Presentation from 6th European Conference for Social Work Research

1. GAINING THE VIEWS OF VULNERABLE FAMILIES:
EFFECTIVE ENGAGEMENT WITH FAMILIES AND
THEIR SOCIAL WORKERS
Jo Moriarty, Mary Baginsky, Jill Manthorpe

2. OUTLINE
 Ongoing project
 Funding from the Department for Education Children’s
Social Care Innovations Programme
 Central government funding
 Supporting pilots and change programmes that test or spread more effective
ways of supporting vulnerable children
 Presentation mainly focuses on some of the methodological
challenges that we have faced
 Argues that these challenges reflect wider considerations
for social work research
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3. WHAT IS SIGNS OF SAFETY?
 Strengths based, safety focused
approach to child protection
 Created byAndrewTurnell and
Steve Edwards in collaboration with
Australian child protection workers
(CPWs)
 Model focuses on assessing
‘strengths’ and ‘dangers’
 Expanded elsewhere
 Including parts of USA, Sweden,
Japan and England
“How can the worker build
partnerships with parents
and children in situations of
suspected or substantiated
child abuse and still deal
rigorously with the
maltreatment issues?”
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4. MUNRO,TURNELL & MURPHY CHILD
PROTECTION CONSULTING
Transforming
Children’s Services
with Signs of Safety
Practice at the
Centre
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5. WHAT DOES IT INVOLVE?
 Ten local authorities across England at different starting
points
 Four evaluation questions:
 Is ‘Signs of Safety’ being implemented?
 What organisational forms best support front line practice?
 Are outcomes for children and young people improving?
 Is there better value for money across children’s social care?
 Two evaluations
 MTM (mainly first two)
 Social Care Workforce Research Unit (mainly last two)
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6. COMPARATIVE ABSENCE OF ESTABLISHED
METHODOLOGIES
Comparatively little research based on parents’ views
(Ghaffar et al 2012, Smithson and Gibson, 2016)
More research on children’s opinions (Oliver, 2010) but
tends to be views of older children and those already in
care
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7. GATEKEEPING
Gatekeepers in agencies
often control access to
potential participants
Comparatively small
literature on its impact
(for example Heath et al,
2007, Kars et al, 2015
Themes include
protection from intrusion,
concerns about consent
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8. STRATEGIESTO HELP IMPROVE ACCESS (1)
Agencies contacted families to inform them about
research on ‘opt in’ basis
 By letter, given time frame in which to respond
 Checked suitability of this approach with official working for Information
Commissioner
 Only one person complained when contacted by researcher out of
several 100 families contacted overall
Named person responsible for sending lists of families
who had not opted out to research team
 Builds up understanding of research and relationship with researcher in
area
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9. STRATEGIESTO HELP IMPROVE ACCESS (2)
 Still need to contact individual social workers to check
situation
 Where to visit, if two people should go, any factors that might make it
unsuitable to contact family, whether an interpreter is needed, and so on
 Reflects wider workforce factors – turnover and contractual arrangements
influence the extent to which they have come to understand about the research
 Role of principal social workers
 Recommendation of Munro Report (2011)
 Way these posts have operated has varied (Stanley & Russell, 2014) but in some
areas they have been pivotal in us reaching our target numbers of people to
interview
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10. ‘HARDTO REACH’
Featherstone et al
comment on change in
language away from
‘support’ to target on
‘hard to reach’ families
not engaging with
interventions
Hard to measure impact
of experiences of services
in terms of willingness to
engage with research
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11. STRATEGIESTO ‘REACH’ FAMILIES
Research associates have gone to considerable efforts
to interview families
 Multiple telephone calls
 Texts
 Letters
 Timing interviews to coincide when children over 8 are at home
 Challenge in geographically spread out areas
Still does not prevent ‘no shows’ when person out when
researcher calls
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12. THE BIGGER PICTURE
Realities of people’s lives
 Use of prepay mobile rather than landline
 Some have explained that they do not have credit to return calls
Often pleased to have opportunity to give views to
independent researchers
 Opportunity to control narrative – especially if disagree with content of
reports
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13. OUTCOMESVERSUS ENGAGEMENT
Using a range of
standardised measures
for parents and children
BUT fewer
opportunities for
creative methodologies
than in community
development
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14. WHEREWE ARE NOW
Aim to have two cohorts interviewed at two points in
time
Currently revisitingTime 1 cohort with mixed success
Overall about 270 families will have taken part
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15. TAKINGTHINGS FORWARD
Recognition of time needed to recruit and engage
samples of parents and children
Has also involved checking case files and other types of
data collection
Challenges needed to integrate different sources of data
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16. SOURCES AND REFERENCES (1)
Slide no Link
2 SpringConsortium: http://springconsortium.com/about-the-programme/
3 Signs of Safety: http://www.signsofsafety.net/signs-of-safety/
4 Signs of Safety England Innovations Project:
http://munroturnellmurphy.com/englandinnovations/
6 Ghaffar et al: http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/42/5/887.abstract
Smithson & Gibson: http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/44/7/1735.abstract
Oliver:
http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/518/1/Children_s_views_and_experiences_of_contact_with_social_w
orkers_report_July_2010.pdf
7 Gate from Free.foto.com: http://www.freefoto.com/index.jsp
Heath et al: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01411920701243651
Kars et al: http://pmj.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/03/09/0269216315616759.abstract
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17. SOURCES AND REFERENCES (2)
Slide no Link
10 Longleat maze: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Longleat-maze.jpg
Featherstone et al: http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/44/7/1735.abstract
3 Signs of Safety: http://www.signsofsafety.net/signs-of-safety/
4 Signs of Safety England Innovations Project:
http://munroturnellmurphy.com/englandinnovations/
6 Ghaffar et al: http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/42/5/887.abstract
Smithson & Gibson: http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/44/7/1735.abstract
Oliver:
http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/518/1/Children_s_views_and_experiences_of_contact_with_social_w
orkers_report_July_2010.pdf
7 Gate from Free.foto.com: http://www.freefoto.com/index.jsp
Heath et al: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01411920701243651
Kars et al: http://pmj.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/03/09/0269216315616759.abstract
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18. DISCLAIMER AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was funded by the Department for
Education. The views expressed in this presentation are
the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect those of the
Department for Education
Thank you for listening
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