From the Fat into the Fire
I felt a chill go down my spine when yesterday I googled the company I went to work for when I had left the local authority . In 2016 they hit the headlines when two of their homes for very damaged children had to be closed down after terrified staff had locked themselves in the units as the children climbed on the roof and threw tiles off and smashed all the windows. It never quite got to that pitch when I was there but very much shades of the past.
I took a job with this private company who cared for the most damaged children in the country for eye-watering fees — it made Eton look cheap. One week for the most difficult children would buy you a term at Eton in those days. The fees were between £3,500 to £4,500 a week. However having had a good experience with private fostering I thought they maybe could do better than the local authority.
The warning signs were there. My new boss spent most of my first day telling me about his new Audi TT sports car and he was careful to park it where the children could not get near. I hardly ever saw him after that. The office was a run down terrapin and within the first week one of the managers told me that no one lasts long here — they don’t want you to acquire any employment rights.
There was an alarming number of agency staff and when I asked about training there were blank faces. Previous employment for the staff members could have been anything from a lorry driver to digging the roads. Regardless of this some members of staff were able to earn the respect of the children whereas others floundered hopelessly. One of the best had just come from being a housemother at a very posh girls school nearby — she just had a gift and I managed to persuade her to take a permanent job and she soon was managing one of the units. i noticed in the newspaper report that one of the five homes got a good report — I wonder if it was the one run by her………if she was still there which was unlikely.
The children almost never went home and rarely had visitors. and the policy was to take anyone no matter how violent— they only drew the line at fire setters. There was a whole unit set aside for sexual offenders. Two staff for each child all the time was not uncommon — it just bumped up the price.
The school so called was next to my office and when I arrived in the morning, the kids used to stand in an aggressive group taunting me saying ….oh here comes the posh bitch……..queen Elizabeth. However I liked the kids it was the management I had a problem with and I was part of it.
The only unit where there was rarely any trouble was one for anorexic girls but I was not in charge of that one. There was a rather slick business man who seem to have been drafted in to try to bring some respectability about the set up, however he only seemed interested in balance sheets. I think he was frightened of the children and would wait until the coast was clear before he would scuttle away.
There was a little boy who made an indelible impression on me. He was no management problem, very intelligent, interested in music and a delight to be around. His only issue was he was enuretic and soiled himself constantly. The constant bullying no doubt had something to do with this. He would sit in the school when all the other kids were kicking off trying to work….it was heartbreaking. I blotted my copy book by suggesting to his social worker that maybe this was not the right place for him. Nearby there was a private school who dealt with very mild learning disabilities such as dyslexia which was a quarter of the price. She took him for an interview and they immediately offered him a place as did a local choir school as they both could see his potential. However the company directors were furious — he was an easy money spinner for them and his local authority had the usual prejudice against the schools, as they saw them as traditional public schools despite the fact that they were paying four times the amount for a life of misery for him. Although I left before he did I did hear that he was moved to a very good foster placement and I would love to know how he is now
The local police station were constantly being contacted as the children would run away all the time. Nothing much seems to have changed according to the newspaper report I read yesterday. All the neighbours to the various units still constantly complaining about the children running wild. It is very difficult to know what the answer is, but I, as a result of that experience, do not think placing up to eight very damaged children together in the country miles from their home with no normal schooling is the answer. However the success the Rudolph Steiner school with the girl who wanted to be a boy was one example where it seemed to work but this organization seemed to be primarily interested in profit and was a pretty depressing place to work.
Sure enough as the head teacher and I came up to the two year mark we were both called into the office and made redundant for a restructuring which was no surprise and to be honest a bit of a relief.
