Social Work

Research Conference4th June 2019

Tanya MoorePrincipal Social Worker, Adult Care Services

Hertfordshire County Council

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z8kULa4

_-MyPfZo54GuVBC0LquleG0b8/view

09:30 – 09:50 Welcome – Tanya Moore

09:50 – 10:10 Round Table Session 1 – Julia Warrener and Paul Dugmore

10:10 – 11:00 Keynote – Shula Ramon

Towards Co-Produced Relationships in Social Work

11:00 – 11:20 Break

11:20 – 12:10

Keynote – Claudia Bernard

Research for understanding the complexities embodied in hidden and

marginalised experiences

12:10 – 13:00 Workshop Session A

13:00 – 13:45 Lunch

13:45 – 14:15 Round table session 2 – Julia Warrener and Paul Dugmore

14:15 – 15:05 Workshop Session B

15:05 – 15:20 Break

15:20 – 16:20Keynote – Claudia Megele

Safeguarding Children and Young People in a Digital World

16:20 – 16:30 Summing up and Close

Julia WarrenerDeputy Dean, School of Health and Social Work

University of Hertfordshire

Paul DugmorePortfolio Manager, Social Care

Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust

Round Table Exercises

Importance of Research for Social Workers• ASYE: 5. KNOWLEDGE – Develop and apply relevant knowledge from

social work practice and research, social sciences, law, other professional and relevant fields, and from the experience of people who use services

• Social Worker: 5. KNOWLEDGE – Develop and apply relevant knowledge from social work practice and research, social sciences, law, other professional and relevant fields, and from the experience of people who use services

• Experienced Social Worker: 5. KNOWLEDGE – Develop and apply relevant knowledge from social work practice and research, social sciences, law, other professional and relevant fields, and from the experience of people who use services

• Advanced Social Worker: 5. KNOWLEDGE – Develop and apply relevant knowledge from social work practice and research, social sciences, law, other professional and relevant fields, and from the experience of people who use services

KSS for Adult Social Work

• Need to….. make effective use of opportunities to discuss, reflect upon and test multiple hypotheses, the role of intuition and logic in decision making, the difference between opinion and fact, the role of evidence….

• Need to…. have a critical understanding of the difference between theory, research, evidence and expertise and the role of professional judgement. They should use practice evidence and research to inform the complex judgements and decisions needed to support, empower and protect their service users.

KSS - for child and family social work• Establish the seriousness that different risks present and

any harm already suffered by a child, balanced with family strengths and potential solutions.

• Triangulate evidence to ensure robust 5 conclusions are drawn. Test multiple hypotheses about what is happening in families and to children, using evidence and professional judgement to reach timely conclusions.

• Make use of the best evidence from research to inform the complex judgements and decisions needed to support families and protect children.

Table Exercise Part 1: • Given the CSW talk and priorities for research, what

would you like to know more about, develop new knowledge and understanding about and can you identify a research question on your table. Consider ethics of exploring your chosen question.

• E.g. ‘Exploring the interface between adult, mental health and children’s services when working with parents with a personality disorder’.

• What are the challenges? For parents, children, workers, organisations? If there are challenges, how might we minimise these or find solutions?

Table Exercise Part 2:

• How to answer the question you posed?

• e.g. non-participant observations of joint meetings

• focus groups of parents and of practitioners

• discourse analysis of relevant legislation or policy

• Analysis of case notes of social workers

• What support would you need from your organisation? Anywhere else?

• What will you take from this conference back to the workplace to enable progress to be made towards the production of new knowledge?

Shula RamonProfessor of Social Work

University of Hertfordshire

Towards Co-Produced Relationships in Social Work

Shulamit Ramon

University of Hertfordshire

4th June 2019

s.ramon@herts.ac.uk

Relationships-based social work

Relationships based practice (BRP) is is the theme of this year International Social Work focus (Ruch, 2011, Brayn, Hingley-Jones and Ruch, 2016).

