Social workers can make a difference.

There’s always a lot of doom and gloom floating around the social work profession, sadly not only from those outside of it, but from plenty of social workers on Community Care, overworked, burnt out and cynical.

Most social workers, I think, enter the profession because they want to make a difference. I know that the impetus for my career change was to move to a more rewarding career, to make a difference, to work in the name of social justice and more specifically to engage with young people, who I think are always given a particularly bad name, not least since the riots.

When I first started conducting research into the career, I came up against lots of comments about the frustrations that social workers face every day, particularly when working in such a bureaucratic setting as a local authority and it caused me to question if it was the right career change and whether I really would be able to make a difference, however small.

Halfway through my final year placement, I can safely say that Social Workers can make a difference.

We can’t change lives overnight perhaps (although getting an Emergency Protection Order to remove a child might count!) but I believe in the long term, in my role in the Children in Care team, I really can help.

I have been working with one teenager. They have been failed by the system in a number of ways and for obvious reasons I won’t be going into too much detail. But they were left in their birth family for too long, they are not getting the educational support they should be getting, nor the emotional support, they are fairly isolated and find it difficult to make friends etc.

In the short time I have been working with them, I feel that there have been some changes, no miracles but some steps in the right direction. Through advocacy I fast tracked a CAMHS (child and adolescent mental health services) referral – something that was on this young person’s care plan for the last two years but for some reason had fallen through the gaps, partly due to the perceived difficulty of out of borough referrals. (I say perceived, as I called up the borough, asked them to send me out a form, and wrote the referral…but the perception is probably what sends it further down the to do list.) The young person has now started therapy, just a month after the matter arose during my first LAC review.

I have done lots of research into the local area calling up different youth clubs and found one that matched the young person’s needs particularly well, a single gender youth club. I chatted to the foster carer about it. She had never heard of it before but was excited by the prospect and the young person has now attended two sessions.

I’ve had regular conversations with our education team who are now putting a huge amount of pressure on the out of borough education team to make sure there are no more suitable provisions for this young person and I have spent a lot of time building a relationship, to the point where for the first time, they felt able to talk about many deep seated issues and cry, while telling me they had never been able to cry with a social worker before.

I realise these are all tiny steps, nothing groundbreaking. I also realise that as a student I have a protected caseload, so I am fortunate that I’m able to spend a day during the upcoming half term, making sure I can spend extra time with the young person, going out for an afternoon rather than the ‘tired, after school slot’ and that I have the luxury to leave the office for a half day to attend a therapy session with the young person when the therapist invited me.

I also have faced the frustrations and the bureaucracy that has driven me close to tears as I desperately try to advocate for permanency for a young person, whose permanency meetings keep getting cancelled as Ofsted reviews and the like take priority or as the price of the more expensive foster agency placements take precedence over making a child-centred decision.

But, for anyone wondering whether to make the change to social work, or for those fed up with the public attacks, for me this is just revelling in the feel good moments that come with the role. And they might be the naïve enthusiasm of someone yet to even finish their MA. But after having spent the year before I changed career, helping to advertise beer (!), I can tell you that the joy of finding out your CAMHS referral was fasttracked, or your young person attended the youth group you really weren’t sure they’d go to, is second to none.

Lets make sure we appreciate and celebrate the little successes, because if we don’t, no-one else will!

A short outline of my dissertation proposal: understanding the emotional support network for care leavers

In 2001, The Leaving Care Act (2000) came into force. It stipulated that local authorities (LAs) have a duty to assess and meet the needs of young people aged 16 and 17 who are in care or care leavers. It also set out that every eligible young person in care should receive a comprehensive pathway plan when they turn 16. The Act stipulates that each young person covered by the act will have a personal adviser.

