Critical Success Factors of
Residential Child and Youth Care
in Ireland
Gay Graham
Constructivist paradigm
• Constructivism sees reality as relative to a
particular way of understanding.
• Knowledge is situation and time determined
• Derived from interpretation - not value free.
• Knowledge of key success factors in
Ireland’s residential youth care likely to be
derived from the perspectives of key players
in the sector within a particular time frame
Hermeneutics
• Meaning making in life space
encounters
• Understanding through interpretation
• There are 4 factors of hermeneutics
that are significant to a better
understanding of practices in Irish
residential child and youth care
Factors of Hermeneutics (1)
• Interpretation: (as meaning) is the
core of hermeneutics.
• Our reality is based on our
interpretations
• To understand another person we
need to recognise and take into
consideration their meanings
Factors of Hermeneutics (2)
• Connectedness: Understanding young
people (or staff) requires uncovering
something of their connections to
particular contexts
• We use family and other background
information to gain a better
understanding of young people in our
care
Factors of Hermeneutics (3)
World:
• The context of one’s being and the social
forces that shape it constitute one’s world
• Behaviour is influenced by one’s perception
of one’s environment or world
• To understand children and influence their
behaviour we must gain insight into their
perception of their world and recognise what
triggers their actions
Factors of Hermeneutics (4)
Time:
• ¨Meaning making¨ is specific to
particular points in time
• In our work with children in their lifespace it is necessary to consider the
factors presenting at a given time in
order to respond sensitively to them
Specifications of Hermeneutics
• Concerned with understanding human
experience as lived by the participants of
that experience
• Investigator is a central player in the
research experience
• Inductive (participative) paradigm rather
than a hypothetical/deductive (abstract)
paradigm
• Use of tacit or experiential knowledge
Sampling
• Purposive Sampling (Patton 1980)
• Neither representative nor random
• Maximum Variation Sampling
• Serial selection: the data collected from
early participants analysed prior to
selecting next participants
• Contingent selection: succeeding
participants are chosen for their
differences and in ways that best serve
the inquiry at that moment
The Hermeneutic Circle
• Understanding involves reference to what is
already known, operating in a circular fashion
• The Circle has two arcs: a forward Arc of
Projection and a return Arc of Validation
• The Arc of Projection involves a worker
engaging with & reading particular situations
from an informed, knowledge perspective
• The Arc of Validation requires the worker to
make meaning of what is required in a given
situation
• Valid knowledge is a matter of relationship
between knowing and meaning at given
moments in time
Elements of Hermeneutic Circle
Summary:
• Purposive Sampling
• Continuous interplay of data
collection and analysis as inquiry
proceeds
• The grounding of findings in the
constructions of respondents
• An emergent design
Preliminary Findings
• Present system relies heavily on
regulations
• Senior administrators/managers
committed to meeting set standards,
quality assurance, and value for money
• Need to present findings in a framework
easily understood by senior managers
• Critical Success Factors is such a
framework
Critical Success Factors
• ‘The few key areas that must go right for
a business (or service) to flourish’
(Rockart,1979)
• ‘Those few variables that management
can influence through its decisions that
can affect significantly the overall
competitiveness (effectiveness) of the
various firms (services) in an industry (a
sector) (Hofer & Schendel, 1978)
Critical Success Factors (CSF)
• CSF analysis provides a means to identify
the essential competencies, resources and
skills necessary to be successful in a
service environment
• Resource analysis involves an inventory of
strengths and weaknesses
• Also, identification of the variables that
have contributed to a service’s success in
a sector.
