Strengthening practice with children and families
What's Important To Us
The very nature of our work means that we interact with families who may be at their lowest point or who are just managing to keep their heads above water. How we engage and work with these families will make all the difference to how successful we are in our involvement with them. Strengthening our practice is not just about what we learn in a classroom; so much of it is about what we draw on from our own experiences, our colleagues and others in the community.
The children and families we work with deserve to receive the best possible service from us. By drawing on some of the concepts in our practice framework, this key information will outline some ways in which we can do this.
Ensure assessments are strong and robust
While time is often a precious commodity for social workers, we know that if we spend some extra time engaging at ‘the front end’ of our work with a family, the rest of the journey will be faster, more effective, and more child-centred. Engaging with a child and their family/whānau involves a great deal more than just ‘sighting’ the child and establishing safety. We need to build a relationship with the child and their family to help us understand the strengths they possess and the challenges they face. When working with a sibling group we need to understand and be responsive to the individual needs of each child in the group. Spend time talking to children about their hopes and dreams so that we can be responsive to the ‘whole child,’ not just their immediate safety needs.
How we interact with families and what we say to them is critical to the assessment process. We need to be empathetic and honest with families about our purpose, role and the authority we hold, and we need to treat them as experts on themselves and build on their strengths to make the engagement process more positive (Mallon & Hess, 2005).
It is not always easy to engage with whānau families when they may be in crisis, when contact may be met with suspicion, or when mental ill health presents a challenge. Nonetheless, when parents and family members are contacted early, involved in decision making and kept informed, the outcomes for the child and their family are likely to be more successful. We need to engage quickly and be clear with families about why we are involved, what our concerns are and what our involvement will look like if we want to foster a genuine partnership with the family.
Using practice tools like the Assessment framework and the Family strengths and risks assessment can help strengthen your overall assessment of a family’s situation. Also, read Engaging with children and young people and Undertaking a good child and family assessment for further guidance.
Seek solutions that meet the child's needs
Securing immediate and future safety for the children we work with must always be our paramount concern. When we are establishing physical safety we need to be sure that the solutions we create are also responding to the child’s needs for attachment, emotional and cultural safety. The best safety solutions are often found when we work in collaboration with immediate and extended whānau, community supports and other professionals. See Planning with others to support change for more information. You should always strive to get the family’s views about what brought them to the situation they are in, and find common themes that you can both agree on to start the helping process (Mallon & Hess, 2005)
Because children in a sibling group will have different needs, solutions will also need to be geared towards these different needs. What may create safety for one child may not create the same sense of safety for their brother or sister. Helping children with individually identified needs and wants shows that you care and that you are competent (Mallon & Hess, 2005).
Secure a sense of belonging
It is critical for the wellbeing of children to have a sense of belonging, know their family of origin and have a permanent home to grow up in. Stable and continuous caregivers are important for normal child development. Having a permanent family adds a vital element of predictability to a child’s life, thereby promoting their sense of belonging. As well, within a permanent family a child is able to form a more secure sense of the future and will better manage challenges and changes in childhood and adolescence (Pecora, Whittaker, Maluccio, Barth & DePanfilis, 2010).
In most cases children grow up in the family they were born in, but sometimes the need for safety means this cannot happen. When this is the case, we need to find a home for life for the child within their timeframe, and minimise the moves or life changes for them. See the Permanent care and creating a home for life policy for details on how to do this.
Particular attention needs to be paid to the attachment needs of babies and small children – they are our most vulnerable population and securing a sense of belonging in a safe home is imperative. See the Key Information: Focusing on attachment and stability for more information. We should also remember that when we are working towards children returning home, they need to have the opportunity to spend significant time with their parents in a supportive environment so that attachment is fostered and enhanced. Settling in a home for life can take some time and requires strong support for both the child and their new family. When you are considering this, don’t forget that the child still needs to maintain ties with their family of origin and make sure your plan for the child includes ways in which this contact will happen.
References
Mallon, GP. & Hess, P.C. (2005) Child Welfare for the 21st Century: A Handbook of Practices, Policies and Problems. New York: Columbia University Press,
Pecora, P.J., Whitaker, J.K., Maluccio, A.N., Barth, R.P., & DePanfilis, D. (2010). The Child Welfare Challenge: Policy, Practice, and Research. New Jersey, USA: Transaction Publishers.