The Personal Adviser will be involved in:

·                                 Providing advice and support

·                                 Drawing up the pathway plan and ensuring it addresses any changing needs

·                                 Keeping in touch with the young person

·                                 Co-ordinating services, linking in with other agencies

However, despite the fact that ‘the role of family and social relationships’ and ‘emotional and behavioural support’ are both in the pathway plan, the focus remains on offering financial and practical support, with elements such as accommodation, education and training. Whilst these are clearly vital areas in supporting young people to live independently, there remains a gap in the offering of emotional support, which is vital so that young people are prepared not only for independence, but interdependence. Interdependent living occurs when an individual depends upon others in areas in which he/she lacks the capacity to function on his/her own.  Robson (2008: 165) found that of the leaving care professionals and personal advisers he interviewed, 71 per cent felt there was insufficient attention paid to emotional support for young care leavers.

The Gap in research:

The focus both of research and legislation for care leavers tends to be on the practical issues highlighted above.

Within the research that exists on emotional support, there is much to highlight this support as being critical for care leavers, spanning UK, USA and Romania (Massinga & Pecora, 2004; Stein, 2005; Duncalf, 2010; Dima, 2011), yet there tends to be very little research specifically looking to understand the entire support network. When young people leave care, it is vital they have an entire support network in order to develop the interdependence mentioned earlier. This support network might not be limited to just one relationship but might be a mixture of relationships; whether it be friends, family, informal mentors or professionals.

The research that comes closest is conducted by Biehal et al (1995), over 17 years ago and before the introduction of the Leaving Care Act 2000, and the role of the Personal Adviser. Biehal et al (1995) found that very few professionals attempted to work with young people on widening their support network and less than 1/3 worked with them on family issues.

There has also been research into specific relationships, such as Marsh and Peel (1999) looking at the role of the extended family, Wade (2008) focusing on the relationships with birth parents and foster carers, Florris (2002) looking at support groups and Cathcart (2002) at mentoring. However there appears to be a gap in understanding the support network in its entirety as viewed by the care leaver. It is particularly important to understand this from the care leaver’s point of view. This is partly because research has shown that professionals choice of ‘people important to the young person’ are often not the same as those that are chosen by the young person themselves. In addition, it might help professionals to understand better ways of engaging with young people to offer support, if perhaps the current process is not working as well as it could be. This might be in relationship to the young person’s early experience with support or lack of support and their need to form their own coping strategies.

Objectives:

The objectives for this research will be to understand:

·         How important care leavers believe an ‘emotional support’ network to be

·         Who is in their network to give them this ‘emotional support’

·         How their support network was developed / How much help they got from their social worker/personal adviser to develop this support network

·         Whether they feel support is in place both for everyday emotional needs and for crisis situations

·         What (if anything) they believe can be done to further help them develop their network

Sexting: Children, Young People and Child Pornography

Sexting: Children, young people and child pornography

I’m crediting this blog to Dr Thomas Crofts and Dr Laura Harvey and Dr Jessica Ringrose whose talks I went to this evening.

The first one was particularly interesting and about the legislative framework surrounding child pornography. The research that he was talking about was all in Australia but I’m sure has similar legal implications here.

He discussed the concept and definitions surrounding pornography, about possessing or distributing sexual material of a child – child being defined as someone who is 18 or under. However he went onto explain, that although laws have really toughened around child pornography, and there are things such as the UN conventions for the rights of the child (Art 34)  in place to prevent adults distributing this material,  they are not set up to handle the subleties of ‘sexting’ – that is, young people who are sending each other sexual images or films i.e via text. (Sexting is not a word young people use themselves, it seems to have come from the media – they are using terms such as naked selfies and nudies).

And in Australia, young people, are being arrested over possessing this material – although there have been no prosecutions yet. The only thing in place to protect them is if they are below the age of criminal responsibility – but in the UK, that’s as young as 10, so unlikely to form any protection.

This all comes down to the perceptions of this material and whether it’s offensive. The law in Australia explores whether its offensive to the reasonable person- but the reasonable person would be an adult – and young people might perceive it differently.

So there is a question about this balance – we don’t want to sanction young people and turn them into criminals (and in Australia this can go as far as being on the sexual offenders register!) but equally we want to protect our young people, and make sure victims who are being bullied are given a voice.

However there is clearly wide spectrum of sexting – some can be clearly exploitative, but others can be two mutually consenting 16 year olds, taking images of each other and keeping them on their phone alone.

