‘Just another person in the room’: young people’s views on their participation in Child in Care Reviews

Abstract

This article discusses a key meeting for children in care – the Child in Care Review – and examines the extent to which children and young people are able to participate and exert a level of control over their lives. The research, conducted in England, formed part of a wider exploration of the views and experiences of all those involved in such reviews, namely Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs), social workers, senior managers and – the focus of this article – the young people concerned. Most of the children interviewed said that they found their reviews frustrating and stressful, often attributing this to poor relationships with social workers and scepticism about the value of the review process. However, they recognised the workload pressures facing social workers and the bureaucratic constraints affecting the service they received. The article argues for the continuing importance of the IRO role, given the consistency it provides for children in care. It also shows that while it provides an opportunity for children’s participation in discussions about their future, the Child in Care Review is underperforming. The developing practice of children chairing their own reviews offers one way forward and the article calls for this to be developed and for other creative methods to be introduced to enable young people to play a meaningful part in meetings that affect them.

Keywords

Looked after children children in care user participation children’s rights Child in Care Reviews

Introduction

When considering the importance of participation for looked after children, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989) provides a helpful starting point. Children's rights under the Convention include being heard and having their views considered in all decisions concerning them (UNCRC, 1989). Alongside this, social workers in the UK are bound by a code of ethics (British Association of Social Workers [BASW], 2015) emphasising the importance of anti-oppressive practice. This code requires social workers to respect service users’ autonomy, promote self-determination and facilitate participation. This is recognised as most pertinent for children in care, for whom the ability to communicate needs, wishes and feelings effectively is particularly important (Thomas and O’Kane, 1999).

International legislative frameworks demonstrate a shift from viewing children as objects of concern to acknowledging them as citizens with human rights (Cashmore, 2002). The legal stance for participation also reflects a moral one. It is not only an end in itself but also a process which, if effective, can be beneficial to the recipient (Malone and Hartung, 2010). Participation can be seen as a protective factor for vulnerable children, leading to increased levels of confidence, self-efficiency and self-worth (Dickens, et al., 2015). Conversely, mismanagement of the process can prove distressing or even harmful (Cossar, Brandon and Jordan, 2011). If we are to ensure that children authentically participate in decisions, it is essential that we are clear as to how this can be achieved.

A common model in framing discussions about child involvement is Hart’s (1992) ‘Ladder of Participation’. Frequently used as a tool to evaluate participatory processes, it provides a description of various ‘levels’ of participation, ranging from manipulation to partnership working. The ladder makes the distinction between tokenism or non-participation and ‘partnership’ in which children have an equal voice to adults (Bessell and Gal, 2009). While Hart never intended it to be the dominant model, it has been criticised for its one-dimensional structure (Hart, 2008). Alternatives have been proposed by Treseder (1997), Shier (2001), Thomas (2000) and others. More recently, Lundy (2007) has suggested a four-part framing of participation as ‘space’, ‘voice’, ‘audience’ and ‘influence’, which provides a more nuanced way of thinking about the processes of participation; others have drawn attention to the importance of dialogue and understanding the spaces in which that can take place (Fitzgerald, et al., 2010).

The aim of a Child in Care Review is to ensure that the child’s welfare is promoted for the period that they are in care (Department for Education, 2015). Key decisions about their future and changes to their care plan are made at these meetings. The child’s participation in this process is therefore crucial. Although there have been improvements in young people’s involvement, the key issue remains as to ‘whether adults are genuinely attentive and responsive to young people’s perspectives, and aware of the plurality and polyphony of their voices’ (Hartas and Lindsay, 2011: 131). The lack of participation by children in their reviews has long been noted, including the absence of preparation and of choice in how and when reviews are held (Grimshaw and Sinclair, 1997; Munro, 2001; Thomas and O’Kane, 1999). Research has repeatedly found that young people are disillusioned with the review process and feel that their views are not heard (see Thomas, 2015). Munro found that ‘most [children] report that the purpose of the meeting is to talk about, rather than to, them’ (2001: 9) and called for reconsideration as to whether the review meeting itself was an appropriate vehicle to promote participation.

