Good enough social pedagogy
Mark Smith
This page is devoted to exploring social pedagogy or rather, perhaps, social pedagogies. Over the past few years, social pedagogy has attracted considerable political and professional attention. As someone with a fairly long-standing interest in the subject I’m pleased about this. I do, however, fall prey to a level of cynicism about what might be behind the upsurge in political interest. My concern is that, notwithstanding some examples of excellent practice, residential child care, systemically, is not working in the UK. Its difficulties are not just around simplistic and ideological arguments identifying poor outcomes but about the lack of any commonly understood or claimed conceptual base for what it is that residential care ought to be about. Yet, despite its failures residential child care remains stubbornly expensive and politically sensitive. Politicians recognise this, especially the expensive bit. They are likely to be receptive to arguments that Europe does things better and that most of Europe adopts some model of social pedagogy as its organising framework for caring for children. The easy answer is to make a link between social pedagogy and improved outcomes for children and to seek to import a system into a very different social and cultural context.
Academics, too, can be seduced by social pedagogy and I include myself in this. I thought I had a reasonable handle on it and have gone so far as to commit some of my ideas to print (along with a colleague, Bill Whyte). Then, attending meetings of the Centre for Understanding Social Pedagogy at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, I realise that Europeans, who I assumed had this sussed, have different and contingent understandings of what social pedagogy is or might be in their different national contexts. The one thing I did feel on fairly solid ground on was a belief that social pedagogy took practice away from an overly individualised, therapeutic orientation towards a broadly socio-educational one. Then, I reviewed Hans Kornerup’s ‘Milieu-Therapy with Children: Planned Environmental Therapy in Scandinavia’ and could have been reading an account of life in an English therapeutic community. The influences drawn upon in Kornerup’s book read like a roll call of the great and good of therapy: Freud; Winnicott; Bowlby; Aichorn; Bettleheim and Redl and Wineman to name but a few. So, I’m unsure once again just what this thing called social pedagogy might be.
The lack of a clear definition of social pedagogy is disconcerting to those who might hope for an ‘off the shelf’ alternative to residential child care as it has developed in the UK. It is also pretty exciting, though, and offers an opportunity to begin to build up a view of what social pedagogy might be in a UK context (and perhaps what social pedagogy might be in different national contexts within the UK).
If I have difficulty with saying what social pedagogy is I must also admit to a long-standing difficulty in knowing what ‘therapeutic’ means. As someone who doesn’t come from a therapeutic community background I can find the term a bit off-putting. I am reassured by some of Fritz Redl’s thoughts around its meaning. According to Redl it can mean that ‘you still have to feed them’ and in doing so ‘don't put poison in their soup’. I could just about manage therapy at that level. So, in thinking about what therapeutic social pedagogy might begin to look like I would urge that ‘therapeutic’ is considered in its various and broad guises.
This page is provided as a discussion space between what has broadly developed as therapeutic care in the UK and the social pedagogic models which have developed in Europe. Although these have a focus on residential child care it is our view that the principles which underpins these positions have relevance to the nurture of all children. As ever your comments as well as articles relevant to this page are welcomed. The page is edited by Mark Smith.
Until the page sets up its own address, please e mail your comments, articles or recommended reading to Mark at goodenoughcaring@dsl.pipex.com
Comments
Jonathan Stanley of NCBRCC comments,
There is along standing British tradition of therapeutic child care practice based on psychodynamic foundations. There is a growing interest, discussion and development taking place about Social Pedagogy. In European countries the two approaches are both united and separate, an understanding has been developed through dialogue. There is recogntion of the need for both approaches to meet needs, and that inform the practice of each tother. This page offers a space for a dialogue - papers,presentations,articles comments and discussion.
Sylvia Holthoff and Gabriel Eichstellar of Thempra write :
We think it's important for this page to be nuanced in how social pedagogy is portrayed. One of the important things to keep clear is that it's not an approach in a more Anglo-Saxon understanding, but an academic discipline in some European countries, similar to psychology (in several other European countries SP is a profession but not a discipline). In fact it's therefore impossible to speak of one social pedagogy, and we can identify many different social pedagogies. This is where Jonathan's point is helpful about social pedagogy and therapeutic care being both united and separate, depending on the pedagogic and therapeutic concept that an organisation may have worked out for themselves.
