Implementing Whole Home Training for Residential Children Homes in the UK context- RESuLT

This presentation will describe the implementation of a 10 week whole team training, with additional supervision training for Residential Child Care Workers (RCCWs) in England. RESuLT is an evidence informed training that... [ view full abstract ]

This presentation will describe the implementation of a 10 week whole team training, with additional supervision training for Residential Child Care Workers (RCCWs) in England.

RESuLT is an evidence informed training that teaches social learning theory methods, basic neuroscience about the effects of early neglect and adolescent brain development, and focuses on relational skill building.

This presentation will describe how consistent child focused practice can be enhanced through a whole home training.

Children’s homes are undergoing major national reform in the UK and RESuLT is intended to be one programme designed to enhance skill development for residential childcare workers. In addition to providing a shared practice language and methods of working, the training aims to enhance staff communication and motivation at work. RESuLT aims to raise awareness of the effect of RCCWs behaviour and group process on the young people in their care.

The training is rooted in the practice of the staff team and each week RCCWs are expected to practice their learning in the home. RESuLT provides 10 weekly half-day sessions for a children’s home team, plus two half-day supervision sessions for managers, helping them incorporate the learning into practice. The training is delivered by two facilitators, one from the Residential Child Care Sector and the other from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

RESuLT focuses on the ‘Doing, thinking and feeling’ triad of the group process in children’s homes. It promotes the idea that ‘every exchange is a potential intervention’ in children’s homes – an opportunity for children to re-learn helpful relational interaction.

The training has now been delivered to 400 residential childcare workers. Facilitators across the UK from CAMHS and social care agencies are working towards accreditation as RESuLT facilitators. An independent evaluation of RESuLT by Ipsos Mori and the Universities of Loughborough and Bristol reported in Summer 2016.

This presentation will describe the factors which have influenced successful implementation and outline some of the challenges that we have faced. There will be a description of the implementation stages required to provide a fertile ground for evaluation to take place. One such example is ‘How to ensure that the training is delivered as intended’ to safeguard some measure of standardised practice across the UK. To that end the presentation will show some quantitative and qualitative analyses of the application of the RESuLT Fidelity Measure for the 2015-2016 cohort of RESuLT training (RCCWs n=120)

Finally, we will hear from some of the Staff and Young people who have experienced the RESuLT training.