Presented in nontechnical language, this pocket-sized book should be read and reread before the first day of a residential child care worker's job placement. This orientation manual provides necessary, concrete information to help avoid mistakes with children, families, coworkers, and the community...mistakes that may be costly or impossible to repair. Subjects include the first day on the job, the primacy of guarding the safety and health of the children, and the basics of child management, paperwork, and teamwork. A handy, helpful tool to get beginners off to a sound start.
The Residential Youth Care Worker in Action offers a comprehensive, collaborative, and competency-based approach to assist youth care workers with psychotropic medications, psychiatric labels, crisis, staffing, and assessments. Emphasizing ideas that focus on the strengths and abilities of youth from the assessment phase of treatment through discharge, this guidebook will also help you take the views and actions of youths into consideration from a change-oriented perspective.
Written by experienced practitioners and academics, this is a core text about the practice of residential child care. It takes as its starting point the fact that residential child care involves workers and children sharing a common lifespace, in which the quality of interpersonal relationships is key. Each chapter highlights relevant policy guidance and is developed around a practice scenario, discussing key knowledge skills and values relating to its theme. This highly practical book should, therefore, be of value to a range of students at different academic levels, from VQ to Masters, and to practitioners and managers in residential child care. The book draws on ideas from child and youth care and social pedagogic traditions and will appeal to a worldwide audience and provides a valuable addition to the emerging literature around social pedagogy.
The CARE practice model provides a framework for residential care based on a theory of how children develop, motivating both children and staff to adhere to routines, structures, and processes, minimizing the potential for interpersonal conflict. The core principles of the model have a strong relationship to positive child outcomes, and can be incorporated into a wide variety of programs and treatment models.
Draws on recent research to address key issues in residential child care policy and practice in the UK, offering guidance for developing best practice and improved outcomes for children and young people.
First published in 1999, the overall aim of the book is to provide a comprehensive critical guide to the theory and practice of residential care. This is achieved by analysing the history and development of residential child care, examining the current legislative framework and analysing research. The volume has been written against the background of a crisis of confidence in residential child care. The system is often seen as facing perpetual problems of abuse, lack of control and crime. This book seeks to both understand and respond to this challenging situation. Understanding Residential Child Care commences by providing historical and theoretical perspectives. Having provided this analysis the authors move on to examine the empowerment of young people, the framework provided by the Children Act, the role of the manager, the importance of supporting and supervising staff, abuse in care and the experience of leaving care. The book concludes with a chapter suggesting a way forward for residential child care. The core concept explored and applied throughout the book is that of empowerment. It is suggested that this concept can act as an organising framework for re-casting residential child care in a positive manner, so that a quality environment can be provided which can effectively protect and promote the best interests of the child.
Here's vital information on making the right recruitment choices, getting the best staff, and avoiding potential abusers! More than a set of procedures, good staff selection practice is about a set of principles that embody particular attitudes to the task. If we achieve these basic principles, we will go a long way towards eliminating selection errors and the risk of abuse that follows such errors. Author Meredith Kiraly Residential Child Care Staff Selection: Choose With Care draws upon international research and the experience of practitioners to help you improve your ability to recruit the best staff. With a minimum of jargon, this book covers the range of selection methods and advocates a consideredbut not cumbersomeapproach that uses more than one method of assessing skills. It illustrates management techniques that reduce the likelihood of abuse and will show you how to avoid recruiting potentially abusive individuals. Residential Child Care Staff Selection: Choose With Care provides insightful background information, examining the developmental needs of children; issues in the care of children away from home; abuse and pedophilia; and legal and ethical issues. Then the book discusses in more detail research findings which underpin key principles of good care and good staff selection, and best practice in a range of recruitment and selection practices. You'll also find a recruitment guide for all organizations that work with children and young people. The recruitment guide thoroughly examines the challenges and pitfalls of the recruitment process and will help you identify those who are most fit for this difficult yet extraordinarily rewarding career, and avoid recruiting those most likely to be abusive. This valuable book also includes four helpful appendixes that provide: examples of situational and behavioral questions to use in interviews Equal Employment Opportunity guidelines for acceptable and unacceptable interview questions a profile of a skilled residential child care worker that you can use to judge whether candidates measure up sample staff selection formsjob descriptions, application form, a short-listing grid, job interview schedule, interview performance rating form, a reference check proforma, and a selection report
Residential child care is a crucial, though relatively neglected area of social work. And yet, revelations of abuse and questions of effectiveness have led to increasingly regulatory and procedural approaches to practice and heightened political and professional scrutiny. This book provides a broad and critical look at the ideas and policy developments that have shaped the direction of the sector. The book sets present-day policy and practice within historical, policy and organisational context. The author applies a critical gaze to attempts to improve practice through regulation and, fundamentally, challenges how residential child care is conceptualised. He argues that it needs to move beyond dominant discourses of protection, rights and outcomes to embrace those of care and upbringing. The importance of the personal relationship in helping children to grow and develop is highlighted. Other traditions of practice such as the European concept of social pedagogy are also explored to more accurately reflect the task of residential child care. The book will be of interest to practitioners in residential child care, social workers and students on social work and social care courses. It should be required reading for social work managers and will also be of interest to policy makers and students of social policy, education and childhood studies.