The barriers to children participating meaningfully in their reviews include repeated changes of social workers (Pert, Diaz and Thomas, 2014). In England the high turnover of child and family social workers is accepted to be a significant problem for children, especially for those looked after for long periods (Bowyer and Roe, 2015). This issue is compounded by organisational structures within local authorities, which mean that children often have different social workers from different teams as they move through the care system. It is reasonable to expect that this instability will affect the quality of the relationship young people have with their social workers and so influence their involvement in the review process.

The review and the role of the Independent Reviewing Officer

Since 2004, local authorities in England have been required to appoint Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs) to protect children’s interests through the care planning process. This arose following ‘concerns that looked after children could “drift”, with care plans that either did not meet their needs or were not implemented’ (Jelicic, et al., 2013: 7).

The IRO Handbook (Department for Education and Skills, 2010: 11) outlines two distinct aspects of the IRO’s role:

chairing the child’s review; and

monitoring the child’s case on an ongoing basis.

Reviews take place one month after a child enters care or changes placement; then at three months and every six months thereafter. Under Regulation 36 of the IRO Handbook, the IRO is expected to speak to the child in private before each review; part of the intention of this meeting is for the IRO to ‘work with the child to discuss how s/he is likely to be able to make the most meaningful contribution’ (Department for Education and Skills, 2010: 20).

IROs are theoretically independent of the local authority but in recent years there has been mounting ‘dismay’ at the lack of independence in some cases (Tickle, 2016). In a 2014 judgement, Mr Justice Holman said (cited in Tickle, 2016):

The whole point and purpose of the system and machinery of independent reviewing officers is precisely to keep the local authority (who are no doubt extraordinarily busy and overworked) on their toes and to be asking awkward questions.

This creates a tension, particularly as most IROs are employed by the local authority.

In England the debate about the usefulness and necessity of the IRO role has come further to the fore following the Government’s Fostering Stocktake report published in February 2018. One of its 36 recommendations is that local authorities should have the option to bypass the involvement of IROs and invest the financial savings in frontline services (Narey and Owers, 2018: 37):

The real issue is whether, rather than spending large amounts of money checking that children are being appropriately placed and cared for in the case system we should invest that money in more frontline and line management staff to make that happen…Our conclusion is that, despite the commendable commitment of some individuals, we saw little to recommend the IRO role.

This recommendation has been strongly criticised by BASW, the National Association of Independent Reviewing Officers (NAIRO) and the Children’s Commissioner (Stevenson, 2018). The Government’s response to the Narey and Owers (2018) report sets out that it ‘will work with organisations representing Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs) and local authorities to consider how the role of IRO can be put to best effect in the current system and under the existing legislation’ (Department for Education, 2018: 34). This suggests that for now, at least, the Government is not intending to give local authorities the power to dispense with the IRO contribution.

While the social worker also has a responsibility to ensure that children are prepared for their review, it is the IRO who involves them in the practical arrangements – such as the agenda, location and list of invitees. He or she is also there to scrutinise the local authority care plan and ensure that the child’s best interests are being served. As such, the IRO has a pivotal role to play in ensuring that the young people are able to participate in their review in a meaningful way. One favourable aspect that the role has brought to looked after children is stability; turnover of IROs is low (Beckett, et al., 2016; Dickens, et al., 2015). The same research found that IROs ‘were intervening in many cases to ensure that plans were made and implemented, and that children’s wishes were properly attended to’ (Beckett, et al., 2016: 155).

There has been little scrutiny of young people’s feelings about reviews and no published research into their experience of chairing their own, other than action research conducted in the 1990s by the Children’s Society in North-West England (Welsby, 1996). The largest study available is by Thomas and O’Kane (1999) but this was carried out prior to the introduction of the statutory IRO role, although some authorities were already instigating an element of independence into the process. The young people interviewed in this study said that they found the meetings ‘scary’ and ‘boring’. More recently, Pert and colleagues (2014) carried out a qualitative study to gain young people’s experiences of reviews and again the respondents were pretty negative about the meetings. It was noted, however, that where children and young people had a positive relationship with their IRO or social worker (more commonly the former), they were more engaged in the review process and found it to be more meaningful (see also Roesch-Marsh, Gillies and Green, 2016).

