More about the Issue 16 of the goodenoughcaring Journal now published online

John Stein launches Issue 16  of the goodenoughcaring Journal with his editorial about the significance of relationships for children as they grow up. Supporting John in the ensuing articles, Lorea Boneke, writes about children and young people in care whose important relationships and placements break down.  John Burton provides a cornucopia of rich notes from his work as a consultant to children's homes, Cynthia Cross helps us explore the rewards of acceptance in a recollection of her relationship with a young man who was in residential care,   Evelyn Daniel talks about the failures of relationships at all levels in the care system and considers how this might be put right,  John Diamond presents, in the shadow of recent events in Palestine, the text of a talk he gave in Jerusalem in 2008 about the therapeutic work of the Mulberry Bush School,  Maurice Fenton writes about unity in relationship,  Iain Macleod reflects on his journey through the Scottish care system as he gathered  an identity through relationships with significant others,  Jeremy Millar offers reflections inspired by reading  Borstal Lives, a novel by "Louis Edward,"   Charles Sharpe reviews Social Care Learning from Practice edited by Noel Howard and Denise Lyons,  Mark Smith considers the nature of relationships through the lens of social pedagogy,  John Stein recalls important relationships in his life other than those with his parents, the late Ian D. Suttie, in an extract from his 1935 book, The Origins of Love and Hate,  argues that an unnecessary "taboo on tenderness" exists in many human relationships  and.  in a short vignette depicting a scene from a Pupil Referral Unit where she taught,  Christina Williamson raises questions about the relationships between students and teachers and  asks readers to provide the answers.

Read the goodenoughcaring Journal at 

http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/the-journal/

Inequality, Poverty, Education A Political Economy of School Exclusion

Palsgrave Macmillan has sent us details of  Inequality, Poverty, Education A Political Economy of School Exclusion  by Francesca Ashurst and Couze Venn which was published earlier this year.

The authors develop a political economy and a genealogy of school exclusion in order to reveal exclusion to be a symptom of more fundamental issues relating to poverty and inequality, reflected in the role of the state in managing their consequences, particularly regarding juvenile delinquency. Using  archival and documentary evidence they uncover the roots of exclusionary practices in political and economic struggles going back to the 19th century. These conflicts, the authors claim, have had decisive effects on key shifts in social and educational policy from the Poor Law Reforms of 1834 to the emergence of the welfare state and the current neoliberal reconstitution of society according to the model of the market. In arguing that competing views of an equitable and just society underlie exclusion, the authors believe their analysis opens up a space for envisaging radical new approaches and practices for dealing with children in trouble.

Francesca Ashurst is an Honorary Research Fellow at Cardiff University, Wales

Couze Venn is Visiting Professor, Goldsmiths, University of London and Associate Research Fellow at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

This book will be reviewed in the June  2015 issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal.

This news item first appeared on the home page of the goodenoughcaring.com website on December 15th, 2014

Issue 16 of the goodenoughcaring Journal will be online on December 15th

Issue 16 of the  goodenoughcaring Journal will be online on Monday, December 15th at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/the-journal The principal theme of the new issue is the significance relationships have for children as they grow up.

John Stein has composed the Editorial for this issue. The authors providing us with their knowledge, experiences, questions and insights in this issue are Lorea Boneke,  John Burton, Cynthia Cross,  Evelyn Daniel, John Diamond, Maurice Fenton, Iain Macleod, Jeremy Millar, Charles Sharpe,  Mark Smith, John Stein with an additional article,  Ian D. Suttie, and Christina Williamson.


This news item first appeared on December 12th, 2014 on the goodenoughcaring.com website home page at http;//www.goodenoughcaring.com 

New book : Leading Good Care: the task, heart and art of managing social care by John Burton

Jessica Kingsley Publishers have given us prior notice of John Burton’s forthcoming book Leading Good Care: the task, heart and art of managing social care due to be published on February 15th, 2015. John is a regular contributor of articles to the goodenoughcaring  Journal. This book will be reviewed in the June 2015 issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal.

Comments from readers who have previewed the book include :

‘This book wants reading for several reasons. It is a book from the heart and highly readable. It identifies straightforwardly, matter-of-factly and scathingly the mindless, blinkered and harmful bureaucracy which has infected and distorted the social and health care system. Yet, in the face of these identified evils, it cleaves to optimism and independence of thought throughout and a determination that things can, and must, change. It discusses systems and ideas, but is written by an author with a detailed practical knowledge of care and who uses, throughout the book, care settings to illustrate in depth the issues as played out in the real world. Above all, this book challenges managers to break out of the vicious circle within which they can all too easily become enmired and ultimately, to lead good care.’ 

Michael Mandelstam, author of How We Treat the Sick: Neglect and Abuse in our Health Services

‘If you want to step up to leadership, and to lead good care, this book will help you do just that. It’s borne of long experience and a passionate belief in the difference good leadership can make. So if you want to transform people’s lives, start here.

From the foreword by Debbie Sorkin, National Director of Systems Leadership, the Leadership Centre

‘Leaving bureaucracy and compliance in its wake, John Burton takes the book’s reader on a journey to leadership both as a role and as an aspiration… With sobering references to the health and social care scandals of Cornwall, Staffordshire and Winterbourne View, and more recently the Savile debacle, John exposes the myth that managers were principally to blame by showing how there are wider systemic failings that leave most managers believing that they are powerless to take a stand and simply doing as they are told… With compassion entering the social care vocabulary again, John’s book is a timely inspiration for managers to return to humanity and core tasks with confidence and to lead their services to real and meaningful excellence.’ 

Philip Nightingale, Registered Social Care Manager

For more details about the John Burton’s new book go to http://www.jkp.com/uk/leading-good-care.html

This news item first appeared on December 3rd, 2014 on the goodenoughcaring.com homepage   at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com