A moment that matters – the need to reset the DfE residential child care workforce review
If the purpose is wrong, the workforce will be wrong: why the DfE residential child care workforce review must be reset
The Department for Education’s review of the residential child care workforce should be a moment of clarity for the sector. Instead, there is an increasing sense that it risks becoming something else: a technical exercise built on uncertain foundations.
At present, the information provided to underpin the review is insufficient to undertake the task.
That matters, because the stakes are high. This review will shape not only training and qualifications, but ultimately the future of residential child care itself. If the foundations are unclear, the conclusions, however well-constructed, may be fundamentally misdirected.
The central problem: the purpose remains unresolved
A workforce review assumes one thing above all: that the purpose of the work is already understood.
In this case, it is not.
The review’s remit includes defining the purpose of residential child care, while simultaneously assessing workforce capability. This creates an immediate tension. You cannot effectively design a workforce for a system whose purpose is still being determined.
The sector has long understood that residential care serves children with multiple, co-occurring, intersecting, diverse and changing needs, needs that cannot always be met within family-based settings. This is reflected in wider understanding of the sector describing residential child care as playing an “essential role” for children.
But recent policy signals raise questions about whether that understanding is shared, and this intersects with the review.
Statements suggesting that residential care should be used for “far fewer children” risk implying a narrowing of purpose before the review has even begun in earnest.
If that is the case, the review risks starting with an answer and working backwards.
Why this matters: workforce follows purpose
There is a simple principle: workforce development must follow purpose.
Get the purpose wrong, or overly constrained, and everything that follows will align to the wrong objective.
The risk is not abstract. A workforce trained for a narrow or residual model of care will struggle to meet the realities of children’s lives. Residential services will either
be forced into roles they are not designed for, or retreat into a limited function that does not reflect the needs of those who require them. Either way, children lose.
Defining the purpose incorrectly means training the workforce for the wrong mission.
A review that is too narrow
The current scope of the review focuses heavily on skills, qualifications and training. These are important questions, but they are downstream of a more fundamental issue.
Residential child care is not simply a set of tasks, it is a form of care that sits within a complex relational, developmental and systemic context. Any meaningful review must therefore consider:
•the values and philosophy underpinning care
•the needs and experiences of children and families
•the nature of relationships between staff and children
•organisational culture and leadership
•outcomes, evidence and evaluation
•the wider system, including education, health and justice
This broader framework is explicitly sets out to build a coherent framework that defines how care is delivered, why it is structured that way, and what outcomes it seeks.
Without this, a workforce review becomes a partial exercise, technically focused, but disconnected from the reality of care.
The missing foundation: principles
Alongside scope, there is another notable absence: a clear articulation of the principles that underpin the work.
Residential child care is not neutral. It is rooted in values, about children, relationships, rights and responsibility.
Across the sector, there is broad alignment around key ideas:
•care should be rights-based
•relationships are central
•trauma-informed approaches are essential
•outcomes must be defined in terms of children’s wellbeing, not simply system measures
Yet these principles are not clearly foregrounded in the current review structure.
This matters, because without an agreed ethical framework, policy risks defaulting to administrative logic, efficiency, cost or system design, rather than the lived experience of children.
Process matters as much as content
It is not only the scope of the review that raises concern, but also its process.
The proposed timetable, three meetings and a rapid report, has been described as antipathetic to the task.
This is not a minor issue. Questions of purpose, care and workforce cannot be resolved quickly or superficially. They require:
•reflection
•dialogue
•challenge
•iteration
Equally important is how the sector is engaged. Meaningful consultation is not simply about inviting views, but about creating a process in which those views shape outcomes.
At present, there is limited clarity about:
•how experts are selected
•how discussions are recorded and shared
•how evidence informs conclusions
•who ultimately authors the report
Without transparency, trust becomes fragile.
A risk to confidence – and to the outcome
Taken together, these issues create a wider risk: there is potential that the review will not command confidence across the sector. That would be a missed opportunity.
There is, in principle, strong support for a review that builds a shared understanding of residential child care and strengthens the workforce. But that support depends on the process being open, evidence-led and genuinely exploratory.
If the perception persists that conclusions are predetermined, engagement may become procedural rather than meaningful, and the quality of the outcome will suffer as a result.
What must change
The solution is not to abandon the review, but to reset it.
At a minimum, three shifts are required for the reset required.
- Purpose must be clarified.
The DfE should set out its current position on the role of residential child care, and make clear that this is open to challenge and refinement through the review.
- The scope must widen.
The review should move beyond workforce issues to develop a full model of care, from which workforce requirements can then be derived.
- The process must strengthen.
This means:
•extending the timeframe
•establishing clarity on the expert group
•ensuring transparent documentation and dialogue
•allowing space for dissenting views, including minority reports where necessary
These are not procedural details, they are the conditions for credible policy.
What good looks like
A successful review would look very different from the current framing.
It would:
•start with children’s needs, rights and lived experience
•define purpose clearly and collaboratively
•take a whole-system perspective, internally and externally to residential child care (you get positive residential child care in a positive children’s services system)
•be demonstrably independent of predetermined policy positions
•enable open, critical dialogue across the sector
•produce conclusions that are both evidence-based and practically grounded
In short, it would reflect the complexity and importance of the work itself.
A moment that matters
Residential child care sits at the most complex end of services for children. It deals with situations where previous relationships have broken down, risks are high, and children’s needs are often profound.
It is precisely for this reason that clarity of purpose, and confidence in the workforce, is so important.
This review is an opportunity to achieve that clarity. But only if it begins in the right place.
Because if the purpose is wrong, the workforce will be wrong, and it is children who will ultimately bear the consequences.