The pros – for criminal sanctions – are long lasting ‘haunting harm’ it can cause young people, the digital footprint, that it might encourage deviant sexual behaviour, might whet the appetite of adults and it challenges idealiased notions of childhood innocence.

The outlined cons were that sexting does not fit the rationale driving severe responses to child pornography. In addition repression might incite more sexting, in line with Foucault, perhaps by criminalising, it would actually normalise sexting, does it deny young people their sexual citizenship and the severe sanctions can have long term consequences eg on jobs.

The researcher supported Diane Abbott’s recent message on Women’s Hour – that the ideal is about support and education about sex and relationships, not about sanctions and censorship.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21127073

The second talk followed on from this and was based on research conducted in two schools in inner city London, talking to teenagers and exploring their social media habits.

They found a lot of talk about the idea of getting ‘ratings’ – ie social currency through the way you dress, the girls you get, potentially violence…and a lot of male teens were putting on facebook images of girls’ cleavage, sometimes with their own names written across it. The less ‘easy’ the girl, the more ratings they get. As well as putting up images of girls, they were also putting up images of their six packs – but there was a lot of pressure on them, and they had to negotiate whether it’s the right image to put up  - that enhances their masculinity and doesn’t make them look gay. However if they put the right images up, it’s valuable to them.

On the flip side, the comments under the girls’ pictures tend to discuss how the girls are ‘skets’ and sluts – and it’s much harder for them to get ratings in this way.

The teens were saying, having porn on your phone is for the kids, the year 7s, whereas they have photos of real girls.

A lot of this information is not that new but it just reinforces the notions of gender inequality and the pressures that each gender have to face – the constant negotiations they are working through. Some of the boys are under pressure that if they don’t’ ask a girl for an image, they might be seen as gay – equally girls feel it’s nice to be asked to give an image – but want to balance being a ‘sket’ and being frigid. It’s important to note the pressure on each gender as the media and policy discourse tends to frame boys as problematic and risky, and often demonises this gender.

Interesting insight into this world – although clearly a small sample.

Cuts affecting practice: Use of SGOs

Happy New Year!

And thanks for the many views of my Xmas post – I had almost 200 which is nice for me!

I’m writing today’s blog on a specific issue as it is something I am coming into contact with in practice for the first time. I have learnt about Special Guardianship Orders (SGOs) in our lectures but it’s only recently in the LAC team that I’ve seen how they might fit in.

However, at the moment, I’ve not seen them used in the way they are intended, in the most child-centred way but often for what feels like financial motivations. I’m very aware that in this climate in particular, one of the main frustrations social workers have is the impact of the cuts on their ability to practice as intended, however for me this is the first time I’ve seen a specific example.

To be clear – I have young people I am working with who have been with foster carers over a year and are thriving. These foster carers are agency carers and are paid more than in house local authority carers. When it comes to looking at placement permanency, we have to go to panel to ‘match’ the young person formally with their foster carer until they leave care. For the young people I am working with, this is likely to be for at least another four years. However, for budgetary reasons, our fostering and adoption team are finding it increasingly difficult to get approval to fund many of these agency placements for long term permanency work, only for short term placements. Thus foster carers are asked if they would consider taking an SGO – basically because it’s more cost effective. I’m not saying that SGOs can’t be beneficial to young people, just that this this is not the motivation.

I’m wondering if this is happening in lots of local authorities. In many ways it is child centred, in that questioning the foster carer as to whether they can be a SG, is in order to prevent the placement being disrupted, and working in the best interests of the child to aid stability. It just seems unfortunate to have to put the foster carers in such difficult positions, where many find that despite not having gone into it for the money, money does play an important role, and they can’t afford to take on the less well paid SGO.

All the social workers want the best for the young people, and we’ll all be fighting to advocate and make our case that the young people should remain where they are until they leave care, so as to avoid disruption and another placement move. It’s just incredibly frustrating to see decisions at the top, affecting practice in this way.

Xmas with care leavers

I spent Xmas day yesterday volunteering with the Tope project.

