KIDS COMPANY A DIAGNOSIS OF THE ORGANISATION AND ITS INTERVENTIONS FINAL REPORT Sandra Jovchelovitch Natalia Concha September 2013 KIDS COMPANY A DIAGNOSIS OF THE ORGANISATION AND ITS INTERVENTIONS FINAL REPORT Sandra Jovchelovitch Natalia Concha September 2013 RESEARCH TEAM Principal Investigator Sandra Jovchelovitch Research Manager Natalia Concha Researchers Rochelle Burgess Parisa Dashtipour Jacqueline Priego-Hernández Yvonne M. Whelan 2 CONTENTS Preface 5 Executive Summary 6 1. The Research: Studying Kids Company 10 1.1. Overview 10 1.2. Research Design and Methodology 11 1.3. The Structure of the Report 13 2. The Work of Kids Company: Integration of Evidence 15 2.1. Overview 15 2.2. The Clients: Social and Psychological Backgrounds 15 2.3. The Approach of Kids Company 18 2.4. The Delivery of Services 19 2.5. The Impact of Kids Company 21 2.6. Developmental Adversity: Biological and Psychosocial Consequences 22 2.7. Research Collaborations 24 2.8. Summary 24 3. Working at Kids Company: Results from the Survey 26 3.1. Overview 26 3.2. Findings 26 3.3. Summary 29 4. The Model of Work of Kids Company 31 4.1. The Model 31 4.2. The Principles of the Model 32 4.3. The Model in Practice: Delivery and Interfaces 37 4.4. Meeting the Needs of the Child 39 4.5. Summary 41 5. Chains of Scaffolding for Efficacy of Delivery 44 5.1. Staff Enabling Practices and Delivery 44 5.2. Scaffolding Staff 45 5.3. Scaffolding Relationships 47 5.4. Chains of Scaffolding: From Staff to Clients and Back 48 5.5. Summary 48 6. Challenges for Today and Tomorrow 50 6.1. The Challenges of Implementation 50 6.2. Making things Better: Looking into the Future 54 6.3. Summary 55 7. Conclusions and Recommendations 57 7.1. Key Findings 57 7.2. Lessons and Recommendations 59 A Response to the Report from Urban Wisdom 61 References 62 3 CONTENTS (CONT.) Appendices Appendix 1: Kids Company’s Research Project List 66 Appendix 2: Online Survey 67 Appendix 3: Table of Descriptive Variables 68 Appendix 4: Topic Guide for Interviews and Focus Groups 69 Appendix 5: Observation Template 71 Appendix 6: Coding Frame (NVivo) 73 4 PREFACE I met Camila Batmanghelidjh in 2007 and was immediately struck by the beauty and profound truth of her simple message: children recover with unconditional and unre- lenting love. Holding and listening, containing and never giving them up are practical solutions for all children, but all the more for those who have never experienced a stable and loving home. This is something that every field psychologist knows well. Positive attachment and supportive human communication are at the basis of healthy development for individuals and communities. Find a way of offering neglected chil- dren the experience of love and they will respond because love remains foundational for what we humans are. I am delighted that we have been able to study the language of love that Kids Company makes available to some of the most vulnerable children and young people in the UK. This report systematises the work of the charity and pulls together a unique body of evidence about the experience of its staff and volunteers as they reach out and engage children and young people in need. The study has produced an outline of the principles, forms of delivery and interfaces established by Kids Company. We now understand what makes them unique and what makes them effective in meeting the needs of their clients. We understand in particular that focusing on the needs of deprived children requires a different institutional culture that privileges local realities over excessive managerial concerns. I am grateful to Camila Batmanghelidjh for inviting us into Kids Company and open- ing the space for this research and to my co-author Natalia Concha, who managed the project with great professional acumen. Her work has been essential for its successful completion. Our work relied on the good will and insights of staff and volunteers at Kids Company, who generously gave us their time and participated in the research. Sarah Carson and Laurence Guinness, in particular, provided invaluable support and assistance during fieldwork and throughout the various stages of the research. Thank you to all for giving us the opportunity to experience this research collaboration. My colleagues and students at the Department of Social Psychology provided a collegial and inspiring research environment. I am equally grateful to Steve Bennett, Jacqueline Crane, Steve Gaskell and Daniel Linehan for their technical and administrative support. A very special thank you goes to my team of researchers Rochelle Burgess, Parisa Dashtipour, Jacqueline Priego-Hernández and Yvonne Whelan, who worked with tremendous dedication, intelligence and sensitivity. More than one in four children live in poverty in the UK