Secure Accommodation in Child Care

Some children seem to present parents, teachers, social workers and courts with such serious or disparate problems that holding them in secure accommodation is apparently the only way to control them. How this comes about, and by what criteria social workers and courts help them make these difficult decisions, are the subjects of this intriguing and innovative book. In Secure Accommodation in Child Care , Harris and Timms use a major empirical study of children in secure accommodation as a basis for an analysis of relations between the state, the family and the 'difficult' child. By synthesising literary and social science theories they examine court procedures and the experiences of social workers and the children themselves to explain how professionals and children make sense of their respective worlds, and how that 'sense' is translated into personal or professional action. The functions of secure accommodation, although legally ascribed, are fundamentally ambigous; 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 study including verbatim interviews with managers, social workers and children they offer a radicl recasting of an ambigous aspect of public child care into a new theoretical and conceptual framework.