How to survive (and thrive!) in child protection
Skills and techniques to procrastinate less, do more and build resilience so you can realise your potential and maximise your impact as a social worker
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
The course is for you if you do not feel in control of your workload and having too much to do is effecting your well-being and has you feeling like you are not doing a good enough job.
Being a children’s social worker can be hugely rewarding but can also be emotionally demanding, challenging and stressful. The complex and difficult nature of children’s social work is evidenced by the high rates of burnout and a transient workforce, with most social workers not lasting more than a few years. Excessively high self-expectations and a hyper-critical stance towards oneself when those expectations are not met can compound the intense and unrelenting demands of the role.
There is a wealth of information available on the subject of time management. However, some of it doesn’t apply well in child protection because of the varied and unpredictable nature of the work. In this focused masterclass, Rich Devine, drawing on twelve years of frontline experience will share practical ideas and principles that will support you to be an efficient, effective social worker, giving you the confidence to manage your time and energy, so you can make a positive difference.
This session will also consider self-care, considering the effects of vicarious (secondary )trauma and its counterpart, vicarious resilience. Other concepts, such as moral injury and moral distress, will be examined to understand how social workers experience psychological and emotional distress as a consequence of the social work task. Recognising these concepts and their impact can alleviate some of the effects, and help identify ways to manage them.
Learning outcomes:
- Learn about key time management strategies that support managing a complex caseload, whereby you have too much to do and not enough time.
- Learn about ways to manage the anxiety of having too much to do and never being able to finish everything.
- Recognise how to overcome procrastination and manage distractions so you can get more done
- Learn how to deal with competing demands and prioritise important work instead of urgent work.
- Get ideas and tools that will support you manage a high and complex caseload.
- Learn about key ideas such as vicarious trauma, moral injury and moral distress.
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.