Several conferences and presentations have been organised under this title by organisations such as BASW.

Articles and a new book with this title appear.

These publications call for a reflective practice, which I definitely welcome.

However, they are not interested in reducing the power differential between social workers and their clients, or in accepting that clients’ understanding and preferences are as important as the social workers’ understanding.

Key Assumptions

At the same time social work has formally accepted the value of coproduction with service users/clients/consumers and carers (Scie, 2018).

This value is coming out directly from the key values of self determination, and social justice.

Furthermore, the Strengths approach has been developed in social work BFFORE being adopted by other helping professions

Learning from success has also been developed by social work academics and practitioners

The Family Group Conferences approach has been developed in social work in the 1990, following the model of shared decision making among the elders of the Maori community in New Zealand, and is practiced in most English speaking countries, including the UK.

The social model of disability was developed by people with disabilities, most of whom came from social sciences background.

I will be using shared decision making (SDM) as a key example of co-production, given that I have focused on developing it as an everyday practice in mental health since 2011, and more recently in social work education.

The type of SDM I have been working on is led jointly by trainers who are either service users or providers, treats SDM as a co-producing partnership between service users and providers.

This is justified as an attempt to bridge the existing gap between scientific knowledge and experiential knowledge in modern, post-modern, and neoliberal societies.

It is worthwhile remembering that:

Key decisions in our private lives, such as choices of intimate partner, are based on experiential knowledge;

Social work focus on practice wisdom also utilises accumulated experiential knowledge as a key element of its knowledge base

Barriers to co-production in SW

Yet we are aware that all too often co-production is not practised in everyday social

work.

Reasons given for this state of affairs include:

The social mandate of risk avoidance by vulnerable groups (child protection, drug

addiction, older people, mental health), where it is assumed that they cannot

protect themselves/lack knowledge of how to protect themselves.

Risk avoidance is preferred to positive risk taking, even though each of us develops

more through calculated risk taking.

It is also often assumed that social workers know better than the client/service

user/consumer what is good for them, because they are the bearers of scientific

knowledge.

The unequal power differential between social workers and clients.

The bureaucratic nature of statutory social work

What is positive risk taking?

Planned action towards achieving a goal that:

The person has failed to achieve in the past

Is recognised as carrying with it challenges likely to make it difficult to be achieved

An action with a likely high level of barriers, and a low level of facilitators

The process of planning can enable a thorough analysis of both barriers and facilitators

Devising a strategy of optimising the facilitators and either overcoming or neutralising the barriers

Examples: placing a child at risk of neglect by his/her parents with a relative;

Gradual coming off taking antidepressant after a long period of its use

Everyday living examples of positive

risk taking

Leaving home to move to university based away from home

Moving to a new country

Starting a new business venture with one’s best friend

Deciding to take up the offer of a post in a new organisation

Starting a new intimate relationship

Shared decision making (SDM)

As already mentioned, I have been actively engaged in developing and promoting participatory action research (PAR) approach to SDM in mental heath since 2011, in equal partnership with service users as co-trainers, co-researchers and co-managers in CPFT (Ramon et al, 2017).

And I have just begun to do so in partnership with HPFT, in a project funded fully by this trust.

While it would be interesting to explore why this has been possible with two mental health trusts but not with social services departments, I am going to focus today on what we can learn about the usefulness of SDM from the perspective of services users, a much neglected perspective.

SDM Key assumptions

SDM is a process, with few technical requirements, which should be open ended in terms of outcomes, including the right to agree not to reach an agreement.

Respect and trust between participants are key necessary conditions for this process to be effective.

It began with a focus on terminal physical ill health, and slowly started to include mental ill health too.

It is based primarily on the assumption that people, including those who experience a variety of problems, are expert in their own experience (EbE), on which they base their interventions preferences.

It would be useful for clinicians to have access to this unique knowledge, no less than it would be for service users to have access to clinicians’ more scientific knowledge.

