National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care (NCERCC) Developing supportive liaison for Police and Residential Child Care There is no one.

National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care (NCERCC)

Developing supportive liaison for Police and Residential Child Care

There is no one thing we can now call Residential Child Care in the singular only Residential Child Care in the plural’.

There are as many different types of Residential Child Care as there are needs of young people.

2JS\NCERCC\Events\OHP.8June09.devsupppolicercc

Developing supportive liaison for Police and Residential Child Care (contd)• Between 11-13% of Children in Care live in the 1865 children’s

homes. 65% is private, 30% is LA and 5% is voluntary. The range of provision is diverse aiming to provide highly specialised provision for meeting highly specialised needs.

• The young people in need of RCC have more complex needs and so are likely to need to stay for a few years at least. A combination of factors that are largely outside of the young person’s responsibility coalesce over time will lead to these situations: abuse, neglect, disability, parental illness, family stress, low income, absent parent.  

• What Works in Residential Child Care. A review of research evidence and the practical considerations: Clough, Bullock, Ward: 2006 NCB http://www.ncb.org.uk/ncercc/ncercc%20practice%20documents/whatworksinrccsummary_ncbhighlight.pdf

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Children of families with deep rooted, complex or chronic needs with a long history of disability, difficulty or disruption, including abuse or neglect.

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These children require more than simply a substitute family care. They need individualised care in a safe and containing environment, provided by grown ups who are consistently thoughtful about each child’s care. There will be clear boundaries and limits with some negotiated flexibility. This is the group that may come to a local school.

Children with extensive, complex and enduring needs compounded by very difficult behaviour who require more specialised and intensive resources.

These children with ‘high cost: low incidence needs’ require particular care and specialist settings. The children have serious psychological needs and behavioural problems that can overshadow other goals. There maybe about 1,000 of them. They will need intensive support and treatment with care, education and health all on one site and directed to creating a change in the child’s and families circumstances. These young people should not be coming to a local school.

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What this means in everyday life is that they are operating at developmentally delayed stagesInfant - Age - Birth to one year.

• Stage - Trust versus Mistrust

• Child needs maximum comfort and minimum uncertainty if they are to develop a sense of security. Without this a child may later display signs of anxiety and insecurity.

Toddler Age - 1 to 3 years

• Stage - Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt

• Children need to develop a sense of personal control over physical skills. Allowing a child to make decisions helps them build confidence, and self-esteem. Too much criticism can leave a child with feelings of doubt and shame which will affect development.

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What this means in everyday life is that they are operating at developmentally delayed stages (contd)Pre-school - Age – 3 to 6 years. Stage - Initiative versus Guilt

• Children begin to problem solve. If this is rewarded they feel a sense of purpose, if they are made to feel foolish they will feel guilt and will become followers rather than leaders.

School-Age Child - Age – 6 to 11 years

• Stage - Industry versus Inferiority At this stage a child is trying to develop a sense of competence and self-worth. Positive feedback can help children to feel confident and capable, vital for happiness and future success. If they do not get encouraged they may feel inferior, doubt their capabilities and fail to reach their full potential. 7

What this means in everyday life is that they are operating at developmentally delayed stages (contd)

Adolescent - Age – 12 - 18

• Stage - Identity versus Role Confusion • Not children nor independent adults, this most important

transition requires that teenagers begin to look at their futures and explore their possibilities. An inability to figure out who it is they are and who they want to be may render them confused and directionless.

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Residential Child Care (RCC) • RCC is no longer institutional care in the sense of large buildings

and groups. Most children’s homes now have less than 5 children living there. Many now have registered small schools on site responding to the need for a young person to be in school before 25 days, ability to provide holistically, difficulties that have existed in admissions. This is a response to an understanding that it is care and education success together than have the priority not one or the other

• The most recent Children’s Rights Director carries the same message of many that have preceded it. Many young people like RCC homes and that they felt cared for and looked after. Some children feel that the children’s home that they live in is exactly where they want to be. It is fair to say that some children do not like living in residential care. But it can be seen as a positive choice: when

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Residential Child Care (RCC) (contd.)• Providing stability and a stimulating environment• Widening cultural and educational horizons• Creating a framework for emotionally secure

relationships with adults - may benefit from having a number of carers

• Providing a setting for intensive therapeutic work• When a young person feels threatened by prospect of

living in a family or does not want to be part of substitute family as still very much part of their own family

• When the emotional load of caring for a very disturbed or chaotic young person is best distributed amongst a number of carers

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National Minimum Standards (NMS)

Children’s homes must adhere to National Minimum Standards. These are the standards that they are inspected against by OfSTED.

