A new Ofsted report about outstanding work in children's homes

A new Ofsted report published on March 2nd, 2011, Outstanding Children's Homes analyses the high quality of residential child care provided by 12 English children's homes. It can be downloaded at http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Publications-and-research/Browse-all-by/Documents-by-type/Thematic-reports/Outstanding-children-s-homes

This item was first posted in June, 2011, on  the home page of the goodenoughcaring website at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/Home.aspx?cpid=1

International Seminar on the History of Child Care

Child Care:Learning from History

An International Seminar on the History of Child Care will be hosted by Scotland's New Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children and the Child Care History Network (CCHN) on Monday, 7th November, 2011 at Jury's Inn, Glasgow.

The aim of this international seminar is to consider issues concerning the history of child care, in particular focusing on lessons which have been learnt which can affect current and future practice.The seminar will be based partly on the experience of the host country, Scotland,while speakers and participants from other countries will also be involved. It will cover statutory, voluntary and private child care services, and both personal and organisational histories.

The seminar will present an exciting and varied range of speakers.

The content of the seminar will be of relevance to managers of child care services and practitioners, as well as regulators, academics and researchers. There will be additional activities before and after the Seminar, including the opportunity for study visits to local projects on Tuesday 8th November.

Confirmed Speakers,in programme order, include:

Professor David Divine (England): Formerly James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies, Dalhousie University, Canada, 2004 - 2009, currently undertaking furtherpostgraduate study at Durham University.

Keith White (England): Director of Mill Grove Residential Community in East London.

Mark Smith (Scotland): Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Edinburgh and formerly lecturer at the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care.

Moyra Hawthorn (Scotland): Lecturer at the New Centre.

Zachari Duncalf (Scotland): Research Fellow at the New Centre. Angela Davis (England): British Academy funded post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of History at the University of Warwick.

Beno Schraepen (Belgium): Graduate of the University of Ghent and founder of INCENA (the study centre for inclusion and enablement) in partnership with the University of Antwerp.

Delyth Edwards (Northern Ireland): Completing a PhD at the School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work, Queens University Belfast.

Christine Oliver (England): Senior Research Officer at the Thomas Coram Research Unit.

Renuka Jeyarajah-Dent (England): Director of Operations / Deputy CEO at Coram, the UK’s oldest children’s charity.

Ian Milligan (Scotland): Senior Lecturer at the New Centre.

Ann Kirson Swersky (United States): Independent scholar. Her current research was carried out on the records of the Monson State Primary School in the Massachusetts State Archives.

Shurlee Swain (Australia): Professor at the School of Arts and Sciences at the Australian Catholic University in Victoria.

Sue Owen (England): Director of the Well-being Department at the National Children’s Bureau and formerly Director of National Children’s Bureau’s Early Childhood Unit.

Kristian Bredby (Norway): Director of the Sanitetsforening Brusetkollen in Oslo.

Jim Goddard (England): Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Bradford and Secretary of the Care Leavers’ Association.

For further information :

General enquiries should be made to the Office for the New Centre:

Tel:             0141 950 3683

Email: "sirccevents@strath.ac.uk"

"www.sircc.org.uk/CCHN"

"www.thenewcentre.org.uk"

"www.cchn.org.uk"

This news item first appeared on the home page of the goodenoughcaring website at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ on September 11th 2011.

A new link : Serefo

Regular visitors to our home page may notice that we have a recent addition to our list of useful links. This is the website of Serefo. The full name of Serefo is the Separation and Reunion Forum and it was established in 1999 following a meeting between Dr. Elaine Arnold and a small group of women of African Caribbean origin. They had been interviewed about their separation from their parents during their early years and their subsequent reunion with them. The women recalled experiences of the pain of parental loss, as well as the loving care received from their grandmothers and other members of the extended families. They remembered the confusion they felt when on arriving in a strange new country, they were reunited with parents who were strangers to them and introduced to younger siblings who had been born in the UK.  They also discussed some of the difficulties they encountered at home, at school, and in the wider community; a familiar experience to many born and left with surrogate parents during their formative years.

The forum has evolved from these initial meetings and now organises, workshops, conferences and publishes papers online which have been presented at its annual conferences. Initially, the Separation and Reunion Forum worked mainly with people of African Caribbean origin who experienced broken attachment as a result of separation and loss but it soon became apparent the women's reactions to their experiences, the grieving and the mourning of loss are relevant to human beings regardless of ethnicity and so the Forum's aims are now inclusive of all who have suffered loss. Find out more about Serefo at www.serefo.org.uk/  

This item was first posted on 26th July, 2011, on  the home page of the goodenoughcaring website at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/Home.aspx?cpid=1

Workshop Series for Professionals Working With Looked After and Adopted Children and Their Families

  
Date:               May - July 2011        
Fee:                 £95 per workshop (£245 for all 3)
Venue:            The Tavistock Centre, London
The Tavistock and Portman National Health Trust have written to us about their forthcoming series of workshops. These will provide an opportunity to develop a greater understanding of the effect of life experiences on the behaviours of looked after and adopted children and those in kinship care and would be suitable for professionals working in social services, education, health or other settings, including those who support or assess carers as well as those who work directly with the children.
The Workshops are:
Supporting Kinship Placements: How can professionals meet the needs of children in kinship care and their carers? on Thursday 12 May 2011, 9.30pm - 1.00pm
Managing Behaviour for Looked After and Adopted Children  on Thursday 9 June 2011, 9.30 - 1.00pm
Who Cares? Applying Attachment Theory to Looked After Children  on Friday 8 July 2011, 1.30pm - 5.00pm
For further information about the full programme and application form contact :
 The Conference, Events and Marketing Unit, The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust
120 Belsize Lane, London      NW3 5BA
Telephone : 0208 938 2285
events@tavi-port.ac.uk
www.tavistockandportman.ac.uk/cpd51

