Making Residential Care Work: Structure and Culture in Children's Homes

This study examines various aspects of children's homes and explores the connections between them in an attempt to break down the old circular argument. Structures are discernible in the relationship between different types of goals - societal, formal and belief; the variable balance between these goals determines staff cultures, which, in turn, shape the child cultures that develop. Such relationships are important because of their close association with outcomes - whether the children do well, whether the homes prosper. The model described in the book provides a conceptual framework and a set of causal relationships that should help professionals to plan and manage residential care better and so meet the needs of vulnerable children more effectively.