Post-Qualifying Child Care Social Work

Developing Reflective Practice

Gillian Ruch

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781412928267, 9781412928250
• eBook ISBN: 9781446244388
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

`The first text to systematically address the learning needs of post-qualifying child care social workers. Soundly organized and engagingly written with useful summaries and reflective exercises for students, it is a very fine text that will be widely used? - Nick Pike, Principal Lecturer in Social Work, University of Gloucestershire

This textbook provides an overview of the Post Qualifying Child Care Award in social work. Written in response to recent policy and training guidelines, it provides the underpinning knowledge for candidates following the Post Qualifying curriculum. It helps child care social workers acquire and develop the breadth of knowledge and understanding that characterise best practice.

Key features include:

- Chapters on reflective collaborative and critical practice; child development; child observation; case management and managing risk; working in partnership with children and families; inter-professional working and practice education

- Links to the relevant post qualifying standards for social work

- Contributions from a team of practice assessors and programme candidates

- A practice-based approach - clearly links theory, research and practice

- An inter-professional perspective

- Case studies, activities and points for reflection that encourage the reader to develop ways of challenging and improving their own practice.

The book equips social workers with the relevant training, knowledge and skills to improve the quality of services and their delivery. With an emphasis upon continuing professional development, this text is suitable for social workers studying for the Child Care Award, those already in practice and other social care professionals working with children.

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Part One

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The contemporary framework of post-qualification child care practice

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Chapter 1

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Introduction – developing holistic social work practitioners

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Gillian Ruch

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The introduction of the new post-qualification (PQ) framework for social work with children and families (GSCC, 2005) has come at a time when, within the field of childcare social work, there is a growing body of evidence that emphasises the importance for service users and carers of relationships with social workers that are sustained, inclusive and honest (Bell, 2002; De Boer and Coady, 2007; Munro, 2001). The importance of effective professional relationships was reinforced for the social work academics responsible for this book, when they consulted with service users and carers in the design and content of the PQ curriculum that informs this book. The incident is recorded in more detail in Chapter 9, but suffice it to say the main priority of this group of stakeholders was the ability for practitioners to be able to sustain a committed and effective relationship with them in the face of ever-increasing organisational expectations and the emotional demands of the work.

This book aims to equip practitioners with the skills, knowledge and value base to realise the aspirations expressed by these service users and carers. To achieve these aims, however, it is necessary to be clear about the nature of the obstacles that might get in the way and to be able to articulate key professional practice and pedagogic principles that will assist in their attainment.

The challenge of contemporary childcare social work

What are the key challenges facing childcare social workers practicing today? Words that immediately spring to mind are risk, regulation, the ‘blame culture’, managerialism, the marketisation of welfare, competence, reflective practice, inter-professional working, collaboration, professionalism, diversity and difference, service user and carer perspectives and evidence-based practice. In a nutshell a competent, evidence-based childcare social worker needs to practice reflectively and collaboratively, within a regulatory, managerialistic, resource-led, inter-professional work context, that recognises diversity and difference and actively seeks to understand and respond to this through encouraging service users and carers to articulate their views. Put in this way it immediately becomes apparent that not only is childcare social work challenging, it is full of tensions, with potentially competing demands being placed simultaneously on practitioners. Identifying the issues inevitably raises some tricky questions:

• How can practitioners be helped
• How can practitioners be helped to practice effectively and reflectively, in order to resist the managerial imperatives that reduce the professional social work role to a narrowly defined bureaucrat?
• What knowledge, skills and values do practitioners need to feel confident about taking risks in partnership with service users and carers?
• How can the inhibiting effects of the blame culture surrounding social work practice be minimised?

This book seeks, in partnership with its readers, to think about and respond to these complex questions.

Background to the book

The idea for the book arose out of discussions amongst childcare social work academics and experienced practitioners who were responsible for developing a new PQ programme. The challenge of designing and delivering the new PQ curriculum in many respects mirrored the challenges of practice. The PQ education context, like practice contexts, embraces a broad range of stakeholders including service users and carers, social work academics, the Department of Health, GSCC and employer agencies. Identifying and responding to the diverse expectations of these different groupings proved an enormous task and required the curriculum development team to devise a programme that could cover a breadth and depth of skills and knowledge for qualified childcare social work practitioners in tight timescales.

