Residential and Boarding Education and Care for Young People

A Model for Good Management and Practice

Ewan Anderson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN:
  9780415305549
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134404704
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery
• Index: Social Sciences

This innovative book identifies the key elements of good management and practice common to all residential child care settings - whether hospital unit, boarding school, children's home, special school or custodial care establishment - and important variations between the different settings. Using a model developed under the auspices of the Rowntree Foundation, it provides managers with a coherent framework for understanding the different facets of their role and the outcomes they are aiming to achieve. Major components of the model are:
· the environment
· the legal framework
· developmental issues
· time-related issues.

In each case the salient factors for practice and management are identified and discussed. Good Practice Education and Residential Care of Children offers a model which can be readily applied to training, assessment of standards, inspections, and research and development. Based on the latest research and reflecting the national drive towards evidence-based standards, it will be an invaluable support to managers in training and practice.

Chapter 1

Introduction

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The term ‘residential and boarding education and care’ covers all children and young people living in groups away from their families. There is a wide variation among the types of setting in which they live but they all share a living and learning environment. Their fundamental needs, concerning care, health and education, are those of all children and young people, and the residential group is distinguished by the fact that these needs are provided outside the family through group living. Foster care and adoption are, of course, also extra-familial but involve closer and more intense relationships with the adults and any group living involved is normally on a smaller scale than that found in the smallest children's home (Irving et al., 1993).

Given the factors of basic needs, location and lifestyles which they share, it is not surprising that, across the field of residential and boarding education and care there are more commonalities than differences. Although the focus may be upon education, health, social care or custodial care, the aims and the means by which these are achieved are largely common. The purpose of this book is to discuss the development and application of a generic model which encapsulates these commonalities and identifies the significant distinctions. In continental Europe the term ‘social pedagogue’ is used for the member of the residential staff who in all the required ways supports the children and young people while living with them. Good practice for the social pedagogue across all the types of setting is similar, the differences being more of emphasis rather than activity. Using the model, the core components of generic good practice are identified and described and the key discussion points are addressed. The model itself has been constructed over many years of action research across the field, of discussions with practitioners, researchers and administrators and of time spent talking to the children and young people (O'Quigley, 2000). Many of the ideas were brought together initially as a result of the Children Act (1989) and research on its implementation for the Department of Health (DoH).

The Children Act (1989) extends consideration of children and young people from those solely looked after by local authorities in children's homes, and rationalises the legal framework for safeguarding the welfare of children and young people living away from home in institutions such as private and voluntary homes, independent and maintained schools, and private and National Health Service (NHS) hospitals (DoH, 1989b). Subsequently, the framework has been enhanced, partly through the Care Standards Act (2000), and now includes young people under the age of 18 in further education (FE) colleges and in custodial care. Therefore, all children and young people living in residence, in ex-familial settings, are covered except for those under the age of 18 in military training establishments and possibly, depending upon how the hostel is defined, those of the same age group in refugee hostels. The best estimate for the number of children and young people in residential and boarding education and care, whether or not they are included under the Act, is approximately 145,000.

Despite the two Acts and Amendments, the perception persists in government and among many authorities and agencies that residential education and care equates with children's homes. There are at present just over 7,000 children and young people in children's homes. Thus the issue of residential education and care appears to be concerned with a very small minority. In fact, the total is almost half that classified as children and young people in need, on whom the government understandably focuses maximum attention. Even if the mainstream boarding component is removed from the total, there are still approximately ten times as many children and young people in residence as there are in children's homes.

The fact that there are so many children and young people living away from home in groups in such a variety of settings requires official recognition. The different sectors of residential and boarding education and care have developed in a variety of ways but much of the good practice and indeed much of the tradition is shared. Therefore, there is the opportunity to identify common issues and problems and to examine the potential for the transfer of good practice. Indeed, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) is currently examining the feasibility of moving children and young people from a number of other settings into mainstream boarding schools. Other such transfers between the types of setting have been successfully made. A good example is provided by a young person who moved from a Local Authority Secure Unit (LASU) to a residential special school for behaviour, emotional and social development difficulties from which he attended classes in a local maintained boarding school. He eventually moved into the boarding house of that school. Meanwhile, the staff at the two schools, almost for the first time, became aware of each other, and very fruitful staff exchanges were initiated. This is but one instance, but it does illustrate the potential for the transfer of both children or young people and staff.