Average % of NMS met by Children’s Homes – satisfactory or better

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2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

58% 68% 76% 80% 83% 92%

NACRO (2003) Reducing offending by LAC- a good practice guide

Young people looked after away from home are 3 times more likely to be charged with offences that the general population

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Gentleman (2009) Police Involvement in Residential Child Care SIRCC Journal

Interagency group work to develop a greater understanding of realities, roles and agendas recorded over 6 month period in one children’s home in Scotland.

Most behaviour is managed by RCCWs. Thresholds for Police involvement when 3 or more of the behaviours are involved and often the same staff involved.

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Gentleman (2009) Police Involvement in Residential Child Care SIRCC Journal (contd)

Concern regarding behaviour day records

100 of 250 records on behaviour

Behaviour recorded as an incident

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Police involvement 9

Charges 4 breaches of peace x 1 (abuse, damage, restraint)Breach of peace and assault; x 3 Abuse, damage, threats, assault, plus other anti-social behaviour; restraint)

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Gentleman (2009) Police Involvement in Residential Child Care SIRCC Journal (contd)

RCCWs called the Police when they felt unsafe.

Police were reported to be uncomfortable with charges which they saw as stressed behaviours, inappropriate reactions to minor actions, especially when part of restraint.

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What works in Residential child Care – a statement not a question

The NCERCC summary of decades of research ‘What works in Residential Child Care’ tells us of the importance of relationships between young people and staff, and other young people, and with family. Young people tell us that these were an important aspect offered by Residential Child Care in overcoming their previous experiences. They report getting back self- esteem with the help of an adult who was ‘understanding, sympathetic, comforting and gave individual attention.’

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The foundations of good Residential Child Care practice

• Culture – perform best with concordant societal, formal and belief goals, strong positive staff cultures and strong positive children’s cultures or at least that did not undermine the work of the home. Homes which meet the personal, social, health and educational needs were much more likely to be safe places for children

• Theories for practice – a clear theory or philosophy is essential

• Clarity of purpose - this should be found in the Statement of Purpose and define the primary task – What are we here for? What are we doing?

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The foundations of good Residential Child Care practice (contd)• Leadership – clear and coherent leadership is fundamental

• Relationships – between staff and children – the hallmark is feeling cared for with understanding, sympathetic, comforting, consistent and individual attention

• Relationships between children – peer relationships are a core component needing positive, successful skill and understanding of formal and informal group work from adults

• Relationships with family members – working with the family ‘in mind’ – not necessarily direct work but always aiming to strengthening connections

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The foundations of good Residential Child Care practice (contd)

• Countering institutionalisation – daily life is built from an active attempt to produce systems that best match children’s wants and needs

• Therapeutic support – the ‘therapeutic’ in daily life and by access to specialist services – ‘Therapy.’

• Staff involvement – where staff feel empowered

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5 activities to bring the work of RCC and Police together?

Joining the differing perspectives, expectations, roles and tasks in a common project of parenting and child care. A focus solely on offending will always be too late so we need to be proactive rather than reactive knowing that this work will provide an actual and also Social Return on Investment.

RCC and Police need to be able to communicate clearly with each other, using the same concepts and descriptions of young people and their behavior.

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Activity 1. A discussion about parenting

No such thing as a baby only a baby and

someone (Winnicott)

The foundation for positive care and education must be good authoritative parenting – a young person needs grown-ups to parent them

The list of the 8 Pillars of Parenting is a good checklist (Cameron and Maginn 2007 and 2009 forthcoming) follows with a basic summary of each one.

• Primary care and protection - Sensitivity to a child’s basic needs shows the child that we care and that

they are important. Education is paramount because in our complex world knowledge and skills are essential to survival.

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Activity 1. (contd)

• Secure attachments, making close relationships - Secure attachments act as a buffer against risk and operate as a protective mechanism.

• Positive self-perception - To allow the child to develop a positive self image. Positive and negative statements have a powerful impact on self-perception and esteem.

• Emotional compliance - This ability underpins the successful development of relationships outside of the family and can moderate susceptibility to the propensity for later mental health problems.

• Self management skills - Self-image is the insulation, which prevents inappropriate behaviour when enticing or compelling outside factors try to intrude.

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Activity 1 (contd)

• Resilience - Resilient individuals are able to

understand what has happened to them in life (insight) develop understanding of others (empathy) and experience a quality of life that is often denied to others who have suffered negative life experiences (achievement).

• A sense of belonging - Research and theory on relationships have highlighted the need to belong.

• Personal and social responsibilities - Essentially personal and social responsibility mean’s being able to coordinate one’s own perspective with the help of others and developing personal views of fairness and reciprocity.

