Current Students and Staff

// University News

9 May 2016

Loughborough hosts international summit exploring the provision of care for society’s most vulnerable children

Loughborough University’s Centre for Child and Family Research welcomed leading experts in children’s services to campus last month, as part of the Therapeutic Residential Care International Summit, funded by the Sir Halley Stewart Trust.

The three day event, running from 27 to 29 April, welcomed delegates from across the globe, to explore the current challenges and actions required to support vulnerable children and young people in residential care.

Day one (Wednesday 27April) focused on the role and purpose of children’s residential care in the UK, and the 50+ delegates that attended included policy makers, practitioners, commissioners, academics and representatives of national charities.

The two-day international summit that followed, invited a further 32 esteemed colleagues from 11 countries, to share their knowledge and research of therapeutic residential care and how it can be used as an integral part of a child’s care journey, as opposed to being viewed as a ‘last resort’.

The summit attracted representatives from global organisations such as the European Scientific Association of Residential and Family Care for children and adolescents (EUSARF) based in the Netherlands, the Association of Children’s Residential Centers (ACRC) from the United States, and the International Association for Outcome-based Evaluation and Research on Family and Children’s Services (IAOBER) in Italy.  

The impetus for the event, was based on a widely shared view within children’s services, that residential care homes for children and young people are a ‘service in flux’ and require regular review and modification to ensure that the needs and safeguarding of individuals in care are met. 

Discussions during the summit focused on the use of therapeutic residential care for children in the care of children’s social care services, who cannot be adequately served in a foster family-based setting or in their own homes due to the complexity of their needs.  

The full release is available to view online