At What Works for Children’s Social Care we are always enthusiastic about opportunities to collaborate with others in the sector. This is why I’m really excited to be able to announce a new partnership with the Principal Social Worker Network. Lead by its chair, Claudia Megele and vice chair Carol Sibley, the network brings together a wealth of experience and practice knowledge from around the country, and we’re delighted to be able to partner with the network on a few things over the coming months – and beyond.

Today, we’ve begun hosting the first three practice guides produced by Principal Social Workers and Social Work England to support colleagues during the Covid 19 pandemic. These first guides cover risk assessment and prioritising children and families’ needs during the pandemic,  video calls and contact and virtual/online home visits, and an ethical response and best practice guide for Children and Families Services. More guides on domestic abuse, direct work and workforce wellbeing – and many more – will be available in the coming weeks. We’ll also be releasing short, digestible summaries of the guides. 

We’ll also be hosting a webinar series over the coming weeks, featuring experts from practice, academia, and lived experience, talking about some of the key issues of the moment. The first of these, on direct work with children and young people, will be on 2 June, at 12pm, and feature Dr. Peter Buzzi (PSW National Research Lead), Claudia Megele (Chair of the PSW network for children and families) and Yvette Stanley (Ofsted National Director for Social Care) – and you can register here. You can also find details of all the upcoming webinars – on topics such as domestic abuse, relationship-based practice, and digital and emotional wellbeing – here. 

We’ll also be speaking to some principal social workers as a part of our ongoing podcast series on COVID-19, which you can find on Anchor, Spotify, and Apple podcasts. 

You can find all of these resources, and more, on the special COVID-19 resources page on our website. We are adding more content regularly, so please do check back.