Keyworking in residential child care: Lessons from research

Orla Cahill, Stephanie Holt and Gloria Kirwan

Children and Youth Services Review, 2016, vol. 65, issue C, 216-223

Abstract: Developing quality relationships is recognised as an active ingredient for effective interventions with young people in care. Essentially, care staff has the opportunity and capacity to positively influence the young person's experiences in care, through the positive relationships they form. This paper presents selectively on the findings of two separate but related qualitative Irish studies exploring relationship-based approaches in residential child care practice, from the perspectives of both residential child care workers and young care leavers. Thirty-two professionals and four care leavers participated in either focus group or individual interviews. The findings are integrated in this paper with the wider literature on young people leaving care, with the aim of identifying core knowledge that is needed by service providers who are tasked with the support of young people making the transition out of care and towards independent living. In this paper we attempt to identify the knowledge base on relationship-building which is needed by care staff in order to carry out their role. It is argued that an explicit knowledge base is overdue now that the complex needs of young people in care are increasingly visible through advances in research and more recently the emerging literature concerning the personal testimonies of care graduates.

Keywords: Residential care; Relationship based practice; Keyworking; Outcomes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740916301268
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:65:y:2016:i:c:p:216-223

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2016.04.014

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().