I am excited to be writing this blog post as the Head of Practice at What Works for Children’s Social Care (WWCSC).  I joined the centre in January and I am happy to announce that the practice team is growing and extending our ability to talk to social workers and others from the sector.  

As a social worker, I want to keep social work and practice at the heart of the decisions we make as an organisation and continue to have robust conversations that link research to practice. I have been both a manager and practitioner at all stages of a child’s journey through placement within social services, the NHS and the voluntary sector, and I understand the value research can bring to the rigour of decision making.

Our Practice in Need of Evidence (PINE) programme is an important part of the work we do, and keeps practice uppermost in our minds. Working collaboratively with the sector to explore ‘what works’ is a key aim. We know that  promising practice is out there and we want to offer support with the next step of the journey by using the PINE programme to prepare our partners for research that will draw causal links between practice and outcomes.  

In November last year we put a call out for new partners to talk to us about multi-disciplinary and multi-agency ways of working. We had some really interesting applications and, while we couldn’t include everyone in this phase, we are continuing to have conversations with applicants about future work. I am delighted to announce that in this round we will be working with: 

• Bedfordshire Police
• British Transport Police and Railway Children
• Essex Police, Thurrock Children’s Social Care and SARC Mountain Healthcare
• Leeds Children and Families Service, Leeds Homestart, Leeds Clinical Commissioning Group and Leeds CAMHS
• North Tyneside Council, Northumbria Police, Public Health, Education Improvement Partnership, and North Tyneside Recovery Partnership
• Sutton’s Children’s Services, Cognus, Sutton CAMHS
• Wiltshire Council, Wiltshire Police, BANES, Swindon and Wiltshire CAMHS

I am excited about this next phase and we are already in the initial stages of planning with our new partners – look out for more updates on this.  

Over the coming weeks and months the team and I want to get out there and meet you and hear your thoughts about our work. We also want you to share more about the way you work. We are continuing to regularly poll the pool of over 700 social workers who signed up to share their thoughts with us. If you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to sign up and make your views known.

I look forward to building on our strengths, listening and learning from the sector and getting to know more of you in the coming months