Practice Development Events · times. The Coronavirus public health crisis is exerting huge...

Practice Development EventsFor those working in, and with, children’s services

Topics in the series will include:

Child Protection and Family Support in the Age of Covid 19Wednesday 9 September 2020, 2-3pm

Critical Reflection and AnalysisWednesday 9 September 2020, 4-5pm, or Tuesday 13 October, 2-3pm

Corporate Parenting During the CrisisFriday 11 September 2020, 2-3pm

Responding to Concerns About Domestic AbuseMonday 14 September 2020, 10-11am

Effective Supervision in a Period of Crisis and Remote WorkingThursday 1 October 2020, 1-2pm

Building Professional ResilienceThursday 19 November 2020, 1-2pm

Details for the events in this series can be found overleaf.

MAKINGRESEARCH COUNT

www.beds.ac.uk/mrcwww.kcl.ac.uk/scwru/mrc

Making Research Count (MRC) is a well established national social care research dissemination project. To this end a network of Universities across England work closely with local agency partners to develop the use of research in terms of service design, commissioning and day to day practice. Since the onset of the Covid 19 crisis we have moved our programme online and, in the summer term, 3000 practitioners attended a series of conferences seminars and other forums across adults and children’s services. This reflected the appetite among practitioners for opportunities to continue their professional development and debate, discuss and learn in the challenging environment we are living and working through.

This autumn we will continue to deliver an online programme of events that can be accessed via a subscription to Making Research Count. Alternatively, individual places can be purchased at £50 (+VAT) each.

Webinar Series:

Social Work With Children and Families During the Coronavirus CrisisWe are living and working through unprecedented times. The Coronavirus public health crisis is exerting huge pressures on families, communities and the services that seek to support them. Making Research Count will, throughout this period, be providing a rolling programme of webinars that address key areas of social work practice. The webinars will:

• Identify key practice challenges that are arising in this period;

• Signpost and disseminate specific policy and professional guidance in specific areas of practice;

• Explore the implications of the Coronavirus Act 2020 and Coronavirus (COVID-19): guidance for local authorities on children’s social care;

• Review BASW and other professional practice guidance;

• Identify relevant research and apply its findings to the current practice context;

• Identify good practice and strategies for working with undoubted challenges;

• Provide a forum for debate and discussion.

To book your place for any of the

above events, please contact:

[email protected]


Child Protection and Family Support in the Age of Covid 19Social workers have a key role in supporting families and, where necessary, protecting their children. The current crisis puts a particular pressure on parents in terms of psychological and economic stress. This can both create and exacerbate relational and practical difficulties that can impact on the welfare of children and young people. More positively, it can help people reconnect with things that matter to them, and enhance community develop-ment.

This webinar will cover:• The importance of ethical and humane social work

practice in a period of crisis;• Concerns that arise for and about children, young

people and their families during the current crisis;• How the crisis can exacerbate or lessen existing

concerns regarding children and young people;• The messages from family support research

literature and how these can be applied in the current context;

• How social workers can work effectively with families when there is limited face to face contact;

• The impact of stress and anxiety on children and young people and the meaning of child-centred practice in such a context;

• How statutory guidance such as “Working Together” can be applied in social workers’ practice in the current context.

Wednesday 9 September 2020, 2-3pm

Critical Reflection and AnalysisIn social work with children and families, the importance of the capacity for practitioners to exercise critical analysis and reflection is widely recognised. This is with regard to managing complex casework and, therefore, improving the quality of their assessments and decision-making. If this is true generally, in our field it is particularly so in this current period of crisis. DfE guidance recognises that social workers are working in circum-stances where established practice and processes have to be adapted to, for example, a context in which face to face contact with families is limited.

This webinar will look at the theoretical and research-based knowledge and tools associated with critical reflection, and attempts to apply these ideas to the current challenging context of practice.

Wednesday 9 September 2020, 4-5pm, or Tuesday 13 October, 2-3pm

Corporate Parenting During the CrisisDuring the Covid 19 crisis, local authorities need ensure that they are able to fulfil their role and responsibilities toward young people in the care system. In a period when face to face contact with children and young people is more limited, ensuring the welfare of those children and supporting their placements creates a particularly potentially complex set of challenges. This webinar explores the ramifications for relationship building, supporting parents, contact and care planning. In particular we will:

• Consider the impact of the crisis on practice with children in the care system;

• Reflect on the particular responsibilities toward working with young people who are in, or who left, the care system;

• Discuss the particular challenges facing practitio-ners, managers and independent reviewing officers;

• Think about the implications of current Government guidance regarding statutory duties toward children in care;

• Identify the messages from research in relation to care planning, and consider how these can be ap-plied to the current context;

• Explore ways of supporting foster carers, kinship car-ers and birth families;

• Devise strategies that can address these challenges to placement stability in the current context;

• Apply a rights-based approach to permanency plan-ning in a period of crisis.

