Monday, 25 May 2015

Shipping News : Issue 17 of the goodenoughcaring Journal draws ever closer

The forthcoming issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal may just still be over the horizon but our trusty ship-to-ship semaphore relays to us that our craft is approaching shore steadily with a prospective mooring date of  July 1st, 2015.
The principal cargo of this voyage will be provided by the Mulberry Bush School and by others, like Siobain Degregorio, who have had connections with it. The hold will also contain goods from Maurice Fenton, Michael J. Marlowe, John Molloy, John Stein, Bethlehem Taylor, Charles Sharpe and others. Watch this page for further news.

Thursday, 14 May 2015

SIRCC National Conference, Glasgow : Steps to Success: Supporting quality transitions through and beyond residential child care

The Scottish Institute of Residential Child Care is holding its 2015 national conference on June 9th and 10th at the Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow. The theme of the conference is Steps to Success: Supporting quality transitions through and beyond residential child care. This seems timely given that in January 2015 the Scottish Government in announced increased rights and support for young people leaving care.
It is intended that the conference will take delegates through the challenges of transitions for looked after children and young people.
Explore the range of workshops here
Find out about the speakers
Book a place online



Thursday, 9 April 2015

The Child Care History Network Conference, July 3rd, 2015 – Children’s Homes: Learning from the Past to Make Things Better for the Future


 The Child Care History Network has announced its forthcoming conference Children’s homes: learning from the past to make things better for the future.
The conference will take place on Friday, July 3rd, 2015, from 9.30 am to 5.00pm  at Hinsley Hall, 62 Headingley Lane, Leeds LS6 2BX
Confirmed speakers and participants in a day designed for sharing experience and discussion are:
Dame Gillian Wagner, who will welcome delegates to the conference, David Lane; John Burton; Dr. Keith White; Five Rivers Child Care; The North Yorkshire team from the No Wrong Door Project; Dove Care Services; NSCAP; Dr. Mark Kerr, University of Kent; Jonathan Stanley; and more, to be confirmed.
Conference fees: £60 CCHN members / £80 non-members
This includes coffee on arrival, morning coffee and biscuits, a two course buffet lunch, with vegetarian options and afternoon tea and cakes.
To secure a place:
Please send a cheque made payable to CCHN with the accompanying form (download the form here) to:
Joan Vickers c/o  P.E.T.T., Barns Centre, Church Lane, Toddington, Nr. Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL4 5DQ
Or, to pay securely online, please select one of the options in the drop-down menu below. If you would like to join CCHN first, to take advantage of the lower fee on this and future events, please GO HERE.
This news item first appeared on the goodenoughcaring.com home page on April, 9th, 2015

Tuesday, 31 March 2015

No. 17 of the goodenoughcaring Journal – The Mulberry Bush Issue – goes online on July 1st, 2015.

On July 1st , 2015,   Issue 17 of the goodenoughcaring Journal will be published online. The core theme of our next issue is the work of the Mulberry Bush Organisation.
Founded as the Mulberry Bush School in 1948 by the child psychotherapist, Barbara Dockar-Drysdale, with support of the paediatrician and psychoanalyst, D.W. Winnicott, the Mulberry Bush has, throughout its history, offered therapeutic care, support and education to children. In recent decades the Mulberry Bush has diversified its services and provides therapeutic care and support to smaller groups and it has also developed as a centre for professional training in therapeutic care and education. The essays and articles about the Mulberry Bush will be written by people working there and by people who are or have been associated with it.
Other articles about childhood and child care matters will appear in this issue, as well as reviews of recent publications.


Further details about this Issue 17 will appear on this page during the coming weeks.



This item first appeared on the www.goodenoughcaring.com home page on March 31st, 2015

Tuesday, 6 January 2015

Research request about ‘negative mothering’



Michelle Linger, the Director of St Michael’s Child and Youth Centre, in Plumstead, Cape Town, South Africa, has sent us the following request. 
I was just enquiring if anybody has done any extensive research on the impact of either the complete lack of mothering on young girls or “negative mothering” on young girls. I am the director of a facility for young girls aged 13yrs to 18yrs and before this appointment spent many years in the field of child and youth care and have noticed the impact that mothers have on their daughters.This said I am concerned that we are perhaps not doing enough with regards to this issue to safeguard young girls who grow up in care and are therefore never really mothered correctly and I have come to the conclusion that you cannot mother yourself or anybody else that you might bring into this world if you haven’t been mothered yourself.
Michelle can be contacted at director@stmikesct.org.za
This news item was first published on the goodenoughcaring.com home page on January 6th, 2015.

Tuesday, 23 December 2014

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/

Tuesday, 16 December 2014

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.

9781137347008

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