Feedback from the sector to the Minister’s introduction to Delivering the children’s social care reset
Following the statements by Josh MacAllister in the introduction to the policy plan many people have been contacting NCERCC to ask if we will be responding. We have had so many messages we have been able to provide the following substantial feedback, this seemed (more) important than a response solely from us. (The NCERCC response will follow).
Firstly, there is a point of agreement by people in contact, though not as the Minister intended.
He says, “…a very small number of children may benefit from residential care for a short period”. And people agree, a small number need a short time, but the vast majority need a longer time. People who know through experience are able to countenance many lengths of stay. If being child-centred, it depends on the needs of the child.
It used to be said, optimum, ‘One year to settle, one year to ‘do the work’, one year to move on successfully’. People have compared that to the Ministers outlook/assumption/ of a short stay. Putting their thoughts together coalesces into the rhetorical question: ‘Have children, and their needs changed so much?’ The facts of solo children’s homes, the prevalence by necessity of DOL, the researched taxonomy of needs by the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, (and more) all demonstrably indicate ‘No’.
To a person people with experience in residential care describe the current situation; children arriving too late, with too many previous fostering placements, too old (15+), stay too short (under 6 months). All factors that negate any growth or investment for the future.
In stating ‘short’ it might be the Minister is describing Treatment in a medical model, becoming popular and promoted in behavioural Trauma Informed approaches. This has been considered before; remember MDTFC? This was successful for a small selection of children for whom it was well designed, other needs not so much.
The learning here is there needs to be a rich diversity of residential responses.
The Minister’s statement seems to preclude the new eco-system of care for which the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory have been convincingly advocating as being required. Above all, the context of the secure base is important for sustained growth, and that takes time.
Most children need a longer period. Short is to run entirely against all child care theory, and against the foundation of relationships that are at the foundation of the Care Review. The meaningfulness and longevity of relationships in residence have been remarked upon by people, along with noting the lack of recognition by the Minister and DfE of these in residential settings, even asserting that they are not present. There are many (parenting) relationships made between children and grown-ups, and between the children (as kith!), that last for decades. In these latter we see the, as yet by the Minister, unacknowledged importance of friends and friendship that happens in residential settings.
It is important to note England has chosen to construct residential care as last resort, short and interventionist. It was not the decision of the sector. More recently the sector has struggled against this false role and function being imposed upon it. It was not always the way it is. And isn’t elsewhere globally.
The learning is right child, right time, right place, right length of time
So to the overwhelmingly negative reception of the Minister’s words and potential consequences
The evaluation of the Ministers message and policy direction (not from providers but ‘ordinary’ practitioners) are entirely negative as “not in the interests of children.”
The policy document was described by one local authority person as an example of recent ministerial communications increasingly seeming stressed and impatient.
From a consultancy perspective another saw the prominence of a “managerial style not a parenting one”. People with psycho-dynamic experience are expressing concerns the Minister is not being experienced as holding or containing the sector. They know exerting compliance is a stressed reactive ultimately destructive thing to do. “He is definitely losing, maybe already lost, his residential child care audience”.
People are looking elsewhere for a figurehead and already disengaging preparing for who is next, who they hope comes from a background in children’s care, not social work, as one person reflected, “Children’s social care policy is now like a systemic social work plan for a family, less about partnership more about performance, with the veils of intervention increasing revealing what lies beneath” in the rachet of regulatory monitoring and disciplining. Another remarked on what they experience as “a paucity of listening”, and another observed, “It feels like this is a programme to which people must conform, the very definition of ‘institutional’ he projects on to residential care”. In a longer discussion one out of children’s care observer wondered if this comes from a deeper place than policy, a quality of it being personal. They went on to reflect upon psychodynamics of organisations often playing out the psyche of the founder or CEO.
The word “institutional” received the most attention and responses, best summarised in the word used by one person, “insulting”.
The Minister may consider it strategic to roll back these comments. There could be softening by using some hedging language.
The perceived tendency for generalising from the particular has attracted attention. Other comments centre around what is termed the Minister’s confirmation bias with new policy selecting only the evidence that supports, ignoring everything else.
Regional care co-ops are understood as leading to the loss of nuance in provision as procedural standardisation dominates, this from people involved in co-op discussions noting the direction that seem to be wiping away potential for individual creativity.
Faced with what is taken to be a caricature of residential child care there is a groundswell turning away from the policy in general and co-ops in particular.
Provider protective survival strategies are the ramifications of the loose use of language.
The learning is that more listening is needed.
A local authority person worried “how providers would respond”, especially with the already low engagement by residential providers with the regional care cooperatives, where residential providers increasingly feel edged out by fostering organisations lobbying and ‘inside involvement’. An example given was the skewing of data headings and arrangements being “directed more to children with lesser needs”, alongside attention for higher needs and its provision, i.e. residential care, being “herded and rationed.” Perspectives matter when deciding how and where to apportion resources – to engage or not?
The history of the residential sector shows it will not be co-opted and assimilated. It will preserve its integrity. It knows there are other ideas and futures possible that are not being considered.
NCERCC has written of the need for government to pause RCCs to allow space for the exploration of alternatives, of which there are already existing examples.
If the result of the policy is as described in the Reset document, then in 2029 will those around the table be saying, “Well I wouldn’t start from here’?