The Tope project was set up by a group of volunteers because a young man, Tope, himself a care leaver, took his own life a few years ago around the Xmas period. Xmas time was identified as a particularly lonely and difficult time, and this group of people thought it would be great to set up a project for care experienced young people to come together and enjoy the day. This was their pilot project for 70 young people.

I had a really inspiring and memorable Xmas yesterday. Firstly, the day was superbly organised. Outside my social work MA and for the previous 10 years, I have been running my own charity, and so I know quite how difficult it is to run big events in spare time. But this event was incredible, and it seemed to really bring to light everything Xmas is all about. All the volunteers genuinely just cared and wanted to put on a fantastic day for the care leavers. There was a huge amount of food, fun and activities, from arts and crafts, to giant jenga, xmas films and incredible goodie bags for everyone with donations of gifts. Lorraine Pascale, herself a care leaver, showed up to give away signed books and talk about her own experiences, and an Arsenal rep, gave out gifts and the chance to tour the Emirates.

But what I really loved was chatting to so many young people and watching them chat to each other. I met young people who used to be homeless and recently have spent years in hostels, young people living with siblings in cheap hotels because there is no housing available, and young people still in care, who for whatever reason, decided they would prefer to spend Xmas with other care experienced young people than their foster family. Just before i left, two of the girls on my table started to bond, to chat over their experiences, over the careers they might want to do, or the song they might sing to the room - and it just felt pretty awesome. The whole experience felt inclusive. Some of the inspiring people who helped to lead it, from the Children's Rights Service just brought tonnes of energy, and had everyone laughing but also identifying with the experiences they talked of. It was grassroots, it was what the wonderful Cameron would call the Big Society, in between trying to make these people homeless by cutting their housing benefit. (sorry i digress!).

It chimed with me partly because I love working with young people, and got the same buzz from it that I did after mentoring during the summer, and from my current placement working with children in care, partly because it''s reinforcing the topic of my dissertation. I'm looking into the lack of emotional support care leavers get and how to help them in developing a support network, or understanding why they might not choose to engage with what social workers traditionally offer. I also saw how resilient these young people were, having gone through tough times, but still able to come together, many of whom turned up as teenagers at the event knowing no-one, and laugh and joke together, offering me advice as a trainee social worker (get to know the young person, keep in contact, remember to build a relationship, not just talk about issues, be supportive) and finally, because there is nothing better than being surrounded by volunteers like you, with the same passion, the same interests and with a desire to make a difference.

Thank you to the Tope project for giving me the opportunity to be part of such an inspiring and memorable event.

Every time i have an experience like this, it makes me question the direction I want my career to go  -is it social work, is it youth work, is it some kind of charity youth engagement role, or entrepreneurial social enterprise role - but whatever it is, it has to be something that makes me feel the way I did yesterday.

And another five tools...

And another five:

Going on a journey:

Another way of helping young children to open up about their family and relationship. Draw a picture of a bus or a toy bus and the invite the child to pretend they are going on holiday with their family. Ask, ‘who would you sit next to on the bus?’ and ‘where might you like go on holiday’ – if they draw a tent, ask them who would you feel comfortable sharing your tent with’……

More story-telling:

You can also use techniques such as a day in the life of a child. You can use role play or dolls to take the part of different members of the family. If you are playing the  part of a member of the family, ask the child what you should say in certain scenarios.

The magic carpet ride – this can be useful to assess attachment.

It is adapted by Mary Corrigan 1990.

Introduce a magic story ride – close your eyes, imagine you are sitting on a beautiful rug infront of a fire at home, on the rug is a basket of your favourite food. Describe the food, everytime you take something more food appears. The rug is very soft and it gently lifts up. Hang on as it flies, it is going down the hall to the front door of a house where the door is open. Someone is standing there, who is it?

This is likely to be the person they feel most attached to and safe with.

