Professional standard 3: be accountable for the quality of my practice and the decisions I make
In this episode, regional engagement lead Matthew explores professional standard 3, be accountable for the quality of my practice and the decisions I make, with social workers George and Calum.
George and Calum share their unique experiences of social work practice, decision making and safeguarding in different social work settings. They also discuss the impact of COVID-19 on their practice, their teams, and the people they support.
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Transcript
Matthew
Welcome to This Is Social Work. I'm Matthew, Social Work England's regional engagement lead for the North West of England.
In this series we're focusing on the professional standards, the 6 standards all social workers must know, understand and be able to do as part of their role. The professional standards are specialist to the social work profession and apply to social workers in all roles and settings across England.
In this episode, we're focusing on standard 3 which is ‘be accountable for the quality of my practice and the decisions I make’. Today I'll be joined by George who's a lead forensic social worker and Calum who is an adult safeguarding team manager. They share their own experiences of decision making, particularly in relation to safeguarding and discuss how social workers identify risk indicators and cope with the demand that this places on their own wellbeing.
We hope you enjoy the conversation.
So we're going to make a start and make a start with some introductions so George, can I come to you first, and just ask you to introduce yourself and to give a bit of background as well, about your social work career.
George
Okay so my name's Georgina Adams. I've been qualified as a social worker since 1993 so it feels a very long time and for all of my social work career, I've worked in Devon, for Devon county council.
My background predominantly has been around children's social work so the first kind of 25, 30 years of my career I’ve worked in social work whether as a social worker, as a team manager, chairing child protection meetings or as an independent reviewing officer. I've also worked for a safeguarding board, I've worked there for a few years, and managed the child protection service in Devon for a few years.
As well as, part of that career actually, I'll go back a bit really, I worked for the emergency duty team and I was predominantly a children's social worker but I also did my AMHP training so I did some work there working as an AMHP in mental health services, but I've taken quite a different career change very recently in that I’ve become the lead social worker for the secure services here at Langdon hospital in Devon. So we, we are a secure hospital with roughly about 110 patients, all male patients, and we have 4 wards that are medium secure wards, 2 wards which are low and one ward which is open, and I also have as part of my role across the secure directorate although I manage 7 social workers here in the hospital, we have social workers that are also working in our community forensic team and our liaison and diversion team, and I take a responsibility, not for line managing them, but providing some professional supervision when needed, and also making sure that their social work voice is heard across some of those agencies where they're working particularly whether in the police, and we're also making sure that their CPD is up to date and they're thinking about some of those social work issues, they come to some of our forums and come to our training so although I only kind of line manage 7 social workers in a hospital, I have a kind of broader role across the secure directorate here.
Matthew
Perfect, thanks George. Calum, can I come to you?
Calum
So my name's Calum Titley, I work for Stockton Borough council. So, I qualified as a, as a social worker back in 2009 and I’ve worked for Stockton Borough council ever since.
Prior to doing my social work degree, I just want to give you a bit of background about myself so my kind of interest in working with people and you know, empowering people to kind of achieve and you know, contribute to society came from doing 2 years volunteering in America where I was living and working with adults with learning disabilities, and it was that experience that really kind of demonstrated to me you know, just regarding kind of human worth and the fact that you know, we've all got strengths that we can contribute to society, so that really kind of shaped my career in like I said wanting to work within social care, and once that experience came to an end I found myself applying to kind of study social work.
Throughout my studying I did statutory placements within children's services so I did a placement within a child protection team, but my last placement was with adult services here in Stockton and since that time, I was lucky enough to become employed as a social worker in an adult assessment team before then developing through, you know, being able to do my practice education awards, my best interests assessors award.
I then transitioned into our safeguarding area and since working in the adult safeguarding team, I've been the team manager of the adult safeguarding team here in Stockton for the last 7 years. I started as a team manager in the, in the safeguarding team right when the Care Act was implemented so you know, straight away I had that responsibility along,with kind of the other managers and senior management, around embedding the changes into practice that came from the Care Act.
