The Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care (SJRCC) is a peer-reviewed e-journal that is freely available to all. It aims to provide a rich forum for debate and dissemination about topical issues across Scottish, UK and international residential and related child care research, policy and practice. What marks SJRCC out from most other child welfare journals, is that its primary audience is practitioners, managers, policymakers and social work students. Therefore, alongside peer reviewed articles from researchers, the editors encourage and support contributions from across these groups so that they can share their wide and varied experience of residential care, as well as supporting contributions from young people with experience of the care system. After briefly discussing the SJRCC’s rationale and history, and providing an overview of the material that it publishes, this paper goes on to look at how the Journal engages with those working in residential child care, its role in regional and national policy developments, and lessons learnt over the last 16 years. The paper also challenges attendees to think critically about how they get, process, reflect, and act upon information about residential child care, and, as part of that, the place of books, professional associations, training, supervision, team discussions, informal story-telling, inquiries, news stories, social media…and journals. It will also encourage attendees to think about how they can contribute to knowledge and understanding of residential child care by writing about their own experience.

1. Dr Iain Matheson, ResearchCentre for Better Outcomes from Fostering and ResidentialCare, New Zealand
(SJRCC Editorial Board Member)
Andrew Kendrick, Emeritus Professor of ResidentialChild Care, School of SocialWork and Social Policy,
University of Strathclyde, Scotland
(SJRCC Founding and Emeritus Editor)

3. 2.5 million ‘scholarly’ journal
articles published annually
Child welfare titles include:
 Child Abuse and Neglect
 Child and Family SocialWork
 Child andYouth Services
Review
 Developing Practice.
5 companies account for 50% of
all such articles

4. The aim of the Scottish
Institute of Residential Child
Care, is to ensure that
residential child care staff
throughout Scotland have
access to the skills and
knowledge they require to
meet the needs of the
children and young people in
their care (Kendrick, 2002).

5.  Launched 2002
 Professional journal
 Residential care/OOHC
 Peer reviewed
 3 issues annually
 Long & short articles
 Editorial board – 2
international members
 Online since 2013 – free
access

6. SJRCC aims to provide a
rich forum for debate and
dissemination about topical
issues across Scottish, UK
and international
residential and related child
care research, policy and
practice.

7.  Research articles
 Commentaries and
opinion pieces
 Policy, programme and
training articles
 Annual Kilbrandon
lecture
 Book reviews
 Editorials

8.  OOHC sector leaders
 OOHC educators &
researchers
 MSc/PhD students
 OOHC professionals –
both experienced &
inexperienced writers
 Care experienced adults
 Other international
voices

9. 52,687 unique visitors since
2013
Page views by country
1. UK
2. Republic of Ireland
3. Canada
4. Australia
5. United States

10.  Access is everything!
 Working with
inexperienced writers
 Special issues
 Including shorter
articles
 Globalisation

11.  Journals
 Books & reports
 Training
 Conferences & talks
 Supervision
 TV/Radio/Newspaper
 Online stories
 Social media
 Collegial discussions
 Advocacy groups

12.  How do you keep up to
date?
 How do you contribute
to the learning of
others?

13. Thanks
For a copy of the presentation, to be added to my
Australasian email list, or to contact me, please email
iain@mathesonassociates.co.nz