Jelicic and colleagues (2014) looked in depth at the IRO role in a large study covering four local authorities, but did not explicitly consider children’s participation in reviews. However, this research did provide insights regarding the importance of reviews being child centred. It charted children’s views of IROs and produced an overview of IRO practice in engaging children. Overall, the study suggested that children’s experiences of IROs varied greatly; some were very positive and others less so. The study concluded that the individual IRO was, in the words of the authors (Jelicic, La Valle and Hart, 2014: 39):

… fundamental to a child’s understanding of their role and their participation in the care review process. If the IROs listened to them without judging, meaningfully involved children in care planning, made sure their voice was heard above all the powerful voices of the professionals and, above all, made things happen, then children knew IROs were there to make a concrete and positive difference to their lives.

Consequently, part of the aim of this study is to ascertain whether young people in the local authority scrutinised thought that IROs ensured that their voices were heard above those of professionals.

The research

The research reported here formed part of a wider study into children’s participation in reviews for which 10 young people, 11 social workers, eight IROs and seven senior managers were interviewed. This article focuses on the interviews with the 10 young people, all aged between 11 and 17 and looked after by a large rural local authority in England. The local area exhibits a wide variety of socio-economic conditions, with substantial pockets of high social work intervention and numerous social work teams operating over the expansive area. Approval was granted from the Social Research Ethics Committee at Cardiff University.

Research participants were selected via purposive sampling. There are certain ethical issues relating to the fairness of this method, since only some children are given the opportunity to express their views (Hill, 2006). However, in this case it would have been unrealistic to interview all children in care in the local area. It was decided to focus on young people who had each attended at least one Child in Care Review and were between the ages of eight and 17 as this would capture the views of children at different stages of the care system. The sampling was constructed to be representative of the local population in terms of gender, ethnicity and sibling groups.

We used the agency database to identify 50 potential candidates. This sample represented around 10% of the local care population. We checked with their social workers that the young people were not in crisis and that it would be appropriate to interview them. We then sent them an information leaflet giving details of the research, time commitment, rationale and information pertaining to confidentiality. This included an option to opt out by email, telephone or letter. Those who agreed were then contacted by telephone to discuss whether they wished to participate and, if so, completed a consent form.

None of the children contacted immediately opted out and in follow-up telephone conversations, 12 agreed to take part. Two subsequently cancelled, leaving 10 children available for participation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at the young person’s foster placements or in departmental offices (participants were given a choice of location). Table 1 gives their age, gender and ethnic identification. All names have been changed.

Table 1.

Age, gender and ethnicity of the young people interviewed.

Pseudonym	Age	Gender	Ethnicity
Charmaine	15	Female	White UK
Chloe	16	Female	White UK
Emma	15	Female	White UK
George	17	Male	White UK
Jordan	15	Male	White UK
Josh	16	Male	White UK & Black Caribbean
Katy	17	Female	White UK
Kiera	17	Female	White UK
Mason	11	Male	White UK
Tyrone	15	Male	White UK

Findings

A thematic analysis of young people’s accounts generated three key themes: young people’s views of social workers; young people’s views of IROs; and young people’s perceptions of the review meetings. The following sections discuss these three themes in turn.

Young people’s views of social workers

All the young people recounted frequent changes of social worker. One described having had three since she had come into care nine months previously and some 20 in the course of her life. A few others could not give an exact figure as it was so high. They all said that this instability had the effect of reducing their ability to form meaningful relationships with individual workers, even though seven of the 10 interviewed were able to recall a close bond with a particular practitioner which, they said, helped them to build trust:

Researcher: Have you had any good social workers?

Katy: Um, one.

Researcher: OK.

Katy: At the time I think I said I hated her…but now that I’m older I realise that I didn’t actually. She kind of got me on a boundary level.

