1.
25 November 2016
Sir Roger Singleton
Managing Director of Lumos and
previously Chief Executive of Barnardo’s
Toward a Society Where Children
are Raised at Home

2.
Outline:
• The influences for change
• Reuniting children and finding foster and adoptive homes
• Issues and resistances and how they were managed
• Elements in a good DI programme
• Lessons learned

3.
Influences which led to change
• Child development research
• The emergency of psychology and social work as professions
• Barnardo’s research findings
• Changing attitudes to illegitimacy
• More contraception
• Improved welfare benefits for single mothers
• Increasing costs

4.
Insert pic of John Bowlby book

5.
Video

6.
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7.
Reuniting children and finding foster and adoptive
homes

8.
Percentage of children in each type of placement 2
years after transfer
Living with own families 42%
Adopted 28%
Foster home 15% (initially 29%)
Barnardo residential care 10%
Other placement 5%

9.
Issues and resistances and how they were
managed
• Internal resistance
• Concern for children’s safety
• Staff objections
• Resistance of some professionals
• Attachment to buildings
• Funding difficulties

10.
Elements of a good DI programme
• Strategic planning
• Assessment and planning for individual children
• Incorporating views of children and young people
• Development of support services and planning for the
closure of institutions
• Planning the transfer of resources
• Proper monitoring and evaluation

11.
Assessment, planning and preparation of individual
children
Moves for children can be highly traumatic. A holistic assessment and plan
for each individual child is needed to make sure the child is moving to the
most suitable placement and the experience of change is a positive one for
the child. Each child should have an individual care and placement plan.

12.
What sort of services are required?
Universal health, education and social services
Target services at vulnerable children and families
Locate services at key points (e.g. maternity hospitals)
Prevention/reunification
Emergency protection
Family care - fostering and adoption
Small, specialised residential care for extremely small minority of children
Leaving Care services
Post-care support services

13.
Planning the transfer of resources
De-institutionalisation involves transferring resources from large centralised
institutions to a wide range of services: a complex financial process requiring
detailed planning.

14.
Institutions have three types of resources
that should be reinvested in community
services:
Financial (annual budget and donations)
Human (institution personnel)
Material (buildings, land, vehicles,
equipment)

15.
Resources in institutions should
be ring-fenced
Personnel
Budgets
Material resources
¥

16.
A range of community based services is
needed to replace institutions
Most are cheaper
Some are more expensive

17.
Monitoring and evaluation
In order to ensure that the process of reform is effective and is achieving what
was intended, monitoring and evaluation must be built into the entire
deinstitutionalisation process from the start.
This requires checking what is happening at periodic intervals and whether
programme objectives have been achieved and are being sustained. This
includes the period after the transition is complete.
The most important indicators of success are: changes in the health,
development and life chances of children; effective use of finances; sustainability
of the services.

18.
Lessons learned
• Stopping admissions
• Avoid piecemeal implementation
• Ensure big institutions are not replaced with not-so-big
ones
• Tackle professional resistance earlier
• Develop appropriate financial models
• Stress the positives for everyone

19.
Thank y u
Sir Roger Singleton
Roger.singleton@wearelumos.org
+44 (0)20 7253 6464