I was actually successful in now being appointed as the dedicated safeguarding lead officer, which is going to be a little bit of a change in that I won't be directly responsible for managing the day-to-day operational practice here in Stockton but I’ll be more responsible for the work that is shaped by our adult safeguarding board and the assurance work that's required as part of being part of that board, as well as the embedding the learning from things like safeguarding adult reviews etc. So my role is going to be slightly different moving forward but still very much within the adult safeguarding area.
What I would say is you know, I live here in Stockton, I'm proud to work for Stockton, they've invested in me and you know, I’m like I said I’m proud to serve the people of this borough.
Matthew
Yeah I mean, similar to Calum I only ever worked for one local authority, so before Social Work England I only ever worked for Cumbria County Council and was really proud to work for Cumbria County Council, it’s the area I grew up in, area where I still currently live, and it's only now that I stepped out to work with Social Work England that I’ve made that move away from an authority in an area that I’m really proud of so certain similarities there.
So today's focus is really professional standard 3, which is ‘be accountable for the quality of my practice and the decisions I make’. Now professional standard 3 is the biggest, it's got 15 points.
For me professional standard 3 is a lot of the sort of, day-to-day work that social workers do because it talks about things like working within legal and ethical frameworks, it talks about evidence-based practice, it talks about assessments, talks about working within multi-disciplinary teams, talks about record keeping, so that's the kind of, for me, for a lot of social workers that might be listening to this, is their day-to-day work.
Standard 3 also talks a lot about risk, talks a lot about risk assessments and responding quickly to dangerous situations, so when we were thinking about standard 3 we had to narrow down the 15 points otherwise this podcast would be a day long, but that's why we sort of narrowed it down to that sort of safeguarding perspective, which is why we've reached out to yourselves who've got that experience because I think, and we've already started to talk about it a little bit.
Social workers continue to take the lead in safeguarding in both adults and children’s, I think the landscape's changed and I think legislation's changed significantly over the last few years. Calum I’m the same, thinking about the, what the Care Act has done for safeguarding and adults, I think that was a significant change for the whole system but I think it's an incredibly demanding area of practice, it's a really challenging area of practice but I think it's an incredibly important one.
It's also potentially a really high profile area of practice as well and it fits into the idea that social workers’ primary role is around public protection and for us as a regulator, that is also our primary role. We have been established with a primary role around public protection, and we also want to raise the standards of social workers across England so that people receive the best possible support when they might need it, and that's our role and function as a regulator and could ultimately, society's decided really that social work as a profession carries significant risk, carries that significant importance, that it should be a regulated profession, again that’s why Social Work England is in existence and why social work has been a regulated profession for a number of years now, and I think that helps sort of emphasise the importance of social work and the importance of the work that social workers do, but I think it also it shows that social workers, as social workers on a daily basis, have standards to meet and uphold but they also have got to comply with legislation and policy and guidance, and there's a lot there for social workers to understand. I think that's why your new role Calum, around embedding some of that in systems and embedding that in practices, those types of rules are really important to support social workers.
If we drill down a little bit more into the standard, 3.2 focuses around sort of, using information from a range of appropriate sources, including supervision, to inform assessments, to analyse risk, there's that word risk, and to make professional decisions and judgments.
And I think just coming to, and I’ll come to you first George, around what's your experience really around doing that because I think on paper that sounds really difficult – how do you absorb all that information to inform decision making and particularly, particularly over the last 12, 15 months that COVID has been here and I think that's shifted, how social workers have been able to do that.
George
Yeah, I suppose the thing that really jumped out at me was what you were saying about the need to balance, balance that public protection, you know. I work in a, in a secure hospital with patients and that's, it's quite a niche role isn’t it, working in a hospital, it's very, it's a very, very specialist role. Probably a lot of people don't really know what social workers do you know, in a, in a secure setting really because you know, essentially we are working with people, if you look at kind of you know, our prison, our male prison populations, there is that preponderance of childhood trauma and mental illness so the people in the hospital I work in you know, the patients that are here, patients or service users whichever, there's always a bit of a debate about which language to use really, you know are some of our most disadvantaged and oppressed and traumatised people that we're working with you know, every day but in the work here, what we're always thinking about, which is what forensic social workers do is about balancing that public protection because you know, some of our patients here have committed a very serious crime but also thinking about their own rights as service users, and we're also constantly trying to kind of, promote their quality of life, working in partnership with all the kind of professionals here.
