Children in care to benefit from ground-breaking pilot scheme

A pioneering pilot scheme to boost the long-term outcomes of children in care is being launched in Blackburn with Darwen.

One of the borough’s children’s homes will welcome two social pedagogues – specially trained children’s specialists who work with and support the children and their all-round development – in September.

The experts from Germany are currently being recruited to start in their roles. In January the pilot home was judged to be outstanding in every area by Ofsted.

This is the first full-scale research on this issue by the government and is part of a pilot by The Department for Children, Schools and Families for eight children’s homes in the country as part of the Care Matters agenda, which aims to improve the lives of children in care.

The children’s home, which cannot be named, was selected from a huge number of interested local authorities to take part in the pilot.

It aims to see if the scheme improves outcomes for children in residential care homes.

The title social pedagogue, which roughly translates as a teacher or instructor, describes the work done by youth and residential workers. They use creative and practical skills with groups and on an individual basis to support children.

Social pedagogues are well known in Europe and are often trained to graduate level but it is relatively new in the UK.

By encouraging young people in residential care to take what might seem small steps - such as developing a routine to get out of bed and go to school - the social pedagogue can help them to make great strides in terms of developing life skills.

Gladys Rhodes, deputy director of children’s services, said: “There has never been a full government supported scheme on this scale into the work done by social pedagogues before and we are hoping that this approach will help us even further in improving outcomes for children in residential care in Blackburn with Darwen.

“We are really pleased that Blackburn with Darwen has been chosen to pilot this extremely successful way of delivering residential care which is established in other parts of Europe and has proved very beneficial for children.”