Irrespective of the number of social workers or IROs involved with a child, certain individuals stood out if they managed to develop a meaningful relationship with the young person by exercising positive attributes, such as listening skills (McLeod, 2006). Katy, for instance, acknowledged that she had been very challenging towards her social workers and struggled to build relationships with many of them; however, there was one exception ‒ one who had ‘gone the extra mile’:

I gave her so much abuse but she’d just sit there and tap her fingers on the table… She wouldn’t show… she wouldn’t flinch, she wouldn’t do anything… And I’ve learned from it now that actually her standing there doing nothing, not reacting, actually helped. I could be standing there frothing at the mouth, going mad and she just didn’t care… But the point is she cared enough not to react, if that makes sense… And because of that I do … I did quite like B; we got on after a while… I ended up sending her some flowers when I realised how nice she was [laughs].

Katy’s experience is testament to the powerful impact that a ‘good’ social worker can have on a young person. Furthermore, it demonstrates the importance of social workers having time to build up a meaningful relationship with the young people they are working with.

Some participants were much more critical. For example, Josh reported feeling ‘annoyed’ by social workers who ‘asked the same questions all the time‘, while Charmaine bemoaned her worker’s lack of action, which resulted in her not being able to stay at a friend’s house overnight during the summer holidays because her social worker hadn’t arranged for it to be police checked: ‘I hated her. She was terrible.’

All expressed frustration at having had social workers whom they considered ‘incompetent’ and who had failed to do what they promised. When the opposite situation occurred, the social worker in question stood out in the young person’s recollection, as described by Charmaine who recalls one particular individual who had gone ‘above and beyond’ to help her, against what appeared to be her better judgement:

… I loved her to bits. She was just on it all the time and just on the ball. I didn’t have to get on her case or anything. She just had everything done…

Even when she didn’t agree with what I wanted she’d still do it anyway even if she didn’t agree with it. So my first foster placement, it broke down just after I was 16 and I said to her I really didn’t wanna go to another one, I wanted to go to supported housing or something like that and she was like, 'No, no. I don’t want you to do it.’ She still took it to her manager anyway. She still fought my case as much as she could.

The notions of ‘getting things done’ and being heard were identified by most participants as being essential to forming trusting relationships with practitioners. But what is significant is that these skills and relationships had further consequences as they were seen as key to effective engagement and participation in Child in Care Reviews. This key finding of the study is illustrated by the words of Kiera:

[At the end of the meeting] I kind of felt, I won’t say relieved, I don’t know, it’s kind of like a burden was lifted because it was tense. When I was in the meeting it was like tensed up and stuff like that because obviously I didn’t build a relationship with my social worker. He was really bad, like he didn’t do anything… He’d say all this stuff and he barely ever saw me… When the meeting ended it was like ‘Well, thank God for that’ kind of thing, so yeah, I just wanted to get on with my night.

If you have a good relationship with your social worker it works a little bit more because it’s less of a meeting and more of a chat and it’s more of a like – it’s an actual discussion instead of point-to-point things… if your social worker doesn’t build a relationship with you it’s just another person in the room and that is – it’s uncomfortable and it’s awkward.

Young people’s views of IROs

All but one participant had been involved with the same IRO throughout their time in care and eight described this relationship as very positive. Tyrone highlighted this, in sharp contrast to his perceptions of the contribution of a procession of social workers:

I didn’t have a good relationship with any of my social workers up to that point. They always kept changing so I never really got to know them. So, the only person I could really speak to at that point was my IRO and my foster carer. So whenever we saw the IRO we would put everything on her to sort out.

This latter sentiment demonstrates the faith that the young people had in their IRO’s capacity to resolve their issues and the clear benefit that consistency can bring (Dickens, et al., 2015):

One thing I will say is an IRO is the one person who was consistently there from day one. I had her from day one of coming into care on my very first review, all the way through. (Katy)

Emma reiterates this point:

There was a time when like after the review… she was like, ‘Oh, can I come to your room and have a look?' So we did and we just sat there and chatted for a bit and it was nice but like informal… Yeah, so I’d say a little bit, a little bit of a relationship, yeah, coz she was bonkers and I liked that!