It's really key here that multiple multi-disciplinary working is really, really key here as part of the work in terms of trying to help that kind of, recovery model because social workers here are that bridge into the, back into the community into you know, living outside of the hospital and it plays a key part of that, so we're there constantly assessing and managing risk every day. It's about assessing managing risk whether it's like, here in the hospital and how the hospital is managed and how patients are in the hospital, whether it's by patients going out into the community and being discharged into the community, when we're thinking about some of our Care Act responsibilities, also thinking all the time about the legislation that we work with and about our policy that we work with you know, it's very complicated trying to manage those legal frameworks and at the same time balancing protecting the rights of different people you know, whether it's our patients here, whether it's about the victims, whether it's like that public protection and whether it's about our you know, the family and friends that are, that are you know, are still part of our patients lives.
Matthew
Calum, are there any points that you wanted to pick up there or just sort of, coming in around your experience around that, about assessments I think because it is quite complex isn't it, and George has described a really complex picture there, but I think that that's a reality there's no getting away from, from the fact that there is complexity there and just sort of, your experience of that and how you've maybe navigated that.
Calum
Yeah, I almost feel as though social workers, they're in effect, need to be a walking encyclopaedias these days, the amount of knowledge that they need you know, whilst I think you know, social workers have, are very skilled in perhaps how they communicate with service users you know, how they apply that person-centered approach, that strengths-based approach to their practice, about having conversations, it's all the other stuff around that that they have to learn within the profession in order to meet the statutory duties that the legislations hold, the local guidance that might be applied, for example in my area of safeguarding, all the guidance that's produced under our safeguarding adults board, understanding the roles of partner agencies and what part they can play in in the system, it can be a complete minefield at times you know.
The core message I try and deliver to my staff is about defensible decision making. As long as you know, if you're, if your decisions are defensible, even if that decision ends up being the wrong decision or you know, as long as you're able to defend it at that point in time, that is a key message I always try and give to it to my staff. You know we've got the 6 core principles that we work to as well, so we try and embed them into our practice as well you know, and you know some of them principles are a second nature to the social workers, particularly empowerment you know, we might be dealing with risk and working towards how we can keep that person safer or how we can you know, risk manage the situation they're facing but it's all, it's trying to ensure that we don't necessarily create dependencies and do the doing it's you know, it's very much about I think you know, good outcomes to me is where we've been able to empower someone to take control.
Some of the other principles, particularly like the partnership arrangements, we can sometimes see many dilemmas in practice particularly when you've got kind of like, conflicting opinions between agencies you know, there's certain agencies that might be more risk adverse than others and it's how you kind of balance all that but at the same time, it's still able to work together for the people that we're serving.
George
What it really is key for me here in this hospital is, do you know, that we are very, it's the stuff that you're just talking about Calum, about but that being very person-centered, talking about that empowerment very much here, as you can imagine in a hospital, we've got a very strong medical model here you know, and about being able to recognise about you know, what's strong about people rather than what's wrong with people and really recognising that actually people, even though they're in a, in a secure setting, that actually still there's still a lot of good things there that can happen.
I was just thinking question things you were saying about how you have to, notice how much you have to juggle in terms of your knowledge isn't it. It's really clear that isn't it, about when you think about the legislation there are so many, aren't there, bits of legislation that we're always quite, trying to juggle at the same time and that's where supervision is so key isn't it, about trying to really help with that some of that reflective practice isn't it to think about some of the decisions that we're making, to think about some of those areas of risk, isn't it, and really using some of that evidence-based stuff that you were talking about Calum isn't it, to really think about those defensible decisions that we were making.
Matthew
In all of this we've got the policy, the guidance, the legislation, all those things that we've all been describing but at the centre has to be a person, and there is a person isn't there, and I think whether that's a child or an adult I think always remembering that, I think is so important for social work practice, and I think that's the relationship based approach that I'm, I've always been really passionate about, it's essentially why I come into social work practice and I think there's, there's a danger isn't it, that when there's all this going on there's all this policy, guidance, legislation, there's all this risk, there's all this pressure from other professionals, pressure from families, pressure from communities, pressure from society, all this going on, to forget that there's a person right in the middle and that's the most important person to build a relationship with and build your decision making around.
