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Welcome to the spring 2023 issue of the Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care. We have very exciting news for regular readers and authors. The Journal’s editorial team is engaged in a project with colleagues in the Information Services Division at the University of Strathclyde which will lead to improvements in the reach of the Journal, both professionally and internationally. The project involves adding all articles in the Journal’s 20-year back catalogue to the University’s institutional repository, Strathprints.

As a non-historian who has become immersed in family history research and the history of care services, I found this book fascinating. I appreciated the clear writing, depth of archival research, meticulous referencing, and advice on further reading. Central to the book is Steer's study of the lives of more than 300 children who were in the care of a local charity in the village of Dickleburgh in Norfolk, England. That charity was taken over by The Waifs and Strays Society, which ultimately became The Children's Society. Steer's research is compiled from a variety of sources, including charity and poor law records, census returns, newspapers, and published personal accounts.

Using her journalism skills, Cahalan researched Rosenhan, who died in 2012, and attempted to track down family, colleagues – and the volunteer ‘pseudopatients’ documented in his paper. The Great Pretender is the story of that detective work, set within a broader context of present-day psychiatry and treatment for mental health difficulties in the USA.

Welcome to the spring 2022 issue of the Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care (SJRCC). This year marks the journal's 20th anniversary. The journal was first published, in hard copy, in autumn 2002 under the leadership of editor emeritus, Professor Andy Kendrick, who has contributed an article to the current issue. We have exciting plans to mark this important milestone in and around the autumn issue.

This is now the third SJRCC editorial I have written during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the last issue, several vaccines have received approval from regulatory authorities and the news on their efficacy is very good. The World Health Organization reports (18 February 2021) that seven vaccines are being deployed, and more than 200 vaccines are in development, more than 60 of which are at clinical research stages. Wealthier countries are farther along in vaccine roll-out, with Israel and the UK out in front. The real challenge is to ensure equitable distribution on a world scale. The WHO has developed the COVAX Facility as a mechanism for pooling vaccine procurement and distribution to middle and low-income countries.

Journalist and broadcaster Madeleine Bunting spent five years researching what she calls a 'quiet crisis buried in individual lives' (p.5). The book's page proofs arrived with the author just after the UK had gone into lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Having written a book to shed light on work which is misunderstood, and marginalised, overnight care-work was featuring daily in news bulletins, and carers were being cheered and clapped from the doorsteps. Bunting's timing was perfect, but a book which examines 'the UK's precarious and overstretched health and social care systems' (p. vii) is long overdue.

The erroneously named 'Spanish Flu' pandemic of 1918-1920 was responsible for the deaths of at least 50 million people worldwide. Its point of arrival in the UK was Glasgow, Scotland, probably brought by troops returning from the battlefields of the Great War. The first infections were in factories and a boys' industrial school and the first recorded deaths were of eight children at the former Smyllum Orphanage in Lanark. The British Newspaper Archive is a valuable online source of reports about the pandemic from local Scottish newspapers of the time, but there is more research to be done in the National Records of Scotland and in local archives. The authors welcome advice on potential sources of the effects of the 1918 pandemic on Scottish orphanages, children's homes and industrial schools.

Welcome to the first issue of SJRCC of the new decade. We publish in the month that has also seen the publication of the reports of the Independent Care Review in Scotland. The review was established in February 2017, following a meeting in October 2016, at which Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, listened to children and young people in care and care experienced adults and made a commitment at the SNP conference. Ms Sturgeon told her party delegates that she intended to commission an independent, 'root and branch review' of Scotland's children in care system.

Welcome to the third issue in Volume 18, and our final issue of 2019. If you were looking out for us in September, I should explain that we delayed publication because the CELCIS team was very busy supporting the Global Implementation Conference in Glasgow. The delay has allowed the editorial group to reassess our publication schedule; we have altered the publication dates, and we have three issues planned for 2020 – in February, June and November.

Welcome to the September 2018 (Vol 17, No 3) issue of the Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care (SJRCC). It was in September 2002 that Professor Andy Kendrick launched SJRCC as a hard copy, bi-annual publication. Sixteen years later, we are still going, now in digital form and with four issues this year. Andy retired from the University of Strathclyde at the end of June, but will have continuing connections, one of which will be to remain a member of the editorial board with the title of Editor Emeritus. We send Andy our very best wishes for a long, happy and action-packed retirement.

