Many social workers will find that, amongst their services users, are people who originate, have lived or have family members overseas, and that usual practice would/might involve either making contact with family members or the authorities, to obtain information. I am trying to find out what practitioners do in that situation, what options are open to them and how often this situation occurs.

Hi Sue

It's an interesting question - one that I don't know anything about but hopefully someone on here does!

In my experience of working within multi cultural boroughs in London, social workers have gone out to the family's country of origin to complete assessments which are either directed by the court during proceedings or as part of the Children's Care Planning.Usually there will be members of staff who will have a connection with the specific country and it could be that they would be the best and most appropriate person to go and undertake the assessment.

One of the alternatives is to use International Social Services, but have you ever tried to complete their referral from, it is so loooong, and I know why it would have to be..........but some people may suggest it would be quicker to fly out, complete the assessment yourself, and fly back...quicker than you can complete the referral from.......no offence ISS..

I was interested to hear that the practice of sending social workers from the UK to overseas countries to undertake particular social work tasks seems to be the preferred choice in your experience, and am very interested to hear from other social workers whether this is usual practice in their authorities, both within and outside of the London area.

I must confess that I am the new Director of International Social Services. However, I  pose this question on the forum, without a bias, to try to find out  a bit more about what social workers do in these situations. A large number of social workers do use ISS, to access information and services from the statutory social services overseas, but a large number do not. Maybe some practitioners don't know about ISS, maybe our costs are too high, maybe our service is too slow, or maybe the quality of the service we obtain from our overseas does not match the expecations of the UK authorities or, in your experience, our referral form is too long ! We also accept that there may be alternative and more efficient ways of obtaining inter-country social work services, if so, we would like to hear about them, so that we can advise others on options and the pros and cons of each.

As regards our referral form, I do take the point. However .... as we are working in an international context, with partners in over 160 countries around the world, the initial referral we send must obtain all the relevent information, there are issues of translation ( not just the actual language, but often the concepts) , logistical issues ie sending documents by courier service to, for example, Democratic Republic of Congo, communication difficulties in countries with weak infrastructure - so our communication cannot be backwards and forwards passing on bits of information as and when it becomes obtainable or necessary. The global nature of our work, I am afraid, necessitates some initial effort put into the referral form, however, after that, the situation is largely left in our hands.

I hope that there will be much more to discuss on this question, but will await further comment for now.

Thanks

I hope that you will find out a bit more from other practitioners joining in this discussion. However, I work for International Social Service in London, which provides inter-country advice, and services, if appropriate and you can find out more about us from our website www.issuk.org.uk

I am more interested to hear if you, or your colleagues, have every faced this situation, and if you have, what, if anything did you/they  do?

Thanks

Hi Sue

I had a family that originated in Canada and had a huge amount of Child Protection issues whilst living in Scotland, Sunderland, London, Sussex, Germany as well as returning home to Canada before ending up in the North East. I used email to contact Canadian Social Services due to the time difference who in turn sent me paperwork by courier. I was also able to use the Canadian High Comission and the Germany Embassy both who knew about this couple and their children. In Britain I got an easy ride it was a matter of phone calls all over the place. The outcome was a fantastic genogram and chronology of their lives which enabled me to successfully remove the children and place them in the safety of the Local Authority. It was hard work and took a very long time not to mention gaining grey hairs but it was worth it. I hope that helps a little bit.