George
And that's why I think the, I mean having come from background in children's and coming into adult’s mental health, it's been really fantastic to look at the adult safeguarding and the changes that have been made in terms of the legislation around there and that really, about making that, making safeguarding personal isn't it and actually having those conversations with people, and it's something I think that we I think, it's one of the things that social workers do very well is bringing it back to the person isn't it, and I think because children's work so differently, whether you know the child is that focus and things about significant harm or what's in their best interests, and coming into adults where you're actually thinking about balanced rights and responsibilities aren't you, needs and risks and keeping it person centred isn't it, is a different approach to have I think.
It's a constant battle here in the hospital to be kind of saying, but actually what does the person want, do you know, what do they want from their safeguarding which for me is, but it's very different I think really.
Calum
It is and I’m, you know, I'm a strong advocate for the you know, making safeguarding personal as that overarching principle of safeguarding practice because I actually saw practice prior to the Care Act when it was under No Secrets guidance and it was very process driven, and I saw first hand situations where the adult’s voice became lost and it was about doing you know, safeguarding doing as opposed to working with and keeping that person at the centre and I think it's so important that we keep you know, that person-centred aspect to our practice where the person is at the middle, where we are working towards their desired outcomes because you know, sometimes even if they are presenting risks you know, we I think need to be getting better at applying the positive risk taken to practice and recognising that you know, under the Care Act there's a duty to promote wellbeing but there'll be occasions where someone's wellbeing potentially isn't impacted by what they're experiencing and therefore you've got that, at times, that ethical dilemma where you're balancing kind of, rights under the human rights act for example, so that you know, respecting what they're telling you and what they want to happen, I think the making safeguarding personal approach that has enabled us to kind of, do that more efficiently.
Matthew
Did you feel a shift Calum, when that, when that was introduced because I was still in practice, I was working in Cumbria at the time, when the Care Act was introduced and I felt a shift, I felt some, the system maybe took a bit of a step back but I think individual social workers maybe took a step back and thought ‘let's do things differently, let's think about it in a different way’.
Calum
Yeah, I would agree. I think there was almost an immediate shift but with that being said you know, it has taken I think a number of years for us to be able to kind of evidence it well in practice you know, when I say evidence well you know, because we work under a statutory safeguarding board, we ultimately have to provide assurance to into our kind of, local safeguarding adults board and that is, that includes data, that includes audits, multi-agency audits and over time we've been able to, I think, develop our practice to be able to evidence that better but I believe that you know, it’s always been happening but we're much more equipped with being able to, I think, evidence it now in practice so then when it comes to talking about your defensible decision making for example, the fact that we are able to evidence that better now, means that I think we're better protected as a statutory agency because as you, as you alluded to Mathew, it's the one area of practice when you kind of refer to safeguarding that when something does go wrong, you've got that safeguard and adult review duty, as is the same with the kind of serious case reviews, when you're kind of talking about children you know, it's the one area of practice that you are expected to potentially look at what went wrong and learn from that, so I always think that there's this, there is an underlying fear at times but coming back to what I said, if you're able to put it all together, evidence the principles, work to the legislation, quote that you work into the legislation, then for me it combined it brings about that defensible decision in your practice.
George
For us here you know, although social workers take you know, a lead in some of the safeguarding, it is also, it's very much, isn't it, everybody's responsibility. The challenge here is to bring everybody on board with that and recognising what abuse is you know, and I think we've come a really long way, made some real improvements about, everybody kind of taking that on board and recognising that actually doing work around safeguarding is, I say, is everyone's responsibility but it's also, it's really necessary and it's not just someone else's responsibility you know, it's for all of us and just valuing the importance of it and not being scared of it, thinking you know, what happens now if I raise something is an issue because you know, it can end up, I think, in a kind of, the environment that I'm in, just feeling like it's one profession's responsibility so we’ve got to work really hard to make it feel, that we all recognise when there are safeguarding issues and there is still, I think, a lot of challenges around that because you know, you know if there is a safeguarding issue between 2 patients and somebody maybe, for example, might be you know, something happens and somebody might have to change a ward because of it, we have to be mindful still of the other patients that are still around you know, it's, you can't just move somebody and expect that the safeguarding issue has gone because it's still, it will still be there won't it, but may impact on other patients, but also recognising that the person that might be the you know, the alleged, the, you know, the alleged person that's done the abuse, that they still have their own care and support needs as well isn't it, so you're constantly having to think about those things as well, it's not just a kind of, linear process is it, it's much more complicated than that.