So this is going to be a complex challenge, especially as social pedagogy isn't really well-know or -understood in the UK and people begin by understanding it from their own perspective. The challenge lies in inviting them to explore beyond their own perspective, to be open to genuine dialogue which recognises others as equal partners in exploring a theme together. That's the kind of ethos we would like to see in the discussion.
It might be helpful for the discourse to approach professionals in Denmark or Germany or other countries to contribute too, so that we can get many perspectives on social pedagogy which reflect the diversity and complexity but also give a sense of what underpins it.
We're interested to see how this space will be taken up.
Norma Hart of Aberdeen University writes
Mark it is good to see this development - I’d like to be connected please.
One of my areas of work at present is considering ‘social pedagogy as a training for working with vulnerable individuals in any setting with any age group. Much of what is written discussed is only with regard to children and mainly focused in residential settings
Charles Sharpe responds
In his chapter entitiled "The Profession at Work in Contemporary Society" in The Socialpedagogue in Europe - Living with others as a profession ( Davies Jones, ed. English edition, 1986 Zurich FICE/UNESCO), Haydn Davies Jones writing in the 1980s suggests that while social pedagogy as a profession was principally born out of a need to care for children and families whose lives had been disrupted by WWII, it was developing an interest in working with adults in residential and community settings. This interest included, in France, the care of the elderly and the care of the elderly with special needs, in Scandinavia and Holland the care of adults with physical and mental health difficulties, and in Germany the care those in prison and those in hostels following a prison sentence. Like Norma I would be interested to know how far these initiatives developed.
John Diamond's paper
When the initial idea to set up this page was mooted it was suggested that John Diamond's presentation to the 2009 Tavistock conference would provide a good platform from which to take forward questions of therapeutic and social pedagogy. John has kindly provided his paper for inclusion on the site. John is Chief Executive at The Mulberry Bush. Here is his paper which is the text of his presentation at a Tavistock Conference 'So What Makes It Therapeutic ?' on 16th October 2009. Comments welcomed ... indeed positively encouraged!
‘So what makes it therapeutic ?’
I’m approaching this talk with an interest in the heritage of psychodynamic training in residential work- how the DNA is passed on. I hope to share something of what we’re learning in the evolution of training at the Mulberry Bush.
Hand written minutes from the Mulberry Bush School Board of Management meeting, 29th March 1965 state:
‘The Chairman intimated that Mrs Faith King had been accepted for a course in child welfare at Bristol University, starting in Sept. 1965. Mr Chris Beedell briefly explained about Grant entitlements and suggested the school make up any difference equivalent to her present salary.’
We have come a long way since 1965. Thanks to Dave Roberts our Head of Training and Consultancy, we now have our ‘Foundation degree in therapeutic work with children and young people,’ validated by another Bristol based institution the University West of England.
Since 2008 we have enrolled 30 Mulberry Bush workers as students on the course. The foundation degree exceeds the national requirements, and we are confident that by 2011 we will have a graduate workforce. I’ll explore why the course content makes it a valuable model for reflective work based learning in residential care.
Why is specialist therapeutic residential child care necessary ? and ‘what conditions for learning are required for workers to meet the needs of children with severe attachment disorders’. Research carried out by Roger Clough, Roger Bullock, and Adrian Ward ( 2006) proposes a distinction between the placement needs of different groups of young people separated from their birth families. They define the third category of children as:
- Children with extensive, complex and enduring needs compounded by very difficult behaviour who require more specialist and intensive resources.
The Mulberry Bush School was founded by Barbara Dockar Drysdale in 1948. We have been working with chaotic and unintegrated children for 61 years. Due to early trauma, these children have not developed a secure attachment, and consequently have not developed a coherent sense of self. For such children close relationships and the intimacy of family life are often felt as unbearable and intolerable, and they will test out any such relationship or environment to destruction. These are the children who without an early specialist therapeutic fostering or residential intervention, will experience the terrible destiny of multiple placement breakdown.
