NCERCC, I am determined that it does not disappear entirely or come to exist only in a highly restricted form. The fact is NCERCC is not simply a property of either DCSF or NCB to treat/marginalise as it wishes (though I don't think that NCB has such a crudely dismissive attitude). It belongs very much to the sector which has taken to it as a "home base" in so many respects".

Not more about poverty : keep on rocking in the free world

2010-04-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

This was first posted at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com on March 12th, 2010

Last week we raised our concerns about the harm of poverty wreaks on the majority of the children who live on our planet and about the current distribution of wealth. Comments mailed to us have been largely sympathetic towards re-distributing wealth but they have been accompanied by what seems a despairing wringing of hands that implies there is little we can effectively do about it. At the risk of causing wide offence we wondered if the consensual liberal concern for the poor is but a simulation which covers for an indifference with intent. Perhaps we are not prepared to go through - both individually and collectively - the great sea change that would be needed if we are to make sure that every child has sufficient food, sufficient shelter and clothing, the means to enjoy recreation, and the opportunities that may be provided by education.Material poverty so often goes along with emotional poverty. The latter may have figured largely in Jon Venables’ early experience and have contributed to the part of him that became capable of the pitiless and dreadful killing of Jamie Bulger, a very vulnerable, very young, defenceless child. Yet instead of investing our emotions into thinking what needs to done to ensure that we do something to prevent such an awful event in the future a great many of us spend our time venting the same destructive feelings upon Jon Venables that he acted out so cruelly upon Jamie Bulger. It may be very difficult for us to accept that these feelings are - to one extent or another - present in each of us. What prevents most of us from acting out our anger is that we were given enough of the right kind of nurture by our parents. In such a materially and emotionally impoverished childhood environment such as that Jon Venables experienced it can be guessed that there was no space for imagination, healthy play and creativity. It is much easier for parenting figures to offer this if they have sufficient emotional and material to provide this for their children. Perhaps we need to think about how we ensure that families never live in this wider kind of poverty.We continue to draw attention to poverty and what it brings because though there are many fine examples of human beings taking their own individual practical steps to redistribute material and emotional wealth, these initiatives may not be enough unless we all - individuals and institutions – do this in our own communities and as members of the global community.Perhaps it will never be possible for us as a species to give everyone a reasonable opportunity to lead a tolerable life. If this is so then perhaps we need to look at why this it is so. If this sounds “holier than thou” it is not meant to, for apart from these words we have done nothing but exercise an intimation of guilt. We are just wondering if it is a sensible notion that the poverty experienced by the majority of people who live on our planet can be alleviated. If so we would like to hear about it. We would like to join others in initiating action. (Posted, March 12th).
Reference : Neil Young (Performer and composer, 1991) Keep on Rocking in the Free World USA Reprise Records Accessed at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQccK0F1_iY

Comments

Cynthia Cross writes , "As a pacifist I have no difficulty in deciding where we could save money and also, I believe, it would make our country a safer place to live. (I am not sure where that leaves us with our present commitment in Afghanistan) I have also often wondered what we were doing sending things to the moon, when we were in such a mess down here. I do not really think that the concept of the Lottery is a good one, but if we do have it what is the point of giving winners more than a million, there ought to be more winners or the money should be better distributed to deserving causes. Of course people who have millions which must become meaningless in terms of the quality of daily life should be taxed at a very high level. Helping people move from a life of poverty is not just about giving them money it is also about enriching there social and emotional experience. To care people have to have been cared for and feel cared for, going through the benefits system hardly does that. As an aside I remember a little girl, about 10 years old, who had a Christmas present which seemed much too young for her, I asked who gave you that; she replied “the committee”! As Mark Smith says there are not many people going to do a Bob Holman, but maybe there are other ways to foster caring and community spirit and helping people to feel that they have some control over their lives (note I did not say empowering) Jeremy Millar mentions cooperatives which certainly could be revived to good effect as could the old Settlements which did sterling work in some parts of London. The old Family Service Units (which originally was a pacifist organisation) acted as a community resource where “professionals” were not unhappy getting their hands dirty, cleaning and making things and caring for children. Perhaps getting involved in such endeavours could be something young people could do in their gap year and we could revive the idea that volunteering can be quite fulfilling and exciting even in your own country. To achieve any of this we would have to start trusting more and blaming less. Surely the pendulum has to swing back sometime soon".

