Social Pedagogy and Government Policy in England

Where do matters stand in terms of current Government attitudes in England towards the international experience of social pedagogy, with its holistic approach to individual learning needs and distinct methodologies for working with children?

Exploration

The Government’s significant Building Brighter Futures: Next Steps for the Children’s Workforce document, published in 2008, and subsequent related policy pronouncements contain limited but interesting references to the broad concept of social pedagogy. A three-year pilot project is being centrally funded “to explore the value of a social pedagogic approach” in the specific context of residential children’s homes, and separate plans have been initiated to establish a new ‘youth professional status’ for staff in integrated youth support services “underpinned by a social pedagogy approach”. The original 2008 document also noted more generally that “some countries have a long history of using social pedagogues to work with a broad range of children across age groups. We would like to consider the value they might add in this country”.

The House of Commons Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families went out of its way to describe the social pedagogy pilot programme within residential care as “very welcome” and urged the Government to “think broadly and creatively about the possible future applications of the social pedagogy approach in the care system rather than looking to import wholesale a separate new profession” (Looked After Children, the Select Committee’s Third Report for 2008/09, published this April).

Government Action

In response, the Government confirmed that it wanted to work with the residential care sector as a whole to identify the barriers to all staff eventually achieving at least a Level 3 NVQ and that the Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC) was preparing a national training and development framework for residential care staff and consulting stakeholder interests in the process.

Revised national minimum standards for children’s homes are due to be published this autumn, and could also assist this new emphasis on workforce development. On the potential contribution of a social pedagogic approach in particular, important work has already been undertaken in this area by the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care (NCERCC) and the Government officially noted, in its own terms, that:

“The social pedagogy pilots in children’s homes focus on building relationships through practical engagement with children and young people using skills such as art and music or outdoor activities. Pedagogic training involves the following elements:

• behavioural and social science theory,

• skills training in working with conflict and challenging behaviour, and teamwork,

• creative and practical subjects, such as art, drama, woodwork, music or gardening, through which pedagogues can work with and relate to children. Arts and practical subjects can also help children enjoy life and feel good about themselves, and

• optional modules for specific settings, such as work with disabled children or in residential care.

All the pilot children’s homes have now been selected and twelve social pedagogues have been offered and accepted posts. A full evaluation of the benefits of this approach will be conducted, with a view to spreading the use of the social pedagogic approach more widely.  The evaluation will help to inform whether and how to implement a pedagogic approach more widely in English children’s homes. The Government agrees with the Committee that any future roll out should not result in a separate new profession being created from the current workforce.” (Government response to the Select Committee report on Looked After Children, June 2009).

Update

The latest position is that 21 sites have been identified for these pilots, principally in London, the South East and the North West, and just over 20 pedagogues are in place. They will work alongside residential staff in a role-modelling capacity and the pilots will involve varying staff resource levels as well as different locations inside and outside homes.  The final report and evaluation of the pilots is due to be published in 2011 and the homes are being supported by the Thomas Coram Research Unit (TCRU) based in the London Institute for Education.  A separate initiative is also underway within Essex County Council where social pedagogues are directly training residential care staff in group therapy and other areas.

The different arena of integrated youth support services, now clearly viewed by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) as part of the broader children’s workforce, embraces traditional youth work, services providing information, advice and guidance for young people, and other targeted activities including the work of youth offending teams.

In this important field, CWDC as a government agency has been consulting interested parties over the establishment of a new Youth Professional Status for advanced practitioners “underpinned by a skill set that is based on a social pedagogical model of skills and training”. This consultative process, involving a series of meetings with relevant stakeholders, has just been completed, and CWDC is now engaged in collating the results.

In a background paper on Social Pedagogy and its Implications for the Youth Workforce, circulated during these consultations, CWDC noted that local and national policy in England has traditionally been based on boundaries between the fields of education, child care and social care and these divisions have been apparent at different levels – conceptual, professional, organisational and in relation to training and education.  “This has clearly contributed to the diverse range of job roles and titles”, the paper states, adding “in recent years, however, there has been significant reorganisation of responsibility for young people’s services and greater emphasis on a person-centred approach and integrated working. The role of social pedagogue is sufficiently broad-based to sit comfortably with the ambitions for this more integrated approach to service delivery”.

The paper notes that “the Children’s Workforce Network has agreed that the youth workforce reform programme should be underpinned by a skill set that is based on a social pedagogical model of skills and training. In implementing this, we wish to consult with acknowledged experts in the field as well as more broadly with the workforce itself. The programme itself aims to ensure that new training and qualifications which it may develop are based on such a framework. For the existing workforce, guidance and training materials could be developed, based on the theoretical and practical social pedagogical framework suggested by Care Matters (2006), for dissemination through employer-based CPD programmes.”

This is potentially valuable in itself, but also adds to the overall picture of present Government policy pointing, where it does touch on social pedagogy, away from the idea of introducing a new and distinct professional role and towards borrowing specific elements from within more holistic thinking and activity in other countries.

While this will certainly disappoint the steadily growing ranks of proponents of establishing a new high-quality social pedagogue role within England’s changing children’s services, it is perhaps not too surprising in the context of (a) a relatively low taxation economy mired in an economic recession with major cuts in public service expenditure widely anticipated, and (b) a Government approach to the evolution of children’s services which acknowledges and respects the value of detailed research evidence (as with the important EPPE studies on the value of early years education) but does not tend to engage with deeper theoretical issues in the process of policy formulation.

Hopes for the Future

Nonetheless, the debate over the potential future contribution of social pedagogic approaches is extending out in the field in England today and the specific Government initiatives outlined above will undoubtedly attract further interest as they unfold over the period ahead. It will not be a small advance if these initiatives, in due course, help to promote this debate to the point where it can generate a broad popular philosophy of holistic child development shared by different types of children’s service professionals in England, as the Every Child Matters agenda of integrated children’s services is further pursued, informed by the impact of social pedagogy in Europe and beyond.  In the longer term, this could positively assist yet more progress in encouraging social pedagogic theory and practice in this country.

John Chowcat is General Secretary of the Association of Professionals in Education and Children’s Trusts (ASPECT).