'We're like one, big, dysfunctional family': struggling to define the role of residential child care workers

Abstract

Understanding the complexities of working in residential child care is a difficult, and somewhat daunting, task. Research has highlighted that staff members perform a number of duties in the day-to-day lives of young people (Connelly and Milligan, 2012). Alongside these duties, staff members also have a 'professional' responsibility and identity in the residential unit (Smith, 2009). As a result, being both an 'employee' and 'parental figure' can be a difficult role to comprehend. In the project discussed here, 13 residential child care workers were interviewed and asked to discuss their views on 'parenting' the young people in their care. The study found that whilst some staff members identified as a substitute or surrogate 'parent' to the young people, others were clear that they could not replace biological parents. Nevertheless, all staff members highlighted that their role was increasingly complex and difficult to define. Further research in this area is necessary in order to understand the impact of these findings on the residential care sector. What is increasingly clear, however, is that the role of residential child care workers is a complex and every-changing one that cannot be easily understood.

Keywords

• residential child care
• parenting
• relationships
• scotland