a new monthly column from members
of staff of SIRCC
This
month’s column is from
Ian Milligan
who works at the national office of SIRCC with responsibilities
in the areas of policy development, research and training
Defensive
practice?
In
this month’s column I thought I would discuss an aspect
of contemporary practice in residential units that I am unhappy
about, but wonder if it is just me.
I
was delivering a two-day course on Recording and Report Writing
with a complete team of residential workers in a small local authority
unit. I was well received and folk were open to learning; however,
I did feel that they were a somewhat unconfident team. They had
been without a manager for several months and the post had had
to be re-advertised. The acting manager was an enthusiastic senior
from the team who had stepped into the breach. The unit was also
caring for a number of children who they were finding a real challenge.
There
was one exercise in the course which really provoked considerable
debate and I found myself ‘out on a limb’ with the
position I took. I’d like to describe what happened and
I wonder if readers of this column will be in sympathy with the
position I was trying to explore or whether you would come down
on the side of the residential team.
As
part of the course we include a small group exercise where participants
are invited to say what they would do in the following scenario.
You
are a residential worker who has come on shift on a Saturday late
one morning to find that John, a 14-year old boy who you are the
keyworker for, is very ‘down’, after the non-appearance
of his father for a visit. You talk to the youngster and he says
a number of things including that he hates his father, that he
himself is gay, and that his father hates gays.
The task is to say what you would record and why.
While
I cannot give details of every response, basically all the groups
agreed that they would write down what the boy has said about
being gay in a ‘confidential file’. They would then
make a note in the daily log to the effect that John said something
important/personal –see confidential file. They all said
that they would say to John what they were writing down.
The
groups were pretty much in agreement on the above. I then caused
a bit of a discussion when I suggested that there were some other
possibilities that they could consider, the main one being that
you should not write anything down about him being gay.
My
argument was that this was something that everybody did not need
to know at this point. I argued that this kind of information
was very personal and that it would be better to allow a few days
to pass and for us to have the chance for further discussions
to explore if he was sure about being gay, about what this might
mean in terms of his father and so on. I conceded that in this
situation I would probably have asked the boy if he minded if
I mentioned it to the manager but that I would have tried to limit
the spread and recording of this ‘knowledge’.
I
suggested that I might have written something like, ‘John
was fed up about his father not turning up. We discussed some
personal issues which he is worried will affect his relationship
with his dad.’ Recording this would allow people to know
that there were some things that I was aware of, that I was ‘keeping
in my head’ as it were.
Well
they did not agree! There were a range of reasons given for why
they should record what he had said about being gay. Some felt
it was very important to record it– especially as he was
down – so that the staff who were coming on shift next would
know why he was upset. Some felt that all the staff are involved
in care and if the information was not shared then people would
feel ‘left out’. The strongest line of argument seemed
to be that ‘what if something happened?’ There were
strong feelings that it had to be written down and that all staff
should be able to read about it.
Now
there are many issues that we could discuss in relation both to
the scenario and this team’s views. However, in this column
I do not want to explore it further but rather use it as the basis
for an observation of some things that I think are not right in
many residential units at the moment. One is the aspect of what
I would call defensive practice. Many workers seem to feel duty-bound
to write all manner of very personal things down and it seems
the reason they do so is to keep themselves safe from any possible
future criticism. I argued with this group that when using these
sorts of arguments they are really adopting a staff-centred rather
than child-centred justification for their actions. I wonder if
others would agree or not.
I
think there is another aspect of defensive practice here and that
is to do with professional judgement and confidence. It seemed
to me that these workers were lacking in much sense that they
had a degree of professional autonomy and confidence to write
or not write something. They did not seem to have much confidence
that it would be possible and appropriate for them to hold some
information about a child and not share it with everybody in writing,
or that it might be communicated in a different way. I do not
blame them for this – rather it must be to do with the management,
internal and external, that has given them this sort of guidance
or sense of practice values.
Perhaps
my opinion on this issue is out-of-date. It is twelve years since
I myself managed a residential unit, although I’ve been
very involved in training and supervising students on placement,
so I would argue that I’m still in touch. What do you think?
Am I reflecting a rather old-fashioned and out-of-touch approach?
Are these workers basically right and is my suggestion that information
could be held in someone’s head, at least for a while, simply
not acceptable these days?
Whether
my suggestion in relation to this scenario would be judged right
or wrong, helpful or unhelpful, I do want to finish off by making
what I think is a related point. I have been involved in evaluating
a couple of mental well-being services run by NHS-employed staff
in projects for ‘looked after’ children. These were
mainly counselling type services, nurse-led not clinical psychiatry.
One
of the messages that came out strongly in relation to both services
was that the young people really valued having someone to speak
to in confidence. There were several comments from young people
and staff that it was great them having someone to speak to who
was not their ‘staff’. This seems to me a shame, as
I think that residential staff should be the kind of people that
children in care can speak to about worries and concerns of a
personal nature. I just think there is something wrong in children
not being able to speak to residential workers about very personal
matters and worries with any degree of confidence.
I
know, and agree with, the concept of (most) things being confidential
to the team, rather than the individual worker, but I think that
somehow we have got ourselves in a position where we offer almost
no degree of confidentiality to children and young people who
need it. I think they know well that anything they do say will
be written down and shared with everybody.
So
to come back to my opening scenario, what do you think? Would
you have recorded what John said or dealt with in some other way?
Email
us on sircc@childrenwebmag.com
The Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care is funded
by the Scottish Executive and employs staff in a number
of Universities and Colleges to provide training, research
and a range of advice and support services. SIRCC-employed
staff deliver the BA in Social Work and Higher National
Certificate in Social Care with a strong focus on residential
child care. Some staff are also employed to deliver a
wide range of in-service short courses. SIRCC provides
advice, consultancy and organisational development to
all agencies across Scotland, local authority and independent,
which provide children units or residential schools for
looked after children. SIRCC also runs a library and information
service. Its national office is located on the Jordanhill
Campus within the Glasgow School of Social Work. The GSSW
is a joint school of the Universities of Strathclyde and
Glasgow
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