This encounter emphasises the balance and adaptability required of IROs and social workers – the ability to get down on a level with young people and relate to them as people, rather than solely as a professional to a client. Many participants positioned the IRO as a ‘voice of reason’ in their lives. Chloe went so far as to describe them as a ‘saviour’ because of their commitment towards her. Three participants reported that their IRO had helped change things for them in a positive way, though tellingly this tended to be through fairly basic actions, such as ensuring that dental or medical appointments took place; the IROs were reportedly much less effective at resolving more complex issues such as contact with birth family.

One limit that emerged in the relationship between the young people and their IRO was the lack of contact: all participants recalled only seeing their IRO at the review meeting or for a brief catch-up directly beforehand, meaning that unless they moved placement and required an extra review, they would only see their IRO twice a year. This raised questions as to how effective the ongoing monitoring of a child’s case can be without contact between reviews. It is noted in the IRO Handbook that a formal pre-meeting may not always be necessary and in such cases the IRO could ‘simply make phone contact’ to establish the child’s wishes about the upcoming review (Department for Education and Skills, 2010: 20), the implication being that this would be the exception rather than the rule. All 10 young people confirmed that they never met their IRO between review meetings. To quote Emma:

She was really nice. It’s just a shame because I would have liked to see her outside my reviews and stuff to have a catch-up or a chat because she was really down to earth, but I never had a proper like meet with her before the review… I saw that [attending the review meeting] was her job and I genuinely thought that the only reason she was there was to be in the meeting.

The concept of the IRO providing oversight of Emma’s progress and enabling her to provide her views on the care plan (as set out in the IRO Handbook) was clearly not Emma’s experience. This accords with the research of Pert and colleagues (2014) in which young people expressed a positive view of their IROs despite misunderstanding their role.

Numerous studies (Barnes, 2012; Bell, 2002; McLeod, 2006; Munro, 2001; Pert, Diaz and Thomas, 2014) have concluded that a positive relationship between the young person and his or her social worker and/or the IRO will play a key role in improving young people’s participation in decision-making meetings. Similarly, for Roesch-Marsh and colleagues (2016: 907) ‘relationships were found to be important at every stage of the review cycle including: preparation for the review, the review meeting itself, debriefing from the review and implementing plans’.

Young people’s perceptions of the review meetings

As a means of ascertaining details of the roles that children and young people played in their review meetings, participants were asked about their involvement regarding the following four aspects: when the meeting would be held; where it would take place; what would be on the agenda; and who was going to be invited. Apart from the three participants who had chaired their own reviews, the remaining seven all said that they had played no part in decisions about any of these.

Six of the 10 young people interviewed described their reviews as both frustrating and stressful. As Kiera said:

There were certain things in my case that couldn’t be helped. Like I would want more contact with my brother and sister, but … they were going through adoption and fostering and everything else, and they obviously didn’t think it was appropriate. That made me very upset. So my reviews were a bit of a whirlwind, if that makes sense. Like there would be meltdown moments, but it would be because of certain things, but most of it would get sorted. Like all my health checks would be sorted, all my, like the day-to-day schooling would be sorted, all of that stuff, but when it came to contact, like the IRO would help me try and get it but it’s obviously not her decision. That’s up to the social worker.

Kiera’s account suggests that while reviews can be effective at resolving fairly straightforward matters, such as ensuring young people are seeing a dentist regularly, they are less effective at resolving more complex matters, for example, arranging contact with siblings who have been placed for adoption.

In a few cases, the young people gave very negative reports of reviews. The following exchange with Katy typifies many of these concerns, including regarding the individuals who were invited to the meeting (many of whom she didn’t know):

Katy: Most kids haven’t got a clue what’s going on and then they sit there and it’s not like they haven’t tried to tell them. I feel like they tried to tell me in the early days but I just didn’t want to listen to them because I hated everybody. If someone had sat me down, fed me some pizza, chilled for a bit and then started talking about some serious stuff I might have accepted it. It was the fact that it was just thrown on top of me: ‘Hey, here’s a meeting’ for the first one; ‘Go talk about all your problems’ basically is what it felt [like] to me, and then you feel judged by everyone around you. Does that make sense? Because the first meeting you might have police there because I did. I had police for the very first meeting, I had loads of people and I didn’t know who half of them were. But that meeting, I had no choice to attend. I was kind of picked up by the social worker and dragged there and then returned to the foster home.

