Let us be clear – The future of Residential Child Care is in the hands of the sector

It could be a determining moment as new inexperienced councillors move into decision making positions.

They make decisions about things that affect every residential setting, from planning, to how children’s services work, to fees.

We need every decision to be an informed one.

We need decisions made by people who know the importance of Residential Child Care.

They need to know the evidence and the experiences of Residential Child Care.

They need to know the work Residential Child Care workers do is extraordinary. 

They need to know the needs of the children are high, multiple, interacting.

Let us be clear Residential Child Care is, in the title of a recent book, ‘ A good place to grow’. (see below for details). Here we have evidence that what is presented as the current thinking about poorer outcomes of residential compared to other settings is not an accurate picture. There are reasons how and why this view has been constructed and promoted.

Let us be clear the ‘last resort’ use of residential child care must cease. No longer must children arrive too late, too old after multiple prior family based placements, and only through a rising intensity of placements, leave too early.

Children need the right place, first time.

How do we get the homes we need?

Let us be clear – you get positive residential Child Care in positive children’s services.

In positive children’s services children needs are matched  to specific provision and providers know they will have matching children arriving.

This comes with better social work and psychological  assessment enabling commissioners to match the child to a specific provision. It comes with providers matching specific multiple needs knowing there are enough not to be generic in admission. It comes through data rich planned provision. It comes through a dedicated well trained work force being well led after having thorough professional development.

Let us be clear effective Residential Child Care is an efficient use of resources. It is society’s money used well.

Let us be clear, sufficiency as a policy has not worked. It is specificity that is needed.

Let us correct the record of the Care Review and Children’s Well Being Act that seeks to reduce, even remove, Residential Child Care options.

Let us be clear: Residential Child Care enables children’s services to function.

Residential Child Care with all its diversity  enables family based care to provide for the children who can benefit from it.

Let us be clear, each children’s home is unique. Each has its specialism.

Let us be clear homes are homely and smaller over the years

We need to celebrate Residential Child Care

Residential Child Care as a sector needs to engage with the situation by celebrating its work.

Our celebration needs to be taking up the opportunity to inform all councillors, new and old of the work we do; the work your home does for all of the communities, locally and nationally;  the work we do for the country as we  work with, for, and about children with the highest needs.

How do we do it?

Let Residential Child Care not be unknown or unseen.

Inform your local councillors of the work of Residential Child Care.

Download the NCERCC briefing we are working on and coming tomorrow. If you like it as it is send it. Or amend it

Invite them to visit and when they do be ready for everyone to tell them ( joining with our colleagues in Foster Care Fortnight)

• One thing you love about Residential Child Care
• One thing that gets in the way of even better Residential Child Care
  One idea that could make Residential Child Care stronger in the future

There’s an old Residential Child Care saying: ‘Show, don’t tell’. 

Show the head, heart and hands of Residential Child Care. Care shown through relationships, love and belonging. Show the skill, the expertise – how we keep children safe and feeling safe, how we keep children in mind emotionally. Show how we promote stability and belonging.

Extraordinary things are achieved everyday in Residential Child Care.

Everyday actions go deep in Residential Child Care.

We think through every action; waking children in the way they want to be; the psychology involved in the school run; resolving  issues by talking and doing; accompanying children finding new futures; happy mealtimes where children linger to feed on positivity; dependabilty shown by our insistency, persistency, consistency in everything. No child is alone. Every child has someone.

The sector needs to show the extraordinary opportunities Residential Child Care offers children.

It is an urgent opportunity.

It is an opportinity like no other.

That book = Henderson, B.B. (2023)
Challenging the Conventional Wisdom about Residential Care for Children and Youth: A Good Place to Grow
(Routledge Advances in Social Work).
London: Routledge.