Friday 11 September 2020, 2-3pm

Responding to Concerns About Domestic AbuseThere is already emerging evidence, internationally and domestically, that the Coronavirus crisis is leading to an increase in domestic abuse. In this webinar we will cover:

• The implications for supporting women and other victims of domestic abuse;

• Recognising and addressing concerns about the welfare of children in such a context;

• Engaging and working with perpetrators in the cur-rent context;

• The importance and reality of multi-agency work in such circumstances;

• Messages from research and practice- informed knowledge about domestic abuse, and how these can be applied to current practice.

Monday 14 September 2020, 10-11amTo book your place for any of the


[email protected]

Effective Supervision in a Period of Crisis and Remote WorkingIn children’s social care, supervision always plays a key role in supporting staff, promoting high practice stan-dards and ensuring children and their families receive the services they need. The current crisis creates particular challenges for supervision. This webinar will cover:

• The roles of supervision in the current period;• How effective supervision can be provided in a con-

text in which it has to take place remotely;• How supervision can be organised in such a way

that it meets all the needs of both the supervisee and the agency;

• Strategies for ensuring supervision can still retain its critically reflective component, and can act as a “safe” supportive environment for workers;

• The messages from research in terms of what is ef-fective within the supervisory process and how this can be applied to the current crisis.

Thursday 1 October 2020, 1-2pm

Building Professional ResilienceThe current crisis is placing significant and, in many respects, unprecedented pressures on practitioners, their teams and agencies who are attempting to support families. This webinar explores the challenges that can arise and how ideas around professional resilience can be helpful in supporting the well-being of the workforce. The webinar will cover:

• The range of challenges facing practitioners in this period including potential isolation, risk manage-ment and negotiating personal and professional boundaries when working at home;

• Concepts of professional resilience and staff well-being, and how they apply to current circumstances;

• The relationship between stress, anxiety and resilience, and ethical and effective practice with children and their families;

• The role and responsibilities of agencies in building organisational and team level resilience;

• Steps and self-care strategies that individuals can take to promote their own resilience and well-being.

Thursday 19 November 2020, 1-2pm



[email protected]

Webinar Series:

Complex SafeguardingThis series of four webinars explores some of the more complex areas of safeguarding practice with children and young people. Although there is a legitimate debate about the helpfulness of categories, it will nevertheless look at the particular challenges raised around neglect, emotional abuse and intrafamilial sexual abuse. These include how these forms of harm are defined, understood, evidenced and addressed. The first webinar will set the context, and will look at the range of safeguarding models currently being used including those that are both strengths and community based.

Understanding the Relationship Between Risk and Harm: A Strengths-Based Approach to Child ProtectionFriday 11 September 2020, 4-5pm

Assessing NeglectMonday 14 September 2020, 12 - 1pm

Intrafamilial Sexual AbuseThursday 1 October 2020, 11am - 12pm

Emotional AbuseTuesday 13 October 2020, 11am - 12pm





Reassessing Attachment Theory in Child WelfareProf Sue White, University of Sheffield, and James Blewett, King’s College LondonIn this webinar, Prof Sue White will talk about her work on attachment theory in conversation with James Blewett. Participants will be invited to join in the discussion.Sue will draw on her (2019) book on the topic to offer an analysis and summary of the uses, abuses and limitations of attachment theory in contemporary child welfare practice.Analysing the primary science and drawing on original empirical work, she will show how attachment theory can distort and influence decision-making. She will demonstrate that the dominant view of attachment theory may promote a problematic diagnostic mindset, whilst undervaluing the enduring relationships between children and adults.Sue will argue that attachment theory can still play an important role in child welfare practice, but that we need a radical shift toward a sophisticated understanding of the realities of human experience to inform ethical practice.October 2020 (date and time to be confirmed)

Coming soon:

Social Media in Social Work PracticeProfessor Joanne Westwood, University of Central Lancashire

Working with Perpetrators of Domestic AbuseProfessor Nicky Stanley, University of Central Lancashire

Dates and times to be confirmed



[email protected]

The Impact of Trauma on Children and Young PeopleA feature of many of the children and young people we work with, as well as very often their parents, is that they have experienced trauma in their lives. This webinar will explore the impact that trauma can have.

The webinar will cover:• The impact of trauma on all aspects of child and ado-

lescent development;• Theoretical and research-based frameworks for under-

standing the nature of trauma;• The combined impact that trauma and discrimination

can play in the lives of children and young people;• The meaning of trauma-informed practice;• Practical interventions that can help children recover

from the impact of trauma.