So what does living alongside severely emotionally troubled children feel like? How do workers make sense of their experience, and make a difference to a child’s life ?
An anonymised case history: Lucy’s story.
At the age of three Lucy was taken into care. She had been living with her mother in a house which was being used as a base for trading in drugs and prostitution. As a result of living in this environment Lucy had experienced severe neglect as well as extreme physical and sexual abuse. Lucy’s behaviour had become so disturbed, that she was found to be eating off the floor with several dogs also inhabiting the house.
By age 6 Lucy had experienced three placement breakdowns. One week into her new placement, her carers reported that her daily behaviour included wetting and smearing, self-harming, unprovoked aggression, insomnia, inappropriate affection to strangers, extreme controlling behaviour and cruelty to animals. Her insomnia resulted in one of her carers having to stay awake all night with her. Attempts at schooling failed, as she attacked teachers and children, and disrupted any group situation. Lucy started therapy sessions via the local CAMHS team. Her therapist commented ‘she brings chaos and destruction into everything she does’.
Despite the therapy, after 4 months Lucy found herself excluded from school, and the home placement was at breaking point. Now aged 7 she was referred to the Mulberry Bush School. A dedicated staff team worked alongside Lucy and the other children in their household creating a reliable daily routine. This routine included ‘close in’ supervision and support for the children through all aspects of the day: mealtimes, playtimes, bedtimes, and transitions to school.
In the education area Lucy joined the foundation stage where she was helped to start to enjoy learning again. She was encouraged to play, listen to stories, sing, and dress up. Carefully managed one to one and group sessions allowed her the experience of starting to learn co-operatively.
Staff found managing Lucy’s hateful and aggressive behaviour very challenging, and struggled with the intensity of the feelings that she projected onto and into them. They used the range of support structures; individual and group supervision and consultation, to discuss and make sense of the powerful feelings of despair and hopelessness they felt. Over time, by engaging with the feelings induced in them, they were able to formulate new strategies and create opportunities which helped Lucy start to think and talk about her confused, betrayed, and angry feelings.
Initially holiday times with her carers were still difficult. Lucy continued to exhibit her previous challenging behaviours. However over time they noticed that she was more able to vocalise her needs, and she began to display more loving and affectionate feelings. After three years Lucy was able to return home. Although demanding she is no longer unmanageable, and enjoys attending a local school for children with moderate learning difficulties.
So what principles and theory for a ‘model of work based learning’ emerge from this story? I’ll talk about :
The matching principle, the reflection process, and using countertransference.
Adrian Ward (1998) whom we regard as another key figure in this training tradition defines the matching principle:
‘that in all professional training the mode of training should reflect the mode of practice’.
Adrian relates this concept to the work of a former colleague Sara Stevens who applied a similar principle to the supervision of residential workers. She argued that the model of supervision should include group discussion, and ‘working alongside’ in order to match the variety of modes used in residential provision. This concept was also reflected in Peter Hawkins and Robin Shohet’s (1989) book ‘supervision in the helping professions’ in which they suggest ‘where possible the supervision context should reflect the therapeutic context which is being supervised’.
The benefit of a match between training and practice is in placing an understanding of ‘process’ at the heart of the task.
We should remind ourselves that outcomes only emerge out of process. As I explored in Lucy’s story, engaging with the process of the lived experience of daily routines in residential life allows staff and children to develop close relationships. The weave of conscious and unconscious interactions can be felt, observed, thought about and talked about. It is within this ‘close in’ intersubjective experience, that children start to internalise nurturing and empathic interactions; the building blocks of good experience; leading to them developing a better understanding of their feelings and sense of self; the process now referred to as ‘mentalisation’.
In his book ‘the reflective practitioner’ (1983) Donald Schon makes a distinction between ‘reflection in action’ and ‘reflection on action’. He describes ‘reflection in action’ as the ability to improvise during an intervention. As we heard in Lucy’s story, the use of creative and opportunity led interventions remains vital in our work with emotionally troubled children. Such experiences convert to ‘reflection on action’ when they transform theory in the light of learning from past experience.