Iain Sharpe comments , "I am probably one of the hand-wringers who will the ends of reducing inequality but are painfully aware of the difficulties of doing so when we have to persuade people to vote for such things. But we should never give up trying. At risk of giving a party political broadcast I would commend the Lib Dem 'pupil premium' policy to make sure funding for schools benefits those whose need is greatest".

The redistribution of Health

2010-04-19T05:31:00.000-07:00

This piece first appeared at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com on March 19th, 2010

It is welcome news that 32 million citizens of the USA who previously had little or no access to effective health services now do so. On a global scale this may seem a small step towards alleviating the consequences of poverty but it represents an unprecedented caring and nurturing initiative taken on behalf of all the people of the USA by its democratically elected government. Barack Obama’s, as well as his supporters’ determination and achievement should not be underestimated. Since the 1930s when these ideas were first mooted, there has been, and there remains, a great deal of opposition in the USA to the kind of health legislation the government is introducing. To citizens of the European Union where basic health services are, as far as we are aware, accessible to all what Obama and his government have done may not appear remarkable but the symbolic message it sends throughout the world is immense. If all political leaders could for a moment get off the fence of expedience – an expedience fuelled by the power of wealthy interests - and follow Obama’s determined lead and confront poverty we may begin to hold out hope that the social, educational and material riches of our world will be available to all children and be shared more equably. (Posted March 19th)

Comments

Nancy Mohindra writes "When we live in a wealthy society or when our way of living is comfortable words such as poverty, inequality, or empathy are just terms without connection to real people or real experiences-let’s remember that it is not always the case!. For this reason, among others, is why I consider so relevant research on social realities and its impact on mental health, well-being and social cohesion. Financial solvency is important to our welfare; however, inclusion and acknowledgment of our existence by our fellow citizen is what increases or reduces health status and life expectancy. That it sounds pathetic to resort to hard evidence to push for new legislation and reforms to protect less favoured communities, I agree. Hence, my call is for it, let’s do qualitative and quantitative research on the effects of inequality and indifference on the quality of life of our fellow citizens and so in our own lives. Let’s show and prove that a society which includes everybody pays and it pays well to everybody".

Lost for Words : It’s not the economy, it’s the poverty and the avarice, stupid!

2010-04-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

This article was published on the goodenoughcaring.com homepage on March 5th, 2010

Forgive this crude play on a tired old headline. It is a reaction to the BBC's broadcasting on February 15th,
( http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/2/hi/uk_news/education/8513340.stm )
of a report about a research study carried out by the Sutton Trust which found after looking at the results of vocabulary tests given to 12.500 British children that those from the poorest homes are almost a year behind middle class pupils by the time they start school. Whatever all this means – after all such studies are loaded towards the cultural values of the “haves” rather than the “have nots” - we wonder how many more research studies are needed to tell us that children who live in poverty are bequeathed failure at school, defeat in what is called the “world of work”, and life long poor physical and psychological health. All this is known, so why spend money on more research about it ? Let’s spend time on working out how we go about redistributing wealth. This is easier said than done, but no human being is worth, let’s say 10 times as much as the poorest. Should any person be worth any more than another ? If as adults we conscientiously address our responsibility to protect and nurture all children then surely each of us would be prepared to give up income she or he does not require in order to make sure that all children have what they need to flourish. When fair minded people who are not rich, but who know they could exist quite adequately on less than they have, think about such a commitment they may feel a moral compunction towards it but they may also be fearful of it. "What if," they ask, "we do this and then we fall upon hard times ? Who will protect and look after us ?" Such a poignantly ironic question. We know the answer we ought to be able to give.Other than those who suffer so wretchedly from poverty in all or any of its aspects, the people we should perhaps worry most for, and about, are the excessively avariciously powerful and wealthy. Surely it is not healthy to be the way they are. These people need help. Thought needs to be given as to how we can best support them in addressing their problems. Still, even if we knew how to redistribute wealth effectively, we may have to accept that those with no experience of having anything will need a period of adjustment to spend as unwisely as we, “the haves” did in recent years. This jumbled collection of thoughts and statements is not altogether naïve, yet it would be easy to become cynical about its chances of being taken up seriously, and so, decide to do nothing. The redistribution of wealth is not a simple exercise but someone – perhaps one or more of us - needs to start to consider it seriously if we are to do the very best we can to make sure all children grow up healthily. This is not an argument for an absolute answer. Every human being is unique but we are left with the pluralism and the conflict of freedom and equality. How long can we wait before we begin to confront this problem? What do we wish for our children ? We may have to acknowledge that freedom and equality are not necessarily harmonious, but somewhere along their continuum a choice should be made. As one kind of start we would truly welcome comments and ideas about this. (Posted, 5th March, 2010).

