1. science
2. social science
3. pedagogy

March 27 2015
Head, Heart, Hands England Conference
Friends House, London
Achieving systemic change in Foster Care: the
Potential of Social Pedagogy
#HeadHeartHands
Social Pedagogy – Overview
Pat Petrie
Centre for Understanding Social Pedagogy
UCL Institute of Education
Social Pedagogy as a system
Training and Education
Theory
Policy and Practice
Care & Social
Services
Youth Services
Pedagogues
Work in
Education
Health
Social pedagogy
Where care and education meet …
Nurturance…
Upbringing…
Supporting development…
Education-in-its-broadest-sense
Social pedagogy in practice
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Head – heart – hands
The whole person
Reflection
Sharing the same living space and everyday activities
with others: Doing things WITH not TO people
Human rights, social agency and potential
Understanding the difference between professional,
personal, and private matters
Team work and valuing the collective
Being a good role model
Recent UK developments
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Research – late 1990s>
Training courses
Degrees
Pilot schemes
Head Heart Hands: Social pedagogy in foster
care
• Etc . . .
To sum up
• Policy, practice and theory that
address social issues by ‘educational’ means
• A foundation concept across services
• An ethical and theoretical approach to
practice, training and policy
Head, Heart, Hands – Overview
Melissa Green
Director of Operations
The Fostering Network
Programme aims
• Demonstrate the impact that introducing a
social pedagogic approach can make to foster
carers and the lives of the children they foster
• Improve the outcomes for children in care
and contribute to them being able to fulfil
their potential
…but looks
different in
every
country…
Social
pedagogy is
well
established
across
Europe…
…our job is to
find out what
it might look
like in the UK.
Head, Heart, Hands across the UK
Orkney
& Aberlour
Joint site
Edinburgh
Staffordshire
Hackney
Surrey
Capstone
South West
The programme is being funded
over four years by:
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Comic Relief
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
The Henry Smith Charity
The John Ellerman Foundation
KPMG Foundation
Man Charitable Trust
The Monument Trust
The Head, Heart, Hands learning
and development
Taster
Day
Orientation
Days
8 Day Core Couse
Ongoing momentum activities supported by site social
pedagogues and the social pedagogy consortium
All Learning and Development designed by
the social pedagogy consortium
Learning and Development
Word cloud
By the end of the programme we
will:
• Understand what social pedagogy means in a UK
context
• Have demonstrated what needs to be in place in
order to introduce social pedagogy into foster care
in the UK
• Be able to show the difference working in a social
pedagogic way makes to the outcomes for children
in care
When you teach a child something,
you take away forever his chance of
discovering it for himself – Jean
Piaget
Teaching a child how to live in the
world and reflecting on our role
Social Pedagogy in Action
Nicola Hill
Nicola Hill
• Long-term foster carer for Hackney since 2010
• Look after siblings, a boy, 12 and a girl, 15
• Author of two books, Pink Guide to Adoption
and Proud Parents, published by BAAF
• Member of Tower Hamlets’ fostering panel
• Member of DfE expert panel on improving
permanence for looked after children
• Member of APPG on looked after children
Haltung – what we believe in
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Respect
Co-operation
Doing your best
Thinking about others
Our impact on the world
Building relationships
Building resilience
Reflecting and learning
Positive experiences and opportunities
Key thinkers
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau – facilitate
opportunities for learning
• Paulo Freire – working with each other,
developing consciousness
• Cannan et al – to prevent or ease social
problems by providing people with the means
to manage their own lives or make changes in
their circumstances
Putting it into practice
• Sunday lunch – cooking chicken casserole, A
has hissy fit about packed lunches – wants
smoked salmon bagels
• Show her that we have enough food but agree
to take her shopping
• What can I teach?
• Co-operation, impact on the world, building
relationships, building resilience, reflecting
and learning
Techniques
• Diamond Model – positive experience,
relationship building, wellbeing,
empowerment, holistic learning
• Common Third – doing an activity together
that the child helps to plan and builds our
relationship
• Reflection – what else might be going on –
avoiding revision??? Control issues.
Shopping expedition
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Planning menus for the week
Looking up recipes
Writing shopping list
Taking bags and walking, chatting
Checking out prices, getting good value
Letting her make decisions
Queuing
Walking back with heavy loads in the rain
Unpacking
Next week we’ll order online!
