Getting it Right for Looked After Children and Young People: Building a stronger corporate family

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Anna Fowlie Head of Corporate Parenting Care and
Justice Division Children, Young People and
Social Care Directorate 0131 244 7445
anna.fowlie_at_scotland.gsi.gov.uk
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• Building a stronger corporate family

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What does it mean to be a parent? What is
different for the corporate parent?
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Corporate Parenting
The formal and local partnerships needed
between all local authority departments and
services, and associated agencies, who are
responsible for working together to meet the
needs of looked after children and young
people. (We can and Must Do Better, Scottish
Executive, 2007)
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Parenting

• Physical care
• Affection
• Positive Regard
• Emotional security
• Setting boundaries
• Allowing room to develop
• Helping develop skills
• Helping cognitive development
• Facilitating social activity
• (David Quinton, 2004)

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Parenting

• Good parenting therefore involves a mixture of
• Tasks
• Behaviours and
• The ability to handle relationships
• Good corporate parenting is the same, but some
  of the tasks, behaviours and relationships are
  different.

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Corporate Parenting

• Risk
• Consistency
• Stability
• Belief
• Basics
• Education
• Health and well-being
• Preparing for independence

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What do young people need from carers?
Carers should care for you, perhaps even love
you, treat you fairly, listen to you, do things
with you, offer advice and, perhaps, although
there is less agreement here, provide rules and
control. At older ages, at least, they should
relax the rules, negotiate and listen to the
teenagers side of the story. These basic
provisions would be supported by adequate
material goods, a room of your own, holidays and
activities and encouragement of your
interests. (Sinclair, Baker et al, 2005)
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Parenting

• Parenthood depends on personal, comprehensive and
  continuing commitment to children, reinforced by
  mutual emotional attachments between children and
  parents
• Commitment
• Attachment
• Support
• Unconditional love

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Corporate Parenting

• Challenges
• How to be partisan on behalf of your child
• How to offer unqualified support in times of need
  and uncertainty
• Can you be a good parent if youre not a real
  parent?
• Choices
• Fragmentation
• Enduring support

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Corporate Parenting

• Leaving Home
• Average age 24
• Not usually forever the first time
• Financial, practical and emotional support
• Often into shared accommodation
• Usually a choice related to further education,
  work or a relationship
• Leaving Care
• 16 19
• Usually forever
• Pathways planning and throughcare service
• Often into sole tenancy
• Usually no choice, no positive context

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A Lifelong Commitment?

• The legacy of a good family
• Enduring, though changing, relationship between
  parent and child
• Organic process through accommodation
• Building long-term relationships
• Parenting
• Health
• Unlikely to be involved in criminal justice
  system
• The legacy of being in care
• Unlikely to have long term contact
• Sustaining tenancies
• Difficulty making and sustaining relationships
• Lack of role models, so difficult to be a parent
• Poor health
• Likely to be in prison or offending