Published by The International Centre for Therapeutic Care
Editor Residential versus Foster Care? In the SIRCC column this month Ian Milligan writes of the conflict between residential care and foster care. Which is best? It is a hoary old chestnut that has been around for a long time – thirty or forty years at least. It is really sad that it is still persisting, … Read more
I’d like to be pro-fostering and pro-residential, and in fact I am. I think it’s good for children and young people to potentially have both these options if they need to be looked after and accommodated. I’m glad that we are developing different kinds of fostering and the way that some residential units have been … Read more
The following three meetings of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Children have been arranged for March, April and early May: Tuesday 28 March – Children in Detention: joint meeting with the All Party Parliamentary Group for Refugees, with speakers including Lord Dubs. Monday 24 April – Children’s Rights in Practice, with presentations from members … Read more
When my daughter was born, I knew how I wanted her to be looked after. I also knew that I wanted to return to work. I considered without a doubt that I would be a much better parent if I still kept part of me for me. That part was my career. I had never … Read more
This book is a must for anyone who is involved in social work and social care and has an interestin their profession in an international context. It is one of a series of three books written after three years of co-operation by a multi-national group, sponsored by the Socrates Programme of the European Union. The … Read more
As a social worker I trained at a time when family therapy was still seen as a successful method of intervention. But as the authors acknowledged it was criticised in the 1980s primarily because “practice seemed to be based on a denial of the unequal power relationships underpinning family dynamics …”. However, currently the authors … Read more
This book is one of Russell House Publishing’s Theory into Practice series, aimed at a variety of helping professions, and it is designed to lay out the theoretical framework about ageism, and then go on to cover implications for practice. The back cover says that it explains how ageism comes about, how it can be … Read more
This is the moving and very readable tale of a mother and her third son, who was born locked in a brain that walled him off from the world. Ironically, the boy in question, Whitney, couldn’t have asked for a more appropriate mother. Florance was already a renowned brain doctor and communications expert when her … Read more
One of the unforeseen consequences of the end of the Cold War was that greater freedom and removal of controls on travel led to massive population movements. Many of the people on the move were adults, seeking employment in countries with a stronger economy and better wages than their own, escaping political, social or religious … Read more
Facing Forward : Residential Child Care in the 21st Century Crimmens, D. and Milligan, I. (eds) (2005) Lyme Regis, Russell House Publishing. This is an extremely useful and timely collection of writing about the state of residential care in the UK. Although it acknowledges the recurrent troubles of this sector and faces quite starkly some … Read more
In this month’s Early Years column, Valerie Jackson highlights the problems arising from employing sixteen-year-olds to work with little children in nurseries, and their need for both pre-service training and mentoring during their early months in the work. This problem has been around for a long time. Back in the 1960s the Central Training Council … Read more
Something quite remarkable has happened in the life of the young person whom I will call Morag. I’ll tell you about it and then perhaps we can try and find a way of describing it. Morag came to live at Mill Grove ten years or so ago. She arrived with a little suitcase that she … Read more