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.

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.

Whilst I welcome what this editorial is trying to do I also believe that we need to resist the temptation to apologise for the perceived failings of residential care services. We should remember that the efforts of residential workers have often achieved remarkable results despite the lack of appropriate training, low expectations, and constant bad press.

I doubt that anyone would argue that the residential task presents considerable challenges, yet the level of qualification expected for this task remains unacceptably low. I too recall the specialist residential training of thirty years ago which the writer refers to. While this training undoubtedly helped create a focussed workforce, it did little to equip them to deal with the complexity of need that can often present in children in public care.

Thirty years on and our understanding of the injuries endured by many of these children has grown enormously. So too has our knowledge of the interventions necessary to aid recovery or adaptation. At Akamas we are seeing every day how training based on this learning gives carers the confidence and skills necessary to help vulnerable children recover from or adapt to life after trauma.

Let us hope that the future investment in residential care will take into account current research, and embraces the benefits of a social pedagogic model. Perhaps then residential workers will attain the same status as fieldwork colleagues and we can at long last lay to rest the label of a Cinderella Service.

Children can recover from early trauma, but only if they receive skilled care. They do not just need families, they need therapeutic families who have the knowledge and skill to enable the children to recover. And these families must also work as part of a professional team around the child, a team that recognises and addresses the injuries the child has suffered.

These are children for whom the state must accept responsibility. What is wrong with our current system is not that it is expensive. Of course there is a cost to ensuring the recovery of our most injured children – and remember that this is just 0.5% of the child population we are discussing. What is wrong is that we do not yet invest enough in these children.

There is growing evidence in this country and around the world that skilled care over a long period can enable children to recover from early trauma. Akamas can prove, for example, that the courses we provide for carers, teachers and those who supervise and support them, change the way children are treated, and this changes the outcomes for the children. Adoption, which transfers all legal responsibility for the child away from the state, can never be guaranteed to provide this level of knowledge and skill.

And adoption support can legally only be provided as an optional extra if the adoptive family chooses to make use of it. All accountability is removed. Imagine taking your injured child to hospital, only to find that they are assigned to a volunteer who takes them away and is told they can ask for support if they need it!

Joanne Alper acknowledges a substantial breakdown rate in adoption arrangements, where the difficulty and stress is more than the adoptive carers, or the child, can manage.  There are no official records of the continuing progress of adopted people through adult life.  So we can only guess at the proportion of them who continue to face emotional and social difficulties originating in their early childhood.

Adoption certainly saves cash. But it cannot be relied upon to save injured children who need skilled care. Other countries in Europe invest in providing stable placements with a professional level of care for their most vulnerable children, and their children thrive. Let us learn from them.

In 2004 a government survey of 1000 schools showed that the main problem for schools in helping looked after children to benefit from education was the unmanageable behaviour of the children. And the vast majority of the teachers surveyed recognised the origins of the behaviour in the traumatic experiences these children have lived through, but felt they did not know how to address the problems in school.

In 2008 Akamas conducted an impact evaluation of online training we provide to anyone working with vulnerable and traumatised children. This provided clear evidence that the right training delivered to the right people does make a difference to the way people work, and that makes a difference to the outcomes for children.

Just one example we discovered was a young person behaving in ways that severely disrupted school life two or three times a day and they were on the verge of exclusion. When those working most closely with the child changed the way they worked these incidents became much less severe and dropped in frequency to one or two a fortnight. The young person also became more able to manage their own behaviour, and this made for more positive outcomes during the school day.

In my view, the key to this success is that the new knowledge is not just held by one person, but is shared by as many as possible who form the network around the child.  Designated teachers have a vital role in this and training will become a key element in enabling them to manage their new responsibilities successfully.