Residential care as prevention and intervention.

What history and lived experience can tell us to address the challenges of today

20th January 2025

9.30 onwards – Pastries and refreshments

10.00 – 10.30am – Opening group meeting – coming together and live preoccupations/sector themes

10.30 – 11.30am –Presentation by Jonathan Stanley “Learning from our past: Living our tradition: Lessons for today”

11.30 – 11.45am- Refreshments

11.45 – 12.45pm – Presentation by Sally Peplow: The Care Experience Project at The University of Liverpool 

12.45 – 1.30pm – Lunch

1.30 – 2.15pm – Reflective supervision activity

2.15 – 3.00pm – Jonathan Stanley

3.15 – 3.30pm – Refreshments

3.30 – 4.0pm – Closing group meeting

Directions to the Priory Rooms

Walking from Birmingham New Street Station will take approximately 10 Mins, from Snow Hill Station will take approximately 2 minutes and from Moor Street Station will take approximately 7 minutes.

Only disabled parking is available on site and must be prebooked.

The Priory Rooms, Quaker Meeting House 40 Bull Street, Birmingham, B4 6AF 

Guest Speakers

Jonathan Stanley

Jonathan Stanley is Principal Partner of the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care.

NCERCC is concerned with theory and practice, research and policy. It actively develops all of these aspects and is a major reference point for the verification of evidence, as well as offering training, advice, consultancy, and evaluation. NCERCC acts as a critical friend to the developments proposed by local and national governments and agencies through incisive evidence and experience informed analysis. 

NCERCC has remained with its focus of enabling the standards of the sector and the inspection practice of the regulator to be as good as possible given current conditions. 

He has worked in local authority, voluntary organisations, privately funded. Initially a Residential Child Care Worker in a residential nursery he has been involved with adolescent Psychiatric social work, worked as a teacher later Headteacher of 2 Inner London Education Authority SEBD residential special schools for boys and girls moving to become Headteacher/Assistant Director later Director of Caldecott Community where along with developing the integration of care/education/health/therapies he was instrumental in developing the Caldecott College for the training of Therapeutic Child Care, and of developing nurture classes in residential care especially for adolescents

Learning from our past: Living our tradition: Lessons for today

In researching the history of residential child care I recently ‘discovered’ a letter by David Wills, a pioneer of residential child care, to colleagues in the future. When I say I ‘discovered’ it I imagined how Wills might have written to us. 

Wills has something valuable to say by way of a contribution to the necessary understanding regarding Unregistered and Unregulated settings.  Wills would have wanted to find a way of getting his message across, and I imagined along with his books he might have written letters. And indeed he did write letters! (Hinshelwood, R.D. and Fees, C. (2015), “Joint responsibility as an attitude of mind (working alongside) a letter by David Wills in the PETT archives”, Therapeutic Communities: The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities, Vol. 36 No. 3, pp. 186-191. https://doi.org/10.1108/TC-01-2014-0001)

The young men coming to Q Camps, provided by Wills and team, had many of the issues that those young people who are now being placed into supported living or semi-independent accommodation.

In his book The Hawkspur Experiment David Wills wrote an account of the thinking that supported an initiative, the Q Camps, and also of the experiences of the staff and young men. In this ‘letter’ he distils what he thinks he learned and offers it as learning for the future.

I will read the letter and start the drawing out of the thinking.

Here’s where we start from 

Learning = reliability, continuity and stability experienced as part of a relationship are the transformative factors 

These are the ‘interlocking instruments whose field effect was far greater than the sum of its constituent parts.’

It was only through the establishing of relationships, often a primary caring relationship with one of the staff, that delayed development was re-engaged and continued until the young person could think of an immediate future with reduced support and a longer-term life independently. 

Sally Peplow

Sally Peplow is a Doctoral Academic Teacher and PhD researcher at the University of Liverpool. With almost 20 years’ experience working in children’s social care, she has held roles ranging from youth mentoring to service management. Sally’s academic journey includes a First-Class BSc in Psychology and an MSc with Distinction. Her current PhD research—The Care Experience Project—focuses on exploring the role children’s social care plays in shaping mental health outcomes.

Sally’s passion for care experience-focused research is deeply rooted in her upbringing, with both her parents dedicating their lives to safeguarding and caring for children in care. This lifelong connection to the field informs her research and drives her commitment to improving the lives of care-experienced individuals.