Welcome to the April 2017 (Vol 16, No 1) issue of SJRCC. It is exactly 15 years since our first issue in 2002. This is an important milestone for us to celebrate. In doing so I want to pay special tribute to the founding editor, Professor Andy Kendrick and the Journal’s original publisher, the Scottish Institute of Residential Child Care (now CELCIS), for having the foresight to launch a journal specifically aimed at the residential child care community. The Journal’s home is in Scotland but it has always had a more global outlook.

Welcome to the first issue of the SJRCC of 2016, a bumper collection of articles, varied by topic and geography. In this issue we are delighted to be publishing for the first time the text of the Care Leavers’ Annual Lecture, sponsored by Who Cares? Scotland, as well as a related podcast interview with the speaker, Laura Beveridge.

The LinkedIn Education of Children in Care Network was established in 2011. After briefly contextualising this development, this article first describes the group's establishment and aims, as well as membership and geographical reach. A discussion of the main features of the group, along with some recent spin-offs, is then presented. The article concludes with an exploration of current challenges and learning, as well as providing some comment on possible future developments.

Mood-changing power is the theme of the moment. Earlier this month – on 1 April 2015 – most of the provisions of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 became law. While the Act has provisions which affect all children in Scotland, including the requirement for a 'named person' to provide a single point of contact for each child in the country (a provision which has not been universally welcomed), it is the sections of the Act that have implications for 'looked after' children in particular that will be of most interest to readers of the Journal.

Scottish local authorities and the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) were asked under FOI legislation about action, taken or planned, to support looked after young people to vote in the referendum on Scottish independence. All 32 local authorities and the SPS responded during January and February 2014. Two local authorities said the information was not available. Responses were classified as follows: direct action already taken to support young people (six responses); indirect action already taken to inform staff (eight responses); direct action planned to support young people (19 responses); indirect action planned to inform staff (25 responses). Only nine local authorities had taken some action. Of the action planned, indirect action was the most common. Some authorities appeared to have left out young people looked after ‘at home’ and formerly looked after young people from their plans for support. Although less common, several local authorities described carefully planned approaches to encourage looked after young people to exercise their democratic rights. As well as giving examples of action taken and proposed by corporate parents, the report provides sources of information and support.

With the publication of this issue, the first of Volume 13, the Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care (SJRCC) has grown into a feisty teenager. Our founding Editor, Professor Andy Kendrick, presided over its gestation and birth, and has continued to provide the Journal with close parental guidance. The early years benefited greatly from the gentle nurturing and calm efficiency of Dr Irene Stevens as Editor, and many first-time authors were encouraged into print under her expert tutelage.

The research briefing is presented in the context of Scottish government policy in relation to widening access to higher education, in particular for students from a looked after background. The briefing reports findings from a review of the outcome agreements made between the Scottish Funding Council and Scotland's 19 HEIs in respect of statements about widening access to students from a looked after background. It also reports the findings of requests for information from HEIs made under FOI procedures about applications from students from a looked after background, offers made and enrolments. The conclusions include these: institutional outcome agreements in 2012-13 mostly appear to lack detail, and are arguably limited in ambition; Despite the existence of the UCAS voluntary declaration, not all HEIs have used this to collect data.

The first issue of the Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care (SJRCC) was published, in hard-copy format, and posted out to subscribers, on 18 August 2002. Eleven years later, and after a short sabbatical to take stock, SJRCC is back, refreshed and available as a free-to-download online journal.

Government statistics show that around 1,700 Scottish children and young people are in residential care at any one point in time. In addition several hundred others, including those with significant learning, physical and communication disabilities, receive regular periods of respite care in residential units. Residential child care has also been the focus of a considered amount of government policy-making. There have been changes in the average size and location of residential units, changes in staffing structures and repeated attempts to better train the workforce. Residential care has also been the focus of considerable regulation and scrutiny, much of it in response to scandals associated with abuse; both contemporary and ‘historic’. Scotland’s residential care services are strongly supported by central government policy and the government continues to play a major role, particularly for the most disadvantaged or ‘troubled and troublesome’ children. The sector is noteworthy in that Scotland does not have a separate juvenile justice ‘detention’ sector and it only has a tiny in-patient child and adolescent mental health service. Another notable characteristic of the Scottish children’s homes sector is that a significant number remain under local authority control. Meanwhile there has been a steady decline in voluntary sector provision and a steady growth, from a low base, of private provision. This is the first dedicated study of the Scottish children’s residential care sector. Throughout appropriate comparisons are made to parallel provision elsewhere in the UK and in Europe. The result is a text of great interest and utility to all those working, training to work or formulating practice and policy for the children’s residential care sector in Scotland.