How then did we endeavour to remain, to use a phrase central to Chapter 10, creative and innovative, within a regulated, prescriptive and demanding curriculum framework? First, we identified three core principles which we believe are fundamental to effective and ethical childcare social work practice and which address the GSCC PQ standards and requirements (GSCC, 2005). These three principles are:

• Reflective practice
• Observational practice
• Collaborative practice

In the book these principles are evident in two ways: in the discrete chapters bearing their names in Sections One and Two; and as themes, particularly in the case of reflective practice, that are woven into several of the chapters in Section Two.

Secondly, the importance of promoting the integration of theory and practice and making the curriculum demands of the programme relevant for busy practitioners has been addressed by candidates being encouraged to bring their own practice experiences, challenges and dilemmas into the classroom discussions. In the practice arena the role of the practice assessor has been to help practitioners to relate classroom-based learning to their practice contexts. A closer integration of academic and practice-based assignments has also been introduced to reinforce the importance of the theory–practice relationship. The structure of this book has aimed to achieve a similar integration of theory and practice, with material inspired or written by candidates woven in different ways and to differing degrees, into the chapters. Chapter 8, for example, includes candidates’ comments about the contribution of their child observation experiences to their professional development and practice, whilst Chapter 9 has examples of candidates ‘in the classroom’ exploring new practice skills.

Thirdly, in keeping with the PQ requirements for self-directed learning, the Programme embraces facilitated learning in small groups (action learning sets) and dialogical pedagogic approaches. Dialogue is encouraged in the book in two ways:

• Chapters include reflective activities to assist the reader in applying the ideas to their own practice context.
• Chapters end with a series of reflective questions to encourage the reader to think further about what they have learnt and to develop their reflective awareness.

The structure of the book

The book is divided into two sections. Section One comprises six chapters, three of which introduce the key principles (referred to above) underpinning the PQ programme from which the book originated. The remaining three chapters address the core teaching and learning requirements generic to all PQ programmes regardless of specialism – the consolidation unit (Chapter 2) with its emphasis on self-directed learning and the practice education unit (Chapter 6), which equips practitioners to develop assessment and support skills in relation to colleagues and students. In Section Two the chapters focus on the five modules taught on the PQ programme and explore the integration of theory and practice in relation to: child development, child observation, working in partnership with children, the challenges of regulatory practice contexts and collaborative, and inter-professional working.

In the opening section of the book, Chapter 2 by Tunney discusses the requirements underpinning and the principles of the consolidation unit on PQ programmes. Against the backdrop of the recent changes in the PQ framework Tunney highlights how maximising the benefits for practitioners of PQ programmes and CPD requires the educational institutions and employing bodies to have shared understanding of the nature of PQ training. She suggests that the existence of such an integrated approach can be demonstrated by PQ candidates in the learning contracts that they are required to complete, through self-directed activities and action learning sets. The importance of candidates experiencing themselves and their employers as belonging to a ‘learning organisation’, that is supportive of PQ candidates and understanding of the demands PQ programmes make on candidates, is crucial to their PQ experience.

Chapter 3 explores one of the three fundamental principles on which the PQ programme is founded – reflective practice. In this chapter Ruch underlines the anxiety-ridden nature of contemporary childcare social work and the central role played by reflective practice in addressing the anxiety-related obstacles to effective practice. The chapter goes on to explore understandings of reflective practice but cautions that, whilst widely acknowledged as an important component of effective practice, how reflective practice is operationalised and the conditions required for it to flourish are less familiar to practitioners and managers. Drawing on the concepts of emotional literacy and the learning organisation the chapter concludes with what Ruch considers to be the core characteristics of reflective forums for the promotion of reflective practice.