Calum
It is. Like you said, you know, safeguarding is everyone's business. We might hold that lead duty under the Care Act and section 42 of the Care Act you know, we are the lead agency but the way I apply that is yes we might take a coordinated approach but again, coming back to the principles, one of the core principles is partnership working and sometimes to make someone safer or achieve that person's desired outcome, we might have to link in and use legislation that falls under housing or falls under environmental health or you know, we might be heavily reliant on the powers that the police are able to apply so you know, I again, I totally agree with what you're saying there.
I think sometimes as a social worker who might hold the lead duty, it can sometimes come across that they're the sole person responsible for it and we need to be prepared to challenge, because actually that's not, that's not the case.
Matthew
And I think we often rely on other agencies to identify and alert us to the risk, and I think that's quite it's challenging isn't it – identifying a risk or identifying a potential safeguarding need is a challenge isn't it and I think there's a skill there in social workers working with those other agencies to understand the safeguarding process, to understand what risk means, to understand some of the potential warnings that may be there, that need to be maybe investigated.
George
We've done some work around what the difference is between trading and exploitation because it's you know, things can become I think normalised on a hospital ward and so people need to be constantly aware of some of those things. That's why supervision is really good to kind of talk about in some of the kind of reflective practice discussions that we have as teams to kind of remind ourselves actually what is happening there, is that actually about exploitation, is there some grooming here, you know we're constantly having to have some of those discussions to remind us actually, this could be a safeguarding issue you know.
So when you talk about somebody in safeguarding, having capacity to understand the risk or harm you know, sometimes people may not, because they may not realize and then recognize that they've been groomed by somebody for example.
Matthew
Yeah and it's very complex, it's really complex isn't it and I think self-neglect is another area that's really complex, the Care Act brought that under that safeguarding umbrella.
Calum, I’m keen to get your thoughts on that because you'll have experienced a lot of that.
Calum
Yeah and obviously you know, it's not that self-neglect didn't happen prior to the Care Act, it was just obviously you know, put into legislation as a an abuse category.
What I, what I think that's bought about Matthew is an element of subjectiveness because it's the, it's the one category that is isn't done to by someone else, it's around that person and their behaviours and you know, how they're living and at times, the choosing to kind of, make potentially unwise decisions for example, and what you find particularly from a partner agency perspective is you do get that degree of subjectiveness, where things that to me as a social worker, where it's about wellbeing and strengths-based and person-centered, you get a lot of things labelled as self-neglect that for me as a social worker isn't self-neglect, and I think the approach we take here in Stockton aligns itself to the principle of proportionality.
You know, we always attempt a care management approach first, where we offer assessment you know, look to put services in for that person because what we found is that there was things being referred in as self-neglect, where a partner agency was saying that there's all these risks, but then the actual person themselves was wanting support and it and it was presenting itself as self-neglect because they just didn't have the right support in place.
Matthew
That label then can kick-start some quite immediate action can’t it, which in some circumstances isn't what that person wants and I think sometimes taking that step back and having that more preventative approach is really key, isn't it?
George
And I think neglect is always a really tricky issue isn't it, whether you're in children’s, but I just was interested in Calum about how subjective it can be, can’t it?
Calum
Yeah, and you know, and cases where you know, self-neglect is present and from a risk perspective it's you know, it's clearly been identified as something that we need to kind of, I don't want to say do something about but you know, in terms of working with the person at times there's the need to build a relationship over a long period of time before you're able to make any inroads in being able to support that person and change the kind of situation for the better.
More often than not it's not an area of practice that you're going to be able to address overnight. You can look to work in partnership, to potentially reduce some of the risks immediately but in order to make that ingrained change so that person's wellbeing is going to continue to be promoted into the future, that takes a long time to achieve.
