Understanding Care Matters.

Simmonds, John

In Care and After: A positive perspective Elaine Chase, Antonia Simon and Sonia Jackson (eds) Routledge 2006 202 pages 21.99 [pounds sterling]

As this review is being written, we are in the last few weeks of the consultation on the DfES Green Paper Care Matters. If you want to read some of the research evidence that forms the background to the Paper, and some of the policy implications discussed by those undertaking the research, then this is the book. In fact, many of the chapters parallel the recommendations of Care Matters with their focus on education, care leavers, the place and importance of advocacy, residential care, social pedagogy, placement instability and corporate parenting. This is set within a historical review of the position of children living away from home by Sonia Jackson, followed by a review of the evidence base of the outcomes by Antonia Jackson and Charlie Owen.

Throughout the whole book, there is a strong emphasis on attempting to counter the prevailing gloomy, even desperate picture of the plight of looked after children. Indeed, the chapter looking at the small group of looked after young people who get into university is a powerful reminder of what can be achieved. It is clear that when this is the right choice for the young person concerned and there is sufficient belief and support from those who know them best, and the local authority and university they go to, the outcome is positive. But it is also clear that the courage and resilience of the young person play a significant factor as they struggle with the ever-present danger of loneliness, isolation and the absence of what most young people at university come to rely on: emotional, social and practical resources at the end of a mobile phone. Although this theme of 'see what can be achieved' when the system believes in you and backs this up with resources is present throughout the book, and indeed Care Matters itself, there is often a struggle to keep hold of the positive as the well-known messages about poor outcomes for 'looked after' children strike home. Great trouble has been taken to give a balanced perspective where this exists, as in the important chapter on 'early parenthood'.

Two other issues are striking. The first is the difficulty in research of generating messages that relate specifically to ethnic minority children and young people, and the fact that sample sizes are often just too small, despite determined efforts on the part of researchers, to state with any degree of confidence whatever similarities and differences there might be. The chapter on private fostering stands out in this respect, where eleven of the 12 respondents were black and placed with white carers. There is no single view taken by these young people about their experiences and we are reminded how personal these issues are as they have struggled to find their own answers to the complex questions of heritage and identity. The second issue is the reflection in the penultimate chapter by Wigfall and Cameron on young people's participation in research and the importance of engaging them as partners not just as subjects. The chapter is a powerful and disturbing story of the problems that researchers increasingly seem to have in negotiating the hurdles of ethical approval, obtaining the co-operation of social workers and being blown off course by the unexpected consequences. It is a chapter that should be read by anybody concerned with the importance of establishing an evidence base for social work practice.

It could be that this book proves not only to be of current significance to the reform of the care system but also to be of historical significance for the part it may have played in shaping English social policy. All the contributors are members of the Thomas Coram Research Unit at the Institute of Education, University of London, and each chapter reflects a research project in that Unit. If you have an interest in the future of the care system and the potential for Care Matters to shape it, then you should read this book. It is more subtle, more insightful and more academic than the Green Paper but its messages are strong and it has the welfare of children and young people at its heart.

John Simmonds is Director of Policy Research and Development, BAAF