The second episode of BBC2 social work documentary Protecting Our Children screens on Monday 6 February at 9pm.

And our live social work chat will be happening once again too. Join us and our panel of social work experts from 8.30pm as we preview and review the programme and the social work practice on show. You can sign up for an email reminder using the chat box on our special Protecting Our Children page.

See you then.

We had a great response to the live chat we organised during BBC social work documentary Protecting Our Children. Just click on the chat box on the page and you can review the 500+ comments made by our panel of experts and the social work contributors.

Most people felt the programme had been worthwhile and were full of praise for Bristol's decision to open their doors to the cameras. But we'll be pulling together some of the best comments soon.

Also, expect news shortly about episode two of the series, which broadcasts next Monday.

Meanwhile, check out the review of the programme in the Telegraph - it's positive but then you only need to look at the 'related articles' to see the wider context. There's also a positive review in the Independent.

I'm sure you will have all heard about the BBC social work documentary, Protecting Our Children, which starts tonight (Monday).

Don't forget that tonight you will be able to join a live discussion, directly before, during and after the programme with social work experts. Just go to our special Protecting Our Children page and post your comments in the chat box in the middle of the page.

(Pic: bon bon/photosindia/Getty Images)

News just in from the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) - Andrea Sutcliffe (left) has been appointed as its new chief executive, to replace outgoing head Julie Jones.

Sutcliffe is currently the chief executive of the Appointments Commission and will join SCIE in April.

SCIE's chair Allan Bowman said: "Andrea is an experienced chief executive with a background in both social care in local government and the NHS at national and local levels."

We may well have more info and reaction soon.

Researchers from the University of Southampton are testing whether a version of dialectical behaviour therapy is effective in treating refractive, or treatment-resistant, depression.

The approach is based on the idea that "depression is not the primary problem for many hard-to-help patients."

Thomas Lynch, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the university, explains: "Rather, their over-controlled personality style limits opportunities to interact flexibly with others and to learn new skills. So, when these people experience a depression-triggering life event, they find it hard to get help and their depression becomes more entrenched, resistant to change, and chronic in nature. Our therapy assumes that depressed, emotionally over-controlled patients lack the skills needed to be flexible, express vulnerable emotions, or establish close relationships; thus, we focus on teaching a range of skills that target these specific difficulties."

The £1.9million study, is a multi-centre randomised controlled trial and a collaboration between researchers from the universities of Southampton, Plymouth, Swansea, Bournemouth, Bristol, King's College London, and Exeter. 

by Mithran Samuel and Simeon Brody

Good year

Kaliya Franklin

Franklin has emerged as one of the foremost service user bloggers and campaigners against cuts to disability benefits and care. Blogging at Benefit Scrounging Scum and The Broken of Britain and very active on Twitter, she has relentlessly shone a light on the impact of the government's cuts on disabled people's lives. Highlights included One Month Before Heartbreak, a three-day campaign to raise awareness of cuts to disability living allowance online, and a public encounter with Ed Miliband at the Labour Party conference, in which she asked the party leader why it was failing to oppose cuts to disability benefits. Miliband's failure to get her name right - he called her Harriet several times - made it an instant You Tube hit but Franklin also successfully exposed Labour's reluctance to stand up for disabled people lest it be accused of being soft on the allegedly workshy.

Irwin Mitchell

The law firm took up several cases on behalf of disabled and older people affected by cuts to adult social care, and managed to reverse Birmingham and Isle of Wight councils' decisions to increase thresholds for care on judicial review.

Eileen Munro

Eileen Munro's review of child protection, published in 2010, received strong backing from the government this year, which pledged to introduce most of its recommendations.

And Munro's recommendations are receiving strong interest from social workers themselves - our guide to the Munro report was our most popular story of the year.

Bad year

The Care Quality Commission

2011 was an annus horribilis for the Care Quality Commission. It was slammed for failing to intervene to stop abuse at Winterbourne View hospital for people with learning disabilities after it did not respond to three reports from whistleblower Terry Bryan. It was criticised by MPs for having "distorted priorities" after cutting inspection levels for adult social care by 70% to switch resources into its programme of re-registering all providers last year. And the year ended with one of its own board members, Kay Sheldon, calling for a change of leadership at the regulator, including the departure of Cynthia Bower, the chief executive. There could be worse to come in 2012, with the Department of Health due to report on reviews of the CQC's capability and into Sheldon's criticisms of its leadership.

NHS acute hospitals

A string of reports in 2011 slammed the quality of care for older people, particularly those with dementia, on acute hospital wards.

• Inadequate staff training and an impersonal approach to care are blighting the experiences of dementia patients in hospital, found a national audit of dementia care, published in December.
• A Care Quality Commission study of 100 hospitals in England, published in October, found one in five was failing to meet essential standards on dignity or nutrition. 
• The health ombudsman concluded that the NHS was failing to treat older people with dignity, respect, care or compassion, in a report in February based on 10 cases.
• The Older People's Commissioner for Wales found that Welsh hospitals were failing patients with dementia in a report in March this year, including because of inadequate staff training.
• In the same month, the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland said that hospitals were treating patients with dementia unlawfully by failing to apply safeguards for those who lack capacity to consent to treatment.

Eric Pickles

The communities secretary did not make himself popular with the social care sector when in March he announced that the government was examining all council social care duties as part of a wide ranging review. Sector leaders told him unequivocally that the idea was a very bad one and in June the idea was shelved. The government said it had never meant to get rid of the duties in the first place.

