Making meaningful connections: using insights from social pedagogy in statutory child and family social work practice

Reports into incidents of child death and serious injury have highlighted consistently concern about the capacity of social workers to communicate skilfully with children. Drawing on data collected as part of an Economic and Social Research Council funded UK‐wide research project exploring social workers' communicative practices with children, this paper explores how approaches informed by social pedagogy can assist social workers in connecting and communicating with with children. The qualitative research included data generated from 82 observations of social workers' everyday encounters with children. Social pedagogical concepts of ‘haltung’ (attitude), ‘head, heart and hands’ and ‘the common third’ are outlined as potentially helpful approaches for facilitating the intimacies of inter‐personal connections and enhancing social workers' capacity to establish and sustain meaningful communication and relationships with children in the face of austere social, political and organisational contexts.     

Patterns of practice: An exploratory factor analysis of child and family social worker skills

There is relatively little research on the communication skills that social workers use in direct practice with families. This study explores patterns of practice skill found in child and family social work home visits. The study analysed 127 practice interactions in family homes, coding for seven dimensions of worker skill using a coding framework drawn from motivational interviewing. Exploratory factor analysis was employed to establish patterns of skill within the data and to group key dimensions of skill. The findings make two contributions. First, three fundamental dimensions of good practice emerged, which we characterize as care and engagement, good authority, and support for behaviour change. Second, in exploring the relationship between “care” and “control” elements of social work, skilled social workers were able to combine good authority and empathic engagement, whereas those who were less skilled in use of authority were also less good at engagement. This contributes to debates about care and control in social work. The usefulness of these dimensions for conceptualizing practice in child and family social work is discussed and directions for further research are suggested.     

Shared decision‐making: a voice for the Lakota people

Child welfare has long been a concern for American Indians, so much so that Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in 1978. The ICWA was intended to address was the large number of children placed out of home as a result of abuse and/or neglect, and the corresponding lack of tribal and community input regarding their removal and placement. This paper focuses on one group of American Indian people, the Lakota, whose children are overrepresented in the child welfare system. As a promising practice, shared decision‐making will be offered as a culturally appropriate model to build dialogue and cooperation between social workers and their Lakota clients. Shared decision‐making holds promise to help address the important social justice issues identified by Congress and by the Lakota people in the 1970s and which remain largely unresolved some 40 years later.     

Partners in practice: Developing integrated learning opportunities on the Frontline child and family social work qualifying programme

The Frontline programme is a social work qualifying route, in England, featuring a different approach to curriculum design and delivery. Students are based in groups of 4, learning through practicing social work in a statutory child and family social work setting, alongside a Consultant Social Worker (in the role of practice educator). They are also supported by an Academic Tutor who works in partnership with the Consultant Social Worker to facilitate learning. A weekly “unit meeting” is a foundational aspect of the programme, providing opportunities for in‐depth discussion, teaching, and reflection on practice with families. The authors worked together over the first 2 cohorts of the programme and undertook action research to explore the learning opportunities that arise when academic staff and practitioners work side by side to support student learning in this model. Three broad themes were identified which were considered to be significant in helping students to learn which are explored in the paper:

• Learning through engaging in joint dialogue about practice in a unit meeting
• The influence of relationships on learning in social work
• The importance of a connected model of learning which has practice with children and families at its heart

     

An alternative response to "The best interests of the child thesis: some thoughts from Australia"

Many of the concerns about recent changes in child welfare services practice in Australia have also been raised in the USA. Although it certainly may be the case that mandatory reporting is causing a broadening of child welfare services in Australia, close data-informed scrutiny suggests that this is not the case in the USA. Further, there are positive alternatives to overly intrusive child welfare service interventions that are arising in the USA. There is reasonable evidence to suggest that too little protection rather than too much intrusion remains the more significant problem in the USA; this may also be true elsewhere. The quality and range of services certainly determines whether intrusion is helpful to children and families. In some cases, for example life-threatening health problems that parents will not or cannot treat, engaging the assistance of child welfare services should not be ruled out for ideological reasons.     