George
That's interesting because that goes back to what Matthew was saying right at the beginning about the relational work isn't it, of social work and about how important that is isn't it?
And you're right, that there is no quick fix and sometimes I think there's some pressure from other agencies to have a quick fix but actually those things do take time, and if we are going to follow some of those principles you know from the Care Act about you know, about empowering people isn't it and proportionality and thinking about those isn't it, working in partnership, that takes time and that's where the skills of social workers are really key, aren't they, about you know, the skills that they have in terms of, kind of, non-judgmental isn't it and having that empathy and that real genuine working relationship to build something, to bring about some change isn't it, positive change that the person wants.
Calum
Definitely you know, how you referred to kind of social workers there George is exactly you know, I 100% support that because you know, they don't, not necessarily seeing it as a problem, they'll still for me focus on strengths and you know, still come at it from a perspective of you know, trying to kind of empower that person, to see them strengths and contribute to their society etc.
George
Yeah and that's where I think working here is a, is a challenge isn't it because we are working every day with you know, with patients that are in our, in a secure setting and thinking about them being discharged in the community and it is that real.
As you said right that very beginning Mathew, balancing that public protectionis and also the rights of families and victims, and thinking about the map of the public protection and how you manage all of that, but still maintain holding on to those you know, the individual rights of that person, about what's best for them, because what we hope here is that people can go back into society and make a contribution, and go back to leading you know, an ordinary life.
Calum
We often refer to putting services in place for people. Well you know, I’m a firm believer that the response from a social worker is a service in its own right because of you know, because of the values that they can offer and upheld, and what they you know, want to do in terms of, like I said empowerment and supporting the person to kind of make change and contribute to society.
You know, the amount of information that a social worker might be able to offload onto a person and signposting and linking them in with their communities etc. for me, that is a service in its own right and I don't think it's always seen like that.
Matthew
And I think sometimes the power of that relationship between social worker and person I think can offer lots can’t it? It can offer, and if you build that relationship over a period of time, I think people that I’ve worked with in the past and felt that I was able to manage crisis in a different way because I’d built relationship up with that person, and been able to support them through that time without chucking lots of services in, you know what I mean? And I think that approach, the input that a social worker can offer I think can offer real power and value to that person.
George
I've just recruited 3 or 5 new social workers who have been used to being working out in the community and now suddenly are, and they've been working at homes under teams I mean, they've been you know, every day they've been you know, 18 months they've been in offices and they're now coming into a hospital, you see as a hospital we're open all the time, and they are coming in, which they're really enjoying actually being you know, being part of a, being part of a team again and coming into work. I mean that's been for them, one of the joys of working in hospitals, coming back to real face-to-face work with people every day, they're coming in and can build those relationships with those patients and service users you know, every day it's about building some of those relationships but at the same time they're having some quite challenging conversations with patients, about what that might be about, some of their insight into what's happened, what's, what is available out there in the community you know, how we're going to balance you know, some of their, meeting their needs but with that, with the balancing the risk with other people out there being on the ward every day, I was just interested in, about the, about the I think it was the point 12 isn't it, in the standard around, about dangerous situations and we talk about that quite a lot, about going on the ward and about how you have to not be complacent, being on the ward you've built a relationship with a service user on the ward but you're always still mindful of the risk that they may present, and we, you have to you know, you could you know, be quite easy to think well I built that relationship I don't feel there's going to be any harm but you know, people here are you know, unwell. Some of their behaviour is unpredictable so, but they're constantly kind of juggling some of those risks actually on the wards on a day-to-day basis.
Matthew
That's a seamless link George, because that was my next point to bring up because we can't talk about safeguarding, without talking about the crisis and the dangerous elements that comes with safeguarding referrals and safeguarding work and safeguarding investigations, and all the things that come around it.
Sometimes the impact that can have on the social worker's own wellbeing and I’m really keen to get people's thoughts on that, around how you've managed it in the past but I think how that might have changed over the last 12, 15 months where maybe social workers haven't had that office space to come back to and reflect and debrief. I’m keen to get your thoughts on it.
