The group of professionals leading the government’s review of the children’s residential care workforce say their work is the start of a “long process” to improve the status of the sector and that the outcomes are yet to be determined.
Pictured from left to right: Caroline Fonjock, FEVACA; Dr Chris Nicholson, University of Essex; Pam McConnell, Five Rivers; Dr Dave Roberts, The Mulberry Bush Organisation; Kevin Gorden, Home + Future; Emmanuel Akpan-Inwang, Lighthouse Pedagogy Trust; James Roberts, Lighthouse Pedagogy Trust, Sinead Kirrane-Davis, Lighthouse Pedagogy Trust
Residential care workers do some of the most complex, skilled and emotionally demanding work in children’s social care. They care for children who may have experienced significant trauma, loss, disruption and instability. They build trust where trust may have been broken, create belonging for children who may have yet to experience it, and develop relationships that have a lifelong impact.
However, the work has not always received the professional recognition it deserves. Too often, residential care work is only discussed in the context of crisis, sufficiency, cost and regulation. These are all important issues, but they can obscure the more fundamental considerations of the workforce that we need and how to build it.
We are leading the Department for Education’s Review of Professional Development for the Children’s Homes Workforce, and these considerations sit at the centre of our work. The review is considering the purpose of residential care, the knowledge and skills required by staff and managers, the effectiveness of current qualifications and apprenticeships, and the quality and consistency of continuing professional development, career pathways, leadership, and practice models.
The review is being led by sector leaders from within the system and experts in the field of professional development in the children’s homes workforce; professionals who value, understand and know the complexity of enabling a workforce to deliver good residential care. Whilst it is drawing on expertise from outside the sector, this review is focused on recognising, learning and developing the specialist knowledge, skills and expertise present in children’s homes.
We have already engaged a wide range of people, including young people with lived experience of residential care, residential care workers, registered managers, providers, academics, training organisations, local authorities and sector bodies. Over the coming months, this will be supplemented by focus group discussions with experts and sector stakeholders to provide feedback on the emerging findings and recommendations. An independent evidence review will also consider academic literature, existing evaluations and international approaches.
There will, understandably, be different views across the sector about the direction of reform; it is important to have these debates, and the review will take them seriously. This review is not intended to be the final word on the future of professional development in residential care. The questions are too complex, and the evidence base too contested – or, in some cases, missing – for any single review to settle permanently. Rather, we see this work as the beginning of a longer, iterative process that helps create the infrastructure the sector needs to learn, adapt, and respond to the needs of children as they change over time.
For us, this distinction matters because we recognise that children’s homes are not a single intervention. They support children with a wide range of needs. Some children may need intensive support for a short period before returning to family-based care. Others may need a long-term home where they can build deep, trusted relationships with adults who know them well. The professional development system needs to understand and respond to that diversity.
This also means recognising that residential care rarely happens in isolation from children’s families and wider networks. All children need to maintain relationships with the important people in their lives, whether that is parents, siblings, wider family or other significant adults. Professional development should therefore help staff to work relationally with families and wider networks, supporting children to, where appropriate, maintain and strengthen the enduring relationships that matter to them over time.
To be clear, the outcomes of the review are yet to be determined. We are still gathering evidence, listening to the sector and exploring emerging ideas. Once the review is complete, there will be further consultation, feedback and refinement before recommendations are taken forward.
Our goal is to be ambitious. Children’s homes respond to and ‘hold’ the complexity of children’s behaviour and emotions that have not been successfully resolved elsewhere. Despite this, the sector often lacks the respect it deserves for taking on the challenge, risk, and emotional distress that have cumulated through layers of trauma and relational ruptures.
There is already a long history and rich tradition of brilliant children’s residential care work in England, but this is not always captured in the qualifications and continuing professional development that people who work in the sector receive. The right infrastructure will ensure that this happens. Children’s homes are already places of skilled care, deep relationships, and professional practice, and so we believe the people who work in them should have access to professional development that reflects the importance of their work. When the homes get this right, the outcomes for staff and, more importantly, the children, can be transformational and long-lasting.
If this review succeeds, it will not simply recommend changes to courses or qualifications. It will help begin a wider shift in how we see residential care work towards a highly skilled and well-regarded professional career. Children living in children’s homes deserve this. The task now is to build the system that makes that possible.
Authored by:
Emmanuel Akpan-Inwang, Director, Lighthouse Pedagogy Trust
Caroline Fonjock, Director, FEVACA
Dr Dave Roberts, Director of Training & Professional Development and Deputy CEO, The Mulberry Bush Organisation
Pam McConnell, Founder, Five Rivers
Dr Chris Nicholson, Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex
Published by Children & Young People Now.