Ellis, K. and Curtis, P. (2021) Care(ful) relationships: supporting children in secure care. Child & Family Social Work, 26 (3). pp. 329-337. ISSN 1356-7500
Abstract
Secure children's homes are used to accommodate children aged 10–16 under two main categories; while half are sentenced after committing a serious offence, the other half are placed because there are serious concerns around their safety in the community. Secure children's homes are prized within the secure estate, and they administer complex therapeutic support to ‘the most vulnerable’ young people, however little is known about the experiences of those employed to work in such spaces. This paper shares findings from PhD research conducted in one secure children's home over 1 year. Data presented are drawn from sensitive ethnographic fieldwork and in‐depth interviews with residential staff and residents in the home. Although young people's views are important, we concentrate here on the perspectives of residential staff to share their reflections of delivering ‘care’ and the strategies used to manage successful relationships within a secure setting. We conclude that residential staff tread a fine line between creating emotional closeness while maintaining physical distance and that they are sometimes unable to return the intensity of feeling that residents' direct towards them. We recommend that all residential staff receive regular and detailed supervision to provide opportunity to request support when necessary.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 The Authors. Child & Family Social Work published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | children; emotions; residential staff; secure children's home; vulnerable |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 27 Jan 2021 16:39 |
Last Modified: | 01 Feb 2022 14:05 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/cfs.12812 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:169645 |