Social Pedagogy in Supervision
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Using 4-stage reviewing cycle
Upset about a LAC review
Facts – reliving what happened
Feelings – emotional responses
Findings – analysing what went on
Futures – applying learning, looking at options
for moving forward
Reflection
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Looking at our own experiences of education
What influenced our achievements
What motivated us
What impact this has on our expectations of the
children
What we see as our professional role
What we think professionals expect of us
How we can empower children to achieve
Relax, trust them, guide them and try not to nag!
Communication
• Looking at the messages sent, how they are
received
• How we give feedback to the department
• The level of communication we want to feel
respected and valued
• Learning all the time about how to improve
our communication
• Johari’s Window – increasing open space,
what is hidden, blind spot, unknown
Further information
• Email nicola_hill@talktalk.net to sign up to
Head, Heart, Hands newsletter published by
Fostering Network
• Search previous copies under ‘Freya Burley
blogs’ on www.fostering.net
• Join Social Pedagogy Momentum Facebook
page,
https://www.facebook.com/groups/social.ped
agogy.momentum/
Programme aims
• Professionalising Foster Care
• Improving Outcomes for fostered children
• Social pedagogy = non-hierarchical
Our training for foster
carers and staff
Level 2
Level 1
Taster Day
Photo: kay la la (via flickr)
6TH MAY 15,
Lea Hall Social Club,
Sandy Lane, Rugeley,
WS15 2LB
and
4TH NOV 15,
61 Elmwood Drive
Blythe Bridge,
Stoke-on-Trent,
ST11 9NX
Always 9.30 am – 3 pm
Lunch will be provided
Get an overview about where social pedagogy comes from and what it is about!
Find out how Staffordshire has introduced social pedagogy in residential, fostering and
adoption.
Meet staff and foster carers who have been trained in social pedagogy and use it in their
practice!
Meet Pat Petrie a UK academic who has researched social pedagogy extensively.
• LEVEL 1 (Orientation
Days) - 9.30am-3pm
• 22nd & 23rd June 15 at
Seabridge
• 8th & 9th Sept 15 at
Blackheath
• 10th & 11th Nov 15 at
Rugeley Rose
• 3rd & 4th Feb 16 at St
Peters Church, Tamworth
• Level 2 (New)9.30am-3pm
• 5th & 6th Oct 15 at
Seabridge
• 9th & 10th March 16
at Blackheath
Including foster carers in
facilitation
(b)e Safe – embrace
modern media
Opening Mary Poppins’ Bag!
Developing a love of language
and reading at home A Common Third approach to
support Foster Carers to enable
children and young people to
develop a love of books and
language
Opening Mary Poppins’ Bag!
• A workshop written and developed by and for Foster
Carers, in partnership with a Pedagogue and
Education Mentor from the Virtual School
• Based on our own philosophy for supporting reading
and language for the children in our care.
• Links, where possible, to good classroom practice.
• Provides ideas, recommended books and authors.
• Includes fun Common Third activities attached to
each book, for Carers and children/young people to
try at home or outside the home
Opening Mary Poppins’ Bag!
For example:
“Working with Education”
Training for Foster Carers
Foster Carers worked with the Virtual School
and Training Team to review and update the
“Working with Education” Training delivered to
all new Carers and also existing Carers, and
brought in models of Social Pedagogy (ie: The
Diamond Model).
From April 2015, this new Training will be
jointly delivered by Foster Carers in
partnership with the Training Team
Lessons learnt
• Foster carers are key activators to make social
pedagogy sustainable
• Foster carers are often an untapped resource
• Enabling and releasing foster carers broadens
and strengthens the training and development
offer
Thanks for your attention!
Auf Wiedersehen!
Head, Heart, and Hands: evaluation of the impact of a national
demonstration programme to improve the quality of foster care
Evaluating Head, Heart, Hands:
Emerging evidence
Head, Heart, Hands Practice Exchange Day
March, 2015
Lisa Holmes and Sam McDermid
Centre for Child and Family Research, Loughborough University
The evaluation at its broadest
The evaluation is exploring the impact that Head,
Heart, Hands has on:
Children and young people in foster care
Foster carers
Those who are supporting them
How does the idea of social pedagogy become a
reality in fostering in the UK?