Psychosocial and relationship-based theories for child and family social work: political philosophy, psychology and welfare practice

Psychosocial perspectives on children’s development are allied to theories that recognize the ‘self’ as essentially a social entity. The quality of relationships that children experience in their social environment have a profound effect on their socio-emotional development, personality formation and social competence. To this extent, psychosocial theories of children’s development and wellbeing can provide child and family social workers with a powerful framework within which to analyse, assess and practise. However, it is also recognized that the character of child welfare practices and policies are influenced by prevailing political climates. A simple dichotomy is described between political philosophies of the right and left; libertarianism and communitarianism; individual freedom and collective action. It is argued that the present swing to libertarian individualism has brought about major changes in the policy and practice of much child and family social work, including a preference for theories that emphasize people’s psychological independence, rationality and personal responsibility. In such a climate, child and family social work becomes more legalistic, orientated towards principles of justice rather than welfare, and towards rights and responsibilities rather than personal relationships and social competence. Psychosocial developmental theories, with their emphasis on the importance of social relationships and the emotional interconnectedness of people in community, fare less well under the rigours of psychological individualism and free-market economics. The paper concludes that if children’s psychosocial development and competence are a product of their social history, practices that psychologically ‘disembed’ people from their relationship environment are unable to consider children’s needs within a coherent, well-grounded theoretical framework. If child and family social work is premised on helping children develop social understanding and emotional wellbeing, theory and practice are best served by taking a psychosocial perspective.     

An alternative response to "The best interests of the child thesis: some thoughts from Australia"

Many of the concerns about recent changes in child welfare services practice in Australia have also been raised in the USA. Although it certainly may be the case that mandatory reporting is causing a broadening of child welfare services in Australia, close data-informed scrutiny suggests that this is not the case in the USA. Further, there are positive alternatives to overly intrusive child welfare service interventions that are arising in the USA. There is reasonable evidence to suggest that too little protection rather than too much intrusion remains the more significant problem in the USA; this may also be true elsewhere. The quality and range of services certainly determines whether intrusion is helpful to children and families. In some cases, for example life-threatening health problems that parents will not or cannot treat, engaging the assistance of child welfare services should not be ruled out for ideological reasons.     

Child protection, family support and social work: a critical appraisal of the Department of Health research studies in child protection

This paper provides a critical appraisal of the Department of Health Research Studies in Child Protection and their recommendations for policy and practice. It argues that there are a number of conceptual and methodological problems and a failure to thoroughly articulate and represent the tensions and complexities of child protection work, particularly at the point of allegation and initial referral. In the process it fails to fully appreciate the significance of risk in the current social and political climate, the way front-line professionals, particularly social workers, are held to account and the nature of the responsibilities they carry. As a consequence, the paper suggests that attempts to shift the balance of policy and practice from narrowly defined child protection to family support for children in need may be far more difficult than the research suggests.     

The story of the PPO queen: the development and acceptance of a spoiled identity in child protection social work

The efficacy of child protection social work is regularly being questioned in the media as vociferous critics deride the profession for the apparent failings of its practitioners. This paper aims to examine the impact this hostility can have on practice and the relationship practitioners develop with their organization and subsequently the families they work with. By using autoethnography, a personal experience I encountered whilst working as a statutory social worker for an Emergency Duty Team will be explored in detail in order to analyse how discursive regimes can endorse and encourage particular ways of thinking and doing for social workers. I also intend to demonstrate that when workers operate in a risk averse environment, oppressive practices can develop subconsciously. These not only affect professionals’ values and assumptions but also fortify distance between the social worker and the client. If social work is to facilitate positive change in the current climate of uncertainty, then it is hoped that this story may enable both practitioners, and their critics, to recognize that being open to different forms of knowledge could lead to better outcomes for all involved.     

Sense‐making in a social work office: an ethnographic study of safeguarding judgements

Social workers are routinely required to make finely balanced judgements on matters defined by subjectivity and uncertainty. Often, these judgements have to be made on the basis of information which is incomplete, inconclusive and contested. The way in which social workers make sense of such information is a crucial component of effective assessment and intervention. This ethnographic study of judgements in a social work office describes some of the practices which practitioners employed in making sense of information about children and young people's needs. The findings suggest that initial statements in dialogue may potentially act as signposts for preceding intuitive sense‐making. Observations offer insights into the way in which individuals construct professional responsibility. The study also suggests that sense‐making is not necessarily an individual activity but can be an activity which is shared between people and across teams. The findings indicate the importance of emotional intelligence and intersubjectivity in social work judgements.     

