Effective assessment in child protection - Avoiding common pitfalls
Avoiding common pitfalls and minimising errors in judgement, and how to use the chronology as the most powerful tool to assess risk and the impact of harm on children
Part of BASW's Child Protection Social Work Practice Masterclass Series - click here to view the full programme
Back by popular demand, new dates for the Child Protection Masterclass series have been released for 2024! Get inspired with highly practical, research-based training that will equip you with ideas to implement in your social work practice. These focused sessions will be jam-packed with knowledge, practical ideas, and research. Delivered by Richard Devine, who draws on his wealth of experience and expertise. You will leave feeling more confident and re-energised in the work you do with children and families.
Suitable for all social workers nationwide with an interest in child protection.
Course overview:
Assessment is the bread and butter of social work. However, little is taught on how we are all subject to biases that derail and undermine our judgement leaving children in homes that are too risky, or being involved with children, where the concerns don’t warrant our involvement.
Further, social workers are often confronted with a challenging, resistant, or hostile parent can be made to feel fearful, scared, or intimidated. This can influence their thought processes, emotions, and actions, such they make decisions they wouldn’t otherwise.
This course will explore in-built and situational factors that challenge effective decision making. It will also explore, when considering these challenges, how to effectively assess risk and the impact of harm to make evidenced based, defensible decisions about children.
In this focused masterclass, Rich Devine, drawing on his twelve years of front-line practice will share five critical reasons for why we complete chronologies, and why he considers a chronology to be the most effective, powerful tool available for social workers assessing risk and making decisions.
Learning outcomes:
- Understand how cognitive biases seriously impair effective, rational judgement
- Learn how to reduce errors and mistakes in decision making
- Get practical ideas and tools to assess risk, including learning to separate the likelihood versus the desirability of an outcome
- Feel more confident in making ethical, robust, and defensible decisions about children
The trainer:
Rich Devine (Twitter @RichardDevineSW) is a Consultant Social Worker, with over 12 years’ experience working with children and families in a child protection context.
He has a Masters in Attachment Studies from Roehampton University, London (2018) and is trained in several attachment procedures. Currently, he is a Visiting Researcher at Cambridge University. He writes one of the UK’s most popular social work blogs, exploring topics such direct work with children, assessment, and relationship-based practice.
In 2022, he co-facilitated a series of webinars on co-design and co-production with Tim Fisher, one of the leading UK experts on participatory approaches and he undertook research on parental advocacy with Dr Clive Diaz from Cardiff University (to be published in 2023).
Delivered online using MS Teams.