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Activity 2. A discussion about Quality RCC using evidenced criteria. Quality of care index

(Berridge – various)

There is a clear link between a young person’s association with the quality of care and their general happiness. The Quality of Care Index allows insight

See also Parent’ Guide to NMS from NCERCC http://partner.ncb.org.uk/ncercc/ncercc%20practice%20documents/ncercc_nmsguides_parentversion.pdf

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Activity 2 (contd)

Care and control• Addressing children’s needs, child oriented• Warm and caring, responsive• Quality of physical environment• Praise and responsibility, positive expectations• Opportunities for success, improvement of self image• Clear boundaries, behavioural management• Opportunities for inclusion

Stability and continuity• Placement changes• Pressure to move prematurely, opportunity to remain • Changes in caregivers, predictability in daily care

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Activity 2 (contd)

Safety• Child protection• Management of risk • Peer violence• Allegations

Inter-professional working• Support for identifiable problems, liaison• Help with behavioural, emotional and social problems• Coherent approach across settings – one plan for one

child

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Activity 2 (contd)

Family links• Encourage contact• Consider young people’s views - family-in-mind• Support from parents/ carers• Transport

Close relationship with at least one adult• Champion, advocate, standing up for Children in Care• Support and time, formal and informal• Reliability• Effectiveness of social work/educational psychology role• Encouragement of key adults from past

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Activity 2 (contd)

Ethnicity and culture• Culture, language and religion• Context or location• Consideration matching, mix, role models• Daily care

Friendships• Encouragement of pro-social friendships

Planning and aftercare• High quality assessment and planning• Desired placements, choice, matching• Young person’s involvement, listen to young person

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Activity 3. Checklist for Assessing Your Organization’s Readiness for Reducing Seclusion and Restraint - David Colton

http://www.ccca.dmhmrsas.virginia.gov/content/SR%20Checklist.pdf

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Activity 4. Setting boundaries, behaviour

management and physical interventions

http://partner.ncb.org.uk/ncercc/ncercc%20practice%20documents/ncerccsettingofboundariesdec04.pdf

Effective behaviour management is based on:• Cooperation• Communication (Shared information concerning

assessments, planning and processes decreases the incidence of PI.)

• Relationships• Effective interventions will link behaviour management,

risk assessment and management and physical interventions

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Activity 4 (contd)

It is important that behaviour is understood as communication. This leads us to reframe “challenging”

to “challenged.” The child has been presented an environment that they are finding challenging. The response needed needs to demonstrate understanding and empathy.

A child needs to know what is expected of them, that limits are agreed, what will happen if they go over these limits, that there will be phased set of interventions, the thresholds for and how any PI may occur.

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Activity 4 (contd)

The components of an overall approach to behaviour management and physical intervention would need to include:

• An understanding of normal child development and the origins of problem behaviours.

• Having written policies so that everyone knows what they can expect

• A plan linking an assessment identifying the strengths of the child to daily living, planning the adaptations that are necessary in the continuity of care, caring relationships and environment that support the child as well as identifying situations that lead to problems in the near future so that avoiding action can be taken.

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Activity 4 (contd)• Using Personal Communication Passports to raise

awareness and the ability in the child and adults to recognise trigger points/weaknesses and to curb or change what is happening at that time to recover equilibrium

• Understanding what happens when this child is part of a group: identifying how they can be supported to manage themselves, or be managed, so that any triggers can be addressed and removed

• Graduated de-escalation and diversion strategies used to pre-empt or limit the behaviour and ensure that the that may follow physical intervention right for that moment

• Teaching conflict resolution skills

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Activity 4 (contd)• Stated thresholds for when physical intervention is

necessary with scenarios as examples of what will happen in certain situations

• A hierarchy of techniques for Physical intervention so that the level of force is appropriate to the age / size of the child and the seriousness of the situation and can be phased up and down as the crisis nears and diminishes

• A method to record interventions that allows discussion, learning and changed practice as a result of the monitoring of incidents in respect of the individual child, adults and good practice in general

• A method of debriefing for all involved that especially allows children to express their views about incidents and to learn from them

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Activity 4 (contd)

• Allowing the child to complain if they feel they have been unfairly or roughly treated, and to have access to independent advocates

• Keeping parents, carers and relevant professionals involved and informed at all stages from policy development and assessment to monitoring of incidents

• Taking complaints seriously and being open to independent scrutiny, including child protection enquiries

• Regular management review of both individual incidents and patterns within/across settings

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Activity 5. Restorative Approaches

http://partner.ncb.org.uk/ncercc/ncercc%20practice

%20documents/ncercc_rj_in_rcc_review.pdf• Police call outs both to and by the home had decreased

by 39 per cent• 66 per cent decrease in the number of offences reported • 54 per cent reduction in police call outs to the home. • 67 per cent decrease in missing from care episodes.