What social workers do in performing child protection work: evidence from research into face‐to‐face practice

Little research has been done into what social workers do in everyday child protection practice. This paper outlines the broad findings from an ethnographic study of face‐to‐face encounters between social workers, children and families, especially on home visits. The social work practice was found to be deeply investigative. Children's bedrooms were routinely inspected and were the most common place where they were seen alone. A high proportion of children were not seen on their own because they were too young and the majority of the time was spent working with parents and children together. Small amounts of time were spent with children on their own and some first encounters were so rushed that social workers did not even introduce themselves to the child. This arose from two key factors: firstly, organisational pressures from high workloads and the short timescales that social workers were expected to adhere to by managers and Government; secondly, practitioners had varying levels of communication skills, playfulness and comfort with getting close to children and skills at family work. Where these skills and relational capacities were present, social workers were found to have developed deep and meaningful relationships with some children and families, for whom it was apparent that therapeutic change had occurred.     

Rhetoric vs. reality in social work supervision: the experiences of a group of child care social workers in England

Whilst the contribution of good supervision to high‐quality social work practice is widely recognized, research exploring practitioners' experiences of supervision is surprisingly limited. Set within the context of the supervision framework for employers of social workers in England, this small‐scale survey, using an extended questionnaire, examined the experiences of supervision of a group of child care social workers. The aim was to find out what aspects of supervision worked well and where there was room for improvement. The findings suggest that whilst the majority of employers had appropriate supervision policies in place, day‐to‐day practice varied enormously, frequently falling well short of national standards, with the quality of supervision often depending more on the characteristics of the supervisor and the agency context than the needs of the worker. Supervision sessions typically focused predominantly on case management, with much less attention paid to the worker and opportunities for them to reflect on their practice. Only a quarter of the social workers in this survey could be considered to be satisfied with their current supervision, with a much higher proportion clearly dissatisfied.     

A divergence of opinion: how those involved in child and family social work are responding to the challenges of the Internet and social media

This discussion paper suggests that there is possibly a divergence of opinion taking place within the field of child and family social work and that the stated positions are influencing how practitioners identify and deal with risks and opportunities afforded by the Internet and social media. The suggested divergence is examined and the conclusion drawn is that what is taking place mirrors the fact that the introduction of any new technology inevitably brings with it division and debate. In seeking to understand the reaction to digital technology, consideration is given to a series of wider social discourses on childhood and risk, which includes the controversial notion that the profession is a harbinger of moral panic and that the management of risk has been broadened from child protection to child safety. The discussion paper concludes by calling for child and family social work practitioners to have a balanced debate that needs to be informed not only by current research but also by an open and honest discussion about personal use and an acknowledgement that there will be difficult moral and ethical questions to work through.     

Family involvement in decision making in child protection and care: four types of case conference

Since the early 1980s the child protection and care system of Victoria, Australia, has seen the elaboration and diversification of decision making forums, with variable levels of participation by parents and older children. This paper identifies four forums which occur at different stages of the protective process and are held under different auspices and with different membership and purposes. This paper describes and compares these mechanisms with a view to clarifying their distinctive contributions and commonalities, and elaborates issues relating to how 'family' is conceptualized, underlying tensions in protective worker-family relationships, the process of participation, and the management of multiple case planning processes. The paper discusses problems that arise as multiple mechanisms become institutionalized within the same child protection system, and some limitations of participatory case planning in producing systems change.     

Progress of the social service professions in South Africa's developmental social welfare system: Social work,and child and youth care work

This paper examines the progress of the social service professions delivering developmental social welfare in South Africa, a subject we have followed closely over the last 20 years. Being policy-driven, developmental social welfare stemmed from expert social analyses that resulted in technically oriented solutions, including the broadening of social service professions. Twenty years on, it is hard to see developmental social welfare, as envisaged in government policy, in action, since the practice reality does not differ drastically from the prior apartheid system with the government's heavy reliance on social security as a poverty-alleviation measure. The expanded social security budget has led to underfunded services and a crisis for social service professionals. This paper focuses on the regulated professions of social workers, and child and youth care workers. Our examination of critical issues for these occupational groups revealed that South Africa still has a long way to go in building a strong social service workforce.     