Ethically, people should be involved always in decisions that affect them (Deegan and Drake, 2006) (No Decisions About Me Without Me).

The concept of personal medicine (Deegan, 2005)

Impact

The current verdict of SDM impact is promising.

The MAGIC (Joseph-Williams et al, 2017) (Making good decisions in collaboration) programme in Newcastle and Cardiff NHS sites confirmed that strategies to enhance the delivery of shared decision making can improve:

People’s knowledge about their condition and treatment options

People’s involvement in their care

People’s satisfaction with care

People’s self-confidence in their own knowledge and self-care skills

Professionals’ communication

Key Barriers to Implementing SDM

Yet there are still providers who argue that while they are focused on healing, the person’s preference is focused “wrongly”, due to lack of insight. Insight here means accepting the provider’s version of what underlies ill health and what would constitute good interventions in specific cases. They argue that in such cases it is necessary to persuade the person to follow the provider’s advice.

In the societies in which we live, scientific knowledge is preferred to experiential knowledge in the context of decisions which call for expertise in complex decisions, on the assumption that the statistical knowledge accumulated on relevant populations uncovers the most accurate knowledge we can obtain.

The frequent use of experiential knowledge in key life decisions is thus ignored.

Key Facilitators to implementing SDM

The readiness of most service users and of some clinicians to engage in SDM.

Learning from relevant developments of SDM in the context of physical ill health

Increased interest of policy makers in SDM (e.g. NICE).

The existing evidence that SDM works and does not harm

We need to be clearer what is it that the majority of service users find useful and of value in SDM?

Use of videos as an illuminating tool

In 2012 we created a number of video scenarios of problematic shared decision making situations aimed at leading to group discussions among both service users’ and providers’ groups, as part of a funded evaluated pilot study on introducing shared decision making in the management of psychiatric medication to an NHS UK trust (Ramon et al, 2017a, Ramon et al, 2017b).

The scenarios were based on real life situations which were slightly changed to ensure confidentiality, enacted by professional actors, on the assumption that it would be too embarrassing/difficult to ask service users to enact their own life situations.

We have used these scenarios in the project, but found that providers were more likely to engage in these discussions than service users. The latter would bring their own real life situations to the groups, not so much for discussion as for affirmation that their views should have been considered worthy of being accepted in comparison to prescribers’ views, once a relationships of trust and respect has been established.

Second set of videos

in September 2018, we (myself and a service user researcher, service users, two psychiatrists ) made a series of videos focused explicitly on positive shared decision making from the perspectives of service users in the same trust.

Although we proposed as before to ask actors to play the roles, nearly all of the service users participants at the meeting (called to explain the purpose of this project) expressed vocally their view that they should be talking about their own positive experience, and that the use of the actors would not render an authentic perspective of what they have to convey.

We accepted their preference, and five of them volunteered to share with us their personal experiences of shared decision making. These five included people with different diagnoses and interventions experiences.

All five were women, and indeed only women attended the initial meeting, though the two psychiatrists involved were men. I am not sure what to read into this gender difference.

Positive Aspects of SDM: Service Users’

Perspectives: Joana

Joana is a woman in her 40s, who came to the UK from an EU country on her own, went to university in the UK, but did not finish her degree due to experiencing a psychotic episode. She has been on psychiatric medication since (more than 10 years ago).

Following her prolonged recovery from that experience she became a mental health advocate , working successfully in an early intervention centre for young people. She has been also in psychotherapy , and has an unspecified physical problem, for which she has been treated over a long period.

She married two years ago the boyfriend she lived with for a couple of years, and both of them wanted to have children.

Once she knew she was pregnant, J began to consider if she should/should not stay on medication during the pregnancy. She was advised by both the involved psychiatric and the perinatal teams to continue to take her antipsychotic medication, as they were afraid of the pregnancy generating another psychotic episode.

Against their advice, she and her partner decided to discontinue the medication during the pregnancy, being afraid that the baby would be born with a drug dependency. Joana continued to be in psychotherapy during the pregnancy, as well as in the care of the perinatal team.

