A report on a recent NCB day conference for
residential child care workers

A Packed House

There were well over 270 delegates in the conference suite at the Aston Villa football ground, but there was a waiting list of a third as many again. It was obviously a popular event, and this was a tribute to the work of the organisers in itself, the Children’s Residential Care Unit at the National Children’s Bureau, led by Sally Bamsey, and within it, the Children’s Residential Network, headed by Jonathan Stanley.

The Network now has a comprehensive database of children’s residential services in England, and it keeps the homes and schools informed and involved better than any other system to date. The attendance list reflected the strength of the links built up so far, well as the content of the day.

The conference programme had top speakers, such as Lord Filkin, the new Minister, and Sir Bill Utting, who eloquently summarised the key points of the day at the close. There were reports on the latest research, such as the review of residential child care workers’ views which had now been extended to the whole United Kingdom, and the Momentum report, the subject of this month’s Editorial. There were also a number of other main speakers, each giving their messages in punchy quarter-hour chunks, and time for a couple of workshops with a wide variety of titles. And of course, with such a large number of residential workers present, it was an excellent time for networking.

The Children’s Residential Network

With a very modest grant from the Department of Health Jonathan Stanley and his colleagues have achieved a lot. Set up just over two years ago, the Network is in touch with more than 1400 homes and more than 300 residential schools.

Its aims are to help services implement the National Minimum Standards, to create networks of stakeholders, (including the children’s parents), to share information about good practice and so overcome isolation, so that ultimately residential child care can genuinely be seen as a positive choice in meeting children’s needs.

To achieve these aims, they have developed an electronic database, which can be accessed by 90% of the services, and which contains a wide range of information, for example about standards. They have established local, regional and national groupings, circulated Network news and briefings, produced guides and other publications, and held annual conferences.

As a matter of principle, the Network have involved young people in their work on the basis of inclusivity. They have focused on evidence-based good practice, tested by its impact on outcomes. They have also emphasised the importance of links between providers and commissioners of services, and between providers and the children’s social workers, seeing the attainment of a high standards as a collaborative venture, requiring investment in teamwork, rather than the professions each ploughing parallel furrows and monitoring what the others are doing.

Training

Sandra Coward spoke of her experience of induction training for employees in Essex County Council. Over six weeks, Essex staff cover twenty areas of practice, using TOPSS workbooks. The outcome has been low staff turnover.

Catriona O’Malley spoke of Sunfield Special School’s experience. They are into an ambitious training programme with the aim of moving from 18% trained to 80%. They have already achieved 60%, and have experienced better staff retention among qualified staff. Nonetheless, taking account of staff turnover, they did question whether their target was actually achievable.

A New Umbrella

Tom Starkey spoke as Joint Chair of the Independent Children’s Homes Association. Few people had yet heard of this body, as it had only just been set up as an amalgamation of the National Association of Independent Residential Communities (NAIRC) and the Association of Independent Child Care Providers (AICCP). Since this new body now has 47% of the independent homes in membership, it will no doubt become the unified mouth-piece of the sector. Tom Starkey spoke about the ICHA Quality Standards, which, he said, were higher than the National Minimum Standards, and more relevant to the actual task.

Gloom and Doom? No!

Tommy Foley had been in care but is now a young man. He spoke about the work of National Voice, which represents children and young people in care. Their work plan is based on listening to the experiences of their members, and the association is both user-led and user-staffed (with an allowance that people who have recently left care are included for a few years).

Tommy Foley was concerned to avoid giving a negative message. While the public might have heard only of scandals, children and young people often had good experiences of residential care and if they had had unsatisfactory experiences of family life – whether in their own homes or in foster families – they often preferred life in a children’s home. Life in children’s homes still often had a sense of belonging to a large family group. Their experience of aftercare was mixed, with some finding it poor and some satisfactory. Overall, Tommy Foley said, “It’s far from gloom and doom” and National Voice was not anti residential care.

Morale

David Crimmens reported on progress in research being undertaken by the NCB Children’s Residential Unit. The Social Education Trust (of which David is a Trustee) had funded a study of staff morale in children’s homes in England, and this was now being replicated in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Although publication was still some time off, David was able to share key findings.

