Everyday Care: What Helps Adults Help Children in Residential Childcare?

Abstract

Over the last decade, there has been an increasing trend towards the use of ‘therapeutic models’ in residential childcare settings in the U.K. and elsewhere. While some have argued that these developments have been driven, at least in part, by free market funding environments and organisational survival needs, others have suggested that many of these models, despite some of their theoretical and conceptual differences, offer a useful approach. Drawing on findings from an ethnographic research project in a residential setting in Scotland, we argue that the underlying processes of implementing and embedding a therapeutic model can create conditions that are conducive to the provision of high-quality, effective, relationship-based practice, which has real benefits for children in their everyday worlds. Moreover, we argue that the model itself is somewhat beside the point. If residential organisations can facilitate safe, ongoing opportunities for staff to (a) think deeply about themselves and others (children and staff), (b) practice ways of being and doing, and (c) be seen and valued, then this can contribute to a practice culture and context in which they feel able to create genuine, caring relationships with children. We argue that it is within these everyday, genuine, caring relationships that children can recover from difficult experiences such as neglect and abuse. In this way, the ‘therapeutic’ focus should be primarily directed at the adults to enable children to get on with being children.

Encounters with Care in a Scottish Residential School in the 1980s

“…Nevertheless, Burns and Emond [38] recognise the merit in staff teams having some theoretical direction of travel, to an extent, regardless of what this is, and I agree. So, while reluctant to pin my colours to any particular mast, I think that Honneth's idea of recognition gives a sufficiently broad conceptual grounding within which to locate the practices of residential care.…”

“…Children, thus, need to be brought up as social beings. While I have always been wary of trying to apply any single theory to residential child care (Burns' and Emond's [38] article in this volume highlights some of the complexities in seeking to do so), I do think a broad heuristic can be helpful in orienting how we might think about care. In this sense, Gharabaghi [39], in this volume, offers four defining signifiers of quality that one might look for in residential care settings.…”