- HOLDING THE SPACE EVALUATION (Co-investigator)
Laura was born in
Laura's teaching interests within social work include residential child care and ethics. She has also recently become involved in teaching and supervising practitioners' small scale research studies in a project funded by Children 1st.
Specific to residential child care, Laura's interests include the therapeutic use of activities, the Child and Youth Care approach to working with children and young people, relational child care practice, the use of self in residential child care, issues specific to working with girls and young women, and the construction of meaning and its relevance to practice.
Laura is the course director for the MSc in Advanced Residential Child Care.
Laura has completed a small research project about a residential school football team playing in a leauge for young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties; therapeutic benefits, as well as complexities and challenges are explored via the experiences and views of staff and young people. Publications are forthcoming.
Laura has also completed the preliminary stages of analysis and publication on a larger project that explores the views and experiences of young people and staff related to physical restraint in residential child care. She is currently in deeper stages of analysis and theoretical development.
NCH has recently awarded a grant for a pilot project invloving training and supporting young people in residential child care to do their own small-scale research projects. Ethical approval has been granted, and the project is in the early stages of eliciting young person involvement.
Laura is also providing more prolonged consultation in supporting the culture change of one local authority.
Laura was highly involved in the writing and editing of "Holding Safely: A Guide for Residential Child Care Practitioners and Managers about Physically Restraining Children and Young People", which has been well received not only in Scotland, but internationally. She has done brief consultation sessions for various issues related to physical restraint to residential establishments, including Donaldson's College, Gielsland Residentail School and the Scottish Executive.
Laura is due to present a GSSW Research Seminar on 7th May about The Experiences of Physical Restraint among Young People and Residential Workers: Therapeutic Containment as a Framework for Understanding, Reduction and Prevention For more information please
In the 2005/2006 series Laura Steckley co-presented a seminar with Irene Stevens (SIRCC) and Mark Smith (University of Edinburgh), on 'From the Rational to the Relational: An Exploration of an Ethic of Care', on the 12th January 2006. For more information please click here.