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

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 ?

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

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

The National Children's Bureau's announcement to continue to support the service provided to young people in residential child care and to continue to support the residential child care workers who look after them is welcome news. We hope the new service, National Children's Bureau Residential Child Care (NCBRCC) to be headed by Jonathan Stanley will flourish and that it will develop upon the resourceful service formerly provided by the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care (NCERCC). The National Children's Bureau is to be congratulated for toughing out the difficult situation which arose as a consequence of the previous government's decision to withdraw funding for NCERCC and it is to be hoped that in not ruling out reconsidering the funding of consultancy companies to provide support for residential child care that the new government may now consider diverting funding toward NCB's new project. (Posted June 10th,2010).

Nirvana ? Not yet, but the new issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal will go online on June 15th

Where has the adventure and romance of childhood gone ? Where is that utopian country - once the domain of children - of days of dawn to dusk playing, building dens, wide games in the woods, dressing up, playing Mums and Dads, making things your parents couldn’t afford to buy and pledging lifelong loyalty to friends ? Many believe the new experience of childhood is cocooned within four wheel drive people carriers, computer games in the bedroom, designer birthday parties and the avoidance of strangers and this all with an intent to protect our children from a dangerous community which is probably as much of a fantasy as the memory some of us sustain of a childhood where the sun shone all day and if it rained it did so when we were asleep. None of these notions represent a truth and there have always been children who have not experienced a childhood of the kind many of us fondly “remember.” Children who have suffered poverty, the loss of parents, who have lived through war and violent civil unrest, and those who at an early age become the primary carer for a parent have been deprived of a childhood. For these children life has always been about harsh adult reality and seldom about play and so they have missed a great deal.
Yet it is a curious phenomenon that most political manifestos, and the majority of therapies which claim to be life changing and life affirming promise the achievement of an elysium whose very perfection most red blooded human beings might view as anathema, while children who have nothing, deprived of play and love cannot even imagine those things which most of their peers take for granted as part of what is naturally given to them in life. Vulnerable people are too often seduced by promises of joy tomorrow which are rarely fulfilled. Like memories of an idyllic childhood, political and therapeutic promises can be unreliable.
In the new issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal which goes online on June 15th there is no promise of Avalon but there are ideas and examples about how life might become better for children and adults who have encountered difficulties. In an array of articles, stories and poems representing life as it is lived, John Burton, Kay Cook, Cynthia Cross, Thom Garfat, David Lane, John Molloy, Jan Noble, Jane Kenny, John Stein, and Jillien Viens write about the joys and tribulations of childhood, parenting and caring. Also in this edition will be the winning entry of our writing competition which is a short story by Tiffany Dawkins. An additional item will be the publication of Charles Sharpe's interview with Leon Fulcher and Thom Garfat. (First posted 7th, June, 2010)

The Dutch auction of children in residential child care

In a recent article by Lauren Higgs, Residential care providers urged to work together to stop closures published on May 4th in the Children and Young People Now Daily, Raphael Silver, a member of the Law Society’s Children Panel suggests that private sector providers of residential child care should band together to resist local authorities who are pooling their budgets and working together in order to purchase residential child care services more cheaply.
In our experience the Dutch auction of children who need places in children's homes has been occurring in one way or another for a number of years. Essentially what happens is that individual providers are implicitly and discreetly warned that if they don't squeeze their fees local authorities won't place children with them. In response providers are forced to cut their costs or go out of business. For obvious reasons providers resist cutting costs on feeding, clothing or keeping youngsters warm and sheltered - although sometimes this has occurred - and so what is cut is the most important resource of residential care - staffing. Less experienced, less well trained staff and so less expensive staff are recruited and training budgets are slashed and all this is done in a service where it is generally acknowledged that staff training is seriously under-resourced.

It is not necessary to have ideological sympathy with the private provision of residential child care in order to be motivated towards pointing out this lack of concern for the quality of care children and young people receive. For better or for worse governments have encouraged the private sector to fill the void left when the voluntary and the statutory sectors beat a partial retreat from residential child care and for the forseeable future private sector provision is a necessary and significant part of the service. It is generally understood that those who operate a business wish to make a profit and of course few of us are reluctant to collect our wages, salaries or fees at the end of each month and neither would we quietly stand by if someone arbitrarily decided to cut our earniings.

In Lauren Higgs’ article, Roy Williamson, the executive officer of the Independent Children’s Homes Association comments that because of their strength in unity local authority commissioners “can play providers off against each other” and in some instances “have driven prices down so far that they risk putting providers out of business”. Roy Williamson argues that while providers are “ not unrealistic about the state of public finances…… we all want what’s best for quality. We have to look at how we can work together and have open discussions between providers and commissioners.”

Meanwhile, many individual providers and registered managers remain silent on the matter fearful that any comment will not go down well with the local authorities who are referring to their children’s homes.

In the recent general election campaign all the political parties have been careful to insist that if elected investment in front line services for children will not be reduced. It is a shame that their colleagues in local government do not feel able to act in unison with them. Perhaps there is a tacit understanding that children in residential care – recipients of a service already in reduced circumstances - are exempt from any of the positive consequences of noble political commitment. (Posted, May 10th, 2010)

Link
Lauren Higgs CYP Now Daily at http://www.cypnow.co.uk/Archive/1000764/Residential-care-providers-urged-work-together-stop-closures/

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

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).