Friday 25 September 2020, 1-2pm

Working with Adolescent Violence Toward ParentsIssues of adolescent violence toward their parents is an issue that is increasing coming to the attention of child welfare professionals, including children’s services. This has particularly been the case during the Covid 19 crisis. It is an area which does not fit within traditional models of child safeguarding and, as such, is a challenging area of practice. This webinar explores these challenges and, based on messages from research, how we can respond most effectively.

In this seminar we will explore:• Definitions, and prevalence, of various forms of

adolescent violence toward parents/carers;• The policy and practice guidance that has been

developed in this area;• The key findings from research in this area of practice;• The practice challenges that emerge for professionals,

and how these can be addressed most effectively.

Monday 19 October 2020, 10-11am






[email protected]

Engaging Men in the Context of Children’s Social CareEngaging men is often one of the most challenging issues practitioners face when working with children, young people and their families. Research has consistently shown that, all too often, children’s services (and other agencies) either fail to engage with, or understand, the role that fathers and other men play in children’s lives. This can lead to men being excluded, and their rights as parents not fully respected. It can also mean that men are under-utilised as a source of support and a resource within a family. Conversely it can also mean that, when men are the source of possible safeguarding concerns, issues of risk and safety are not sufficiently understood.This webinar seeks to explore our expectations of men and fathering, and to consider how we can engage men, across agencies, more effectively in our work. The webinar will explore:

• Our expectations of the role of fathers and other men in the families we work with including families with parents who are LBGT;

• Men’s perceptions and experiences of agencies and professionals who work with their children;

• To discuss the issues that arise when we attempt to engage men in work with families;

• The implications of cross cultural working in the con-text of engaging men;

• What is meant by the “absent man” or “invisible” man how we can manage the implications of this in our practice;

• To explore the factors that can promote safety in fami-lies when working with men and to identify men as a resource.

Monday 16 November 2020, 2-3pm

Webinar Series:Building Effective Relationships With Families: Promoting Ethical and Humane Practice in Children’s ServicesThis four webinar programme seeks to explore the process of relationship building in work with children, young people and their families. The quality of the relationship is consistently identified as a key feature of the quality of both the practice and whether positive outcomes are achieved. Nevertheless, relationship building in the context of children’s social care can be complex, emotive and demanding.

These webinars will, drawing on both current and seminal research, look at some of the complexities of relationship building. They will highlight the importance of self awareness, features of good practice, the pitfalls and traps we can fall into, and how these can be avoided.

The Role of Empathy in Working With FamiliesTuesday 10 November 2020, 11am - 12pm

Understanding and Promoting the Process of ChangeThursday 12 November 2020, 11am - 12pm

Working with Families We Find Hard to HelpMonday 16 November 2020, 11am - 12pm

Use of Self: Working with ‘Sameness’ and ‘Difference’Friday 20 November 2020, 11am - 12pm






[email protected]

Critical and Reflective Practice ForumA ‘Book Group’ for Managers and Experienced PractitionersMeets: Monthly

Venue: Online, via Zoom

The MRC Critical and Reflective Practice group, at King’s College London, is a well-established forum that provides an opportunity to:

• Identify and discuss key areas of emerging social work research;

• Explore the implications of major policy documents for practice;

• Debate and discuss key areas in contemporary social work with colleagues from across London.

The MRC Critical and Reflective Practice Forum has run for 15 years, and brings together practitioners and managers from across London and the South East. This unique forum works as a ‘book group’, looking at articles, research papers and policy documents, which are circulated beforehand to members, and considers their implications for practice.

Topics are selected by the group but, recently, have included: a critical appraisal of the concept of disguised compliance; how we engage fathers; the impact of Covid-19; and pre-birth assessments.

Friday 25 September 2020, 10-11amFriday 30 October 2020, 10-11amFriday 27 November 2020, 10-11am

Pre-Birth AssessmentsPre-birth assessments are an area of practice that can raise profound ethical and professional challenges. Assessing parenting before the birth of a child requires a very clear framework for understanding parenting, and great care has to be taken as to what is considered ‘evidence’ in the assessment process.This webinar will cover:

• An overview of the research and policy-based literature that is relevant to pre-birth assessments;

• A conceptual framework for undertaking pre-birth assessment with families in these circumstances;

• The meaning of child centred practice in pre-birth assessments;

• An understanding of how we can practice in both a humane and strengths-based manner that promotes parenting capacity and partnership practice with families in pre-birth assessments;

• Key inter agency issues and how we can work ef-fectively as multi–disciplinary groups of professionals to promote positive outcomes in pre-birth assessments.

Thursday 10 December 2020, 10-11am



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