. Children Webmag
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Children
are Unbeatable
We
are including a lot of papers in this issue which were presented
at the recent day conference run by Children are Unbeatable. They
speak for themselves. It is appalling that we are faced with reports
such as that of Lord Laming, and the Government still wants parents
to have the right to assault their children.
The
Social Care association have been meeting in Blackpool and their
Annual General Meeting backed a motion put forward by Roy Grimwood
: The Social Care Association supports the view that the physical
punishment of children is both unnecessary and a breach of their
rights, and the Association will actively support the current campaign
for legislation to ban the practice throughout the United Kingdom.
Good for them, though there were some abstentions and a couple of
votes against.
Money
as the Solution
Money
may make the world go round, but does it also solve problems? In
this issue, Keith White raises the radical idea that the cost of
hiring workers might be spent better on simply giving the money
to the service users.
There
is a strong argument for this. At present, a high proportion of
the money intended to help solve people’s problems goes on
salaries for professional people. They tend to live in nice areas,
away from the nasty areas where their clients live. They may be
drawing their salaries for working in the nasty areas, but they
spend their money on buying nice houses, eating in nice restaurants
and shopping in posh shops in the nice areas. If the money were
given to the poor, it would not only help the poor people, but it
would probably be spent in the poor areas, creating more jobs and
helping the local economy.
One
of the effects of the segregation between nice and nasty areas is
that there are very few people with resources and the ability to
advocate who live in some of the poorer areas. The Archbishop of
York, Dr David Hope, once complained that the police, the social
workers, the doctors and the teachers had all moved out, leaving
vicars the only group who still lived in areas of need.
Of
course, while the professionals may live in nice areas, many of
the paraprofessionals - the home helps, care assistants and cleaners
- are local. So why should it not be a requirement that staff serving
a locality should live locally? Another idea that is too radical.
I recall
being told of a piece of research in Canada many years ago, where
two groups of social work clients were offered casework or cash.
A lot of those who received the case work did benefit, even if the
outcome was little better than spontaneous remission. But quite
a high proportion of those given the cash used it to get over their
crises and needed no further help. There were, of course, those
who blew it and came back for help again, and it is presumably these
who make the idea unacceptable.
A
New Word?
We
came across the word inclieu in a case
file the other day. We had never met it before and it isn’t
in any of my dictionaries - French or English, including the longer
Oxford. It appeared to mean the environment immediately around a
child, his/her world in which they needed stability, security, care,
love and stimulation.
Maybe
we haven’t been reading the right text books. If it does exist,
who thought it up? What is the definition? Can anyone tell us about
it?
If
it was just a misprint, maybe the word should be created. It’s
a useful concept, and is made up of a nice combination of place
and inclusion. If it is new, how about including it in a few student
essays or court reports to get it going?
From
the Case Files
Excerpt
from the report of a visiting Councillor to a children’s home
: “The demolition programme recently completed has reduced
the amount of internal decoration required”…
cuttings...
