Residential care research evidence
Jonathan Stanley, principal partner, NCERCC
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
After 48 years of involvement in residential child care, this year has seen me taking some time to reflect on where residential child care is now and where it might be going. One aspect of reflection has been regarding knowledge and knowledge production.
NCERCC has always taken the stance that we need to be cautious, understanding that any research is bound by the social and economic context of its time. It is likely to have some insights into the effects of current policy and practice. Some aspects of residential group living are eternal, others are ephemeral, fashioned by factors external to residential living.
During the pandemic we hear we are being led, or informed, by the evidence. It has been said that experts advise and politicians decide. That is reinforced by there being a government and also independent Scientific Advisory Group of Experts (Sage). The latter group provide crucial critique of the former and the politicians. Let this column be the first to go public that a small group – propelled by a concern that a small group of interested parties were described by government as consultees for polices about coronavirus and unregulated settings – have been in discussion about the creation of an independent children’s Sage.
One impetus to this development has been the way research, evidence and knowledge is becoming territorialised, property with a purpose, or positioned as irrefutably true in all circumstances and for all time. Yet, what we know about residential child care, nationally and internationally, is not as extensive or definitive as is sometimes presented.
If we base our policy or practice decisions on incomplete evidence we have potential to construct a false narrative. We do so because we think we are led by what is presented as science, in which we trust.
Have a read of the commissioning statements for research studies. Write three statements you know to be “true” and wanted to research about residential child care, then browse “unconscious bias” and consider your statements. Unconscious bias matters when considering residential child care and the making of practice and policy about it.
Often research commissioned into models of care also includes other difficult areas. For residential child care these currently include the higher spending on an intensive intervention, or looking for better outcomes. These are valid considerations but we can only compare and contrast models and outcomes if we know we are, evidentially, looking at the same level of needs.
Look too to see the researcher equivocation. Is there caution over results with comments such as “too soon to tell”, “incomplete data sets”, “need to replicate”, “unique set of factors”.
In this era research is dominated by single-focus research, commissioned by government to support policy (often evaluations rather than research), by think-tanks to support a view, by providers to support their work, by single-issue campaigning organisations to reinforce their perspective. What we do not benefit from is the sort of broad-based connected set of research projects like “Messages from the research 1995”, or that which preceded Every Child Matters.
Inspection outcomes are not research. Ofsted agree that their findings are not research findings and should not be used for this purpose, though it does show what can be done to create a consistent data set if there is political will, and funding. Also few projects meet the strict research thresholds of random control trials; without this the results are always open to debate and interpretation.
Being cautious and sceptical includes being reflective in the following ways about residential child care research:
- Who commissioned it?
- What commentary/interpretation do they give to the research?
- If it is comparative – are cohorts the same?
- How does the research contend with contribution to the outcomes noted? How do they differ from those who commissioned the research in their commentary?
- To what does the research attribute the outcomes? And those who commissioned?
- If the focus is on outcomes – does it look at starting place or only end place which might be the responsibility of prior decisions about a child inherited by the last placement?
- Does it include equivocations regarding time, data, need for replication, context?
- Does it provide an overt control of variables?
- Does it draw findings but not anything further beyond this group at this time?
- Does it include the clinical history of the cohort and how this affects the present, and see it as contextual? (all the more important if international).
- How does the evidence connect to the analysis, conclusions and subsequent commentary?
The above will explain why the residential child care sector is sometimes incredulous when reading research; there is disconnect with lived experience. The sector does not recognise its portrayal and then questions the credibility of the research.