Secure Accommodation in Child Care

For some children secure accommodation seems to be the only way to control their disparate number of "problems". But why is this so, and from what criteria do social work professionals decide that a child should be put into secure accommodation? In Secure Accommodation in Child Care the authors use an empirical study as a basis for an analysis of the relations between the state, the family, and the "difficult" child. By looking at court procedures, social workers and the children themselves they explain how professionals and children make sense of their worlds, and how they translate that "sense" into personal or professional action. The functions of secure accommodation, although legally ascribed, are fundamentally ambiguous; to "lock up" children by means of an authorised strategy which embraces both the "sick" and the "wicked" suggests the existence of a less than obvious relation between meeting "needs", furthering "interests" and protecting "rights", and poses particular difficulties in professional decision making. The authors present a theoretical introduction which sets the scene in terms of history, law and social policy, and examines concepts fundamental to their enquiry, including myth, narrative and drama. By then relating this to the empirical survey including verbatim interviews with managers, social workers and children they offer a radical recasting of an ambiguous aspect of public child care into a new theoretical and conceptual framework. Secure Accommodation in Child Care is essential reading for social service managers, social policy makers, social workers and health care professionals as well as for students and lecturers of social policy and social work.