Navigating Relationships in Residential Care: Insights from Scotland

1. Space, Place and Relationships Navigating Relationships in Children's Residential CareDr Nadine Fowler

2. Introduction and Project Overview

3. Introduction and project overview • Understanding how participants navigated their relationships • Exploring how relationships were enacted in residential spaces • Concluding thoughts and next steps Introduction

4. Research Questions • How are relationships in residential child care enacted by young people and staff members? • How are relationships expressed and understood in the residential space? • What impact does the wider residential environment have on relationships in the residential house? • What role do relationships play in the everyday experiences of residential child care for staff members and young people? Project Overview

5. Methods • Ethnography and Participant Observation in 3 residential houses in Scotland, with a total of 49 staff members and 17 young people • Semi-structured interviews with 22 staff members and 5 young people • Data comprised of 104 days of fieldnotes and 27 interview transcripts, all analysed using Sequential Analysis (Becker, 1970) Project Overview

6. Project Findings:Space, Place and Relationships

7. What are ‘relationships’? • Acombination of interactions between people that elicit feelings of connectedness &the partaking of shared activities and experiences together. Relationships in Residential Child Care • Relationships in residential settings are messy, unpredictable, ambiguous and fluid. • Debates around ‘love’ in Scottish residential care suggest some acceptance of close relationships in residential settings, highlighting that young people should experience love whilst in residential care. • However, there are many barriers to relationships in residential care… Navigating Relationships

8. Doing Relationships • Interactions: The ways that people interact with one another, the meaning behind those interactions, and the social processes at play are all important factors in navigating relationships. • Family Practices and Displaying Families: Relationships are both ‘practiced’ and ‘displayed’ in the residential context. Small, routine aspects of family life are part of the connections that people share, demonstrating to others that ‘we are family’. • The Family Metaphor:The fluidity of ‘family’ and ‘kinship’ allows staff members and young people to employ the ‘family metaphor’ to describe their relationships with one another, understanding these relationships as being similar to, and sharing the same meaning of, ‘family’ relationships. Navigating Relationships

9. Chilling Out I’m sitting on the sofa in the lounge and Aidan (YP) and Scarlett (SM) are moving through the lounge and dining room getting ready to watch some television. They’ve been talking about spending time together on and off all day. They seem to have a routine figured out and are really looking forward to it: Scarlett: “Right, if you get the pouf, I’ll finish up what I’m doing and then we can get ourselves all cosy for The X Factor” Aidan: “Will you make us some hot chocolate, though?” Scarlett: “Aw, what? I was just through there!” Aidan: [exaggerated] “Please…?” Scarlett: “Urgh, fine. But you better have that pouf pulled out and ready by the time I’m done!” (Fieldnotes, lounge, Bruceford) Enacting Relationships in Residential Spaces

10. Being and Feeling Close Ruby (SM) has not long returned from shopping, where she picked up pyjamas and slippers for Imogen (YP) and Erin (YP) for Christmas. Ruby: “Oh, I just couldn’t resist these [snowman slippers]. I had to grab the display pair, because they only had one pair on the shelf. I ended up putting the first pair back, because I thought ‘I can’t get one and not the other’ and then I saw the display pair and thought ‘I’ll just have those’”. (Fieldnotes, lounge, Bruceford) Enacting Relationships in Residential Spaces

11. The House as a Homeplace and a Workplace Sienna (SM) just came into the lounge stating that she was going to take a seat for a bit. She sat on the sofa, looked out the window, then stood up again and went into the downstairs office. This happened just as Phoebe (SM) could be heard unlocking the door as she returned from her meeting. (Fieldnotes, lounge, Bruceford) Enacting Relationships in Residential Spaces

12. The House as a Homeplace and a Workplace Phoebe and I were having a bit of a chat in the lounge today. She told me that a local authority manager once visited and told her off for allowing staff members to hoover in their pyjamas. Phoebe said to me that she couldn’t understand why anyone would want to vacuum in their pyjamas. I told her that I do this all the time, because I know that vacuuming will just make me hot and sweating and I wouldn’t want to get my clean clothes all hot and sweaty. She replied to say that she needs to get up and ready for the day before she feels comfortable doing any housework. (Fieldnotes, lounge, Bruceford) Enacting Relationships in Residential Spaces

13. Personalising Spaces Aidan: “What’s this?” Liam (SM): “I think it’s for you. Sienna (SM) brought it back after she’d been at the shops.” Aidan was holding a fluffy red blanket, newly purchased, that had been left for him on the sofa. Aidan: “Oh my God, I can’t believe she bought me it!” It later transpired that Aidan had given his old blanket to his sister, and had wanted a replacement one. (Fieldnotes, lounge, Bruceford)

14. Concluding Thoughts and Next Steps

15. There are considerable barriers to close, intimate and loving relationships in residential care. Where the current narrative around love encourages staff members and young people to closely connect with one another, the daily context of residential care continues to discourage close relationships… BUT • The data clearly demonstrates that staff members and young people are able to form close, intimate relationships with one another, and that these relationships are not too dissimilar from ‘traditional’ family relationships. Concluding Thoughts

16. Risk-averse practice which views relationships in residential care as problematic does not take into account the inevitability of connections between people who live and work together, and the importance of these connections. • While an inevitable aspect of living and working in residential care, bureaucratic processes at the heart of managerialism and audit culture have a profound impact on the way that relationships are viewed and done in residential houses. • There is an uncertainty around appropriate and inappropriate relationships, situated within a fear of abuse scandals and accusations, as well as misinterpretation and understanding. • Overall, current policies and guidance need to be reviewed to give clear messages about relationships in residential care, especially if ‘love’ is to continue to form such a significant part of Scotland’s message about care. Next Steps

17. Thank You! Dr Nadine Fowler Research Associate, CELCIS, University of Strathclyde Researcher, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stirling Twitter: @nadine_fowler

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