This two-part guest blog post is by Iain Matheson. Dr Matheson is the inaugural director of a soon-to-be-launched not-for-profit research centre for residential and foster care. He is a social sector management consultant, researcher and evaluator, with a background in statutory child welfare management in both New Zealand and Scotland; he started his post-qualifying social work career in residential care. His recent doctoral research was on the experiences of New Zealand university students who were formerly in state care. (Disclosure: Between 2002 and 2004 Iain was the Child, Youth and Family national manager for residential and foster care, and has since undertaken work for Child, Youth and Family and the Ministry of Social Development).
Part 1 comprised of an introduction and a discussion of the interim report’s strengths (the good). This post addresses its weeknesses of the report (both the bad and the potentially ugly)