Key points
It is now necessary to allocate a lead social worker from children’s social care. This person should be qualified and experienced. Their responsibility is;
- to make sure that the outline child protection plan agreed at the conference is developed;
- to co-ordinate action to complete a core assessment;
- to ensure that all actions agreed in the plan are being carried out;
- to see the child, alone when appropriate, develop a therapeutic relationship with the child to continually find out what the child wants and to try to make this happen unless it is against the best interests of the child;
- keep the child and family up to date with developments.
It is essential in child protection work to:
- keep the focus on the child and his or her safety and welfare,
- see the child alone where appropriate
- understand the daily life experience of the child and its meaning to them,
- understand his or her welfare, wishes and feelings, and to use information about the family’s history and functioning to inform decision making
How to do it
The lead social worker should not be the only person doing everything. Their role is to co-ordinate the family and other professionals in putting into practice the ideas agreed in the child protection plan. It is important that everyone communicates with each other as well as the lead social worker and important that the lead social worker keeps everyone informed about what is happening.
Child protection plans should be simple, easy to understand, and contain objectives which can be measured but which aren’t about supplying services. A good example is ‘to improve the relationship between parents and children’, a bad example is ‘to attend the family centre’. The reason for this is that the first example contains an ‘outcome ‘ but the second example is a ‘process ‘.
Lessons from research
See core groups.
June 2010
