Recently in residential care Category

Two Kent MPs are reportedly so worried about the number of children being placed in the county by London councils that they are calling for a law to prevent councils placing children more than 20 miles away. But this would be a mistake says Jonathan Stanley, Independent Children's Homes Association, policy and practice consultant

Most looked-after children need relatively 'ordinary' care and will find that a placement in or near their local community suits them well. But creating a universal rule about how locally children should be placed would undermine a key principle of the Children Act: ensuring the 'most appropriate' placement for a child.

We don't know what the implications would be if geography became the foremost factor in placement decisions. Geography cannot include the complexity of a child's needs. 

Family circumstances may be emotionally or financially strained. There may be considerable personal and family conflict. We need to be sophisticated in our thinking and planning.

The decision about whether to place a child locally must be a clinical one. It needs to assess the relationship between the child and the family, the effect of the local environment and the purposes and quality of the placement.

Listening to young people should help us decide how important distance is in individual placement decisions. After all, young people often say that distance has its benefits.

Being placed outside their local community can allow a child to 'channel, sift, and embroider family information.' Young people also frequently say that distance allows them to retain their own individual identity, while reassessing what it means for them to be a member of their family. They find they can belong to two places.

In the 1986 book Lost in Care, Spencer Millham found "relationships among, and aspirations of", professionals looking after children to be more important than "simple instrumental factors" like the distance between a child's family home and the placement they live in.

What we know is that some children need local placements and others more distant ones. What we need therefore is sufficiency and diversity. There may well be a correct or ideal proportion of local placements, but no one knows what that is. It is certainly not 100%.

You might also be interested in:

• CC Inform: Guide to April 2011 reforms to care planning and placements
• CC Inform: Looked-after children - assessment and making decisions about placement
  

All foster carers and residential workers must receive training to help them support the mental health needs of looked-after children, YoungMinds has recommended.

This should be backed up with regular supervision and reflective support sessions.

The children's mental health charity made the recommendations in a report into the mental health of looked-after children in the UK, published today.

Based on interviews with 50 children living in foster placements, children's homes and secure settings, the report found children felt anxious about moving into placements and had a fairly negative perception of mental health services.

Young people also said they were frustrated that the only representation of life in care known to their peers was the television character Tracy Beaker. They said they were tired of telling friends they were 'not like Tracy Beaker'.

Looked-after children should be given the opportunity to visit foster placements and children's homes before they move there, the report recommended. They should also be given more information about placements to help them understand the environment they will be living in.

Lucie Russell, director of campaigns at YoungMinds, said: "Mental health services should be prioritising the needs of looked-after children and ensuring services are designed and delivered to meet them."

YoungMinds has also written to councils across the country, urging leaders to protect child and adolescent mental health services over the next financial year.

England's children's homes faced some tough times in 2011, with a number of councils announcing closures and many providers struggling to fill beds. These five improvements could make a positive difference, says Jonathan Stanley.

by Jonathan Stanley, Independent Children's Homes Association, policy and practice consultant

Good residential child care thrives in an effective and supportive context. In recent years the sector has been meeting its objectives. These five challenges will help to ensure that every young person growing up in a children's home has stability, security and continuity.

1. Challenge people with Ofsted evidence on the quality of care and lobby for a change in inspections

The number of good and outstanding children's homes has been sustained and the key to improving the very small number of failing homes is precise and robust advice. We should lobby for the return of Ofsted's 'improvement function', where inspectors advise on practice rather than just evaluate.

2. Challenge talk of children's homes as 'institutional'

Most homes are now 'family sized' so we must bust the myth that children's homes are 'institutional'. Ofsted's new inspection framework focuses more on the quality of children's lives and outcomes. This means that inspection reports will allow children's voices to be heard and should boost providers' self-esteem.

3. Challenge every move that places cash over care

We need child-centred commissioning. Ofsted diplomatically notes powerful financial pressures on providers. It looks for transformational difference, yet many councils now focus on the bottom line rather than visionary development or even investing to save money over the long term.

4. Challenge inappropriate placements for young people

Every placement should be the most 'appropriate placement' if care planning guidance is to be meaningful. The most appropriate placement should never be trumped by the 'best value' one.

