1. Submission
for
Review
of
Residential
Care
–
Joining
The
Dots.
Motivations Activity Projects Ltd, Powell Studio, 33 Powell Street, Birmingham, West Midlands, B1 3DH
Tel: 0121 212 2229 Fax 0121 212 1497 Website: www.motivationscare.co.uk
Registered Office as above. Registered in England No. 03638106
This
submission
has
been
prepared
by
Mark
Waddington
and
Cliff
Faulder
on
behalf
of
Motivations
Care.
Motivations
Care
provides
three
children’s
homes
and
is
located
in
Birmingham.
We
start
this
submission
with
a
brief
case
history
of
a
typical
Motivations
resident
to
help
put
our
observations
in
context.
John
is
fifteen,
and
has
lived
in
his
children’s
home
for
nearly
two
years.
This
is
his
seventh
placement
since
becoming
looked
after
at
the
age
of
eight.
He
had
two
long-­‐term
foster
placements,
both
of
which
broke
down
in
the
face
of
angry
and
non-­‐compliant
behaviour.
In
retrospect
he
can
recognise
that
he
was
“taking
it
out
on
the
wrong
people”,
but
at
the
time
there
was
no
one
else
who
mattered,
and
his
carers
had
little
help
to
make
sense
of
what
it
was
that
was
happening
to
them.
He
has
also
had
four
different
social
workers
in
the
last
two
years,
through
processes
of
reorganisation
and
efficiency.
In
addition
he
has
changed
school
because
his
behaviour
has
made
it
difficult
for
the
students
around
him
to
get
on
with
their
learning.
His
IRO
has
remained
the
same
and
has
consistently
led
his
LAC
review
process,
but
John’s
fury
at
the
unfairness
of
life
makes
it
difficult
for
him
to
do
much
more
than
fight
with
these
processes..
John
has
siblings
and
separated
parents,
but
combinations
of
geography
and
his
family
members’
chaotic
lives
make
contact
unpredictable
and
rare.
It
is
evident
that
the
difficulties
each
family
member
has
in
getting
on
with
their
own
lives
mean
that,
while
family
bonds
are
recognised
as
being
important,
they
cannot
provide
the
emotional
nurture
a
vulnerable
young
person
like
John
so
desperately
needs.
So,
all
in
all,
there
are
very
few
constant
figures
in
the
life
of
this
young
person
whose
early
history
left
so
little
opportunity
for
good
attachment
experience.
It
will
also
now
be
clear
that
John’s
relationships
with
staff
and
residents
in
his
children’s
home
are
the
central
anchor
in
his
life
-­‐The
predictable
pattern
of
familiar
faces
who
take
turns
to
look
after
him,
has
the
potential
to
join
the
dots,
and
to
ensure
his
disparate
experiences
can
be
brought
together
to
make
sense.
The
staff
around
John
have
helped
navigate
the
changes
of
social
worker
and
school,
likewise
it
has
been
these
staff
who
have
cleaned
up
the
mess
(physical
and
legal)
when
his
complicated
behaviours
put
him
at
odds
with
those
around
him.
This
review
has
been
termed
a
root
and
branch
assessment
of
residential
care
homes
with
the
explicit
aim
to
“help
put
an
end
to
a
life
of
disadvantage
for
some
of
the
most
vulnerable
children
in
care”.
These
terms
could
be
understood
to
locate
the
causes
of
the
life
of
disadvantage
within
the
care
sector.
This
pattern
of
thought
is
easily
achieved.
The
failings
of
children’s
residential
care
readily
attract
media
attention,
there
are
regular
reports
of
“out
of
control
children’s
homes”
with
the
police
in
attendance,
or
homes
targeted
by
paedophiles
and
traffickers,
seeking
access
to
children
vulnerable
to
sexual
exploitation.

2. Submission
for
Review
of
Residential
Care
–
Joining
The
Dots.
Motivations Activity Projects Ltd, Powell Studio, 33 Powell Street, Birmingham, West Midlands, B1 3DH
Tel: 0121 212 2229 Fax 0121 212 1497 Website: www.motivationscare.co.uk
Registered Office as above. Registered in England No. 03638106
An
alternative
perspective
starts
with
an
acknowledgment
of
these
young
people’s
history
prior
to
placement,
and
the
ways
this
will
have
affected
them.
Often
they
will
have
been
trapped
in
impossible
situations
within
their
own
families
~
The
constituents
of
those
impossible
situations
will
be
their
traumatic
experience
of
domestic
abuse,
sexual
abuse,
neglect,
mental
health
issues
etc.
and
the
interventions
that
have
resulted
in
their
looked
after
status
will
have
taken
place
in
response.
These
young
people
have
had
limited
opportunity
to
develop
the
ordinary
coping
strategies
children
employ
to
let
adults
know
about
their
difficulties
and
little
expectation
that
anyone
might
listen
or
understand.
