Something has got to be done to improve Trust and co-operation between Social Services and Health, also Education for that matter.
Health and Social services need to be working in real partnership.
There needs to be real integration and Nurses, Doctors and Social Workers need to be co-located and need to be real colleagues.
Hi, I didn't see the GMTV coverage but the head of the review Eileen Munro was interviewed on the Today programme this morning. She talked about a model of working developed in Hackney, which has seen the number of children in care fall by a third and she said the issues of social work pay and training would also be looked at.
You can listen to the interview here.
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You can find more about what Eileen Munro has already said about her new role to Community Care here.
More detail on what Eileen Munro will be looking at.
It sounds like Eileen has her work cut out for her! You can see the letter from Michael Gove to Eileen Munro here, laying out what he wants her to accomplish.
I was at the press conference where Loughton announced the review this morning and it sounds pretty good so far.. The story on that is here.
Loughton was insistent that this wasn't going to mean more guidance for the sector, saying he'd be happy if guidance and procedure manuals were "cut in half". Interesting idea, though a big job, for sure. So fingers crossed this review will streamline things rather than tangle them further
Anyone got the link to the GMTV article?
My LA is looking at restructuring to the Hackney model
Haven't a clue what the Hackney model is, is it multi-dis teams?
My friend has worked in a multi-dis team and she said it was horrendous, team meetings were a nightmare, different professions had different values, you got people thinking they were better than their colleagues etc etc
so what are the benefits?
jelly_tot04:My friend has worked in a multi-dis team and she said it was horrendous, team meetings were a nightmare, different professions had different values, you got people thinking they were better than their colleagues etc etc
i work in a multi dis team in mental health, it has its challenges but it brings about some good results and good work, different professionals have different values and views but as long as the team have the service users and carers best interests at heart it can be really productive and helpful having different professional views on the best ways of supporting someone. of course there are challenges and disagreements but these have to be handled maturely and discussed until a way forward is found
i have learnt a lot from my colleagues who work for the NHS and i hope they learn from me i think we all value each others contributions and take on board what their opinions are.
chippychips: Excellent, another review. I wonder what recommendations will be made this time??
they can make as many recommendations as they like, no-one listens anway. Can someone kindly remind me how many cases Lord Laming said sw'ers should hold 10 years ago? and can anyone tell me if this is something that is adhered to. When I say I can't take on anymore cases I just get told that someone's got to have them!
Some links to info on the Hackney model
How hackney has replaced social work teams with units
thanks for the links
"Too much of the current inspection process depends upon data assessment, rather than personal evaluation of staff and their relationships with children and families," his document said.
"Just as school inspectors spend time in classrooms, so care inspectors should spend time with social workers on their rounds. In addition, inspectors should be obliged to examine joint-working between social workers and other agencies to ensure that services are co-operating appropriately. And in order to ensure feedback from the profession, directors of children's services and key social workers should able to be seconded to Ofsted and play a part in inspections of other authorities."
Professor Munro, when speaking to Community Care before the election, said that she personally felt Ofsted needed to take on more of an improvement role as a balance was needed between inspection highlighting failings and having a responsibility to help services improve.
She also said inspectors should, in her view, go on home visits with social workers. "They need to experience the noise and the situations that social workers are having to assess and make decisions about."
Meanwhile, Ofsted has published the first tranche of unannounced inspections since the watchdogrevised the criteria for such inspections. Unusually, there were no areas for priority action listed for any of the councils inspected
I doubt very much that OFSTED inspectors would come on home visits with us, although I would love it if they did, it would open their eyes to a whole new world...
Munro shrugs when asked whether she is worried about appearing partisan. "I don't think it's a party political issue," she says. "We all know things have got out of balance and this is a chance to put it right. But I think the Labour government is in the position of having created the current system so it's more difficult for it to step back."
The Tories should also take some responsibility for the red tape mess the system is in, she adds. "It evolved from the performance management systems the Tories put in place in the 1980s," she says.
"They brought targets and indicators into a relationship-based service. Once they realised the targets were having an adverse effect, they put in other targets to try to counteract it. So it went on until we've reached the point now where professionals do things to keep government happy and are not focused on how to keep a child safe and happy."
The current government has made the situation worse with Working Together to Safeguard Children, initially 25 pages long, now running to 300, Munro says. "It can no longer be used in daily practice. It's become a defence mechanism for senior managers so that when things go wrong they can say 'we told them what they needed to do'."
This is partly due to knee-jerk high-profile inquiries into child deaths. The second Laming inquiry after the Baby P case is a perfect example, she says. "He found that an initial assessment was not undertaken because a social worker hadn't deemed it serious enough. So he makes a recommendation that all referrals should result in an initial assessment.
"There's no regard as to how many referrals that will result in, what the extra workload will be and the knock-on effects on other children - that is to say how many children will die because social workers are tied up doing initial assessments all day. It becomes yet another target in an already-crowded system. In all these inquiries and reports there has been no attempt to think about what people should stop doing in order to do something new."
Munro wants to wipe the slate clean. "We're not talking about trimming back the current forms but re-examining why we record anything and ensuring that what we do record helps children. We have to go back to recording the narrative, not data."
She concludes that a referral form and an assessment form are needed. She says: "Any core assessment must be built on an initial assessment and it must show reasoning. Planning, assessment and review are not stages in a line of action but a circle that is part of reflection on interaction and intervention.
"To me it would be great if a social worker could say 'I had a hunch about this but I have rejected it because of such and such'. We need to know why professionals reject other explanations of behaviour."
Such a system would reinforce critical thinking and analysis - something bypassed in the current system and steadily disappearing from social work, she adds.
Munro is keen that all documents are simple enough for families to read them and flexible enough to take children's views into account. "That might mean a child's drawing or a poem," she says. "We need to be trying to understand children's experience and not treat them as oddities who must be fitted into the assessment process."
"The vision I have of the system doesn't make the job easier. It probably makes it harder, but it also means social workers will have a better understanding of families, why they are behaving in a certain way and what needs to be done to help them."
Excellent comments on both the Labour and the Tory both being to blame for the ridiculous red tape
Also excellent comments on Working Together, originally 30 pages hhhmm interesting as I have just received my hard copy and it's heavier than an encyclopedia
Also excellent comments on Lord Lamings reports, regarding IA's, do these people really have a clue what life is like on the front line??
I'd be interested to know how long Prof Munroe anticipates it to be before any meaningful changes being made, are we talking, weeks, months, years, decades....