5. Challenge multiple placement moves for young people

We need to cut the number of young people with five or more serial placements.

It's just come to my attention that a new petition on the No. 10 website is calling on the government to re-establish NCERCC - the national centre for excellence in residential child care, from which funding was controversially withdrawn last year.

The petition, which is being supported by the National Institute of Childcare and Social Education, will be on the No. 10 website for three months. Its creators hope to generate substantial support from all those working in, or with an interest in, residential child care...

For more stories about the NCERCC (and the background to this petition) click here.

Picture credit: Irargerich

Rosko Lewis is a former residential child care worker who now helps children's homes with their marketing through his company Day 3 Creations.

"We were warned, and we all expected some serious cut backs in public spending when the Tories took over, but David Cameron always insisted that society's most vulnerable would be protected. What happened?

I work for children's homes organisations; one in particular for seven years that has been tirelessly honed by passionate individuals to provide outstanding therapeutic care to young people who've had dreadful upbringings. It has shaped the lives of troubled young people who have faced numerous placement breakdowns before arriving at the home and settling down.

Money has changed things. The local authorities who trusted us with young people noone else could manage are no longer referring to us; they're referring to foster parents. Why? Because foster parents are cheaper. Local authorities are closing successful children's homes, removing young people from where they have settled and dispersing them across cheaper alternatives around the country.

We see the same children popping up on placement databases as local authorities with stretched budgets struggle to place children into appropriate care. These young people, who have been abused and neglected and are in the care of the local authority for a better life, are simply being bandied about from pillar to post as foster parents struggle.

Young people in care are vulnerable already and constant upheaval as local authorities try to balance their hugely reduced budgets is a form of abuse in itself; it is called neglect. Grown-ups neglecting the needs of children because of cash.

It seems Norfolk Council has managed to halve the number of looked after children being charged for criminal offences by using restorative approaches in its children's homes.

Councillors will hear at a panel meeting next week that the number of looked after children in the county's youth justice system has dropped by 52% over the last two years, with fewer police calls to children's homes and a drop in the number of children being charged.

Meanwhile this interesting perspective on adoption tsar Martin Narey's plans for adoption reform comes from a former care leaver. She isn't sold on Narey's view that "other interventions in child care do not have the potential to transform the life chances of a neglected child in the way adoption can and does".

And, according to the Independent, the government looks certain to disappoint campaigners with its forthcoming strategy on child trafficking. Now why doesn't that surprise me.

Children's homes run by highly effective leaders who value their staff and are ambitious about children's futures are most likely to achieve excellent outcomes for children in care.

That was the message from Ofsted today as the watchdog published its latest report, Outstanding children's homes in a bid to improve practice across the residential sector. 

The report highlights 12 of the country's highest performing children's homes, all of which have demonstrated "consistently outstanding performance". They represent 12 of just 35 homes rated outstanding by Ofsted for the last three consecutive years, out of a possible 1,439.

The report raised concerns that quality is inconsistent across the sector, and that there are relatively few opportunities to share best practice. Ofsted urged the Department for Education to create more opportunities. 

Ministers should also drive improvements across the sector by using the skills and experience of those who run homes consistently rated outstanding, Ofsted recommended.
 
The report revealed highly effective leaders and well-trained, passionate residential staff - all of whom listen to children and share a vision for their future - are key to success. Managers are "visible, inclusive and interact frequently with staff and young people alike", inspectors found, while leaders "have a vision and purpose which is shared and supported by staff".
 
Christine Gilbert, Her Majesty's chief inspector, said: "Young people living in children's homes are some of the most vulnerable in the country and it is important that the care they receive is of a consistently high standard. However, inspection shows that too many establishments fluctuate in quality from one year to the next.
 
"This report shows that it is possible to provide the very best for children year after year and it is essential that others learn from the outstanding practice it highlights."

It is also crucial to appoint and develop the right people, Gilbert said. "Good staff have such an impact. They establish good relationships with the children and young people in their care, have the highest expectations of them and do all they can to support their development and their confidence. It is important we give recognition to the managers and staff in these outstanding children's homes for all their hard work and commitment."