Attackers – and victims

In recent days there has inevitably been considerable media coverage of the attacks  carried out on two boys in Doncaster. The alleged perpetrators were two brothers aged 10 and 11 who had themselves recently been taken into care and placed with foster carers.

I have been pleased to see that, at least in some newspapers and other media reports, there has been a recognition that the attackers were themselves the victims of shockingly low standards of parenting and abusive treatment at the hands of parents.

Students participating in Akamas training courses will know that the significant harm suffered by these children in their very first months, let alone years, of their lives will have resulted in gross impairments to the development of their brains.  It is clear from their actions that they have not learned to regulate impulse or rage, not had the capacity to develop empathy or a healthy sense of shame, both essential to the formation of a moral code, and not been given consistent models of socially acceptable behaviour.

Increasingly, substitute carers, whether they are foster carers, adoptive parents, or residential care workers, need to acquire the knowledge and skills to work with these children therapeutically to repair the damage over years.  Without that knowledge and those skills, the best-intentioned, most loving, most nurturing care is likely to be inadequate.

 Some commentators  have stated that “social workers” should “take many more children into care at an earlier stage”.  The action open to social workers is in fact considerably restricted by local and national policies, and, of course, by legal requirements and the decisions of the courts.  And the slightest lowering of thresholds for placing children on care orders will result in very many thousands more children in care.   

But importantly, more children removed from birth families require more knowledgeable and skilled carers to care for them.  Such work is difficult and demanding, and those who offer their homes and their families within which to carry it out need a high level of training, support and supervision, far in excess of what is still generally available, if they are to succeed.  As a society, we must ensure that they get it.

Vulnerable children in schools

In the year in which it becomes a requirement for each school to have a Designated Teacher responsible for promoting the welfare of its most vulnerable children in local authority care, I was horrified to read Mike Kent’s unashamed account of his own unacceptable treatment of children in his care.

These children have no clear idea of appropriate empathic or cooperative behaviour and, when exposed to stress at school which they are unable to regulate, it doesn’t need an educational psychologist to know which route they are most likely to take.  Further physical assault or terrifying threat will not address their needs.  Mr Kent may see compliant children in his presence, but does he see the results of his ‘management by fear’ when they leave his ‘care’?

The challenge for teachers is recognising why these children are behaving in this way.  Is it because they have received no consistent nurture or boundaries from their parents and carers?  Or has their early development already been impaired by exposure to an aggressive, threatening or unloving environment?  The most vulnerable children in our schools (those whose early development has been impaired) are already relating to the world with a brain very differently assembled from those who have experienced a healthy attachment process and no overwhelming trauma.

It is clear from Mr Kent’s ill-informed views that our future training of Designated Teachers and other education professionals will need to focus even more strongly on understanding why the children they are teaching are behaving “badly” and how to deal with this appropriately.  Perhaps the local authority which employs Mr. Kent as a headteacher will ensure that, at the very least, he receives quality training in Child Protection.