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Overview of the evaluation
• Complimentary and overlapping modules
• Baseline and two follow up data collection points
 Module 1: Impact on children and young people
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Face to face interviews children and young people
Analysis of management information systems data and
additional case file information
Includes an analysis of costs
 Module 2: Impact on foster carers and on practice
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On-line survey and interviews with foster carers
Chaired group discussions with practitioners
Face-to-face interviews with social pedagogues
Overview of the evaluation
 Module 3: Impact on the system
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Drawing on implementation science literature
Case studies (includes face-to-face and telephone interviews)
Interviews with programme managers
On-line survey with practitioners
 Outputs to date
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One analysis of the impact of Head, Heart, Hands on Children
and young people and their foster carers (May 2014)
Analysis of implementation issues at Baseline and Time 2
The evaluation team
 Centre for Child and Family Research
Evaluation Lead
 The Colebrooke Centre for Evidence and
Implementation Implementation and Knowledge
Transfer lead
 National Care Advisory Service
Oversight of peer researchers
 Janet Boddy, University of Sussex
Expert Consultant
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Social pedagogy as a way of practice
 An approach or a method?
 Two discourses
 The learning journey will these conceptualisations change over
time?
 ‘Doing it already’
 Both positive and negative
 Validating tacit knowledge
 Confidence
 Re-affirming of the role of foster carers
 Does this validation have any impact in the longer term?
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Reflections on social pedagogy
 Different levels of engagement
 Engaged Adopter
 Cautious optimist
 Defended Sceptic
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Social pedagogy within a context
 Assimilating social pedagogy into existing practices and
language
 Social pedagogy as a way to change the wider system
 How ‘ready’ is the wider system for social pedagogy
 The importance of the role and support of supervising social
workers
 The importance of a (perceived) commitment from the system
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Implementation issues
 Turning an idea into a reality
 Issues identified not unique to Head, Heart, Hands or
social pedagogy
 Maintaining momentum
 Increasing the ‘spread’ of social pedagogy
 Resources
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Costing work:
Approach to costs
 Costs, cost effectiveness and sustainability as key part
of any new innovation
 ‘Bottom up’ cost methodology: the child is the unit of
measurement
 Link costs to needs and outcomes
 ‘Costs savings’ vs. ‘Costs avoided’
 Too early for robust evidence on costs
 Indicative examples
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Indicative examples of where costs may be
avoided
 Building capacity in the system
 Recruitment and retention of foster carers
 Improved relationships between foster carers and their
supervising social workers
 Supervisory visits
 Complaints
 Placement stability
 Improved outcomes
 Specialist placements or interventions
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Example: Placement stability
 The costs associated with placement change, range
from £250 to £1,500 per placement change
 Costs of changing placement increase incrementally per
placement change
 Costs of placement change for a child with a history of
placement instability: £4,500 per placement change
 Impact of cumulative costs over time
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Example: Carla’s story
Social care processes
Estimated social care
Estimated social care costs
costs for the 19 months
for the 19 months following
prior to the introduction of the introduction of Head,
Head, Heart, Hands
Heart, Hands
Cost (£)
Cost (£)
Process 3: Maintaining the Placement
Process 2: Care Planning
Process 6: Review
Complaints
72,357
72,357
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749
2,476
2,476
24,900
1,700
SP intervention (higher intensity)
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7,209
SP intervention (lower intensity)
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2,067
Total cost for the period
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100,482
86,558
Next steps
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The cost calculators for children’s services
 Uses routinely collected data to calculate the costs of different care
pathways over time
 Brings cost data together with data on outcomes
Data to be collected
 Two years prior to Head, Heart, Hands
 Four years of programme period
 Whole looked after population
Comparative analysis of costs and outcomes
Analysis of interviews with children and young people, and foster carers at
time 2
Repeated in time 3
Contact Details
Lisa Holmes
Director
Centre for Child and Family Research
Loughborough University
Sam McDermid
Senior Research Associate
Centre for Child and Family Research
Loughborough University
L.J.Holmes@lboro.ac.uk
S.Mcdermid@lboro.ac.uk
01509 228 878
01509 228 365
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Questions and reflection
• Share your thoughts and reflections on what
you’ve heard today
• What questions do you have
• What one action will you take home with you
today?
Thank you
#HeadHeartHands