Abstract
When I was growing up in the Black Country in the 1950s, there was a weekend exodus of men to go fishing on the River Severn. Holt Fleet was the centre of their activity and for many years I imagined this to be a sylvan glade. Unfortunately, my childhood dream was quickly shattered when I eventually managed to get there some years later.
Every weekend, it seemed that an angler fell into the river and drowned – some had a heart attack, some dozed off and slipped off their chair, some overheated after excessive drinking and jumped in to cool off, only to be paralysed by cramp. The local paper carried regular reports of inquests on these incidents and the coroner’s warning was the same every time: the gently flowing water might look inviting but underneath the surface lie dangerous whirlpools and undercurrents – not quite the idyllic image of the river portrayed in Milton’s Comus: ‘There is a gentle nymph not far from hence/That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream.’
The same mixture of superficial charm and deadly undercurrent seems to arise every time welfare issues come up for discussion. On the surface there is a lot of caring-sharing language and an abundance of seraphic smiles but dig a little deeper and prejudice and stereotypes emerge from the murky depths.
This is a common feature of social interaction: when wishing to put someone or a whole group of people down, we pick on a feature of their background or personal characteristics. Even social workers and carers find it difficult to restrain from fixing pejorative labels onto children and families who spurn their offers of help. And sadly we know from history how whole masses can be persuaded to hate others, even to the point of seeking extermination.
Looked after children are no exception to these dynamics. There is a natural sympathy in British culture for deprived children (though perhaps not as much as for defenceless animals) but this can soon fade with age and recalcitrance; as the social reformer Lord Longford said, ‘The sad thing about juvenile delinquents is that they are not very nice.’
To protect us from the personal whims of others, we have laws and charters that enshrine fundamental principles and rights. They insert structure and control into what otherwise would be social chaos. But these principles are not monoliths brought down from Mount Sinai; they have been debated and fought over for centuries.
This edition contains an article by Roy Parker who died in January and with whom I was privileged to work. He had a deep interest in the relationship between principles and practice, motivated by the facts that his mother had lived in the workhouse as a child 1 and that he was brought up with a foster sister. Before entering academic life, he was a child care officer and residential worker (he held the now historic Home Office Letter of Recognition in Child Care) and was chair of BAAF (now CoramBAAF) for six years. He was also a brilliant scholar, deeply committed to understanding the forces that shape social policy.
In this article, he looks at the factors influencing perceptions and definitions of severe disadvantage and how these have changed. Many looked after children meet this criterion and are affected by the thinking of the time. For many years, most of them were cared for under the Poor Law which took over welfare functions from the dissolved religious institutions in the mid-16th century and operated in a recognisable form until 1948.
Two moral issues dogged the system for those 400 years, namely: should welfare recipients be allowed to be better off than those not receiving help (called the less-eligibility principle), and should agencies bear the costs of cases they inherit from elsewhere (e.g. by geographical movement or referral from another service)?
These questions were certainly dominant in child care 50 years ago. I recall a children’s committee divided over whether a young girl with severe myopia should be made to wear wire-framed, ear-cutting NHS glasses, which were free, or be allowed more cosmetically attractive horned-rimmed ones that cost money. I also remember a children’s officer’s efforts to make her residential establishments more homely by providing bowls of fruit being met by these words from an elected member: ‘Why are we wasting money giving fruit to children like that?’
Hopefully, in the UK, these issues no longer apply to looked after children. The Children Act 1989 allows social workers to do whatever necessary to promote their welfare irrespective of the cost, as is the case for us all in health care. But they are raised daily in debates about how we should treat other disadvantaged groups, such as asylum seekers, the unemployed, irresponsible parents and the homeless, some of whom will have children in care. So the worry is that no matter how benign the superficial talk, hostile attitudes may be bubbling below the surface, ready to erupt at any time. Sentimentality about specific cases often sits on a bed of wider intolerance.
People training for intensive work with others, such as priests and psychotherapists, have personal counsellors to check how their feelings are affecting their performance. In addition, emotional as well as practical support is now recognised as essential for the well-being of social workers and carers. Roy’s article suggests that there is also a need for a regular social audit to ensure that policy and practice are not straying from the fundamental principles that have been so hard won.