Calum
We've slowly started to integrate back into some office-based work. We are moving toward a corporate stance in the, in the near future where we're going to have a split between office-based working again, but also continuing to work from home and you know, in terms of the office space working, practitioners are very keen to have that and have that coming together because the importance of peer support and being able to offload on one another and get support around particularly a challenging circumstance you know, whilst we've supported each other over the likes of Microsoft Teams and you know, we've been able to make use of virtual technology like we're using now, that does not replace the kind of social contact between peers and you know, how important that is in terms of being able to manage the emotions that the job can kind of provide.
You talked about earlier, about the impact of COVID. Safeguarding hasn't stopped, we talk about responding to dangerous situations where there's risks etc. you know, there has been some partner agencies that we work in partnership with that scaled back, that didn't provide a service where they were going out to see people. My perspective whilst we had to be very careful about, you know, our own safety, our own kind of health and wellbeing, we still needed to kind of respond to safeguarding concerns you know, how can you judge a situation over a phone call, you can't always, you don't know whether they could be presenting duress, you don't get that visual perception where you're able to pick up on potentially other forms of abuse or neglect etc.
So you know we very much from a, you know, people often ask me you know, how has your practice changed during COVID, well in all honesty it didn't.
Matthew
Yeah and I suspect you're, that you're the same George, I suspect your practice didn't change?
George
When I kept, when I came to the hospital it was kind of mid-COVID and so for us, the social workers are coming into the hospital you know, most days they're coming in if they're writing tribunal reports and things, and some of those things obviously they would stay at home but for the most part, the social workers here are, are on the wards.
I suppose the differences for them being is they're all in scrubs and goggles and masks, and that's quite different in itself, coming down onto wards you know just even just in terms of you just present a bit of a barrier I think, when you're having conversations with people.
But what I’d also say is in terms of the stresses in the hospital you know, when we've had periods of lockdown where patients haven't been able to have as much contact with family and friends, haven't been able to have any leave you know, that can present quite a challenge you know, with behaviour on the wards because you know ,people obviously are very stressed if they're having to isolate and stay in the hospital so that can you know, you know bring some safeguarding issues into the hospital I think really, as is with staff. It's very very difficult you know, when you cannot go out isn't it?
Calum
It's interesting you refer to that George as an impact that you faced within the hospital because from a safeguarding perspective, when kind of lockdowns were implemented we certainly saw spikes in kind of like physical incidents between residents in shared care settings so obviously with things like I’d say provisions and stuff shutting down, it meant that routines etc. had all changed and we did see spikes in terms of incidents being reported as a safeguarding concern.
George
Yeah it you know, it's a significant challenge isn't it, when people can't go out, their routines have changed significantly aren't they and they are in a hospital where they can't leave isn't it, and although we've done lots of stuff about you know, the Teams calls with family and friends you know, using the internet to kind of you know, to ensure that there is contact, it's clearly not the same isn't it, if you are used to your family coming in to visit but we weren't able to allow families and friends to come in, and those kind of, that's the thing is that we know those support networks are what keeps people's mental health generally you know, you know helps your wellbeing doesn't it, when you are seeing family and friends, and you’re getting out and doing things isn't it, that's what really helps your mental wellbeing.
Not to mention the impacts on the staff you know, who are struggling, well staff work really hard to keep everybody safe, we need to keep our patients safe and the biggest risk for the patients is actually us, the staff bringing COVID in, it's a significant challenge still.
Matthew
And you've touched on it a few times George, around just the importance of good supervision throughout this and beyond, the importance of good supervision and social work is never going to change but I think particularly through COVID, and I know it's changed, it's been online, it's been through Teams and Zoom, but I think and not just that good quality support for social workers to help navigate everything, do you know what I mean?
George
Calum was talking about the peer support and I would say here definitely as well because for me, I've got, each social worker in on a ward and I think my normal experience working in a social work team is you're all in a room together aren't you, and you're sharing the work, you're sharing the knowledge, policies, procedure you know, some of the difficult things and complexities and you've got that peer support to manage it. Here it's one social worker per ward so you have a responsibility to have that social work voice on a ward so that peer support outside of that is really, really important.
We have some social work forums that really help us with some of that.