In their work with Lucy, care workers were supported to talk about their emotional experience, the diagnostic aspects of their countertransference in order to understand the despairing and desperate feelings that Lucy was ‘transmitting’ or projecting into them. This understanding allowed them to feel emotionally freer, and more able to respond in insightful and empathic ways towards Lucy. In the absence of such reflective spaces, the risk is that the team might simply mirror and react to such projective processes by becoming punitive, or rejecting of the child’s behaviour, rather than understanding it as a form of communication.
The aim of our foundation degree is to explore this match between training and practice. Workers are encouraged to bring their own experiences into the themed seminars, and by doing so import elements of the process of their practice into the process of training. When there is a sufficient match within the training session, opportunities are created for deeper reflection, allowing care workers a better understand of how they interact as transmitters and receivers of these conscious and unconscious elements.
Social Pedagogy and Therapeutic Child Care
Recently ‘social pedagogy’ has been identified as a relevant practice model that might be applied to raise standards in residential care.
Social Pedagogy is a European model which embeds social work training within a valued and high quality residential care system. Each country Germany, Belgium and Denmark has a slightly different approach influenced by their history, culture and society. And each pedagogic model varies dependent on the task of the institution in which it is practised. The model works from the understanding that everyday activities such as cooking, mealtimes, sport and playtimes can provide a situation in which children and adults can find a common purpose and interaction in order to develop relationships.
As I explored in the story of Lucy, this use of the ‘lived experience’ as a medium for facilitating emotional growth also finds expression in terms such therapeutic child care, ‘planned environment therapy’ as defined by Psychiatrist Marjorie Franklin in the UK in 1945, or the American version ‘milieu therapy’ developed by practitioners Fritz Redl and David Wineman in the 1940s and 50’s.
How do therapeutic child care and social pedagogy overlap and align? I am aware of how when thinking about the individual needs of children within a group situation, the risk is that we polarise or split off different parts of the whole dynamic. As I have explored in our foundation degree training, for adults engaged in working with emotionally troubled children, reflection on and acknowledgement of the relationship between the individual and the group is essential in formulating an intervention to help the child, and to make sense of the strong feelings and trauma that are otherwise ‘passed on’ to others through chaotic and distorted behaviours.
Each intervention with a child requires different tools or fields of vision. Maybe it is helpful to distinguish between therapeutic child care, as providing the ‘microscopic’ view of the individual child’s needs within the therapeutic relationship, and the social which might be viewed through the ‘binocular’ field of vision as defined by the current interest in social pedagogy.
A singular focus on either the individual or group is insufficient as a practice model in residential care, but together they form a complementary three dimensional ‘field and ground’ framework for meeting the needs of the most emotionally troubled children.
This synthesis of these two fields of vision, which we attempt to capture in our training, might be called ‘therapeutic pedagogy’. There is an African saying that captures this ethos: ‘It takes a whole village to raise a child’.
In Conclusion
The richest vein of the heritage of reflective work based learning is our shared ‘lived experience’. If children such as Lucy have access to responsive and empathic adults within a living/learning environment, they really can learn and grow emotionally, leading to good outcomes and improved life chances. The alternative is a life of chaos and institutionalisation.
At the school we reduce incidents of aggression by 95%, we re-integrate 84% of our children back into family life, and whereas only 8% of our children could make use of a classroom environment on arrival, 100% can do so on leaving.
And finally, how we deliver this process of transformation through relationships from the one to one, to the group, to the organisation, and out to society, remains a largely undiscovered but vital task into the future, for all of us here today.
John Diamond.
References
Clough, R. Bullock, R. What works in residential care: a
And ward, A. (2006) review of research evidence and
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Franklin, M. (1945) The use and misuse of planned
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Redl, F and Wineman,D The Aggressive Child. New York.
(1957) The Free Press.
Schon, D. A. (1983) The Reflective practitioner
New York. Basic Books.
. Intuition is not Enough.
Ward, A. and Mc Mahon Matching learning with
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