Restorative justice approaches were viewed to be a useful tool for residential staff in their everyday practice with young people, and contacts provided a number of examples of how restorative approaches were used more informally in their settings.

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Activity 5 (contd)

Restorative justice approaches had changed the way in which most staff dealt with both criminal behaviour and conflict in the unit (such as arguments between residents and issues around bullying). Staff generally felt that restorative justice training had provided them with a better way of dealing with such conflicts. Fifty per cent of staff thought that both young people and staff were increasingly using restorative justice techniques in dealing with everyday living tensions and difficulties.

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Reasons for adopting a restorative justice approach

The review identified a number of reasons residential settings

and other organisations introduced restorative approaches in their work with young people. Analysis of information provided by contacts and the literature available found that, for the most part, restorative approaches are used to resolve issues such as:

• Criminal damage against residential units (for example breaking windows or kicking in doors)

• Assaults on staff• Assaults on other residents• Disagreements or disputes between residents• Disagreements between residents and staff• Bullying• Problematic or disruptive behaviour (for example play fighting)• See also: http://partner.ncb.org.uk/ncercc/ncercc%20practice

%20documents/restorative_approaches_highlight.pdf

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Conclusion - towards local protocols for RCC and Police?

Can we do it? Yes we …..have!. e.g. Missing protocols

Gentleman sees 2 questions that must be answered

• Understanding behaviour - what was that about it?

• Understanding actions – what are we going to do about it?

• Children can be cared by various people in various places. All involved need to be working from consistent planning with principles, policies and practice that are compatible and offer the child continuity of experience and relationships, a key factor in stability.

• Services need to ensure that they hold full information on all children who may require PI and cover the range of children who may injure themselves or others on a regular basis. This information should be shared with management and a strategy agreed. In such a way all settings must be able to minimise risk in an effective, safe and consistent way.

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No more the scatter of interested parties -

(amended by NCERCC from Quality Matters in Children’s Services – messages from research

Stein 2009)

Questions for children’s homes

• What counts as an incident that you think needs Police achievement? Are some more concerning than others?

• What do you see the role of the Police being? How does their work link to everyday life and how is their work described in policies?

• How is a child’s life assessed, planned for, supported, recorded, and evaluated?

• What is the link between feeling satisfied and happy and settled behaviour?

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No more the scatter of interested parties -

(amended by NCERCC from Quality Matters in Children’s Services – messages from research

Stein 2009)

Questions for children’s homes (contd)

• What is the relationship of inclusion and exclusion, integration, participation, identification of needs and abilities?

• Is planning at an individual level and a group level? • What might be the effects of raising Police involvement

informally in the life of the home? • What changes can we make together to raise the

safeguarding of all young people placed?

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Strategic questions• a common set of values, child–centred and committed to

stability • commitment to an evidence-based approach which

continuously evaluates services with a view to achieving measurably better outcomes for young people

• an understanding of the needs of young people • a comprehensive mapping of existing settings and needs

of young people • bringing together all relevant data on finance, activity

and outcomes • a vision of how local needs may be better met with

improved alignment – the recognition of the need for a multi-agency approach in the life of the child

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Strategic questions (contd)• A workforce development strategy that supports all

involved in the life of children to promote common approaches? Are carers/Police being supported to to provide sufficient support and encouragement?

• a strategic framework for how Police support might be used more proactively and where reactively with relevance to agreed guidelines

• agreed measures, in addition to National indicators, to be used to monitor improvement in outcomes?

• an ongoing dialogue between Police, providers and young people

• effective systems for implementing service changes, • Do you have Corporate Parents championing reduction

in incidents?43

Operational

• In what ways do your organisational structures and processes promote of impede liaison that supports placement stability and continuity of all those involved in the life of a child?

• Whilst plans, procedures and joint protocols will not themselves bring about the required changes in practice there are 7 enablers of interagency collaboration– understanding and respect for roles and responsibilities of other

services– good communication– regular contact and meetings– common priorities and trust– joint training

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Operational (contd)

– knowing what services are available and who to contact– clear guidelines and procedures for working together – low staff turnover

• Are the assessments as rigorous as necessary for all parties? Do they allow all parties to be committed to the welfare?

• On admission is there an introduction to neighbourhood officers to establish communication and preparatory planning, roles and responsibilities, understandings and explanations and plans

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Practice

• Could you use the Pillars of Parenting and Quality of Care as a tool across care and Police?

• How do you support each other? • Do you support the development of case work and direct

work with young people?

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Contact details

National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care (NCERCC)

National Children’s Bureau

8 Wakley Street

London EC1V 7QE

E-mail: jstanley@ ncb.org.uk

www.ncb.org.uk/ncercc

Tel: 020 7843 1168 Fax: 020 7278 8340

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