Calum
Yeah we, we've you know, we've introduced a number of forums in terms of being able to support our staff you know, ranging from reflective supervision sessions where kind of, groups of people can come together to kind of, reflect on different areas of practice but you know, I you know, I'm a firm believer that that supervision is an ever occurring thing, it isn't, it isn't just something that's a protected 2 hours every fortnight or every of every 4 weeks, it's an ever occurring thing and I definitely try and deliver that message to the staff I support.
And it's not just the supervision that I’m able to provide, it's the supervision for me also includes that support from others, the peers, that there has been an impact on some of that in terms of yes, we can communicate via Teams but it just doesn't replace that face-to-face contact just you know ,coming to and from an office where you were able to kind of reflect and unwind before you enter back into your kind of, home life. You know that for me, that's a big impact and I firmly believe that that is something that has impacted almost everyone that I certainly manage at some point is that, that work and home life separation.
Matthew
And I think it's such an interesting point to make, and I think that I was just thinking there, reflecting on my own practice because I only ever worked in Cumbria which is a really rural county and I spent a lot of my time traveling, so I would I would go and see one person then I'd have to travel 45 minutes to go and see another person, that 45 minutes was incredibly valuable to sort of think about what happened, think about the things that I needed to do, think about the decision making, thinking about the people I needed to talk to and without that, and I'm the same, I’ve worked at home now for since March and I finish work, I open that door and I'm back to being a dad.
Calum
Yeah.
Matthew
So if you were to talk to social work students about safeguarding, what would be the one piece of advice you would give?
Calum
Don't be scared to make a decision. Keep the person at the centre of your practice at all times, focus on their strengths. Whilst you might be dealing with any concern where risk has presented itself, don't see that as a problem. I think like I said, it's around promoting wellbeing and keeping that person at the centre and ensuring that your decision making is defensible you know. Work to them kind of, core principles, you won't go far wrong. Yes you'll be stressed, prepare to be stressed but that's the nature of the beast in, in this in this field of work and I think it's really important that we're able to build some emotional resilience to the, to the stuff that we're, that we're faced with at times.
George
Well I suppose that the one overarching thing is about keeping that being, which is what Calum’s already said, about being person-centred isn't it but I suppose it's a bit of a reminder of some of that stuff around, about recording. I would say make sure that you have, what you're doing is evidence-based, that you've got a good rationale for what you're doing and you're recording what you can do because what we all know in anything, when you know, when things go wrong and people look at the paperwork even if you've done it, if it's not recorded, it hasn't happened has it, so there's something about being, recording it and I would say also really think about using some of those resources, keeping your CPD up to date and you know, we are an evidence-based, critical thinking you know, profession aren't we and so you have to constantly be holding that in mind I think.
But I use Twitter all the time, that’s the key thing I would say, go on Twitter would be my key thing because actually you can really keep up to date with all the latest research and stuff that's going on, because thinking does change.
You’ll love this Matthew, I'm constantly saying to my team ‘don't wait until November to update your CPD’ and we introduce it in our team meeting, to keep your people's learning up to date, for people to bring something that's current in research, constantly keeping your thinking up to date I think really would be a key message for me.
Matthew
And the one that I’m going to add in is around a decision it doesn't have to just be made in isolation by yourself as an individual social worker. I think that's really important to always remember whatever stage of career you’re at, however experienced you are, link in to other colleagues, link in to your manager, link in to other professionals, all those types of conversations will really help you to inform that decision. It's not about passing blame and it's not about, about but not wanting to make a decision yourself.
So to end I just a really big thank you to both of you.
Calum
No, it’s been a pleasure. I've really enjoyed it and I think I’ll be probably logging on to record this as a an example of CPD as well.
Matthew
We’ll end on a plug to upload some CPD, I'm more than happy with that.
Thanks again to George and Calum for joining us today and sharing their personal experiences of social work so openly.
If you enjoyed the discussion and would like to continue the conversation with us, you can follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn using the hashtag #ThisIsSocialWorkPod to share your thoughts. You can also find out more about the professional standards on our website.
Join us for our next episode where we’ll be talking about standard 4, maintaining my continuing professional development.
Thanks again and see you soon.
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