Organizational support for evidence-based practice within child and family social work: a collaborative study

Research in Practice works in collaboration with over 50 English local authorities and voluntary childcare organizations, to explore new and dynamic ways to increase the use of quality evidence to improve services to children and families. One Research in Practice initiative was a two‐year collaborative project involving the social services departments of six local authorities. This paper reports on how the views of more than 100 professional staff involved with the provision of services to children and families have been gathered to offer insight into how evidence‐based practice can be supported or frustrated in social care organizations. The findings suggest considerable uncertainty about the nature of evidence in social care and its validity in relation to decision‐making, policy and planning. Mechanisms essential for the dissemination, implementation and adoption of research messages are underdeveloped and tensions exist around the explicit use of research evidence within reports and reviews. Many practitioners and teams may be excluded from making decisions based on the best available research evidence through lack of access to internet resources and adequate information dissemination mechanisms. The paper concludes that there remain considerable areas for further debate if evidence‐based practice is to become a reality in work with children and families.     

Integrating the teaching,learning and assessment of communication with children within the qualifying social work curriculum

Qualifying social work education must provide students with a variety of experiential, personalized, participatory, didactic and critically reflective learning opportunities across both the taught curriculum and in practice placements if deep learning of the capabilities needed for effective communication with children and young people is to be ensured. At present, programmes in England are not consistent in the curriculum structures, content and pedagogical approaches they are employing to teach and assess this topic. This paper discusses first how current proposals for the reform of qualifying education in England do not address the ambiguities and discretion in regulatory guidance, which have meant that the place and relevance of this topic within the curriculum remain uncertain and contested. It then draws on a model of the sequencing of students' learning and development in qualifying training, developed through the author's recent empirical research, to present an integrated and coherent approach to the teaching, learning and assessment of this topic. It is proposed that this strategy will enable students to develop the generic, ‘child‐focused’ and ‘applied child‐specialist’ capabilities they need for the ‘knowing’, ‘being’ and ‘doing’ of effective communication with children.     

What families in poverty consider supportive: welfare strategies of parents with young children in relation to (child and family) social work

In current European Welfare states, Child and Family Social Work has been assigned a pivotal role in constructing a route out of (child) poverty. The direction, processes and outcomes of these interventions are, however, rarely negotiated with the families involved. Based on a retrospective biographical research with parents of young children who experienced financial difficulties over time, this paper therefore seeks to uncover and understand how parents give meaning to welfare which strategies they accordingly develop and how these perspectives and welfare strategies interact with Child and Family Social Work interventions. We aim to acquire knowledge about how interventions are constructed, interpreted and being used as potentially supportive levers in realizing the well‐being of parents and children in poverty situations and explore how they may influence families' routes out of poverty. Drawing on Lister's analytical framework of agency within the bounds of structural constraints, our research provides insights in the essentially complex, multi‐layered and paradoxical nature of support and suggests that support cannot simply be perceived as synonymous to mobility out of poverty.     

On the margins of the child protection system: creating space for relational social work practice

In the UK, a threshold divides between two categories of children, child protection (CP) and child in need. Each category tends to be treated as a homogeneous entity, despite containing heterogeneous levels and forms of risk and need. CP practice, accompanied by regulation, protocols and procedures, aspires to achieve a coordinated multi‐agency response to identified concerns with available resources targeted towards this category. However, it is well known that those children assessed as falling just below the CP threshold can still have high levels of need and risk, requiring a level of social work involvement beyond the low‐resource and low‐oversight model that generally accompanies a child in need categorisation. This paper probes an approach to practice, which divides levels of risk within the child in need category enabling adequate, coordinated support and oversight to be provided for children and families with complex needs. Evidence from our study evaluating this approach suggests that a simple protocol provided a clear process within, which social workers and agency partners felt confident and safe to practice outside of the formal CP framework. The protocol prevented drift and helped to create a space within, which relational social work practice flourished.