today. I very much hope that this report will emphasise the urgency of their situation as well as the lessons that can be learned from those who are working so hard and so effectively to support them. Sandra Jovchelovitch, September 2013 Preface 5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This research studied the model of intervention of • Kids Company’s model of intervention invests in Kids Company, a third sector organisation in the the potential of neuroplasticity, providing actions UK funded in 1996 with the primary purpose of and structures of support that can alter neural supporting vulnerable children, young people and pathways and provide the opportunity for positive their families. It reviewed available evidence on the emotional and behavioural changes in vulnerable impact of Kids Company on its clients and investi- children and young people. gated the internal structure of the organisation and • Kids Company makes a substantial difference in its interventions. the lives of its clients; its actions have positive The research design was multi-methodological, impact on practical knowledge to deal with psychosocial and ethnographic, combining quan- financial issues and access to services, housing titative and qualitative methodologies. Fieldwork and accommodation, engagement with family took place between February and March 2013. The members, criminal involvement, substance mis- database comprises: use, educational attainment and overall physical and emotional well-being. • 5 focus groups with Kids Company’s staff and • Interventions and programmes based on attach- volunteers; ment have a positive impact on the cognitive, • 24 individual interviews (4 semi-structured and emotional and social capacities of the self. 20 unstructured) with Kids Company’s staff and • Kids Company’s services are heavily oversub- volunteers; scribed with demand outstripping capacity. The • 85 online questionnaires of staff and volun- charity struggles to maintain its open-door policy. teers working across Kids Company’s sites and programmes; • Systematic observations based on a pre-designed THE MODEL observation template of 32 activities. • The model of work of Kids Company establishes Statistical analysis using SPSS was conducted for interfaces at three levels: the children, their fam- the quantitative strand of the research. The qualita- ilies and immediate environment, the statutory tive thematic analysis was conducted using NVivo. sector and the wider public sphere. • Kids Company acts as mediators, facilitating com- munication between the interfaces sustained with CLIENTS, WORK AND IMPACT clients, their social environment and the statutory sector. • Kids Company works with the most vulnerable • Kids Company works as brokers, translators children and youth in the UK (mainly in London). and advocates giving visibility to the invisible, Its services reach 36,000 children, young people challenging dominant representations of children and their families. Its clients experience severe in need and demanding from authorities and developmental adversity, being exposed to food statutory agencies that the needs of vulnerable insecurity, poverty, poor housing, violence and children and young people are met. social exclusion, abuse and substance misuse, • Kids Company acts as boundary crossers building low educational and employment aspirations, bridges between their communities, corporate domestic maltreatment and unstable home volunteers, the media and academia. environments. • Kids Company works with an absolute focus on • Developmental adversity is associated with the child and total commitment to the power of changes in brain structure and function, genetic healthy attachment to change lives. They act as expression, behavioural and emotional dysregula- parents by proxy supporting the client uncon- tion. The impact of adverse developmental condi- ditionally and providing nurturing and loving tions spans from the biology of the human body, relationships. to the psychology of the person to the cohesion • Kids Company’s interventions aim to re-define and integration of communities and larger public the relational patterns experienced by children spheres. in need, offering positive attachment and 6 Kids Company: A diagnosis of the organisation and its interventions unconditional support based on perseverance, the delivered to vulnerable children and aims at hold- practice of love and long-term commitment to the ing the state accountable to children. relationship established. • Kids Company fills the gaps left open by the state • Kids Company is unafraid of using a language of and its services, welcoming and containing chil- emotions; it brings back to the debate about chil- dren and young people that are abandoned and dren in need the frequently