Dilemmas and Decision Making in Residential Childcare

The perfect guide for new workers entering residential childcare. Adopting a case study approach, this book contains a collection of stories of good practice told from the point of view of the residential care worker that help to demonstrate how they deal with dilemmas and make effective decisions in the moment.

Workers in residential childcare have to quickly understand the complexity of how young people's early neglect, abuse and relational trauma impact their lives. There are also conflicts and relationship challenges in abundance. This collection of stories illustrates good practice told from the point of view of the residential care worker and demonstrates their thinking in action around ethical dilemmas, different courses of action taken and why they made these decisions. This book also talks about how effective communication with other adults in the team can de-escalate risk and how to carry out dynamic risk assessments.

The users can apply their knowledge obtained from this book through the use of reflective questions which offers relevant neutral material where workers can take a step back from the emotive situations they are currently working in and reflect on the hypothetical. It is also intended that the scenarios in this book can be used as a springboard for further learning or as scenarios in an interview.