Leadership Programme in Residential Care
Working with looked-after children, particularly when their needs are complex, severe or enduring is stressful and emotionally difficult. Reports and serious case reviews have highlighted how this can impact on the ability of individuals and services to work effectively.
NSCAP's experience is that what helps in these circumstances is a focus on reflective practice, supervision, in-depth understanding of child development and continuous professional development. Together, these approaches can help break the escalating cycle of difficulties that occur for many looked-after children and services.
NSCAP has developed a Leadership and Management Programme that brings additional skills to home managers and senior staff. A key factor in the success and effectiveness of residential care services is the quality of leadership and management as identified in the Ofsted report “Outstanding Children’s Homes”. Yet there is very little advanced training available for those working at this level, so this course offers a rare opportunity for experienced workers to add to their learning.
The course addresses the issues head on: it aims to provide opportunities for learning at both a professional and personal level about the skills and understanding needed to be an effective leader of a residential care team. It draws on psychodynamic and systemic ideas and includes personal reflection and development as a key part of the learning. An outline of the programme is provided below but our aim would be to deliver this in partnership with care providers to ensure it meets the sector's needs. We are currently piloting it with one residential care organisation and would welcome discussions with others about future delivery of the course. Please contact Stuart Hannah, LAC Lead for NSCAP on 0113 305 8750 or by email at stuart.hannah1@nhs.net
Overall, a really good series of seminars
Course Outline
The course focuses on observational skills, the use of reflective practice and supervisory techniques, and relevant theory and practice. The design draws on our recent experience of running focus groups aimed at developing relevant training to improve the specialist skills of staff and managers working in residential settings in the north of England.
Our approach to effective practice is that staff working with looked-after children need support to develop good observation and analytical skills and to be able to understand the nature of the relationships between themselves, children and others. This ensures that safe and evidence-based judgements about the best course of action are taken.
Training, supervision, and a commitment to reflect upon complex relationships are critical in developing the emotional resilience necessary to manage the challenges staff face in working with potentially disturbed and disturbing children and young people.
Course Content
The key programme elements identified to address the development needs of leaders and managers in residential care include the following themes:
- Becoming a leader
- Definitions and theories of leadership
- Primary task
- Below the surface: unconscious dynamics
- Containment and holding
- Boundaries and roles
- Working in the everyday: The leader and the team
- The context of values: power, prejudice & dependency.
- The leader as a person
- Methods of teaching and learning
The course will be designed and run by NSCAP clinical staff with extensive experience of working with children and young people in a range of settings including residential social care. It utilises aspects of a programme developed by Adrian Ward who previously led the MA in Therapeutic Child Care at the University of Reading and now works at the Tavistock Clinic.
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