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CHAPTER FIVE: FINDINGS: PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND DELIVERY

5.1. This chapter discusses findings relating to the second aspect of the research:

• In relation to the programme content: what are the most effective strategies for influencing positive reading habits in looked after children?
• In relation to staff, settings and programme management: what are the conditions that create positive reading environments?

The chapter discusses the appropriateness of the Reading Rich approach and goes on to discuss its implications on the people who were involved. It concludes by addressing the sustainability of the model.

5.2. The information in this chapter comes from interviews with care staff and managers in the partner organisations. They were carried out after 16 months for the Interim Report and then again at the end of the project. In addition, managers were invited to respond to the questions in Annex 3 at the end of the programme. The following is documented:

• Three written responses from NCH Scotland, one from senior management
• One written response from SBT
• One telephone interview with Hillside School

Telephone interviews were carried out with:

• Three NCH Scotland project managers at Stornoway, ISSC and CAPS

Face-to-face interviews were carried out with:

• Manager, St Katherine's Secure Unit
• Three participating writers

Planning and rationale

5.3. Reading Rich was a pilot programme. Those undertaking a pilot can usually expect a reasonable amount of modification in its implementation. However, certain factors contributed to Reading Rich becoming particularly challenging to all who were involved in its delivery.

" SBT was unaware of a lot of the challenges of working with looked after children and a fuller briefing from NCH Scotland and wider discussion would have been useful so that we could have had more realistic expectations of the impact of the project. It would also have ensured a clear, shared understanding between partners of their respective roles and responsibilities, the project's parameters, and its target audience".
SBT Manager

Delivery

5.4. The role of the Co-ordinator was revised half way through the project. At Phase 1 the Co-ordinator had a high level of personal contact with the young people and, although the benefits were evident, the approach was unsustainable with increasing numbers and a wider geographical spread. The revised role at Phase 2 aimed to be more strategic by establishing contact with existing local services, such as libraries, to support the delivery of the programme.

5.5. An added concern at Phase 2 was the marked increase in administrative and organisational tasks, for example, the continual distribution of books and attempts to co-ordinate dates of workshops and events. Lower level administrative support to do this kind of work would have freed the part-time Co-ordinator to work more strategically with staff at each of the settings.

5.6. The format of the writer workshops was agreed in advance between the Co-ordinator and staff at the host organisations. Particular attention was paid to planning a conducive environment so that each of the young people would participate. However, in some cases, writers were disappointed when staff restricted young people's attendance due to behavioural issues during the week prior to the visit.

5.7. In one residential unit the writer reported that the learning was negligible because the workshop was located in the main thoroughfare and that the television remained on. The young people were continually distracted and drifted away regularly. The writer was concerned that non-participants were deliberately disruptive to gain attention. In her comments she wrote that she had achieved very little. Her feeling was that the situation would have been helped with more co-operation from staff and that the young people would have benefited from knowing that staff supported the initiative. This would have been achieved by staff participating in activities and by providing an appropriate environment.

5.8. Timing was an important issue. The Co-ordinator felt that a one-week intensive residency would have had more impact when the young people's lives were so unpredictable. However, the host settings were not receptive to the idea as it was thought to be too disruptive to normal timetables.

Learning methodologies

5.9. Each of the writers was noticeably adept at gauging the young people's moods and modified their approach accordingly. The experience of Phase 1 had demonstrated the need for writers to develop relationships with the young people before attempting the workshop sessions. Each writer employed a range of strategies, for example, Des Dillon limited his engagement to everyday, and often mundane, conversations until he had the attention of the young people. Only then would he progress to talk about books and writing. This approach required confidence and patience on the part of the writer.

5.10. Two of the writers engaged the young people through stories of their own lives. This approach made the concepts of 'the writer' and 'the writing process' accessible to the young people. Building on their growing relationships with the young people, the writers shared simple frameworks, which the young people could use to develop their own writing skills. Activities were short and achievable, and took place in an informal atmosphere. The environments usually provided opportunities for humour, self-deprecation and honesty.