In parallel, the service in which she worked as an advocate was taken over by another provider; she felt badly about this change.

Two days after the baby was born, with no drug dependency, J began to re-take her psychiatric medication. That meant not being able to breastfeed her baby, yet she was keen to ensure the baby would be fed by breast milk. With the help of the perinatal team she has managed to secure a supply of fresh breast milk for the baby for six months, most of the time paying for it herself.

The child is doing very well, and J credits it to the breast milk and the lack of drug

dependency. She is doing well too, becoming noticeably more slim than before ,

enjoying looking after her child, while considering what she would like to do once

her prolonged maternity leave comes to an end.

She managed to remain in good relationships with both the psychiatric team and the

perinatal team.

For her the decision to stop taking medication during the pregnancy, and the

decision to retake it soon after giving birth, were important steps of working out for

herself and her partner their priorities and the risks she was consciously taking. She

was, and remains, confident that she took the right decisions at each stage,

inclusive of not trying to hide what she was doing from her service providers, just

repeating her argument as to why she was making this decision. J took pleasure in

being able to provide a cogent argument, and in the baby doing so well.

The fact that she was supported by her partner and the midwifery team in terms of

her right to make the decisions no doubt added to her strength, and the very fact

that she has not had any psychotic episode as a result of stopping the medication

has added to her sense that her decision was the correct one.

Shared decision making in Joana’s case was more one of agreeing to disagree,

without leading to acrimony and with both the person and the two teams working

with her being ready to accept her right to make the decisions.

This is an example of taking a calculated positive risk.

Jasmine

A second case is that of Jasmine, a young woman age 27, with a high number of previous hospitalisation episodes due to suicide attempts, who has been diagnosed as having severe borderline personality disorder.

She has been offered the possibility of staying for one year in a special closed ward to enable her to live independently afterwards in the community. Jasmine accepted the offer, as she too was unhappy about her repeated admissions and the regime in the wards she was hospitalised in.

Once she agreed, the compulsory order under which she was hospitalised was removed by the ward’s consultant psychiatrist. He explained that they do so with every patient, in order to give a very clear message that residents of the ward are responsible for their own actions, including leaving the ward and coming back. When asked specifically about this high risk taking action, he acknowledged the calculated risk involved, but approached this specific step as a necessity in building up a different relationship from previous relationships they had in other wards between the clinical team and the person.

For Jasmine, the removal of the compulsory admission was indeed the first turning

point in understanding that the experience on the ward, and her role in it, would be

very different from the much more rigid regime she has experienced on other wards

(which included staying away from her room during day time).

She revelled in becoming responsible for her own action, admired the other

residents who became her role models, and in the ward’s atmosphere where having

coffee with the staff was both a social occasion, as well as one for making shared

decisions.

Jasmine attended regular weekly DBT individual sessions as well as group sessions,

and in one of these sessions it was suggested to her that when she feels tense and

about to cut herself to relive the tension she can try and put a small ice bloc on the

place she intended to cut. She tried it, and to her amazement, it worked. She was

elated, and has never cut herself since. This was another turning point in learning

that she can control her self-destructive behaviour.

Jasmine made then the decision when she is going to leave the ward, where she

was going to live, and which activities she will take up when she leaves. She did

consult the staff, as well as some of the other residents, in making these decisions.

She is very proud of attending recently a conference on personality disorder and

speaking there of her experience to the 300 participants of the conference.

Jasmine has recently began working as a peer support worker in the same ward in which she was hospitalised, following her successful completion of being trained to become a PSW.

Her example evidences that the high risk taking policy of the ward she was in works well, alongside their regime of constant shared decision making, in which not only the individual patient and the clinical staff are involved in this process, but also other residents.

The closed ward

The ward practices zero tolerance of any use of physical constraints, a 60% reduction in suicide attempts, and a 100% return to the wards after taking time off by the residents, while informing the staff of their intention to be out of the ward for a set of agreed activities outside.

