The Ryan Report (2009). A Practitioner's Perspective on Implications for Residential Child Care

This article suggests that recent abuse reports and the Ryan Report in particular are now warning signs etched in the consciousness of social care workers. Quite rightly, this consciousness will determine how social care workers approach their work with children in the care system. In many care units the incessant, ostensibly plausible, demands of bureaucracy mean that children exist in an artificial, sanitised care bubble where they are bereft of structure, empathy, spontaneity and real relationships – the very things they crave. Written in a personal capacity and based on the author’s background practice experience, some of this article represents points of view rather than evidential conclusions. The article’s purpose is to contribute to debate, so necessary if lessons of the Ryan Report are really to be learned.