Listen to thisOccasionally, amidst some of the frustration I can feel day to day, observing developments in Child and Youth Care in Scotland, I get consumed with an enthusiasm and a conviction, however transient, that things might just take a turn for the better. Now is one such moment. I have just attended a seminar Researching Practice, Practising Research, organised by Kibble Education and Care Centre, in Paisley, just outside Glasgow. The seminar contravened just about everything we know about pacing the dissemination of information, by seeking to outline or launch seven different research or training initiatives in the course of a morning. But it worked and each of the hundred or so delegates must have left with a similar sense of optimism as I did. Leon Fulcher, who I suspect may soon be writing one of his postcards from these parts, demonstrated his 'Images of Practice' CD ROM. Colleagues from Ireland launched a new Lifespace Intervention video, drawing upon the classic Redl and Wineman material but customising it to a European context “Dublin accents and all.
Amidst all of this high quality training material I want to draw attention to one of the lower tech, less polished items to be launched, Ready Steady Care – A Recipe Book for Residential Youth Care. In so doing I have to declare an interest as I was involved, over a number of pints, with Bob Forrest, a long term Child and Youth Care worker and manager, in collating and editing the pack.
The idea of the Recipe Book comes from a television programme here, Ready Steady Cook, where celebrity chefs are provided with a mix of ingredients and expected to produce a wholesome and creative meal from them. There seemed to be parallels to Child and Youth Care, hence the title. The material in the Recipe Book was drawn primarily from contributions to an international symposium, 'Rhythms and Routines' held in Scotland last year. The symposium was organised under the banner of Euroarc, a Child and Youth Care organisation comprising practice and academic interests from four European countries “Ireland, Spain, Finland and Scotland. From its inception, Euroarc has sought to place practice experience at the heart of its research activity.
The theme of the symposium, 'Rhythms and Routines', was chosen to reflect the everyday ebb and flow of residential life. Within this, four sub-themes were identified and each of the partner countries developed one of these to present a brief introduction to the subject area. The themes chosen were:
Care to listen
Making the milieu work
Professional closeness
What works?
The practice experience of contributors around these themes, spoken about, shared and reflected upon in small work groups was the bedrock of the symposium. It had been intended from the outset that we would post the deliberations of the different groups on the Euroarc website (www.euroarc.net). However, as the quality of the discussion and the ideas generated became apparent, we decided to draw these together in a form that practitioners might use in their own workplaces. That ordering of the material, augmented by quotes and ideas borrowed from the Child and Youth Care tradition, resulted in 'Ready Steady Care'. The idea of the Recipe Book is not to provide a step by step approach to perfect residential youth care every time “we all know its not that easy! Rather, as good cooks use recipes as a basis for creative ideas, the cards contained in the pages give an outline of the kinds of ingredients required for effective youth care within the areas they cover. How these ingredients are blended will depend on the cultural and policy contexts of different workplaces. The Recipe Book is intentionally challenging, and at times contradictory. In this, it reflects Child and Youth Care. The idea is that it should introduce some key ideas and current themes in Child and Youth Care in a light-hearted and readily accessible form and in such a way as to generate some interest and debate amongst practitioners.
At a wider level, the way in which we make training and educational material available to Child and Youth Care practitioners featured in a number of our discussions in the run-up to this week's seminar. We really do need to find ways of delivering training and educational experiences which reflect and make sense of practice experience. Likewise, we need to begin to consider research methodologies which move beyond our current fixation with outcomes and begin to capture what really goes on when groups of youth and staff are thrown together in the intense environment of residential care. I've come away from this week feeling that we've at least started to raise some of these questions.
Finally, don't let anyone tell you that there's no such thing as a free meal. Go to the Recipe Book (you can find it on the Euroarc website www.euroarc.net from early October). Print it off. Leave it lying about your staff room. Enjoy! And let us know what you think of it.
