A new book about the sector by the sector – Perfect Little Children’s Home?

The Perfect Little Children’s Home? Why children’s homes are getting smaller draws together a range of expert perspectives on these developments and provides valuable insights for providers, commissioners and policy makers to ask the right questions and make careful, child-centred, evidence based decisions in the development of new and existing children’s home provision.

Chapters cover

The history of children’s homes in England: legacy and reform
The economics of smaller children’s homes: are financial drivers behind the reduction in average size?
Two’s company, three’s a crowd? What about 1, 4, 6, 8 or 10+? Size and ‘task’ in therapeutic residential homes
Is it evidence or anxiety driving the move to smaller homes?
Why am I here on my own? The use of deprivation of liberty orders within residential care
Where I belong: growing up and working in children’s homes
Commissioning: the reality in practice
Small is not simple: the myth of the ‘easier’ children’s home
A global perspective: children’s homes around the world
Alternative models: drawing the learning from European children’s homes

Reviews

“There couldn’t have been a more important time for the sharing of these powerful and knowledgeable insights from folks steeped in the realities of providing and living in children’s homes.” June Thoburn, Emeritus Professor in the School of Social Work at the UEA.

“The Perfect Little Children’s Home moves beyond the oversimplification of debates related to the role and purpose of residential care within child welfare systems, often predicated on ideologies, and raises questions about underpinning assumptions that are shaped by system dynamics, market forces, regulatory and inspection cultures, workforce capacity, and risk management strategies. This book does not offer simplistic solutions, nor does it seek to replace one perspective with another. Instead, it invites a more nuanced and critical conversation about what residential care is for, and how decisions about scale shape the wider children’s social care system.” Lisa Holmes PhD, Professor of Applied Social Science

Order it here Perfect Little Children’s Home – Dialogue