The Care Experience Project at The University of Liverpool 

Sally’s work explores care experiences from the perspective of those who have lived in various care settings, including residential care, foster care, kinship care, and supported accommodation. It emphasises what care experienced people valued during their time in care and where challenges persist

Facilitators

Dr Deborah Judge

Deborah has enjoyed a varied career working as a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and Family and Systemic Psychotherapist. Deborah has a passion for service development and innovation and has been involved in forming and shaping youth services both in the NHS and through Youthinc CIC – a Social Enterprise co-founded in 2017 with Lisa Mellen.  Her medical career, spanning 25 years within the NHS, included 14 years as a Consultant in Specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) with expertise in addictions and the development of trauma-informed services for young people with substance use problems in Southwest England. In a change of direction in 2014, Deborah was one of the founding Directors of Birribi, a therapeutic residential care organisation in West Wales. As Therapeutic Programme Lead for Birribi, she focusses on the development of therapeutic residential care practice for young people with complex developmental trauma. Birribi now forms a community of 4 small, therapeutic group homes for children, a school and care farm with large central offices and community meeting space.

Recently retiring from clinical psychiatric practice in 2021, Deborah has continued developing Youthinc’s systemic model of practice in various settings and moving away from a medical model of youth mental health towards broader perspectives on our development as social beings. An interest in nature and horses has facilitated this shift away from traditional frameworks of mental health treatment. Over the years Deborah has connected her passion for horses with therapeutic work since starting training in 2005 in Equine Assisted Therapy and Learning. This environment in the company of horses now informs and develops her work with Lisa and Youthinc in changing the way we think about therapy, child and adolescent development, family and community.

Joy Oldfield

Joy graduated from Reading University in 2000, with a Psychology BA Hons. Joy completed a foundation level in Counselling at Westminster Pastoral Foundation, a Post Graduate diploma in Infant Observation at The Tavistock and Portman trust and also a Foundation Degree in Therapeutic work with young people and children.

Joy has worked with young offenders and supporting families with the Charity, Homestart and was a Nanny for two children. Joy has worked at The Mulberry Bush for 20 years. Joy is a House Manager in one of the residential homes, leading a multidisciplinary team around the children . She oversees the food provision, enjoys the reading group and has taught on the induction course and Foundation Degree course. Joy has attended the Children’s Network Group for many years and has recently taken on the role of Co- Chair with Marie and Deborah. 

In her spare time, she enjoys travelling, reading, Kettlebells and spending time with family and friends.  

Dr Kevin Gallagher

Dr Kevin Gallagher is a qualified social worker who has worked in and around residential child care and education for over 25 years – starting as a front line practitioner and working through into middle and senior management roles at regional and national levels. In the course of this journey, Kevin has further qualified as a Psychodynamic Organisational Consultant (Tavistock D10 programme) and operates a small private consultancy practice focussing on therapeutic child care and education sectors, service design, restructuring, HR and Personnel, team development and role consultation. Starting initially in the state sector, most of Kevins career has been in the independent sector in both operational and strategic roles and he has completed an MBA to underpin this work. Kevins interest in TCs grew out of increasing specialism in therapeutic child care and his organisation was part of the Community of Community pilot of the Therapeutic Service Standards for Children – he has been involved in this quality improvement cycle ever since and is part of the Advisory Group. A former Chair of The Charterhouse Group (a charity representing TCs for children), Kevin was actively involved in the merger with ATC and the formation of TCTC, acting as vice-Chair for the initial year and then taking on the role of Chair until 2018. Kevin is involved in a wide range of sector groups and practice networks and enjoys the cross fertilisation of ideas. Kevin completed his PhD in 2023 and his thesis developed a theory of change for therapeutic residential settings. This qualitative study looked in particular at the role of relationships in the change process. Kevin is Managing Director and co-owner of Amberleigh Care which operates two Accredited TCs for teenage boys with sexually harmful behaviour.

Marie Clutton

Marie is therapy manager at Amberleigh Care which has two (TCs) for young males. She has a background of over 25 years in therapeutic childcare and residential care management positions.

Marie oversees all therapeutic community processes across Amberleigh. Her role includes facilitating group dynamics, providing clinical supervision, and works with care, therapy, and education staff. By actively engaging with young people in group work, Marie plays a pivotal role in bringing together the holistic components necessary for the TCs to grow and develop.

Marie’s qualifications in leadership and management, childcare, DDP therapy, AIM3 assessment, counselling, clinical supervision, Team Teach tutor and

holds a Diploma in group work. Marie has involvement in external events and research projects representing the accredited TCs and contributing to the broader understanding of therapeutic interventions. She is a member

of the IGA and holds Groupwork Practitioner Status.