Researcher: You were literally dragged to the meeting?

Katy: Pretty much [laughs].

Researcher: How did you feel generally at the end of the meetings?

Katy: Sometimes emotionally and physically drained. If something had been agreed that was going to go forward that was good, like letterbox contact or something, then I could be ecstatic. But I would say a good six out of ten times I would come away from it crying my eyes out.

This powerful testimony highlights two important points. First, young people should have the choice not to attend their review meetings. Second, it is reasonable to assume that multiple unknown attendees act as a barrier to engaging with the review meeting and process. Eight participants reported that they would have preferred it if fewer people had attended, a comment in line with other research into children's views (Pert, Diaz and Thomas, 2014; Thomas and O'Kane, 1999).

During the course of the interviews the young people made various suggestions of things that could be done to help them participate in meetings more meaningfully, the essence being making the child or young person feel more comfortable and relaxed and encouraging them to engage. The manner in which this could be achieved will obviously vary for each young person but Kiera suggested that bringing a friend to the first review would have helped her:

When I first went into care, if I knew I had the option [to bring a friend] I probably would have brought in my best friend who I had known for a while to be there with me, because he’d known and still does know everything like that’s going on. So if I’d known that was an option I probably would have dragged him along at the start. It would have made me feel a little bit more comfortable… I didn’t realise you could have your friends there until a couple of weeks ago actually. You get to choose whoever’s there, like anyone you want to make you obviously feel like, more at ease because it’s your review.

The option to bring a friend or close family member to such an important meeting seems likely to be particularly pertinent for a young person who lacks an established relationship with professionals. Likewise, since feeling comfortable and relaxed often stems from feeling in control, it is not surprising that those young people who chaired their own reviews, as well as those who set the agenda for the meeting, expressed more positive views about the review process (Roesch-Marsh, Gillies and Green, 2016; Thomas and O’Kane, 1999). Indeed, Thomas and O’Kane have developed tools for young people to use in deciding what items should be on the agenda (Thomas, et al., 1999).

Katy, who chaired her own meeting, raised the issue of agenda setting and the need to balance discussion of those items she wished to raise with those that professionals were required to address:

Researcher: So there were certain things that had to be discussed?

Katy: Yeah, obviously. Those were the things that were on the list… So, like those things we discussed normally at the end. The things I didn’t like would be discussed at the end. So, we discussed about all the good things, like school, home, contact with my dad, all of those type of things. And then it would come to the bad things like substance misuse and… do you know what I mean? Like sex exploitation and all those type of things. So like… yeah, things I didn’t want to talk about but had no choice in it [laughs].

Researcher: OK.

Katy: We’ve all got no choice [laughs].

Researcher: Do you feel like you didn’t have any choice?

Katy: Well, no, it’s the fact that they’d kind of talk about it if I wasn’t there anyway. Does that make sense? So, I would rather be there and be like, ‘I can sit here and fight my battle’, than walk away and be called guilty for something I haven’t done.

This exchange demonstrates that there are certain topics that young people feel uncomfortable talking about but which the professionals have a clear duty to consider. It is noteworthy that Katy still wanted to be there for that part of the meeting so that she could engage with and influence the discussion. But arrangements where young people chair their own reviews are still uncommon in England; there is an underlying fear that diffident children would not feel able to do this or suggest their own agenda items, and furthermore might disengage from the meeting when professionals discuss mandatory items, such as child sexual exploitation.

It is also telling to note how combative Katy comes across in this quotation (‘I can sit here and fight my battle’). She was deeply involved in the review and according to Hart’s (1992) ‘Ladder of Participation’, was engaged in the process – an engagement that was qualified and fuelled, in part, by a desire not to be misunderstood or blamed.

In contrast to the generally critical perception, the three young people who chaired their own reviews expressed much more positive views of their meetings:

Charmaine: Yeah, they’re alright. I chair them.

Researcher: So tell me about the last review you had, or one of the last reviews you had. How did it work?

Charmaine: I go there, then me and [the IRO] go in the room first and we talk. Then everyone else gets invited into the room, then we just talk about everything we talk about.

