In
my March column I described the jaundiced impressions that
some social work students had of residential child care in
the United Kingdom. I went on to indicate some historical
and social reasons for this, notably the Poor Law heritage,
and the lack of social policy reform compared to other European
states such as Denmark after the Second World War. David Lane,
Editor of the Webmag, suggested to me that it would be appropriate
in this next column to set down how I felt the situation might
be remedied. And I have accepted the challenge.
Let’s
be frank at the outset: you can’t overturn more than
a century of history, memory, folklore and ideology quickly
or easily. That’s why excellent reports like that chaired
by Gillian Wagner, A Positive Choice, published in 1988, have
made so little impact. To champion alternative forms of child
care is implicitly to acknowledge the flaws and weaknesses
in families and communities, and the UK is still not ready
for this as a whole, despite the radical writings of David
Cooper and R.D. Laing in the last quarter of the twentieth
century. While we see families as happy contexts for the growth
and development of children and abuse as rare and exceptional,
we are never likely to commit ourselves to the sort of overhaul
represented by, for example, the kibbutzim in Israel, immortalised
by Bruno Bettelheim in The Children of the Dream.
This
said, where would I start? It’s really rather simple
as an idea, though it has met tacit resistance whenever I
have mentioned it over the past thirty years or so. I suggest
we begin by identifying some of the really exceptional foster
carers in the UK. My friends involved in the national foster
care scene tell me that every organisation and local authority
has knowledge of such people. Once identified, they should
be encouraged and enabled to develop what they are doing by
being given the resources to extend their philosophy and practice.
They would clearly need a distinctive status, rather like
that of beacon schools in the English education system. This
would allow them to experiment with a variety of forms of
substitute care, without the constraints, and possibly the
stigma, of being mere foster carers.
It
all sounds straightforward, but there is an immediate problem:
in the UK, foster care is seen as at the opposite end of the
spectrum from residential care, and the Children Act 1989
Guidance treats them as separate entities or species. So these
foster carers would be moving from one discourse to another.
Local
authorities are often organised with foster care and residential
care separated within discrete sections. But all the same,
I cannot see any other way. What this would open up is the
possibility of creative child care like that done by the pioneers
such as Pamela and Kurt Pick, Barbara Dockar-Drysdale, David
Wills, Paul Field, Janusc Korzcak and so many others. Explorers
need freedom, and this space to create has to be recreated
at a time when risk assessment dominates the conceptual horizon,
and when NVQ type standards militate against holistic child
care.
Of
course it would be a great advantage if the voluntary sector
could once more assume the mantle of such pioneering ventures,
but I fear sadly that the sector has been sucked into prevailing
bureaucracies and structures. It may be that it is in the
private sector that there is the greatest scope for this inventive
approach. Some of the private foster care schemes in Kent
for example, have expanded the contours of foster care in
the past two decades.
There
is one other source of inspiration: the existing therapeutic
communities for children. They need to be valued as living
national treasures, and supported in their pioneering roles.
I am hopeful that this Webmag will play its part in encouraging
them in this way. I have now been living in just such a community
for nearly twenty years, and I have lost count of the number
of times when consultants and senior social workers have told
me that they would have feared for the young people living
with us had there not been such a place available for them.
Nearly
all the young people have had chronic disastrous experiences
in their own biological families, foster care and adoptive
families. But the lead needs to come from central Government,
or a movement of professionals that sees the vital role of
alternative communities. One of the reasons why I joined Caring
for Children was because I saw it as a vehicle for change
in the UK. And since the Webmag has an international readership
it seemed to me the UK could draw strength and inspiration
from models and practice worldwide.
Is
it too much to hope that we could spark an international debate
on how residential child care in the UK could be recreated
and developed? David Lane, as our Editor, can I suggest that
you help us to forge the context for this debate? It will
require stamina and imagination, but we cannot in the UK remain
forever in the shadow of the Poor Law destined to persuade
ourselves that families or substitute families can provide
the healing and caring context for children and young people
who are asking and pleading for something else. Could I invite
you to start the ball rolling?
| Keith
J. White lives and cares for children and young people
in Mill Grove where his family has lived for four generations.
Since 1899 it has been a family home where children
unable to live with their own parents have been welcomed. |