Comments

Jeremy Millar comments, “ I concur completely. I have a regular rant against 'research into the bleeding obvious' and encourage the students to spot it. my grandfather was a mill owner but ran a workers cooperative so i have been raised in the knowledge that other forms of capitalist endeavour can work. there was an interesting prog on radio 4 regarding john lewis in this respect. also I have an alternative solution to the bank meltdown. sadly too late to impliment as the government bailed the banks out. Anyway what the government could have done was bought off the population’s credit card and personal loan debt. They could have included mortgage for those facing repossession and the debt would have been repaid by individuals over 20 years at a 1% rate of interest. This could have been done through income tax. The government would have then been able to do future investment planning on a secured additional income. The banks would have got their money back. The populace would be solvent and able to start consuming again. Obviously this is just like raising income tax but at least it would make the people feel better rather than disillusioned and angry with the whole system.”

Iain Sharpe writes that “it may be true that studies are loaded towards the cultural values of the haves rather than the have nots, but one step towards giving the have nots a better chance is to make sure they have the knowledge, language and understanding, including vocabulary to challenge the haves.”

Mark Smith comments "I'm not going to disagree with a word of that. I regularly get a niggling voice of conscience questioning whether I should do a Bob Holman (and just as regularly come up with reasons/excuses as to why I don't). Are you aware of Wilkinson and Pickett's book, 'The Spirit Level'? Have a look at www.equalitytrust.org.uk/ “

The Howard League shows the way : raising the profile of training for residential child care workers

2010-04-14T05:47:00.000-07:00

First posted at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ on September 4th, 2009

It is good news that on September 3rd, the Howard League was able to make the BBC headlines about the need for professional training for prison officers.
Link : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8233001.stm
We suggest that national government and interested lobbying bodies concerned with the training of residential child care workers should promote a wider public awareness of the needs of children in residential child care and raise the profile of the training needs of those who look after them. The lone voice trying to achieve this in recent years has been the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care but it needs further support to do this from others, particularly from the DCSF.
Our media seems fearful too that we will tire of hearing of the suffering of children over a sustained period of time. It prefers to stick with short-term, blaming sensationalism, or the filling up newspaper columns or news bulletins with children's matters only when there is no political or international crisis brewing. We know that residential child care needs the sustained interest of the public if really healthy developments in the service are to take place. If we - people in one way or another involved in residential care - can sustain wider public interest in our work then we may go even further than the Howard League has done by publicising the issue of prison officer training. We may even manage to foster a wider and more informed public debate and use it to help us achieve the implementation of a national programme of professional training for residential child care workers. This will require the same kind of determination from everyone in our field particularly the DCSF to stick with the task in the same tenacity that is expected of residential child care workers in their care of children and young people.

"Disposing" of the case : the right of a young person to attend meetings

2010-04-14T05:25:00.000-07:00

First published at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ on December 3rd, 2010

Over the last two years during supervision sessions with residential child care managers in England, I have often heard them talk about being invited by social workers and social work managers to attend meetings without the presence of a young person to discuss future plans for the said young person. The young people are frequently over the age of 15 and are old enough and have enough understanding of their situation to attend and inform such discussions. Amongst the terms which seem to have developed to describe such a meeting are “professionals' meetings” and “strategy meetings”. I am informed that these meetings are sometimes conferred in order to decide how to “dispose” of the case. I am sure there is something obvious I am overlooking here but I do wonder why those who wish to be part of such a meeting do not want to invite the young person. My understanding is that a young person’s right to be at a meeting which will make decisions about her or his future is enshrined in legislation and legislative guidelines. I would be grateful for comments on this.