Body pictures – this can be useful if you suspect physical or sexual abuse

A body is drawn onto a large piece of paper. Using colouring pens, invite the child to draw their face then ask them where in the body they feel happy, bouncy, cold, warm, cross, angry and shocked. Ask if they have had any bumps and bruises and invite them to draw and colour these in. The child can make clothes for their picture from wapping paper. Plasters or cream can be applied to the most painful places so the child feels heard and better.

The window: (this is very similar to 3 houses).

A worker can draw a window and then the child to draw in the top right hand corner a picture of something in their past, in the bottom corner a picture of the present, top left, a picture of their hoped for future and in the bottom left a picture of the fear that will prevent their hopes for the future being revealed.

Direct work with young people

I thought it might be helpful to post examples I find of good exercises to do with young people.

I'll keep adding to these and it would be great if anyone wants to share their own! Please tweet or comment to add.

I need to also think about a more useful way of categorising them, rather than in a long list - but that might be a future project.

First five

1. 3 Islands - helps to understand dynamics of relationships

Draw 3 islands. Ask the young person who would be on the island with them, they would spend lots of time with these people. Who would be on the next island which has a bridge connecting it. They don’t see them all the time but can see them as and when they want. Who would be on the third island, far away, who they would not see.

This is helpful in opening up conversations to understand fears or risks associated with characters, both in the young person's history and present, can help with disclosures. Also helps show desires - who might they wish they were living with now? Who did they wish they could see more, or less?

2. Agony aunt scenarios - projective technique for more uncomfortable conversations/projecting by thinking through 3rd person

I used this when doing a sex education session with a young person. As she was quite embarrassed about the topic, I created some agony aunt scenarios to explore her attitudes to things like peer pressure i.e – “Dear…., At school everyone talks about having sex and I’m the one left out. I’m thinking I should just do it so I can fit in with everyone else, what do you think?”

      3.     Story Stems – this one came from a psychologist report - shows attachments and role expectations 

Story Stems are situations set up with dolls house figures and furniture. The psychologist sets up a story and begins to act out and narrate the scenario. The child is asked to complete the story. The stories are set within the family and contain situations triggering high arousal in the child character such as fear or pain, which would normally lead to the enactment of attachment behaviours such as seeking comfort from a caregiver. The way the child completes the story reflects on their attachment narrative and also tells us what their expectations of the roles of different family members and the relationships between them are like. The interpretation is based both on the content of the narrative the child gives, the coherence and style of the story, and the affect shown by the child when telling it.

    Narratives which are coherent, rich in detail of normal domestic life and contain      nurture and no traumatic intrusions reflect secure attachment experiences. Chaotic narratives, traumatic intrusions, and lack of warmth or detail show deficiencies in attachment e  experiences. Research has shown that story stems change over time, reflecting the improved quality of the child’s internal working model over time in a stable caring placement.

Examples include – coming home late without telling parents first, waking up having a nightmare, smashing the window with a ball.

    4.     Post boxes – also from a psychologist report - shows importance and quality of relationships

In this task the child selects post boxes to represent each member of their family. They are then given a large number of small cards with messages such as “this person frowns at me” and asked to post them to the most appropriate person. I explained the meaning of any unfamiliar words. Cards that the child does not wish to post to a member of the family can be posted to Mr Nobody. The number of cards given to different people usually represents the amount of importance that person has in the child’s life, and the content of the cards chosen reflects the quality of that relationship. To the original set I have added a number of cards indicative of child protection concerns, and issues relevant to parent-child relationships.

5. 3 houses - thanks to @MrDougalDog for reminding me of this one - strengths, risks and desires

This is based on the Signs of Safety risk assessment and helps to understands strengths, risks and desired safety - or things that need to change to get to the young person's desired outcomes. The three houses are 'house of worries' 'house of good things' 'house of dreams'. For each you look at internal and external factors - ie young person's own strengths, and those that comes from outside sources - friends, family, community etc.

On this link you can see an image of the template. You can download the powerpoint for a clearer one: http://www.practicecentre.cyf.govt.nz/policy/practice-tools/resources/three-houses-tool.html

Here is a helpful article with guidance on how to use it: http://www.d.umn.edu/sw/snydersfiles/AdvCW/week7/Three_Houses_Article.pdf