Suchergebnisse

AbstractChild and family social workers routinely make professional judgements involving significant legal and moral questions (e.g. whether a child has been abused) and more 'everyday' issues (e.g. will the child be re‐referred again if we close the case now?) Yet the world is capricious, and we rarely know with certainty what is going to happen in future or the likely impact of our different choices. Given the consequences of their judgements and decisions, it is imperative that social workers are provided with the best possible support. This paper reports a proof‐of‐concept study of a set of interventions to improve the judgemental accuracy of social workers: (i) a survey to identify respondents with above‐average existing abilities, (ii) training sessions on cognitive debiasing and (iii) structured group working and (iv) three methods for aggregating individual judgements. Findings indicate that it is possible to measure the accuracy of social work judgements in relation to case‐study materials and retrospective questions, while the feedback about the training was largely positive. Any future studies should aim to recruit a more diverse set of respondents, test judgemental accuracy in relation to prospective judgements and explore what types of questions would be most helpful for real‐world decision‐making.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the underlying assumption that social workers need reflective supervision specifically, as opposed to managerial or any other form of supervision or support, and to consider whether our focus on the provision of reflective supervision may be preventing us from thinking more broadly and creatively about what support local authority child and family social workers need and how best to provide it.


Design/methodology/approach
The paper provides an argument based on the author's own research and a selective review of the literature.


Findings
Reflective supervision has no future in local authority child and family social work because: first, there is no clear understanding of what reflective supervision is; second, there is no clear evidence for its effectiveness; and third, sizeable proportion of local authority child and family social workers in England do not receive reflective supervision and many never have.


Originality/value
The paper challenges the received wisdom about the value of reflective supervision and advocates exploring alternative models for supporting best practice in child and family social work.

AbstractWritten records belie the complexity of social work practice. And yet, keeping good records is a key function for social workers in England (and elsewhere). Written records provide a future reference point for children, especially those in public care. They are foundational for the inspection of children's services. They provide practitioners and managers with an opportunity to record their thinking and decisions. They add to result from and cause much of the bureaucratic maze that practitioners have to navigate. As part of a wider study of child and family social work practice, this paper describes an analysis of more than 200 written records of supervision. These records primarily contain narrative descriptions of activity, often leading to a set of actions for the social worker to complete – what they should do next. Records of why these actions are necessary and how the social worker might undertake them are usually absent, as are records of analytical thinking or the child's views. This suggests that written records of supervision are not principally created in order to inform an understanding of the social work decision‐making process; rather, they are created to demonstrate management oversight of practice and the accountability of the practitioner.

AbstractChild and family social workers in England are expected to integrate theory and research into their practice. This study investigated how a small sample of social workers from three Local Authorities in Southern England used key ideas from contemporary attachment theory when working with children who may have been abused or neglected. Twenty‐four social workers completed a Q‐sort of 49 items. Four factors emerged from the data, each representing a distinct collective perspective – the use of attachment theory (1) to enable a focus on and better understanding of the child; (2) to enable social workers to take clear decisions and interview purposefully; (3) to emphasize the primacy of relationships and ethical partnership working and (3) as a general framework for understanding and helping parents. These factors are described alongside a discussion of the implications for the use of theory and research in practice.

AbstractThe body of 'service user' literature confirms the value of parental perceptions of child and family social work and the insight parents and others can offer. This paper lends my voice to the literature regarding parental perceptions, inspired by the work of Pamela Davies, who provided a personal account of the impact of a child protection investigation. This paper draws upon my experiences of being a father of two 'disabled children' and undergoing an assessment of need. This paper seeks to draw attention to issues of choice, power imbalances and the role of expertise. My personal experience of undergoing an assessment was that it was an emotionally fraught process, for the duration of the assessment, our family stress increased and we had a sense of having to 'battle' for the support we needed. As such, my personal experience fits well with the wider body of literature, which highlights the increased stress of caring for children with additional needs, the challenges of 'fitting' disabled children into the frameworks used to assess all children and the difficulty for parents and professionals in distinguishing between 'normal' parenting responsibilities and the additional responsibilities of caring for a disabled child.

'Indigenous Governance' is a comprehensive, critical examination of Native political systems: the senior political sovereigns on the North American continent in terms of their origin, development, structures, and operation. David E. Wilkins provides the recognition and respect due Indigenous governments, while offering a considered critique of their shortcomings as imperfect, sovereign institutions. This appraisal will highlight their history, evolution, internal and intergovernmental issues, and diverse structures.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- CHAPTER I. Legal Masks, Legal Consciousness -- CHAPTER 2. The Era of Defining Tribes, Their Lands, and Their Sovereignty -- CHAPTER 3. The Era of Congressional Ascendancy over Tribes: 1886-1903 -- CHAPTER 4. The Era of "Myths": Citizenship, Nomadism, and Moral Progress -- CHAPTER 5. The Era of Judicial Backlash and Land Claims -- CHAPTER 6. The Era of the Imperial Judiciary -- CHAPTER 7. Removing the Masks -- APPENDIX A. Cases Cited -- APPENDIX B. Supreme Court Justices Authoring the Fifteen Opinions Analyzed -- Notes -- Glossary -- References -- Index