Social Work Successes

How can we reduce incidences of serious youth violence…? 

If you want the answers Clair Graham is your lady.

Her passion and devotion for the young people she works with shines through in this episode

She tells the story of how her team helped save a 12 year old boy who was caught up with drugs, gangs and possession of knives. 

If you want a better understanding of what contextual safeguarding really looks and feels like this episode is for you. 

It was an honour and a privilege to be joined by Laura for Episode 12 of the podcast. 

Laura shares her experience and insight on what worked well in her relationship with her children’s social worker and what didn’t, and why. 

There are many different factors that influence the outcomes for families, but this episode is another powerful reminder of why relationship-based practice is so important. Without it, without a desire to connect, and the ability to show you care, you are likely to have a far less accurate understanding of what life is really like for a child and their family. 

Episode 11 features Warren Ryans inspirational success story of his time in the care system, the impact his childhood experiences had on him, and his journey to overcoming depression and healing. 

We get into several issues facing the care sector:

1.        A lack of therapeutic support for children in care.

2.        Why fostering should not be seen as a ‘job’. 

3.        Why fostering needs to be seen as opportunity to provide children with the love and connection they need. 

I am so excited to announce that me and Warren will be joining forces and we are launching a  2 day training course for foster carers and adopters titled, ‘Attachment behaviour and Attachment trauma. What does this child need from me?’ We are taking bookings from September, so do get in touch if you would like to know more!

Joe Ottman shares his success story of building a relationship over two years with an adolescent boy, who had a challenging relationship with his mum, and struggled with his own mental health difficulties. 

Joe has been able to build a very positive relationship with him, and he attributes this to working, 'therapeutically' and using a systemic approach to practice. 

What an absolute pleasure it was to be joined by the infamous Nanna Yabbey-Hagan for Episode 9. Nanna is Team Manager making waves in the social work world and is determined to help promote the necessary changes to the system.  Part of this determination led him to parliament last year, where he made sure the realities of being a children’s social worker were spoken into the room. 

During this episode he shares a story from his practice of when he had to drive through the night to rescue an adolescent boy from a trap house. 

I was lucky enough to be joined by Faye Edwards, who is a barrister in the family courts. 

We got into lots of key issues with the current ‘system’, and the 26 week timescales for proceedings, I know this episode will benefit so many practitioners.

Faye shares a success story where the social workers assessment and support led to the reunification of a young baby with her mother. 

Faye also shares some great tips and advice for practitioners preparing statements and being cross examined in the family court. 

For this episode I was joined by Vicki Shevlin from Social Work Sorted. She shares a story from her time in practice when she needed to recommend removal of a child. As proceedings were paused she had to continue to carry out her statutory visits and maintain a relationship with the parents. She discusses the things she felt helped to make this possible. 

Tom Green, senior social worker, shares a success story from his time in the 'Edge of Care' team. He discusses the mentalization based approach he used, and how this really helped to improve the relationship between a mother and her son and prevented him going into care. 

For this episode I was privileged to be joined by two parent experts who share their stories of their involvement with children’s services. They are part of ‘The Dandelions’, and work alongside practitioners to improve service delivery. 

I am joined by some of the practitioners who have set up a working group with 'Parent Experts' who have previously had involvement with Children's Services. 
 
 The group have called themselves 'The Dandelions' and have been making wonderful contributions to improving services. Some of these have included making a video to help parents know what to expect at Child Protection conferences, creating feedback forms for parents and providing parents with parent expert advocates, who can attend Child Protection conferences with them. 
 
 Part 2, includes an interview with two of the 'Parent Experts' from the group.