Observational skills in and for social work practice are the focus of Chapter 4. In this chapter, Ruch outlines the key features of the Tavistock Model of child observation, highlighting how the whole process, from identifying a child to observing through to presenting an observation recording to a seminar group, is rich with learning opportunities. Particular attention is paid to the dynamics of mirroring and containment, both important features of the seminar groups, that contribute to candidates learning. The richness of the learning gained from the observation experience is explored in more detail in Chapter 8.

Chapter 5, which is complemented by Chapter 11, introduces the reader to the emergent contours of inter-professional practice and the government-driven Every Child Matters agenda with its associated programmes and priorities. This policy context provides the backdrop to a more detailed exploration in Chapter 11 of the challenges it poses for collaborative, inter-professional working.

The final chapter in Section One explores the new requirements for all practitioners to acquire practice education skills. In this chapter Bhatti-Sinclair explores the challenges facing PQ programmes, employers and practitioners due to the reconfiguration of practice education. One of the biggest challenges relates to the diminution of the practice teacher role to one of practice assessor and the potential undervaluing and inadequate resourcing of practice education within agency settings. Despite these challenges the Enabling Others unit, core to all specialist level PQ programmes, has the potential to offer PQ candidates a sound foundation in supervision, mentoring and assessment skills.

Given the powerful constraints on contemporary childcare practice, which are largely government-driven, it might appear more logical to begin Section Two with a chapter examining current contexts for practice (Chapter 10). Instead, in keeping with our commitment to child-centred practice, the section begins with two chapters (7 and 8) that provide a close-up exploration of children and child development. In the subsequent chapter (Chapter 9) the focus widens to embrace the broader social context of children before the section concludes with two chapters (10 and 11) that address the professional contexts of contemporary practice.

In Chapter 7, Gully invites the reader to think about children from four perspectives – the physical, psychological, parented and social child – and suggests that all of these perspectives impact on how social workers understand and engage with children. An important implication of this approach is the emphasis it places on the influence of wider socio-political factors on the construction of children and childhood and on professional responses to children in general and those with additional and complex needs, in particular.

Chapter 8 on child observation builds on Chapter 4 in Section One but this time from the perspective of practitioner learning and the contribution of the observation experience to professional development. In this chapter, McKinnon makes a strong argument for the value of focussing on the ‘normal’ child as a way of developing advanced skills and understanding of children with more challenging needs. Once again, in line with Chapter 7, a significant feature of the learning acquired by practitioners engaging in observation is their heightened understanding, not only of the needs of individual children but the wider impact on their development and well-being of the socio-political context in which they are growing up.

In Chapter 9, Ruch focuses on the skills and knowledge needed for effective partnership working with children, young people, their families and carers. The chapter has a particular skills orientation and introduces the reader to two systemic approaches – sculpting and reflective conversations – that equip practitioners to develop partnerships with families and to engage with them in inclusive and potentially empowering ways. The second half of the chapter considers the role and importance of focussed therapeutic work with children and provides suggestions for undertaking meaningful practice outcome evaluations.

Chapter 10 examines some of the biggest challenges facing childcare social workers in their efforts to avoid being reduced to ‘bureau-professionals’. Against the backdrop of child-centred and relationship-based partnership practice, Rogers explores the challenges of remaining innovative and creative in practice, in the context of pervasive and ever-changing bureaucratic requirements. The significance of the risk society and its impact on regulatory frameworks, managerialism, surveillance and supervision and what is valued as evidence for practice are all examined. The chapter concludes with recommendations for how creativity and innovation can be sustained in what can be experienced as a hostile climate for professional practice.

In the penultimate chapter in the book, Chapter 11, Warren-Adamson connects the ideas about inter-professional working introduced in Chapter 5 and relates them to the rapidly developing interprofessional context of contemporary childcare practice. Whilst not a new phenomenon, interprofessional working has taken on a new meaning post-Climbié with the Government’s Every Child Matters agenda and the requirement that all children’s services be integrated into Children’s Trusts by 2008. This chapter introduces a rich mix of theoretical frameworks – ideas ab...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Part One: The contemporary framework of post-qualification child care practice
• Part Two: The post-qualification curriculum
• Part Three: Continuing professional development and future directions
• Bibliography
• Index