Reassuringly, the patterns emerging were broadly similar, though with some differences of emphasis. For example, the job satisfaction of staff was good or very good for three quarters of the staff in all four countries (though highest in Northern Ireland). Similarly, about a quarter of staff in all four countries said they were very satisfied.

Reports of high morale varied from 66% to 89% (Northern Ireland), but averaged about 77%. Interestingly the higher figures for morale and job satisfaction in Northern Ireland were matched by higher training and qualification figures.

In all four countries, teamwork, support and being valued were seen as the key factors contributing to high morale. As with the original report on the situation in England, this update on the findings in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland was positive. People who have argued gloomily that staff morale is low in residential children’s homes would have been confounded, which is good news.

Momentum

Sally Bamsey introduced the Children’s Residential Network report on the Momentum concept. The idea to set up a centre to act as a focus for good practice in residential child care is not new, but although it has been advocated by the Warner Report, the Support Force and the Utting Report, the idea has never been turned into reality.

The researchers consulted widely, and on most issues there was agreement. The only point of contention was the boundaries to place round a centre’s remit. Should it be purely residential, or include all forms of extra-familial care, for example?

The general view (which we have advocated) was that such a Centre should be based at the NCB, built on the existing Children’s Residential Care Unit. Sally Bamsey had been concerned about putting this view forward as it might have looked like special pleading, but the feedback had been overwhelming. In consequence, a bid had been outlined to cover the necessary minimum staffing for such a unit, which amount to about £300,000 per annum – the cost of running a very small children’s home.

The Government View

As a newly appointed Minister in this field, Lord Filkin spoke very positively about residential child care, perhaps partly because he recognised the skilled nature of the work, having once been called in to cook the Christmas dinner in a home run by his wife.

He noted that the real problems for children’s residential services were its outdated negative image, its use as a last resort, variability in the quality of services delivered and the lack of recognition given to the complexity and potential of the work.

Lord Filkin hoped that the framework established by the Government would last five to ten years, so that comparisons could be made over time. Like all other children, children in care needed to be healthy, safe, achieving, making a positive contribution and enjoying economic well-being. How far these outcomes were achieved would be the test of the services’ (and, no doubt, the Government’s) effectiveness.

Lord Filkin made a number of encouraging statements. “Residential care works for older young people who reject a foster placement”. “ The whole [local government] system needs to support residential care”. “Looked after children are the greatest responsibility of the Government”. Without making promises, he also said he would also talk to the NCB about the proposal for Momentum and look positively at it. Since the grant covering the Children’s Residential Network is due to run out at the end of the financial year, this would be timely.

Complaining

John Kemmis of the Voice of the Child in Care (VCC) and Kate Edwards of the National Youth Advocacy Service (NYAS) did a two-hander on the ways in which children’s complaints had developed and were now addressed. John Kemmis gave a history of the growth of advocacy for children in this country over the last few years, since the acceptance of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The VCC’s workload had tripled in the last four years.

To underline the extent to which things had changed, Kate Edwards asked the audience how many had themselves suffered an injustice as a child, how many had complained and how many had obtained satisfaction. The answer was that all but one had suffered in silence, and the one complainant had not achieved satisfaction. The culture used to be set against complaining.

Kate reported that the causes of children’s dissatisfaction now were not being heard, the sudden and unexpected curtailment of placements, unjust punishments and unfairness, and the inadequacy of services, particularly education. They wanted to be listened to, to have independent advocates, to have practical help and emotional support. She ended by quoting Dr Mike Lindsay, “Successful complaints procedures are more about getting attitudes right than the procedures themselves”.

In Conclusion

Criticisms of the day conference? The powerpoint and overhead projectors failed in both the workshops which we attended, wasting time while people fiddled around trying to make things work. The content of one of these sessions wasn’t exactly sparkling either.

One down-side of the day’s success is that it may have eclipsed the Social Care association conference, due to be held in Wolverhampton on 9 – 10 November, which, despite an excellent panel of speakers, had to be called off because take-up did not reach sufficient numbers.

But the NCB day conference as a whole was really good value for money, and if it reflects the rest of the work of the Children’s Residential Network, we can look forward to a better informed, more professional and more confident future for residential child care in England – as long as the Government finds the money to keep it going.