To make matters worse, Pickles' seeming obsession with bins over other council duties, such as social care, rankled with some commentators. In January a keynote speech on local government suggested waste collection was his highest priority. And in September he found an extra £250m to spend on more bin collections while social care budgets were being slashed. The announcement was made while the National Children and Adult Services conference was running and the attendant social care Twitterati were not amused:

 

@joefd: "A lot of anger at #ncasc that Pickles's bin money could have made real change if spent on care and support."

We wrote hundreds of social care news stories, analysis pieces, features and good practice guides in 2011. But which stories proved most popular, in terms of hits, on our website? Here is the top 10, in reverse order:

10. Councils withdrawing social workers from mental health teams

Councils across the country were reviewing partnership agreements with mental health trusts, we reported in August. Financial difficulties were the driver, said Steve Shrubb (left) director of the NHS Confederation's Mental Health Network.

9. Take pay cut or face the sack, council tells staff

Staff at Shropshire Council were told in July they must accept a 5.4% salary cut and changes to sick pay or face the sack.

8. Actor Corden's sister investigated over TV social work role

Back in January, a Channel 4 documentary decided to stop describing the sister of Gavin and Stacey star James Corden as a social worker as it emerged her name was not at the time on the GSCC's social work register. The social work graduate was giving advice to teenagers about sex.

7. Social workers failed to monitor direct payment user murdered by son 

A serious case review in November found that social workers had failed to monitor the circumstances of a direct payments user who was murdered by his son. Mark Alexander was convicted of his father Samuel's murder in September 2010.

6. Social workers 'collapsing' under workplace stress

Three in five social workers to contact the British Association of Social Workers' advice and representation team were suffering from work-related stress, we reported in August.

5. The state of personalisation in 2011

Our guide to the year's key developments in personalisation, including our exclusive research conducted in association with Unison, proved a big hit with readers.

4. Biggest shake-up in adult care law in 60 years proposed

In May, the government signalled the biggest reform of adult care law in 60 years after a three-year review proposed sweeping changes to adult safeguarding and carers' rights, and the extension of direct payments to residential care.
 

3. Adult social care in crisis?

The Winterbourne View scandal, the collapse of Southern Cross, falling support for personalisation among professionals and uncertainty over future funding brought concerns about social care to a head last summer.

2. Mother who killed son with bleach intimidated social workers

Social workers were repeatedly intimidated by a mother who killed her 12-year-old learning-disabled son by forcing him to drink bleach. However, they could not have predicted his death, a serious case review concluded in July.

1. Special report on the Munro Report into child protection

In summer 2011, the government published its formal response to Eileen Munro's review of child protection, commissioned the previous year. The popularity of our special report shows how important social workers believe Munro's review will be to the future of the profession.

David Cameron's plan to tackle 'problem families' is early intervention work by another name, according to a College of Social Work representative.

"And a lot of early intervention services have been cut," pointed out Laura Eden, a social worker and operational manager in a children's social care department and College spokesperson.

Eden said she supported any scheme to help troubled families and suggested Cameron's plan differed from the existing family intervention projects in that tackling barriers to employment will be its primary aim.

While that may be a useful way to tackle poverty and self-esteem issues in some families, it won't be so effective for others with more complex problems, she suggested.

Eden does not expect the troubleshooters to be qualified social workers and said she expected their role to be primarily a signposting one, working with families who did not meet social services thresholds. 

The Department for Communities and Local Government said the £450m being invested in the scheme would be paid on a payment-by-results basis, with the following criteria:

It said the role of the troubleshooters would include making sure the right families are getting the right type of help, "that sanctions are in place when needed", and that positive results are being achieved with the troubled families in their area. 

David Cameron is to announce plans for a network of "troubleshooters" to give more focused support to troubled families.

It all sounds very good but leaves me with a few thoughts.

What will these "troubleshooters" do that social workers currently don't do?

How will they be recruited and what sort of skills/experience will they need?

What will they do that will make them more successful than all the other initiatives that have tried to target this group?

The money is being diverted from "existing departmental budgets". So some other work will have to be stopped - what will be the effect of that?

Why invest in this work and cut Labour's existing Family Intervention Projects? What will be the difference?

There have been a couple of interesting reactions from experts.

Matt Cavanagh, Associate Director of think tank IPPR, questioned whether the £448m would be enough:

"The evidence clearly shows that successful interventions of this kind cost £20,000 for every family which completes the programme (the great majority of this cost is the cost of dedicated caseworkers). Based on this unit cost, the funding announced today, of around £450m over four years, would cover between 20,000 and 25,000 families. Even if the intention is that this funding will be matched by local authorities, it will struggle to cover the whole target group. There are then two risks. One is that the funding will be diluted. This would be a disaster: the more these "troubleshooters" are stretched across bigger caseloads, the less effective they will be. The other, particularly if there is an element of payment by results, is the risk that providers will go for the families who are easiest to turn round, rather than those who are doing the most damage to society."

(Pic: World Economic Forum) 

Three things I've noticed:

1. Ruby Wax has launched Black Dog Tribe, a new site for people with depression - it's currently in beta and focuses on ways people can support each other. It features lots of interaction and multimedia stuff.

2. Social Spider and the Mental Health Providers Forum have produced a report, Better Mental Health in a Bigger Society which looks at how the NHS and local authorities can help individuals and communities take forward their own vision of wellbeing.

3. Lifehacker has a piece on how music can help you be more productive and boost your immune system, as well as helping people with dementia recall memories. 

(Pic: Brandon Giesbrecht on Flickr)