This announcement first appeared on the goodenoughcaring website home page in May, 2011

The Care Leavers' Assocation : upcoming network meetings

The Care Leavers' Assocation : upcoming network meetings

The Care Leavers' Assocation is a network of care leavers run by care leavers for care leavers. If you have experienced a childhood in care this is an opportunity to be part of a groundbreaking network which offers opportunities to socialise, to meet other care leavers, to share experiences and to get involved with care leavers' issue in meetings that are for care leavers only.
To find out more about CLA  contact Darren Coyne at darren.coyne@careleavers.com or 'phone him on 0161 236 1980/0790 4485921

The Care leavers' Assocation is a charity supported by the Lloyds TSB Foundation.

Upcoming network meetings

South East Network Meeting, London, Thursday 23rd June, 2011 at Somers Town Community Association,
150 Ossulston Street, London NW1 1 EE  http://www.somerstown.org.uk/about.shtml
The time of the meeting will be from 6.30 pm to 9.30pm and refreshments will be provided between 6.30pm and 7.00pm.

South East Network Meeting, Brighton, Sussex, Wednesday 22nd June,2011 at Brighthelm Church and Community Centre, North Road, Brighton BN1 1YD    See the website at http://www.brighthelm.org.uk/ for a map. The time of the meeting will be from 6.30pm to 9.30pm. Refreshments will be provided between 6.30pm and 7pm, with the meeting proper starting at 7pm finishing just before 9.30pm.

Yorkshire & Humber Network Meeting, Leeds ,Monday 27th June,2011, at Central Leeds Friends Meeting House,188 Woodhouse Lane, Leeds LS2 9DX  See the website at http://www.leedsquakers.org.uk/meetings/central%20leeds The time of the meeting will be from 7pm to 9.30pm. Refreshments will be provided between 7pm and 7.30pm, with the meeting proper starting at 7.30pm finishing just before 9.30.

North West Network Meeting, Manchester, Thursday, 30th June, 2011, at the Mancheter Metropolitan University in Room E201, Second floor, John Dalton Building, which is on the Oxford Road opposite the BBC. The post code is M1 5GD For a map go to
http://www.mmu.ac.uk/ The time of the meeting will be from 6pm to 9pm.
Refreshments will be provided between 6pm and 6.30pm

All the meetings are for care leavers only.

Darren will also be getting his tent out and travelling the South West this summer in the week beginning 1st August 2011, working his way from Truro to Bristol. He will be in Truro on  1st August, in Plymouth on 2nd August, in Exeter on 3rd August, in Taunton on 4th August and Bristol  on 5th August. Further details will be up on the CLA website over the coming weeks at http://www.careleavers.com
If you require assistance to attend any of  these meetings please contact Darren.
Contact Darren Coyne at darren.coyne@careleavers.com or 'phone him on 0161 236 1980/0790 4485921

This item first appeared on the goodenoughcaring home page at  http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/                            on June 21st, 2011

Separation and Reunion Forum Seminar 25th June, 2011 : "The Challenge of Caring for Looked After Children"

On Saturday, 25th June the Separation and Reunion Forum are holding a seminar with the theme The Challenge of Caring for Looked After Children  at the Methodist International Centre, 81-103 Euston Street, London NW1 2EZ. The seminar is from 11am to 2pm. The AGM of the Separation and Reunion Forum will take place in the same venue between 10.00am and 11.00am prior to the seminar.

The seminar speakers are Phil Frampton, Robert Tapsfield, Andrew Carter and Jean Stogdon.

The Methodist International Centre is 5 minutes walk from Euston Station, 8 minutes from Euston Square, 12 mins from Kings Cross and is on the following bus routes from Victoria,74, and from Waterloo, 168, 68 and 59.

For more information about the seminar go to http://www.raffa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/agm___seminar_25_june_2011_2.pdf

This news item first appeared on the goodenoughcaring home page at www.goodenoughcaring.com   on June 21st, 2011.

The launch of Social Care Ireland

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The launching of Social Care Ireland takes place at 11.30 am on June 20th, 2011 at Buswells Hotel, Dublin.
The minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Ms Frances Fitzgerald will officially inaugurate the new organisation which is made up of three social care representative bodies, the Irish Association of Social Care Workers,the Irish Association of Social Care Educators and the Registered Managers' Association.
The aims of the new organisation are

• to provide a consistent and cohesive voice both privately and publicly to key issues relevant to social care work and education;

• to help bring elements of social care education, training and practice closer together to aid consultation for outside agencies on the development of the social care profession;

• to follow some of the successes of other professions in providing a common voice for different branches of the same discipline.

Further information about Social Care Ireland and this event can be found at http://socialcareireland.ie/ or by telephone at +353-1-894 2765
This news item first appeared on June &th, 2011 on the home page of  the goodenoughcaring website at  http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/Home.aspx?cpid=1