In summary

The examples highlight not only the capacity of people to participate well in shared decision making even after a prolonged career as a mental patient,

But also the value of SDM as a turning point in enabling a much higher degree of self responsibility to be undertaken, and the value of this emancipatory, demanding, experience of positive risk taking by them and the professionals working with them.

The time necessary to successfully establish the necessary conditions of SDM is saved by the reduction of time due to increased honesty in the relationships, and hence the ability to get to the core of things more quickly.

I have used these videos in teaching social work students on SDM in Tel Hai (Israel) this year, and they have found the videos very helpful.

I hope that we, as social workers practitioners and researchers, can learn from these videos how to promote more equal, meaningful and productive relationships in social work.

References

Bryan, A., Hingley-Jnes, H., Ruch, G. (2016) Relationship based practice revisited. Journal of Social Work Practice, 30,3, 222-233.

Deegan, P.E., (2005) The Importance of Personal Medicine: A Qualitative study of Resilience in people with psychiatric disturbances. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 33, 1-7.

Deegan, P.E., Drake, E.R. (2006). Shared decision making and medication management in the recovery process. Psychiatric Services, 5, 1636-1639

Joseph-Williams, N., Lloyd A., Edwards A., et al.,(2017) Implementing shared decision making in the NHS: lessons from the MAGIC programme. BMJ ;357:j1744.

Ramon, S., Morant, N., Stead, U., Perry, B. (2017) Shared Decision Making for Psychiatric medication: A mixed-methods evaluation of a UK training programme of service users and clinicians. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 63, 8, 263-272.

Ramon, S., Brooks, H, , O’Sullivan, M.J., Rae, S. (2017) Key Issues in the process of implementing shared decision making in mental health practice. In: Ramon, S., Zisman-Ilani, Y., Kaminskiy, E. (eds) Shared decision making in psychiatric medication management. Mental Health Review Journal, 22, 3, 257-274.

Ruch, G. (2011) Where have all the feelings gone? Developing Reflective and Relationship based management in child care social work. British Journal of Social Work, 42,7, 1315-1332.

Simmons, M. (2016) Right Choice, right time: evaluation of an online decision aid for youth depression.

Health Expectations. Doi: 10.1111/hex12510.

BreakPlease return at 11.20

Claudia BernardProfessor of Social Work

Goldsmiths University

Research for Understanding the Complexities Embodied in Hidden and Marginalised Experiences

Professor Claudia Bernard

The presentation draws on two research projects - Key themes: power, Powerlessness, Marginalisation

• Serious Case Reviews: The Lived Experiences Black Children

• Child Neglect in Affluent Families

• Researching up: power held by individual/institutions that have sway over the research.

• Power within the practitioner/service user relationship

• In social work research and practice our focus is predominantly downwards; focused on vulnerable, powerless and 'problem' populations (Neal & McLaughlin 2009). S Neal and E McLaughlin ‘Researching Up? Interviews, Emotionality and

Policy-Making Elites’ Journal of Social Policy, 38:4 pp. 689-707.

Serious Case Reviews: The Lived Experiences of Black Children

We employed content analysis to examine the extent that race and cultural factors are considered in SCRs involving black children.

1) What questions are asked about race, ethnicity and culture in SCRs concerning black children?

2) How did the SCRs extract lessons to be learnt for improving practice to safeguard black children?

Methodology

• The sample consisted of 14 SCRs of children ranging in age from 4 months to 17 years and included both males and females.

• The SCRs reviewed were from across England and covered different categories of abuse, including children that were on a child protection plan or other statutory order, children living with their families, and children who were looked after.

Methodology

Key search terms were used to broaden the search, including African, Caribbean, race, ethnicity, Black, culture, religion, language, interpreter, racism, mixed heritage, dual heritage, and transracial.

