It
is the policy of Caring for Children / FICE-England and Wales
to support the creation of a centre to act as a focus for the
development of high standards of residential child care in England.
Elsewhere
in this issue Kathleen Lane has reported on a project under the
title of Momentum, being carried out by the National Children’s
Bureau Children’s Residential Care Unit, to consider the
feasibility of establishing a unit of this sort.
It
is the view of CfC/FICE that the Scottish Institute for Residential
Child Care has provided an excellent model, based in a University
but with strong links with practice, and that it has provided
a lead to encourage Scottish practitioners and managers in this
field to network, share ideas and support each other. In so doing,
SIRCC has enhanced the morale of workers in this sectors, and
it is our view that high morale contributes to successful work.
Residential
child care badly needs a boost in England. For decades, it has
been given a bad reputation and treated as a residual service,
which has tended to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. There are
good practitioners and good services, but they have maintained
their standards in the face of criticism. The Stockholm Declaration
last year spoke of residential care as a placement to be avoided
if at all possible, and used only for short periods when no other
solution is possible. Residential childcare has also been described
as “a toxic environment”.
CfC/FICE
believes that this bad image and denigration can only be countered
by a powerful campaign, with a focus for good practice which can
sell the strengths and positives of residential childcare. The
children and young people who use residential child care services
deserve the best, and the staff who work with them deserve recognition.
We hope Momentum will help them win.