Types of setting

As a result of regional meetings, visits and action research, the number of types of setting in which children and young people live away from home in groups is currently considered to be nineteen. The reason for the diffidence is that many settings cross the boundaries of the types, particularly among special schools, and the exact subdivision depends upon definition. However, the inventory has been discussed in detail at meetings with government departments, agencies, administrators, researchers and practitioners and no amendments have been forthcoming. Yet, as society changes, so new types of establishment will probably be required. At present the Youth Justice Board (YJB) is examining the possibility of developing care units intermediate between custodial care and community care. Another interesting example may be seen in Malta which presents something of a microcosm of the situation which obtains in the UK. The problems are much the same as those in the UK but the requirement, as a result of the numbers of children and young people involved and the costs, is for a very few specialised residential establishments. Therefore, work is underway to identify what might be effective hybrids. The current list for the types of setting in the UK is shown in Figure 1.1 and comprises:

• children's homes;

• boarding schools;

• hostels for refugee children;

• military training establishments (for young people under the age of 18);

• FE colleges;

• FE colleges for young people with special educational needs;

• special schools for cognition and learning difficulties;

• special schools for communication and interaction difficulties;

• special schools for sensory and/or physical difficulties;

• care homes for young people;

• hospital schools;

• children's hospices;

• psychiatric units;

• psychiatric units (forensic);

• young offender institutions;

• secure training centres;

• secure units;

• therapeutic communities;

• special schools for behavioural, emotional and social development difficulties.

In this inventory, which has been reviewed by staff in all sectors, the intention has been to distinguish the different types of setting by their major role. However, clear-cut distinctions are, in some cases, difficult to make, a point which is emphasised by the lengthy glossaries required in relevant government documents. Even with detailed definitions, some establishments still appear as hybrids while others seem to defy classification. For example, the children and young people in the special residential schools commonly exhibit more than one of the special educational needs (Cole, 1986). The issue is typified by a prospectus of one school in which it is stated that the school exists to help those special children and young people who experience autism and severe and complex

Figure 1.1 Residential and boarding education and care: types of setting

learning difficulties, and who exhibit associated challenging behaviour. A further result of attempting to simplify such a complexity of establishments is that some categories are groups with their own variation while others are well-defined types. For instance, the term ‘children's homes’ subsumes a variety of settings which house a range of children and young people with differing problems. In contrast, a secure training centre (STC), of which there are at present only three in the UK, is a precisely defined element in the secure estate.

A children's home is:

an establishment (subject to certain exceptions) which provides care and accommodation wholly or mainly for children. Schools (both ‘special’ and ‘mainstream’) which accommodate children (e.g. as boarders) for more than 295 days a year.

(DoH, 2002d)

The full definition is provided in the Care Standards Act (2000, Section 1). According to who runs them, whether or not they are for profit and with whom they need to be registered, the Children Act (1989) distinguishes between registered children's homes, voluntary homes and community homes (DoH, 1989b). With regard to the young people, some children's homes specialise but many may have, among others: children and young people whose families cannot cope, children and young people who have undergone multiply unsuccessful festerings and young people on remand.

The term ‘boarding schools’ refers to mainstream schools, as distinct from special schools. Boarding schools are predominantly independent but there are thirty-four maintained boarding schools listed in the Stabis Guide (Stabis, 2003) plus a small number not listed. The number of schools which are totally boarding with full, as opposed to weekly, boarders is declining. While many children and young people are in boarding schools as a result of carefully considered decisions, it cannot be assumed that all have stable and united home backgrounds. A growing number have experienced disruption and have been exposed to potentially damaging and stressful experiences (Kahan, 1994). Children's homes and boarding schools were linked in Utting et al. (1997, Appendix C) which lists for 31 March 1996: 836 community homes run by local authorities, 64 voluntary children's homes, 202 registered (private) children's homes, 84 registered residential care homes and 40 independent schools registered as children's homes. Under the new definition in the Care Standards Act (2000), the number of such independent schools will have been greatly reduced. There are also international boarding schools throughout the world together with a number in the UK which specialise in taking foreign students (Findlay, 2000).

Hostels for refugee children and young people of all kinds are a recent development and support is available through the Refugee Council's Children's Panel. Since the issue of refugees is of growing concern, it seems likely that hostels will merit particular attention, and therefore they should be included as a separate type of setting in the inventory. The only obvious guideline occurs in children's homes Standard 36 (DoH, 2002d):

Children in homes which are refuges approved under the Children Act (1989) are looked after in accordance with these National Minimum Standards, with only those adaptations essential in the home concerned as a result of its status as a refuge.

In the UK, the minimum age for entry into the Armed Services is 16 for young men and 17 for young women. These young people therefore come within the age range of the Children Act (1989) but their care is not governed by it. For the Army, there are training establishments which cater specifically for young people within the 16 to 18 age range. In the other two Services, trainees of that age are normally mixed with those who are over 18 years old.

FE colleges provide training and education for those beyond the school-leaving age of 16. A reasonable number of FE colleges offer accommodation of various kinds ranging from purpose-built study bedrooms on the campus to approved lodgings. Particular oversight needs to be given to the 16 to 18 age group for which National Minimum Standards have been published (DoH, 2002a). One group of FE colleges provides for young people with special educational needs. Each such college must have the ability to provide a learning environment that matches the requirements of the students, however complex (NATSPEC, 2001 and 2002). In the glossary for the FE college standards, a specialist college is defined as follows:

A college accommodating students with disabilities who are provided with personal nursing care, thus required to register as a Care Home with the National Care Standards Commission under the Care Standards Act, 2000...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• Preface
• Acronyms
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Environmental components
• 3 Framework components
• 4 Developmental components
• 5 Time components
• 6 The model and its applications
• References
• Index