Young people's experiences of physical restraint in residential care: subtlety and complexity in policy and practice

Children and young people in residential care are some of the most vulnerable in our society. They may have experienced violence and physical, sexual or emotional abuse. They may be involved in offending or the misuse of drugs and alcohol. They are separated from their families and have to cope with living in a group situation with other young people and staff members. Children and young people in residential care also possess strengths, competencies and resilience. We have much to learn from their experiences and perspectives, both generally and surrounding their time in care. This paper will address the ethical issues which arise from gaining the views of children and young people in residential care

Care ethics and physical restraint in residential child care

When social care workers must respond to behaviour which poses serious, imminent danger, the response can sometimes take the form of physical restraint. Physical restraint has long been the subject of serious concern in social care, as well as other areas, such as law enforcement and psychiatry. This chapter focuses on physical restraint in residential child care. It is one of the most complex and ethically fraught areas of practice, yet there is almost no dedicated literature that applies itself to the ethical dimensions of this practice in this field. The chapter starts with discussion of the context of practice in residential child care. A tentative explanation for and critique of the lack of ethically dedicated attention to the subject of physical restraint in residential child care is then provided, with an argument for the transformative potential of care ethics to develop related thinking and practice. The chapter goes on to draw from a large-scale, qualitative study of physical restraint in residential child care in Scotland

Evaluation of the Impact of Holding the Space : A Training Initiative by Action for Children

This executive summary offers a brief version of the final report of part two the evaluation of Holding the Space, a training initiative developed by the Kite Project, as it was rolled out across Action for Children’s residential children’s homes in Scotland. The two, central research aims were: to explore the impact of the Holding the Space Training on the cultures of Action for Children’s Scottish children’s homes; and to identify aspects of the process of rolling out the training more widely that can inform future efforts to develop practices or programmes across the organisation

Book reviews : Don't touch! The educational story of a panic. Heather Piper and Ian Stronach. London, Routledge, 2008. 167pp, ISBN 978-0-415-42008-2

Many practitioners know intuitively that touch is necessary for healthy development, and research is increasingly unequivocal about its central importance in child development. Yet many children and young people in residential child care have experienced transgressive touch in the forms of physical and/ or sexual abuse, or have experienced touch deprivation (or both). This complicates what might be seen as 'natural' integration of touch into day-to-day care practices

Editorial : Special issue: Psychodynamic and systems theories perspectives on residential child care

Welcome to this special issue on psychodynamic and systems theories perspectives on residential child care. Psychodynamic in fluences have been waning over the last several decades, both generally (Shaver & Mikulincer, 2005) and in residential child care settings (Mann, 2003; Sharpe, 2006). Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, has gone from being equated with Copernicus and Darwin in popular magazines of the 1950s (Menand, 2017) to currently being depicted as a cocaine-addicted charlatan who falsified his case studies in a current, popular biography (Crews, 2017). Behaviourism and social learning theory have become more prominent (Shaver & Mikulincer, 2005 ), both of which offer a more positivist interpretation of human nature (Moyn, 2016). Yet there is a strong, international consensus regarding the centrality of relationships in providing good residential child care (Kendrick, Steckley, & McPheat, 2011), and neither behavioural nor social learning theories offer much illumination for making sense of how mind-bogglingly difficult these relationships can be. Practitioners need support to ask and tentatively answer two, fundamental questions: ‘what is happening for the young person in order to make this relationship work and what is happening for me, the carer in order that this relationship works?’ (Sharpe, Daniel, & Degregorio, 2007). Psychodynamic and systems theories offer such support

Editorial

Welcome to the December 2013 issue of the Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care (SJRCC). This issue is going live a bit later than we had hoped (it is now February 2014), but the process of meeting a new aspiration often unfolds differently than planned. As Graham Connelly indicated in the June 2013 editorial, we have aspired to increase our output to three issues annually and we are pleased to have achieved this. This issue of the Journal marks some other changes as well. This is my first issue in the role of joint editor and it has been exciting to support the process of bringing it to publication. The issue holds a wider range of article style, allowing for a broader variety of voices to join the discussion about residential child care. This is another change for the journal, and I will offer a bit more about the articles themselves shortly

Therapeutic containment and holding environments : Understanding and reducing physical restraint in residential child care

The findings of a large-scale qualitative study of the experiences of children, young people and staff of physical restraint in residential child care

Two Days in Carberry: A Step Towards a Community of Practice

Abstract How does one build community? How can a community of practitioners come together in a way that builds on the strength of commonality? These were the types of questions which led us all to an old estate: one hundred of us, from diverse locations and services coming together, searching to find a connecting link which would help us in our quest to become a 'community of practice'