Researcher: So do you agree the agenda, what you’re gonna talk about, with [the IRO]?

Charmaine: Yes.

Emma was especially effusive:

I don’t understand why people wouldn’t want to chair it, in my perspective, because it’s a bunch of people in a room talking about you.

She appears to have decided to do this to try to regain some level of control over what was going to happen. She clearly understood that it was a meeting about her and that it was essential that she played a central role in it. Chairing the review might not appeal to all young people, but it is encouraged, in part and ‘where appropriate’, in the IRO Handbook (Department for Education and Skills, 2010). Prior to this study, there had not been any recent research looking at young people chairing their own reviews and the impact this has on their ability to participate meaningfully, although Thomas (2015) cites a project led by Allison Cumberbirch in Gloucestershire where the evaluation confirms that this could be a way of enabling some children to engage positively in their reviews.

Conclusion

This research produced several important findings regarding young people’s experiences of their review meetings. While the study sample was relatively small, it does capture the voices of those in care and offers some insights for practice.

A significant finding was that the high turnover of social workers had affected young people’s ability to build trust with their allocated practitioners. All participants gave examples of social workers failing to fulfil the basic requirements of their role. In cases where trust between the social worker and young person had been eroded, the engagement in the review process was also reduced. Nevertheless, although all participants had experienced numerous social workers, most could recall at least one with whom they had built up a positive relationship. They said that about social workers who listened to them, were reliable and kept their promises and helped them to establish trust. This was largely in line with the research of Pert and colleagues (2014) and McLeod (2006). This finding necessitates a further call for local authorities and the Government to do more to address the retention crisis in frontline social work services and reiterates the importance of social workers having manageable caseloads and working in a context that allows them time to build relationships with the children and young people for whom they are responsible.

Most young people described having a positive relationship with their IRO and this appeared to be linked to the consistency that he or she provided. This again echoes previous research, for example Dickens and colleagues (2015), Beckett, et al. (2016) and Pert, Diaz and Thomas (2014). The participants, however, lacked knowledge about what the IRO role should involve and instead saw these officers as simply being there to chair review meetings. None of them saw their IRO between reviews. Given that the high turnover of social workers in local authorities is showing no signs of abating and that IRO positions remain comparatively stable, there is a clear argument for them to build on the support and consistency they can provide to children, such as by visiting them between reviews. For this to be realistic, IRO caseloads would need to be reduced. In the local authority studied, they averaged 85 children – whereas the IRO Handbook recommends 50 to 70. This position contrasts with the recommendation in the recent Fostering Stocktake which suggests disbanding the IRO role altogether (Narey and Owers, 2018). To do so would leave children and families without the independent scrutiny that the role provides and without the consistent support that IROs offer to children in care. But the finding that while such officers were able to solve and push forward basic matters that assisted children’s health and well-being, they were unable to resolve more complex issues such as birth family contact is worrying. In this respect the impotence of the IRO role was highlighted.

In terms of the practicalities of the review meetings, eight participants reported that they would have preferred it if fewer people had attended the meeting, again echoing other research (Pert, Diaz and Thomas, 2014) which found that the number of professionals attending reviews is a barrier to engagement. The option to bring a friend or close family member to such an important meeting could be particularly pertinent for a young person who lacks an established or positive relationship with members of the professional team. This could assist the young person with getting their voice heard.

The final important finding is that those young people who chaired their own reviews had more meaningful engagement in the review process and had the opportunity to get their voice heard in respect of essential aspects of the meeting, such as when and where it took place, who was invited and what was on the agenda. While we acknowledge that only three of the 10 participants did this and that it would not be appropriate for everyone, it is encouraging that this research is indicating that it works well in practice and aids meaningful participation by young people. Even when it is not appropriate, it would still be beneficial to allow them to have a say in when the review takes place, where it is held and who is invited (as required by the IRO Handbook), much more than was the case for the young people taking part in this study.

Footnotes

Clive Diaz is a lecturer at Cardiff University.

Hayley Pert is an associate lecturer with the Open University.

Nigel Thomas is Professor Emeritus of Childhood and Youth, University of Central Lancashire.

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