Social Work Evidence Template Update

Local authority social workers preparing court statements, are you up to date? Today’s briefing gives an update on the national social work template. Practice areas affected Local Authority children’ social workers from the children’s safeguarding teams, children’s guardians and social workers from the fostering and adoption teams. Introduction The national… Continue reading

Update on Special Guardianship Orders – Strengthening the assessment process

Special Guardianship Orders

Essential and necessary information for all Local Authorities. Special Guardianship Orders were created under the Adoption and Children Act 2002, which introduced this as a new performance option for children which came into effect from December 2005. A special guardianship order (SGO) gives parental responsibility for a child to a… Continue reading

Strategic Briefing: Independent Reviewing Officers

Our director, Shefali Shah, recently contributed to Research In Practice’s latest Strategic Briefing: Independent Reviewing Officers. About this briefing The Children and Families Act 2014, a number of recent research projects and Serious Case Review (SCR) evidence all highlight themes that have implications for Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) services. This… Continue reading

Social Workers, beware – no jargon, use plain language

Social worker - beware no jargon

One of the great qualities that a social care worker should possess is the ability to communicate clearly. This skill also needs to be transferrable in any written work that the social care worker produces. The need for clear oral and written communication was recently highlighted in a reported care case {Derbyshire County Council v SH [2015] EWFC B102}. In this case the Judge was highly critical of the social workers and named them personally in the judgement. Continue reading

National Social Work Template: Are your social workers ready to use the new social work template?

Social worker

Summary This briefing will give an outline of the new national social work template which is to implemented on a national basis for all local authorities within the next 6 months. Each local authority can choose it’s own timetable in the transition from their local template to use of the… Continue reading

Challenges for Local Authorities following the impact of Re B (A child) and Re B – S (Children) to public children and adoption cases.

Local Authorities & Adoption

Summary This briefing will examine the two appeal cases which are considered to have far-reaching implications on cases on permanence option available for a child who is subject to care or adoption proceedings. The impact of these cases has arguably required a complete rethink of the way in which evidence… Continue reading