Furthermore
they
will
not
expect
adults
to
be
able
to
regulate
their
own
behaviour
and
stop
it
having
a
negative
impact
on
children.
They
will
be
likely
to
communicate
their
own
difficulties
by
behaving
in
ways
that
put
those
around
them
in
apparently
impossible
situations.
These
behaviours
reflect
the
circumstances
in
which
they
have
grown
up,
and
indeed
there
is
a
fair
chance
that
their
parent’s
experience
would
have
been
the
same.
So
the
task
of
looking
after
these
children
must
start
with
recognition
that
there
will
be
points
where
their
conduct
will
be
likely
to
undermine
relationships
and
damage
the
environment.
It
is
these
indigestible
aspects
of
behaviour
that
make
it
difficult
to
look
after
this
particular
demographic
in
foster
care.
And,
it
makes
it
immediately
clear
that
behaviour
management
will
be
a
key
task
within
residential
settings
like
children’s
homes.
Like
many
other
providers,
Motivations
is
a
small
organisation
with
three
homes.
In
our
view,
our
staff
are
the
unsung
heroes
in
this
sector.
Their
steadfast
and
persevering
work
over
months
and
years
has
required
them
to
stick
with
complex
and
frightening
behaviours.
Their
resiliency
and
capacity
to
provide
understanding
is
obvious
in
their
daily
work
to
maintain
a
homely
environment
for
our
children.
This
constant
process
of
reorganisation
and
repair
to
preserve
order
has
enormous
therapeutic
value.
A
crucial
element
of
therapeutic
experience
is
the
consistent
assertion
of
compassionate
boundaries.
A
good
therapist
will
constantly
understand
the
client’s
traumatic
experience
as
traumatic
and
will
actively
resist
invitations
to
minimise
or
diminish
its
emotional
actuality.
The
task
of
caring
for
complex
children
in
a
residential
setting
requires
staff
in
children’s
homes
to
resist
behaviours
calculated
to
get
them
to
not
care
about
constantly
reappearing
mess,
and
to
continue
to
insist
on
knowing
a
child’s
whereabouts
in
the
face
of
a
young
person’s
insistence
that
they
are
perfectly
capable
of
looking
after
themselves
and
that
they
are
entitled
to
privacy.
The
sensitive
and
effective
management
of
these
complicated
challenges
requires
a
determination
not
to
give
up,
and
a
most
particular
skill-­‐set
which
often
goes
unnoticed
precisely
because
these
skills
are
most
obvious
when
they
are
absent
and
things
go
wrong.
It
is
also
worth
noting
that
these
chaotic
behaviours
can
make
it
difficult
to
achieve
regular
attendance
at
appointments.
It
is
already
enormously
difficult
to
source
appropriate
therapeutic
input
for
LAC
children
through
CAMHS
and
in
these
times
of
limited
resource,
these
factors
of
unreliability
mean
that
it
is
no
surprise
that
this
particular
demographic
have
limited
access
to
this
resource.
Again,
this
means
that
the
primary
therapeutic
input
received
by
these
young
people
will
be
located
within
their
experience
of
residential
care
–
The
relationships
they
have
with
the
residential
staff
on
a
daily
basis
are
these
young
people’s
best
chance
of
therapeutic
experience
to
redress
the
impact
of
early
trauma.

3. Submission
for
Review
of
Residential
Care
–
Joining
The
Dots.
Motivations Activity Projects Ltd, Powell Studio, 33 Powell Street, Birmingham, West Midlands, B1 3DH
Tel: 0121 212 2229 Fax 0121 212 1497 Website: www.motivationscare.co.uk
Registered Office as above. Registered in England No. 03638106
These
residential
skills
can
be
taught
and
developed
and
comprise
part
of
a
“professional
toolkit”
for
residential
care.
We
strongly
advocate
further
development
of
a
formal
professional
pathway
which
recognises
the
specific
capability
to
manage
and
synthesise
these
multiple
and
complex
factors.
Key
components
of
this
pathway
would
include
supervision
and
consultancy
to
support
day
to
day
delivery
of
the
core
task,
alongside
essential
practical
and
theoretical
training
inputs.
Crucially
this
approach
locates
staff
development
within
the
delivery
of
the
core
task,
and
promotes
an
agile
learning
experience
for
residential
workers.
This
will
improve
inputs
and
outcomes
for
young
people
currently
resident
in
children’s
homes
rather
than
defer
improvement
for
the
“next
generation”.
Growing
up
is
all
about
learning
from
experience
and
this
model
immediately
helps
constructively
replicate
those
processes
for
young
people
and
staff
within
residential
care.
Mark
Waddington
&
Cliff
Faulder,
December
2015
Mark
Waddington
is
a
doctoral
researcher
and
specialist
in
residential
therapeutic
childcare
consulting
to
Motivations.
mark@mwcollaborations.com
07751
702814
Clifford
Faulder
is
Responsible
Individual
at
Motivations
Care.
cliff@motivationscare.co.uk
07920
771130