What's our problem with families ?

2010-04-14T05:21:00.000-07:00

First published at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ on November 19th, 2009

On November 18th, 2009, commenting on the Queen’s Speech, Anne Longfield OBE, Chief Executive of 4Children released the following press notice :
“Families want better information about their school, beyond simply the academic performance. They want to know their children are getting the best advice and information including about sex and relationships; and to be more involved in the life of their school. The Children, Schools and Families Bill will be a welcome advance and we call on MPs from all Parties to pass the legislation before the end of the Parliament.”
Anne Longfield's comments on the Children, Schools and Families Bill made me wonder if it might be important for us as a society that schools should not be the primary providers of 'the best advice and information about sex and relationships' - as an aside I would put relationships before sex - but we as parents or parenting figures should be doing this through example by relating to our children and young people in a nurturing, respectful way and by helping them appreciate the excitement of sexual relationships that are engaged upon through respect and tenderness toward the other. I don't think kids should learn about relationships through Powerpoint and electronic whiteboards in a schoolroom but through their parents. Some parents may struggle to carry out this part of their responsibility for their children, and if this is so, it is they we should help first if their children are to flourish. This is not to deny the important yet secondary role a school teacher may play in modelling respectful , supportive and caring relationships for children, but it is to say that it is the parenting role which is fundamental. It may be complained that what I am suggesting is somewhat eccentric. If so, then in my view there is a need for us to re-examine what, if anything, the role of society is, as well as our own roles as individuals who, notionally at least, may pride ourselves on having a care for others. In relation to helping struggling parents I am not talking about inclusion or exclusion which are rather demeaning notions but about saying as members of a supportive caring community, " If something is not going right for you, it is not going right for me".
I am sure Ms Longfield does not dismiss the importance of families in the rearing of children, but I believe we are increasingly asking schools and other agencies external to the family to do - and not surprisingly they mainly fail to do - parenting tasks for children. This should be done by families and parents. I think the symbolism of the order of title of the Children, Schools and Families Bill says it all, just as the name Department of Children, Schools and Families does. Why not Children, Families and Schools or indeed Families, Children and Schools. Why use schools as a means of separating the significance of families from the children who are integral to them ?

Has anyone seen a NEET to WEEP for ?

2010-04-14T05:17:00.000-07:00

First posted at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ on 9th November, 2009

Has anyone met a NEET ? NEET is one of the latest of a long line of acronyms to reify unique human beings. I won't bother to write out what NEET stands for because by doing so it would seem as if I was validating the notion. It is an acronym coined by wise people who I will call - at the risk of being hoist by my own petard - WEEPs, that is people who are it seems Wise, Educated, Earning and Pontificating on what others - specifically, younger adults - should be doing. According to WEEPs the very least we must expect from NEETs is that they should be getting a job, or getting an education or joining some imaginative project out of which a well sponsored WEEP will be earning a good salary.This is the kind of project which though it will pay NEETs nothing will enrich them in so many other sublime ways. I suggest that each and every WEEP should get in touch with an individual NEET and say not only am I going to make sure you get the education you want and that is relevant to you but also until this can be achieved and you get a job I am going to give you half my pay. This is the least and the greatest service a WEEP can provide for a NEET. Footnote : it may be coincidental but following the publication of this piece, Doctor Tony Ord, an Oxford academic who researches ethics, has decided to give 50% of his future earnings to others. To read more about Doctor Ord go to - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8360098.stm

goodenoughcaring : the blog for www. goodenoughcaring.com

2010-03-31T05:35:00.000-07:00

This is the new blog for http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ website. It is the archive for goodenoughcaring's homepage "Opinion" articles and the comments that were made in response to them. The blog is regularly reviewed and is "alive" so new comments about archived topics are welcomed