The paper begins with a brief account of the Scottish education system and the further education college sector in particular. This account is set within the wider policy context of providing opportunities for some of the least academically qualified school leavers. The paper continues with an overview of looked after young people and care leavers and current policy, particularly as it relates to post-school opportunities. The remainder of the paper is allocated to a more detailed discussion of the research evidence in relation to the education of looked after young people and the importance of the further education sector in collaborating with schools and local authorities.

This guide for practice is based on the key findings of research of Scottish Government-funded pilot projects in 18 Scottish local authorities carried out by the University of Strathclyde between 2006 and 2008. The guide focuses on four aspects of practice: raising the profile of looked after children; monitoring educational outcomes; advice on setting up a project with the aim of raising the educational attainment and achievement of looked after children; focusing on achievement and aspiration.

This chapter, therefore, examines the case for a strategic approach to joined-up services by reviewing the development and operation of multi-agency working in Scottish education, and considers the professional imperatives for collaboration between agencies, and the barriers which present significant challenges to action. The chapter begins by outlining the policy context in relation to making Scotland a fairer society through improving educational experience generally, and then discusses more particularly the emerging practice issues for multi-agency working by considering the case study of one significantly disadvantaged group: children and young people who are 'looked after' by local authorities.

This collection of accounts is the work of students of the Professional Graduate Diploma in Education Secondary(PGDE) -a one-year teacher education programme for graduates intending to become teachers in secondary schools. These students were taking an elective module on the education of looked after children. The module was presented on either side of a full-time period of placement in secondary schools during February and March 2008. The placement provided an ideal opportunity for the students to find out more about looked after children from the school perspective. There is a series of 22 accounts representing students' observations while on placement in different schools.

I had the great pleasure of attending the 60th anniversary congress of FICE (Fédération Internationale des Communautés Educatives), held in Helsinki in June 2008. I met conference-goers who had warm memories of the 2004 congress in Glasgow, and particularly the ceilidh in the Barony Hall. I have my own special memories of international guests, many in national dress, attempting dances like the Orkney Strip the Willow, to the wild music of incomparable ceilidh band, Last Tram tae Auchenshuggle.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce this special edition of the Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care, devoted entirely to the education of looked after children and young people. Twenty-one years ago when Sonia Jackson published her influential monograph on the educational disadvantages faced by children in the care system, I was undertaking a part-time secondment with the Open University which was then developing a distance learning course for the Certificate in Social Service. Jackson's work came up in a literature search (Jackson, 1987). As a former secondary school teacher, by now working with care staff, I found Jackson's characterisation of the typical educational experiences of children in care (low attainment and disrupted schooling, low expectations and a lack of attention to education by carers, teachers and social workers, problems with literacy, lack of access to books and poor study facilities) made compelling reading, and I later wrote a whole supplement on these issues for a new edition of the OU course.

This paper aimed to describe the experiences and perspectives of residential child care practitioners in dealing with the mental health difficulties of the children for whom they are responsible and to compare their experience with that of other professionals. it draws on the findings of the Scottish Needs Assessment Programme (SNAP) which surveyed a wide range of professionals who worked regularly with young people but whose main focus of work was not mental health. This article focuses on the findings from questionnaires sent out to 289 residential workers in Scotland. Replies were received from 104 staff, giving a 36 percent response rate. Residential workers were asked about their most recent experience of working with a child or young person with mental health, emotional or behavioural problems, the most worrying case they had worked with in the last three years and the case that had given them the most satisfaction in the same timescale.

In this chapter Kirstie Maclean and Graham Connelly present an analysis of joined-up thinking in Scotland from both social services and education perspectives.