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).
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
Friday, 10 December 2010
Freedom cannot be given : Homer Lane’s "outrageous" thoughts about children’s play.
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
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
Monday, 29 November 2010
We’ve never had it so good : up to a point Lord Young
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)
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)
Monday, 22 November 2010
Something to consider : Care in Adolescence
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
"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
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
Something to agree with
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
“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
Saturday, 16 October 2010
“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
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
Sunday, 12 September 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.
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.
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