The inclusion criteria for the review included the child's age and gender, the categories of maltreatment, geographical location, and with whom the child was residing.

Key Messages

Striking observation is the variability in the recording of children’s race and ethnicity in the SCRs.

The racialised and cultural lived experiences of the children, are an underdeveloped area in the majority of the SCRs examined in this paper.

Key Messages

A lack of professional curiosity in understanding the salience of race in the children’s lives,

The powerful influence of race on black children’s interaction with the child protection system is rarely explored sufficiently so the lessons for learning and improvement in addressing cultural, racial and religious experiences are not accentuated.

Key Messages

• An understanding of the intersectionality of multiple oppressions, and be willing and able to engage in conversations that are emotionally loaded and discomforting.

• Social class privilege and power manifest differently when social workers are intervening in situations where the power imbalances are reversed.

Child Neglect in Affluent Families

Key issues concerning neglect and social class:

• Where social class is addressed in the research literature on neglect, the focus is primarily on families from lower socioeconomic strata.

• Adverse Childhood Experiences’ (ACEs) studies highlight that children from affluent families suffer hidden harm in less visible ways (Felitti et al 1998).

• Neglectful parents from privileged groups slip under the radar, and are thus less likely to come under close scrutiny by child protection agencies, so they do not show up in official reported statistics (Bellis et al 2014).

Aims

• This study investigated what factors arise for social workers in responding to child neglect in affluent families.

The research was framed around three questions:

▪ How do social workers identify risk factors for vulnerable children in affluent circumstances?

• Which factors inhibit or enable social workers’ engagement with affluent parents when there are child protection concerns?

• What kind of skills, knowledge and experience is necessary for frontline social workers to effectively assert their professional authority with affluent parents when there are concerns about abuse and neglect?

Methodology

• The research sites were selected using the DCLG, (Now the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government) Open Data Communities Platform.

• Indices of deprivation (Income, Health, Education, Housing, Crime), by geographical areas were used to select 12 of the wealthiest LAs, CCs & Unitary Authorities in England.

Methodology

• A semi-structured topic guide was used in interviews and focus groups with 30 expert stakeholders: frontline social workers, managers and policy-makers charged with a child protection remit across twelve of the wealthiest local authority areas in England.

The full report is available at:

Social, Therapeutic and Community Studies (STACS) - Goldsmiths …https://www.gold.ac.uk/stacs/ City of London/Goldsmiths Knowledge Transfer Programme

Four overarching themes emerged in the analysis:

• Recognising and addressing neglect

• Parents’ sense of privilege and entitlement

• Barriers to escalating concerns

• Factors that make a difference for authoritative practice.

Affluent Neglect: Key Messages for Social Work

• Parents who are well-educated, knowledgeable about the system, articulate and have social privilege and social capital, present challenges for social workers.

• Class biases that maintain affluent parents’ privileged position are at the core of the difficulties in responding to child neglect in affluent families.

• Social class privilege and power manifest differently when social workers are intervening in situations where the power imbalances are reversed.

• How managers empower and support social workers to work effectively in contexts of privilege and power are critical.

•

Key messages for social work

• Insights into a neglected area of social work research.

• Anxieties about engaging with race present barriers to addressing these issues in research.

• Deeply embedded norms and assumptions about class relations pervade all aspects of social work

• As a profession we need to continuously look at how our power is used and not used, and with whom

Key messages for social work

• Being able to talk about race and racism is a skill that must be taught and practiced, and includes becoming comfortable with that which inherently is uncomfortable (hooks 1993)

• Equipping social workers to navigate issues of power and privilege

Courageous Conversations

• Some conversations are avoided, because we know that they will possibly cause hurt, conflict, and a range of other difficult emotions: shame, anger and anxiety, in both oneself and the receiver (Beddoe & Davys 2016).

