Community Care Podcasts

The Social Work Community Podcast explores issues that are important to social work practitioners in the UK by interviewing experienced and inspiring guests. Guests include frontline social workers who speak from the heart about topics that affect their jobs, the sector and society.

These are our Workforce Insights episode, a podcast from Community Care showcasing social work practice and leadership from around the country.

Podcast: using new approaches to promote ‘old school’ social work for older adults

When Hampshire County Council’s adult social care teams noticed a doubling of the care packages required for people within its population aged over 85 years, it found a solution through an approach called proactive enhanced care (PEC).

This approach taps into a return to ‘old school’ social work values that focus on prioritising time with the older person and focussing on a person-centred approach to how they are supported.

In this episode, social workers in Hampshire County Council’s older adults teams discuss how older adults are benefitting from this approach.

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Social workers share their experiences of working in a large county

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many families became isolated and levels of need, for example in relation to domestic abuse, went up. The long-lasting effects of the pandemic on service users are still being seen by practitioners at Northamptonshire Children’s Trust.

Guests Brian Browne and Mason Poore, both of whom work in one of NCT’s support and safeguarding teams, discuss the challenges families and young people face.

They also talk about how supportive and visible leadership, and recognition for doing well in your role, helps them do their jobs better and keeps them motivated in their practice.

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Supporting adults with learning disabilities and autism post-pandemic

We speak to Dan Wilkins (head of transformation and quality assurance) and Juliana Ameh (learning disabilities and autism team) about their work at Wiltshire Council in adult social care.

They talk about how things have changed for them and the adults they support since the Covid-19 pandemic began. They talk about differences in services offered, how there is more demand for services and the increase in awareness around neurodivergence.

How can practitioners support adults with autism better? And how can local authorities support neurodivergent staff?

Listen here.

Moving on from Ofsted

In 2021 Ofsted rated BCP Council’s children’s services as inadequate. However, many monitoring visits later the provision to children and families has vastly improved.

Sharmeen Ziauddin, assistant careers editor, speaks to the new principal social worker, Leanne Morgan and the children’s rights and engagement manager, Jo Fry, about BCP’s improvement journey.

Leanne and Jo both discuss wellbeing and its importance for a role in social care, and give their tips on how they cope in their demanding jobs.

Listen here.

The benefits of a relational approach to social work

Kate Dexter, an assistant director at Norfolk, and Sarah Hewitt, a team manager, explain how the foundation of relational practice is the trust between practitioners and young people.

This is supported, in Norfolk, by a multidisciplinary approach that provides the young person with the support of a range of professionals, on the understanding that they may find it easier to build relationships with some than others.

As well as have ‘a team around the child’, the council and partners also build a ‘team around the practitioner’, giving the lead professional working with the young person a network of support they can draw upon.

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Working with parents: breaking down barriers to engagement

This episode was recorded at a session, at Community Care Live 2023, run by Wiltshire Council, in front of a live audience. It features practitioners and the care-experienced young people and fathers whom they support and work with.

Wiltshire Council started two projects, Dads Matter Too and Born Into Care, which are run by two of the speakers on the podcast, Helen Tubb and Ceri Evans. Along with them is participation manager Joe Sutton, who runs the Youth Voice team.

Listen to the episode here.

What does it feel like to work in an anti-racist environment?

Essex County Council’s adult social care service started its journey to embed anti-racist practice almost two years ago and is seeing promising examples of change across its workforce.

Hear from Alison Ansell, director of adult social care for mid Essex, deputy manager Ganiyat Asiegbu and development manager for race Phil Chiza about how Essex is bringing a culture of anti-racist practice into its service.

And come and see them at Community Care Live 2023, on 10-11 October, where Essex will be our event partner for the sixth year in succession.

Listen to the episode here.

Child-focused case recording 

Wiltshire Council’s principle social worker Fiona Hayward and youth voice worker Cameron Draisy explain how Wiltshire has embedded a new style of case-recording.

Keeping the child at the centre, they explain to Sharmeen Ziauddin, assistant careers editor at Community Care, how this innovative approach is helping young people and families in Wiltshire.

Listen to the episode here.

What is innovation when it comes to social work practice?

Judy Cooper, associate editor with Community Care, is joined by Katy Burch, assistant director at the Institute for Public Care at Oxford Brookes University.

She and her team have undertaken numerous evaluations of projects funded by the government’s social care innovation fund (and the transformation fund in Wales). Click here for more.

Listen back to Season One of the podcast:

• What is the impact of negative media coverage on social workers?
• The pros and cons of being a young social worker
• Racism in social work
• Should social workers be on social media?
• The refugee who became social worker of the year
• Season One – which episode was your favourite?