Silencing touch and touching silence? Understanding the complex links between touch and silence in residential child care settings

Touch and silence are neglected across most disciplines, including within child-specific academic literature, and their interconnections have not been studied before. This article focuses on touch/silence convergences in residential childcare in England, drawing from two qualitative studies. We reveal the fluidity, multidimensionality and intersectionality of touch and silence, illuminating the labyrinthine ways they frequently coalesce in children’s homes, often assuming ambiguous forms and meanings. We therefore offer new understandings of these concepts, as multifaceted, entwined, temporal and malleable.

“Depends who it is”: Towards a relational understanding of the use of adult-child touch in residential child care

This article theorises adult-child touch in residential child care as a relational practice, contributing to an emergent literature on residential child care, and conceptualises residential child care as a Lifespace. It responds to an on-going debate surrounding the use of touch in the sector, which has attracted academic attention since the early 1990s as a result of abuse scandals, the ensuing ‘no touch’ policies and a growing body of research identifying touch as an important aspect of child development. The paper draws upon a six-month ethnographic study of residential child care, which was explicitly designed to observe everyday interactions between residential care workers and young people. The findings suggest that touch cannot be discussed in isolation from either relationships or a contextual understanding of relationships in the specific context of residential child care. The study found that touch is unavoidable, relational and that dichotomous understandings of touch continue to present issues for both theory and practice.

SYSTEMIC REFLEXIVITY IN RESIDENTIAL CHILD CARE: A PEDAGOGICAL FRAME TO EMPOWER PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE

This position paper offers a pedagogical frame to empower professional work in residential child care. Jobs in this demanding field are characterized by daily relationships with children of different ages, needs, and cultural backgrounds. There is a need for effective communication and interaction with them, their families, co-workers, other professionals, and care agencies, as well as with the larger community. This complexity brings uncertainty and the necessity of thinking and acting in a sensitive way in order to open possibilities for systemic transformation at the micro, meso, and macro levels. In this framework, we focus on reflexivity as a meta-competence — a set of specific postures, competences, and attitudes that characterize expert professional action. A thorough literature review on reflexivity in social work and child protection is aimed at clarifying the meanings, uses, and features of this concept. We claim that systemic reflexivity can be used as a framework, a methodology, and a set of tools to empower professional work by enhancing emotional, cognitive, and epistemic self-awareness, systemic wisdom, abduction, and active listening. To help workers and teams develop these five competences, a self-directed learning module is currently being designed, based on systemic and narrative perspectives, and transformative learning theory.

Διερεύνηση των αντιλήψεων του προσωπικού φορέων παιδικής προστασίας για την επικοινωνία παιδιών σε συνθήκες τοποθέτησης με το οικογενειακό τους περιβάλλον

This study concerns the exploration of the perceptions of those working in residential child care regarding children’s contact with their parents, during their placement. This means that in was taken into account that staff perceptions can affect thoughts, judgments, recommendations, and decisions they make.Qualitative method was chosen. The participantswere eleven people working in residential child care and child psychiatric domains. The method of thematic analysis was used to analyze the interview data. Five main categories emerged from the analysis, which led to a more thorough understanding of the participant’s perceptions. The findings of this study designate the importance of connecting the child with his/ her story and his or her parents. Emphasis is placed on the protective and supportive role of the institution (and the people who actually form it) and their ability to provide a safe environment that can hold back boundaries and in which they are emotionally available to the children and resilient. The importance of metaphoric containment is highlighted.

Youth Experiences of and Views on Un-locked Coercive Placement in Residential Child Care

This article explores Norwegian youth experiences of and views on coercive placement in un-locked residential child care institutions. Inspired by Antonovsky’s salutogenic theory, the article discusses factors that make placement an opportunity for development among youth with serious drug and behavioural problems. The empirical material comes from interviews with 34 youth under and after coercive placement. The findings reveal that coercive placement in un-locked institutions can be helpful and necessary, provided that the institutions have the means available to protect the residents and provide supportive and meaningful treatment content. Factors such as treatment structure, the content of everyday life, clear expectations, and boundaries are discussed as important factors that help the placement to be an opportunity for development among youth with serious drug and behavioural problems.