Effective Social Work with Children and Families

A Skills Handbook

Peter Unwin, Rachel Hogg

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780857027306, 9780857027290
• eBook ISBN: 9781446290354
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

Social work with children and families is constantly in the headlines and social workers? decisions are subject to ever increasing scrutiny at all levels. This aspirational book supports students and newly qualified social workers and suggests practical ways in which they might thrive, rather than just survive, in practice

Written at a time when Social Work Reform Board and the Munro Enquiry are charged with looking at issues of effectiveness within children and families social work, the book tackles the different challenges that students and practitioners can be faced with, outlining common pitfalls and how to avoid these.

Key topics covered include:

- Legislation and policy

- Child development

- Safeguarding and child protection

- Assessment

- Communication

- Looking after yourself

Reflective questions are used throughout the book, ensuring that students critically evaluate their own practice. Case examples and case studies drawn from the authors? recent practice are included throughout the book to illuminate the realities of contemporary social work with children and families.

This text will be essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students, particularly as they prepare to go on placement. It will also provide valuable reading for qualified social workers who are interested in fresh and effective approaches to practice.

1	WHAT DO SOCIAL WORKERS DO?

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Key Points of Chapter

• You can thrive rather than just survive as a social worker
• Social work is kinetic and volatile – it will never stand still
• Social work is a contested moral and political activity
• Social work is not a ‘win–win’ occupation
• Social workers need a strong knowledge base
• Social work offers a range of opportunities and different ways of working
• Social workers need a work–life balance

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Proposed Professional Capabilities Framework areas covered in this chapter

• Professionalism
• Values and Ethics
• Critical Reflection and Analysis
• Contexts and Organisations

(Social Work Reform Board, 2010 – see Appendix 1)

Draft Standards of Proficiency for Social Workers in England covered in this chapter

2	Be able to practise within the legal and ethical boundaries of their profession
3	Be able to maintain fitness to practise
10	Be able to maintain records appropriately
11	Be able to reflect on and review practice

(Health Professions Council, 2011 – see Appendix 2)

INTRODUCTION

Most people ‘know’ what social workers with children and families do. They ‘know’ because they read the papers and watch television, where hardly a week passes without another ‘failing’ of social workers being lambasted or without some ineffectual soap opera caricature being on screen, usually in the role of child snatcher. A little knowledge is dangerous, however, and we want the social workers of the future to have a lot of knowledge, to be proud to be social workers and to be effective because they have finely honed skills. Headlines such as ‘Youngster turns life around after trust built up with social worker’ or ‘Abused mother thanks social worker for protecting her children’ are unlikely, partly because they do not fit with the media’s expectation of a social work story and partly because the vast majority of social work is a private affair wherein ethical considerations, such as respect for confidentiality, rule out the broadcasting of its many success stories.

Those of you considering entering the social work profession or already in the profession have not chosen an easy career and you are unlikely to be the type of person seeking accolades and personal glory. However, we all like some positive strokes for the work we do and there is no doubt that the current environment in which social work with children and families takes place is heated and volatile and rather lacking in such positive strokes. This is all the more reason for you to seek out the positives in your work, to be effective in your practice and as sure of your ground as you can be in a profession that is neither an exact science nor a business, but a contested moral and political undertaking. Social work has increasingly acquired the attributes of traditional professions, such as regulation and protected title, but has some strong distinguishing factors such as its political essence, its ‘use of self’ and its commitment to social justice.

One way of looking at the complexity of the social work world is using the model that we call the Kinetic Pie (Figure 1.1).

Social work is critically influenced by global and UK social and economic policy and social attitudes, and the amount of money available for the government to allocate to social work largely determines the size of the pie, a pie that is increasingly regulated by laws, policies, and procedures. Let’s look at a slice of this pie and see what ingredients lie within (Figure 1.2).

In the real world of social work, the various ingredients of this pie are volatile and ever moving, in other words, kinetic, and despite the sayings you may often hear in your work settings – such as ‘When things settle down’; ‘When we are fully staffed’; ‘After the reorganisation’ – the reality is that if you want a career that is settled, routinised and clearly respected and understood by others, then social work is not for you. Social work will never ‘settle down’ – it is a contested activity, whose modes of delivery and priorities change as society changes. Social work today is very different from social work even 20 years ago although the personal and relationship needs of families and communities for help and support have in many ways stayed the same – it is the social work responses to those needs that have changed beyond all recognition, as this book will explore.

Figure 1.1 The kinetic pie of social work

Unwin, 2011a

Figure 1.2 A slice of the kinetic pie

Unwin, 2011b

Reflective point

What other ‘ingredients’ might go to make up the kinetic pie from your experience/view of social work with children and families?

Although we have stated above that in many ways the needs of families and communities have stayed largely the same over the past 20 years, in what ways have changes in society developed that constitute greater risks to children and families?

A QUESTION OF BALANCE

Trying to get a balance between the rights of parents, children, your profession, your organisation and your responsibilities towards the wider community, while at the same time being aware of the regulatory and press scrutiny of your work makes for a very demanding job. Make sure that you find support by joining professional organisations such as the College of Social Work and that you receive sufficient personal support from friends and colleagues. New ways of working may mean that you find yourself in a workplace that does not have a traditional office space and does not therefore offer the team support that social workers would have historically been afforded on a day-to-day basis. Such support is critical, particularly in your developing years as a social worker, and you will need to find ways of obtaining it, should this be the type of working environment in which you find yourself.