• Beddoe, L. and Davys, A. (2016) Challenges in Professional Supervision, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London

Complex Conversations

Conversations become complex when:

• The stakes are high

• There is significant conflict about the issue under discussion

• There are a range of emotions involved

• There are a range of compounding barriers to communication

• There are significant issues about power and its use (Beddoe & Davys 2016)

References

• Bellis, M. A. Hughes, K. Leckenby, N. Hardcastle, K. A. Perkins, C. & Lowey, H. (2014) Measuring mortality and the burden of adult disease associated with adverse childhood experiences in England: a national survey. Journal of Public Health Accessed Published August 30 2014.

• Bernard, C. & Harris, P. (2019) Serious Case Reviews: The Lived Experiences of Black Children. Child and Family Social Work. 24 (2): 256-263

• Bernard, C. & Greenwood, T. (2019) Recognising and Addressing Child Neglect in Affluent Families. Child and Family Social Work. 24 (2): 340-347

• Bernard, C. & Greenwood, T. (2019) ‘We’re giving you the sack’—Social Workers’ Perspectives of Intervening in Affluent Families When There Are Concerns about Child Neglect. British Journal of Social Work. 0, 1–17 doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcz003

• Felitti, V. J. Anda, R. F. Nordenberg, D. Williamson, D, F. Spitz, A. Edwards, V. Koss, M. P. Marks, J. S. (1998) Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. Journal of Preventive Medicine. 14, 4.

• hooks, b. (1993). Transformative pedagogy and multiculturalism. In J. Fraser & T. Perry (Eds.), Freedom’s plow: Teaching in the multicultural classroom (pp. 91–97)). New York, NY: Routledge.

Workshop Session ABecoming a Researcher: Developing Self as a Research Tool

Conference Room

Workshop Methodologies

Room C

Panning for Gold

Boardroom

Bedtime Audit

Room D

LunchPlease return at 13.45

Julia WarrenerDeputy Dean, School of Health and Social Work

University of Hertfordshire

Paul DugmorePortfolio Manager, Social Care

Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust

Workshop Session BPerson-centred Approaches to Mental Health:

Messages from Research Conference Room

Workshop Methodologies

Room C

Panning for Gold

Boardroom

Bedtime Audit

Room D

BreakPlease return at 15.20

Claudia MegeleHead of Service for Quality Assurance and Practice, Children's Services

Hertfordshire County Council

Adedoyin AmuwoSocial Worker, Adult Care Services, Hertfordshire County Council

Joanne BoyneSocial Worker, Adult Care Services, Hertfordshire County Council

Research Group Coffee Morning

IntroductionLyn Romeo, England’s Chief Social Worker for Adults (England):

Social workers should have a critical understanding of thedifference between theory, research, evidence and expertiseand the role of professional judgement. They should usepractice evidence and research to inform the complexjudgements and decisions needed to support, empower andprotect their service users. They should apply imagination,creativity and curiosity to working in partnership withindividuals and their carers, acknowledging the centrality ofpeople’s own expertise about their experience and needs (ChiefSocial Worker, Department of Health, 2015).

Hertfordshire Social Work Teaching Partnership (HSWTP)

HSWTP recognises the importance of social

work research. Currently, the HSWTP holds

monthly research meetings with

representatives from the four partner

agencies to jointly create and support

opportunities for social workers to undertake

and use research.

Purpose of the research group

The purpose of this group is to emphasise

research within grassroot social work by getting

front line workers who use research; or are

interested in using research in their work to come

together every two months to explore, conduct

and share as the case may be, practice evidence,

research and practice.

Benefits/Advantages• For practitioners to be able to embed evidence-

based approach (in all it’s ramifications) in their practice.

• To share research with individuals who could be dealing with complex cases.

• To achieve better outcomes that are person-centred and creative

• To provide evidence for professional capabilities (PCF) at different levels.

• To be able to work effectively within the principles of CL.

• Raise the profile of social workers

• To be have an input in deciding research topics or areas

Sign up today!

Pick up the “Research at Work” flyers

from the HSWTP desk!

Thank you for coming!Have a safe journey home