Keeping the Vision Alive

SPTC Director and parent Miranda Harvey has been busy; here is her second conference report in a month. This time she tells us about Barnardo's Centenary Conference.

The conference took place on Friday 24th June at Edinburgh Zoo's conference centre. As the conference was taking place, 600 children and families were being entertained by jugglers and wild animals - some children even got to meet Jack McConnell!

Negatives
Unfortunately it was a drizzly day, so the family events were a bit muted. The conference seemed to be used as a vehicle for Jack McConnell to lambast local authorities for the under-performance of children in local authority care. Although this was quite relevant to the theme of the day, it is always a bit depressing when the First Minister's entourage sweeps into an occasion, with all the press in attendance, and then sweeps off again leaving everyone feeling a bit flat.
The first part of the proceedings, which dealt with the past 100 years of Barnardo's in Scotland was entertaining in a quaint sort of way, but as attitudes and expectations have changed so greatly in the last 25 years, it was more of a museum piece than a grounding for current practice.

Positives
As so often with these occasions the best speakers were the "real people" - in this case, this meant the users of Barnardo's services. One young mother talked about how the Rough Sleepers Initiative had supported her to get out of an abusive relationship and into her own home. Another talked about the benefit of parenting classes, and a third about being a "Young Mum" and what she hoped for her own and her child's future. One foster mother, who had taken on a family of four children with substantial needs, not only talked about her own experience but also questioned the First Minister's measurement of success for "looked-after children". (See below)

The rest of the day
Hugh Macintosh, the director of Barnardo's Scotland talked about a few of their current projects. They have 10,000 service users; spend £21 million on children's services and; have 855 staff plus 1200 volunteers (including their shop workers). He highlighted three projects: APNA (Glasgow) which works with families from minority ethnic backgrounds who have children with disabilities; Blackford Brae in Edinburgh which aims to get children who have been excluded from primary school back into mainstream education; and Tayside Domestic Abuse which works in partnership with the police.

The three themes for Barnardo's in this centenary year are sexuals exploitation, substance abuse and emotional well-being.

Barnardo's are keen to influence policy makers based on their experience in the field, but when Hugh Macintosh praised the fact that every project has to have a glossy publication or "outcome report", I have to say that my heart sank. Although it is important that projects have positive and measurable outcomes for children, young people and families, it did seem like rather a lot of effort was being put into glossy publications.

The next speaker was Kathleen Marshall, Commissioner for Scotland's Children and Young People. I had never seen her speak and thought she was very good. Her legal background was evident in the importance she attached to a "rights-based approach", and she was also eloquent on the benefits of prevention/rehabilitation against a punitive system of dealing with bad behaviour/offening. She also reflected that although we had come a long way since 1905, there were still areas of absolute as well as relative poverty in Scotland, for example, the phenomenon of "feral" children of drug-abusing parents.

The First Minister
In addition to his main point, (see below) Jack McConnell also touched on the fact that some children need several chances to fulfill or even have aspirations; that education is the great liberator from deprivation; that SureStart has made a big difference in deprived communities; that healthy eating initiatives are central to better opportunities; and the benefits of the current Protection of Children legislation and review of the Children's Hearing system. He was also very keen on the role of the voluntary sector (not surprising given where we were) and the changing nature of the welfare state where universal services were being provided in a more flexible way by a variety of providers.

The First Minister quoted the fact that six times as many young people leave local authority care with no formal qualifications as the general population to suggest that education authorities are failing to give high priority to their educational needs. The foster mother who had spoker earlier pointed out that her foster children had been so damaged by their early family experiences, in addition to their learning difficulties, that talking about their educational outcomes in terms of standard grades was irrelevant. This point was later echoed in the press by local authorities, which is not to say that they are doing enough for looked-after children.
This group includes children in foster care, in residential placements such as residential schools and units, and children who are supervised by the children's hearing system, (that is where the Panel has decided that they need compulsory supervision usually by the social work department). This group includes many children and young people for whom the education system hasn't worked, such as persistant truanters, children of chaotic families including those affected by drug and alcohol abuse, young people whose schooling has been disrupted by continuously shifting placements and young offenders. It is not surprising to expect that their educational outcomes are lower in terms of exam results. There is a strong body of opinion that vocational training is far more useful to this group, not least because in a country short of skilled workers, it is the most likely way for them to move into employment, which in the long run may be their best outcome. ..... Whoops, got on my soapbox there.

Other Stuff
There were lots of displays by Barnardo's containing useful and interesting material.
During the day there was also a Civic Reception and lunch hosted by the Lord Provost of Edinburgh plus an invitation to walk around the zoo.
I got a chance to chat to some of the other delegates and found that some of them had concerns about the costs and bureaucracy of Barnardo's services and the way they selected the services they should provide.

Report by Miranda Harvey.

If you would like to read Barnardo's centenary booklet "Then and Now", go to their website on: www.barnardos.org