Post conference reflections

Mark Smith

I was speaking earlier this week at a major social care conference in Ireland. I always enjoy going to Ireland, partly because the hospitality is always top-notch. And despite being hit big-time by recession, this year was no different. The drink and the “craic” continued well into the night, although I have, belatedly, come to realize that I can’t drink until the early hours any more and retired embarrassingly early. I did, however, hang around for long enough to pick up some of the concerns of social care workers in Ireland and, in truth, they’re very much like those I hear from workers in Scotland. Their concerns centre around the unintended consequences of the regulatory regimes that have sprung up in response to imputed failings of the care system. In Ireland the sector is under almost unbearable scrutiny in the wake of clerical abuse scandals.

The desire to remove the rough edges from care has shifted what happens there sharply from the private to the public domain. An array of external mechanisms has been brought to bear on the discipline. Care standards have been developed and practice is inspected against these. Workers in the sector are increasingly required to be registered with regulatory bodies in order to be allowed to practice. Increasingly, too, they are subject to police checks, where both “hard” information in terms of criminal convictions but also “soft” information about allegations made against them is brought to the attention of prospective employers. All of this is argued to improve the sector and specifically to make it “safer”. The simplistic, “commonsense” logic of such developments is particularly attractive to policy makers and a thrust towards ever-greater regulation is apparent in welfare systems across the world

The thrust of my paper to the conference was that the regulatory mindset is problematic and does not deliver the improvements assumed or promised. In fact, it has generated a range of unintended consequences: it has sapped the moral impulse of practitioners to care and have led to the creation of regimes characterised by obsessive and oppressive proceduralism and increasing but understandable indifference on the part of workers. It was apparent that I struck a chord in what I had to say. For the remainder of the conference I was regaled with tales of what can only be described as madness. Workers told stories of inspectorial visits and injunctions that, were they not incredibly serious in terms of their longer term impact on care, would be laughable. One worker admitted to me that he held back from doing what he knew he ought to do in a situation because he knew he would have to spend the next hour and a half writing about it. Of course, experienced and able workers can look and laugh at all of this but they are bound by it nonetheless.

I detect signs, though, that this tide is beginning to turn. At some point soon workers are going to resist. I’m delighted that in Scotland practitioners are beginning to get together to talk about an association of residential child care workers. Only this week I was informed of a new website set up by an English worker to discuss issues related to residential care practice. In Ireland there are already established associations for both workers and managers and these are beginning to identify common ground and to forge closer links. Interestingly, last week’s conference attracted far more interest than had been expected. In the past few months, too, the regulatory body in England has been subject to damming critique of its fitness for purpose.

It is not too fanciful to suggest that there is a wider debate to be had over the “soul” of residential child care. Those of us who consider residential care to be something that runs in our blood need to be prepared to engage in and to lead this debate. I am encouraged that the straws in the wind are blowing in our direction. Bureaucratic and regulatory professionalism has few defenders in the literature, Nor does the notion that we can devise codes and procedures to nail down every eventuality. I will end with a quote from Heather Piper, who I think is one of the most insightful writers around on aspects of adult child relationships. She says that

Codes are “negative rather than positive, products of fear rather than a characteristic of a confident profession or workforce”. Codes give no space for context or good professional sense, and so were generally “ignored or became unworkable”, creating “guilt at their non-compliance”. The more specific codes become, the more ridiculous they are, and the more they cast teachers under the veil of suspicion.

Piper argues that instead of stultifying regulation there is a need for a return to ideas of trust in professionals” motives and practices. Let’s hope that can happen while there is still some life in the soul of residential child care.

Reference

Piper, H. (2006) Don’t Touch Those Kids www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAF9E.htm