The media have been a significant influence on public perception of social work in recent years, and partly in an attempt to reverse the almost universal negative images of failing social workers and children being let down by the system, the Social Work Task Force (2009) invited the agony aunt from The Sun, Deirdre, to join the task force as a member. There were a range of differing reactions to this very unusual step but in many ways it can be seen as an innovative attempt to try to get a more balanced view from the tabloid press about the complexities of the work carried out by contemporary social work teams. The ingredients of the kinetic pie (Figure 1.2) are indeed complex and it is difficult to relay these complexities to other professionals or to family and friends.

Some student social workers and newly qualified social workers (NQSWs) sometimes find it difficult to talk about their work role in social situations and we would strongly encourage you to try to be honest about the work that you do and not try to fudge the question when asked about social work. Some workers have reported just saying that they work for ‘local government’ whereas others have fabricated their occupations rather than face a barrage of enquiry and criticism about the alleged shortcomings of social work. Far better would be to spend some time preparing how you would present your job to people in social situations. Also, try to engage people in a balanced discussion rather than stay quiet and thereby perhaps colluding with the negative stereotypes and images of the social work profession that do not accurately reflect the everyday realities of social work achievements.

THE SOCIAL WORK REFORM BOARD (2010) AND THE MUNRO REPORT (DfE, 2011b)

The Social Work Task Force was instigated by the New Labour government in 2009 as a result of a series of enquiries into the failings of social work across both adults and children and families services. Its brief was to produce new systems, models and training provision for social work in England that would produce a better quality social worker, better working conditions and therefore hopefully lead to a culture wherein social work is valued and appreciated for the good work it does. The recommendations of the task force, as adopted by the Social Work Reform Board (2010: 25), are as follows.

1. Calibre of entrants: that criteria governing the calibre of entrants to social work education and training be strengthened.
2. Curriculum and delivery: an overhaul of the content and delivery of social work degree courses.
3. Practice placements: that new arrangements be put in place to provide sufficient high quality practice placements, which are properly supervised and assessed, for all social work students.
4. Assessed Year in Employment (AYSE): the creation of an assessed and supported year in employment as the final stage in becoming a social worker.
5. Regulation of social work education: more transparent and effective regulation of social work education to give greater assurance of consistency and quality.
6. Standard for employers: the development of a clear national standard for the support social workers should expect from their employers in order to do their jobs effectively.
7. Supervision: the new standard for employers should be supported by clear national requirements for the supervision of social workers.
8. Frontline management: the creation of dedicated programmes of training and support for frontline social work managers.
9. Continuing professional development: the creation of a more coherent and effective national framework for the continuing professional development of social workers, along with mechanisms to encourage a shift in culture which raises expectations of an entitlement to ongoing learning and development.
10. National career structure: the creation of a single, nationally recognised career structure for social work.
11. National College of Social Work: the creation of an independent national college of social work, developed and led by social workers.
12. Public understanding: a new programme of action on public understanding of social work.
13. Licence to practise: the development of a licence to practise system for social workers.
14. Social worker supply: a new system for forecasting levels of supply and demand for social workers.
15. National reform programme: the creation of a single national reform programme for social work.

The current NQSW role is likely to become a mandatory AYSE as social work follows the route of other professions such as teaching and nursing in the creation of an assessed first year in practice, which all NQSWs will have to successfully complete in order to work as social workers. This year should be characterised by a protected caseload, which will demand an increase in resources at a time of severe financial constraints. In addition, the Social Work Reform Board has developed an overarching standards framework called the Proposed Professional Capabilities Framework for Social Workers in England (Social Work Reform Board, 2010), which is referred to at the beginning of each chapter in this book (see Appendix 1 for full details of these capabilities). This framework is designed to support and inform the national career structure and is relevant to all levels of staff within the new structure. The term ‘capabilities’ has been used to confirm that learning and development is a continuous process throughout the whole career of a social worker. As indicated in Figure 1.3, each of the nine dimensions is relevant for all levels and demonstrates a development of capability over time and through progression, rather than being a ‘one-off’ achievement.

Figure 1.3 The proposed professional capabilities framework (Social Work Reform Board, 2010)

The Munro Report (DfE, 2011b), which looked specifically at child protection systems in England, made the following key recommendations:

• The Government should remove the specific statutory requirement on local authorities for completing assessments within often artificial set timescales, so that professionals can give equal weight to helping children, young people and families, as well as assessing their problems.
• Local services that work with children and families should be freed from unhelpful government targets, national IT systems and nationally prescribed ways of working. They should be free to re-design services that are informed by research and feedback from children and families, and that pay more attention to the impact on children’s safety and welfare.
• A change of approach to Serious Case Reviews (SCRs), learning from the approach taken in sectors such as aviation and health care. There should be a stronger focus on understanding the underlying issues that made professionals behave the way they did and what prevented them from being able properly to help and protect children. The current system is too focused on what happened, not ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 What do Social Workers do?
• 2 Social Work Theories, Values and Methods: Where Does Your Practice Fit?
• 3 Legislation and Policy: What You Need to Have at Your Fingertips to be Effective
• 4 Child Development: The Importance of Having a Sound Understanding about Life Stages in Children
• 5 Communication: How to Improve Your Skills
• 6 Assessment: Your Role in this Complex Dynamic
• 7 Safeguarding, Child Protection and Your Chance to Make a Difference
• 8 Analysis: Critical Skills for Effectiveness
• 9 Effective Planning
• 10 Recording: Purpose, Importance, Techniques
• 11 Working In and Around the Organisation
• 12 Looking After Yourself
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Glossary
• References
• Index