"The self-confidence that each of these young people gained from taking part in the workshops could be seen immediately but I feel will never be able to measured in a short time scale." Manager, NCH Scotland, ISSC

5.11. The organisers were surprised by the popularity of the storytelling element. In Phase 1 a storytelling workshop to teenage boys, which was delivered by professional storytellers rather than an established writer, had been unsuccessful. The boys had not engaged with the activities and they appeared to be uncomfortable with the format. By contrast, when the writers read extracts from their own work in Phase 2, the young people were noticeably absorbed for long periods, without exception.

"These workshops … strongly reinforced the value, not just of encouraging young people to access reading material, but also to do this via direct story telling, which we know to have many therapeutic benefits and if done in the right way can engage young people of all ages." Senior Social Worker NCH Scotland CAPS

Communication

5.12. Levels of communication relating to planning and organisation were in the main inconsistent. The Co-ordinator relied on initial meetings with managers of participating organisations to establish the terms under which the project would run. Particularly in Phase 2, she stated that without the co-operation of staff on the ground, the programme would not succeed. Unfortunately, communication within one of the organisations failed regularly. On several occasions the writer and the evaluator arrived for visits and found that they were not expected. Additionally, the young people were often unavailable, as other social arrangements had been organised.

Monitoring and flexibility

5.13. During the pre-intervention interviews the young people were asked which influencing factors they thought would make them read more (Table 6). They were able to select as many, or as few, categories as they wanted, although most only selected one or two. By far the most popular aspect was to meet more writers. This was followed by the need to find interesting books. The programme design recognised the young people's opinions with the most popular features being placed at the heart of the programme at Phase 2. These proved to continue to have a motivating impact on the young people, regardless of the different settings. Additionally, the evaluator, although independent, continually fed any relevant findings and information back into the programme allowing for continuous modification.

Table 6: What would make you read more?

Implications on staff and carers

5.14. Throughout the project, carers' levels of involvement were extremely mixed and appeared to be a direct reflection of their own attitudes to books. One carer said that she did not make time for reading with her looked after young person as she thought that, "… she didn't need it". She said, " The older kids tend to have stopped reading by the time they get here". Another carer took her own children to the library but did not go with the looked after child in her care.

5.15. In tackling carers' attitudes, initiatives need to focus on helping carers understand the wider benefits of literature on the young people in their care. Carers would benefit from being able to use simple strategies which would allow them to incorporate books and reading into everyday life. The model, which has emerged at the CAPS project, of encouraging carers to involve their own children in activities with looked after children was seen to be valuable to the process.

5.16. Initial meetings with librarians about Reading Rich were positive in all areas. Most were already developing strategies to work with groups of young people who were difficult to target and welcomed the project and their opportunity to be a part of it.

5.17. The Co-ordinator was aware that some writers connect more successfully with looked after children than others. In sourcing a pool of names she found that there were very few writers who were both available to take on work with looked after children and who had the necessary skills to be effective to the project. Additionally, it was difficult to find writers who lived in the vicinity of some of the projects. Most lived in or near the main cities in central Scotland and incurred hefty costs for travel in addition to their residency fees.

5.18. At several stages the success of the project was threatened when senior staff were unable to progress Reading Rich within their own organisations. Generally, staff at management level of the participating organisations were enthusiastic to buy into the project at the planning stage but, in several cases, they failed to oversee the involvement of their own staff on the ground. As a result, the Reading Rich Co-ordinator based at Scottish Book Trust wasted time trying to communicate within organisations with which she was unfamiliar. For the project to be more successful, senior staff would have needed to have maintained a role in monitoring the programme's progress and dealing with issues as they arose.

Sustainability of the structure

5.19. The delivery of Reading Rich was dominated by a range of organisational challenges and, to an extent, the two main partners, SBT and NCH Scotland, were able to address many of these within their own and participating organisations as they arose. The partners are now acutely aware of the conditions required for creating a Reading Rich environment for looked after young people and have subsequently taken the following actions within their own organisations to ensure a legacy beyond the life of the project:

• NCH Scotland will seek to promote and develop a reading rich culture across its services
• SBT will ensure that all projects aimed at young people take into account the needs of looked after children and include them as a target audience, as in, the Live Literature Scotland funding scheme, which now prioritises applications which involve looked after children
• SBT are targeting looked after children in all current and future initiatives such as through the 'On the Money' resource and through participation in the Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children's Books.
• SBT is willing to offer a direct consultancy service to those working with looked after children

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