Residential staff’s perspective on the Model of Attachment Practice (M.A.P.)

Abstract

Residential childcare has a long history and it has fulfilled an important function in child welfare systems to address the needs of children and young people who for various reasons cannot remain with their families (Whittaker et al 2016). Residential childcare is a core part of the spectrum of services available for children and young people, however serious concerns have been raised about its effectiveness over the decades. Abuse scandals (Beckett 2011, Marshall 2014, Hughes Report 1986) which occurred in England, Wales and Ireland primarily in the 1980’s and 1990’s and in residential childcare across many other countries has led to an ongoing debate about the appropriateness of residential care for children. Yet despite these scandals residential childcare remains a relevant and highly utilised setting in many countries. Therefore, it is important to try and identify what works in a residential childcare context to ensure that the children/young people placed there have an experience that is a positive and life enhancing one.

The Western Health and Social Care Trust (WHSCT) has introduced a therapeutic model of practice known as the Model of Attachment Practice (MAP) and is the only home grown model introduced within Northern Ireland. Residential childcare staff practising in an attachment informed way is crucial for the success of the MAP project. This research is aimed at hearing the voices of the staff group to ascertain whether the processes that we have adopted to implement the model have helped them deliver the type of residential childcare service which will provide children/young people with a positive, life enhancing experience.

MAP is a model of practice. Its’ future development will be informed by feedback from our children and young people but very importantly the experience of our staff. It requires a high level of professional and personal involvement and as Abraham et al (2022) contend it is important to give a voice to residential workers through research as these are the workers who work closely with the children and young people within our residential childcare homes and who can effect most change in the young people looked after. It is, therefore, important to hear their experiences to ascertain what can be learnt from these for the wider residential childcare arena.

The aims and objectives of the research were actioned by following a mixed methods approach. This approach used both quantitative and qualitative methods in tandem to elicit residential childcare staff’s view of the impact that MAP had in residential children’s homes. In total I sent out eighty-six questionnaires to all residential childcare staff in the WHSCT, thirty-six were returned which is just under a 42% return. Of those thirty-six I interviewed fifteen staff which is 42% of those who returned questionnaires and 17% of the entire residential care staff group. The findings show that many of the children/young people who will need this service are our most emotionally impacted and traumatised looked after children (Mota et al 2017) and therefore we must strive to ensure that the service the sector provides for these children/young people is of the highest quality.

MAP is a relational model of practice and the findings highlight that its introduction has made staff more aware of the importance of relationships but has also stressed throughout that developing meaningful ones are difficult but so worthwhile. The research identifies themes which are deemed by staff to be helpful in developing caring and trusting relationships but also identifies themes which place obstacles in the way of staff developing these relationships. Based on the findings recommendations are made both to the WHSCT and the wider residential childcare sector with the aim of improving the quality of relationships in residential children’s homes to ensure that the children/young people looked after in the sector have a positive and life enhancing experience.

Date of Award	Jul 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Supervisor	Davy Hayes (Supervisor) & Gerry Marshall (Supervisor)