NCERCC promotes team working skills in residential care

Monday 29 June 2009

The National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care (NCERCC), based at NCB, has developed a guidance document to assist staff at residential child care (RCC) settings to develop their team working skills - a crucial element of the skill set required to ensure best outcomes for children and young people in care.

The need for the guidance was recognised after factors including high stress levels, high staff turnover and poor communication, were discovered to be impacting on the ability of staff to work effectively as a team in a number of residential care settings examined.

The guidance, Promoting Good Quality Care through Teamwork and Effective Leadership, is now available to all residential care workers and provides a comprehensive overview of the factors, skills and commitment required to develop an effective team. It is the first of a suite of leadership and management documents which will be published by NCERCC and is widely applicable across children's services.

Jonathan Stanley, Manager of NCERCC said, 'This document is an example of the way RCC has changed in the last five years. The sector researches itself and uses the evidence to take steps to make things better. NCERCC is pleased to be able to offer this learning to other sectors of children's services where young people and care workers are telling us that they are struggling with the same issues around teamwork.'

-ENDS-

Notes to editors:

1. Promoting Good Quality Care through Teamwork and Effective Leadership, by Joan Walton, Director of the Bordesley Management and Leadership Centre, is available to download for free from the NCERCC website here

2. The National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care, based at NCB, aims to improve standards in residential care. The Centre is a mixture of physical and virtual resources and a network of residential care managers and practitioners across England. http://partner.ncb.org.uk/Page.asp?sve=934

3. NCB's mission is to advance the well-being of all children and young people across every aspect of their lives. As a membership and infrastructure support agency for the children's sector in England and Northern Ireland, NCB provides essential information on policy, research and best practice for our members and the members of our wide range of partnership bodies which operate under our charitable status and are based in our London headquarters. For further information visit http://www.ncb.org.uk/

For further information contact:

Clare Quarrell, Anna Tombs, Aoife Allen - NCB Media Office

Tel: 020 7843 6044/6045/6047/07721 097033 Email: media@ncb.org.uk