Sources of Critical Success Factors
• Concept applies at 3 levels of analysis
• Each level provides a source of factors
• Service level: links to practice factors
• Sector level: factors in the structure of
the sector that influence performance
• Environment: historical, socio-political
factors that impact on service and sector
performance
Historical Overview Summary
• Industrial Schools Act (1868) reflected the
paternalistic ideology of Victorian era, also
shared by the Catholic Church
• The newly independent Irish State was
willing to delegate full responsibility for
child care to the Catholic Church
• Close State/Church relationship meant the
State failed to monitor the Church’s
practices and its implementation of
existing child care legislation
Social Risk Model
• Viewed the child as a risk/threat to society
• Prioritised the perspective of the system
• Facilitated subjectivity in the way children
were categorised and practices prescribed
by external sources
• Little acknowledgment given to the needs
of children and abuse went unnoticed
• Aspects of historical perspective can
prevail over contemporary perspectives
Primary Care in Secondary Settings
• Reconcile primary care with organisational
demands
• Lewin & Bronfenbrenner emphasise the
importance of the environment in primary
care
• Behaviour is influenced by one’s
perception of one’s environment
• Bronfenbrenner’s levels of systems useful
in selection of critical success factors
Secondary Settings
• ‘Child care issues, clinical considerations,
and staff considerations decline or flourish
in the arms of bureaucratic organisation’
(Maier 1985)
• Bureaucracy: form of organisation
designed to induce impersonal and
rational orientations to tasks conducive to
efficient administration (Weber 1947)
Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy can result in :
1. Formalisation: an unchallenged
insistence on punctilious adherence to
formalised procedures.
2. Legalisation: displacement of the
objectives of a law by the techniques
designed to achieve it. (Blau 1963)
Present Situation
• Reports of child sexual abuse resulted
in politicisation of child welfare
• Prioritisation of child protection in
child welfare practice
• Paternalistic Perspective
• Reliance on rules and regulations
Environmental Analysis
• Regulation and Control became prominent
• Largely re-active in nature
• Paternalistic perspective evidenced in both
social risk model and in present situation
• The aims are different there are risks that
need to be pro-actively avoided
• Without an analysis of Critical Success
Factors, the sector is at risk of
formalisation and/or legalisation
Environmental Analysis
Critical Success Factor (1):
• Need to prioritise responsibilities of duty
of care mandate and ensure that
bureaucratic inputs transparently
support and promote a client centred
culture of child and youth services
Sector Analysis (from data)
• Increased statutory involvement in delivery
and regulation of services
• Belief that bureaucratic models ensure order
• Lack of strategic planning, service
development and monitoring at senior
management level (re-active focus on quality
assurance)
• These factors in the structure of the sector
influence performance
Critical Success Factors (cont’d)
(2)Leadership at all levels of the
organisation focused on performance
improvement at service delivery level
(3)Service development, responsiveness
to presenting issues, where monitoring
and accountability at all levels of a
service are related to front line practice
Sector Analysis
(preliminary findings)
• The sector is experiencing major change
which brings both threats and
opportunities.
• Many services were undergoing a review
of residential care
• Views of managers varied according to
presence of key factors
Review seen as Opportunity
• Managers who felt supported by
senior management and who saw
themselves as leading a service
aimed primarily at meeting young
people’s needs saw the residential
care review as an opportunity
View of Review as Threat
• Where managers expressed serious lack of
support from their line managers there
was a climate of mistrust and little or no
evidence of child centred practice.
• Priority was given ‘to dotting ¨I’s¨ and
crossing ¨T’s¨
• Bureaucratic aims were prioritised
• Review was seen as a threat
CSFs and Strategic Options
• Critical Success Factors that are
service specific can be compared with
threats and opportunities of the
sector that will aid the identification
of strategic options
Service Analysis
(preliminary findings)
Positive Services:
• Senior managers had previous frontline
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management experience;
Protected the service from over bureaucratisation;
Focused on development of ‘Child-Friendly
Culture’;
Promoted leadership in front line managers;
Understood the care task;
Focused on the care relationship; and
Designed processes around critical factors which
were continuously monitored.
Service Analysis
• Services with noticeable rigidity, with concerns
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around staff protection and fears of allegations
saw children as a threat ( Social Risk Model) .
Senior managers did not show clear
understanding of the care task and remained
distant from it,
They saw residential care as being problematic
Saw their input as minimising problems
Focused on regulation and measurement at unit
level
Tolerated a total lack of monitoring at senior
management level
Critical Success Factors (cont’d)
(4) Staff recruitment, development and
retention
(5) Support from all levels of the
organisation for clarity of purpose and a
needs-led ethos
(6) Ability to meet all government standards