Thinking about thinking after Munro: the contribution of cognitive interviewing to child-care social work supervision and decision-making practices

There has been a recurrent recognition in inquiry reports following high-profile deaths of children known to welfare services of shortcomings in social workers' analytical and assessment skills. There is an urgent need to explore what might help supervisors and practitioners ‘think about their thinking’. This paper draws on cognitive interviewing (CI) and examines its applicability/transferability to the professional domain of child-care social work supervision. Focusing on how practitioners make sense of their practice, this approach homes in on cognitive understandings but, in so doing, heightens practitioners' awareness of the emotional and affective dimensions of practice and of their thinking. The integration of cognitive and affective ways of knowing resonates with psycho-socially informed ideas about the interrelationship between thinking and feeling and the importance of emotional containment for effective thinking. This paper suggests that combining the psychological underpinnings of CI with psycho-socially informed concepts, such as containment, creates a more robust and holistic theoretical framework for supporting the application of CI in practice. The paper proposes that the adoption of a cognitive andaffective approach to supervisory practice has considerable potential for enhancing practitioners' critical thinking skills and decision-making capabilities, to the benefit of the children and families with whom they work

What makes it so hard to look and to listen? Exploring the use of the Cognitive and Affective Supervisory Approach with children’s social work managers

This paper reports on the findings of an ESRC-funded Knowledge Exchange project designed to explore the contribution of an innovative approach to supervision to social work practitioners’ assessment and decision-making practices. The Cognitive and Affective Supervisory Approach (CASA) is informed by cognitive interviewing techniques originally designed to elicit best evidence from witnesses and victims of crime. Adapted here for use in childcare social work supervision contexts, this model is designed to enhance the quantity and quality of information available for decision-making. Facilitating the reporting of both ‘event information’ and ‘emotion information’, it allows a more detailed picture to emerge of events, as recalled by the individual involved, and the meaning they give to them. Practice supervisors from Children’s Services in two local authorities undertook to introduce the CASA into supervision sessions and were supported in this through the provision of regular reflective group discussions. The project findings highlight the challenges for practitioners of ‘detailed looking’ and for supervisors of ‘active listening’. The paper concludes by acknowledging that the CASA’s successful contribution to decision-making is contingent on both the motivation and confidence of supervisors to develop their skills and an organisational commitment to, and resourcing of, reflective supervisory practices and spaces.</p

If we know what works, why aren't we doing it?

High rates of child removal from parents with learning disabilities persist despite substantial evidence that parents with learning disabilities can provide their children with satisfactory care given appropriate support. Child welfare interventions disproportionality based on disability status presents a compelling social issue deserving urgent attention. Co-operative inquiry was used to analyse attitudinal and structural barriers that perpetuate inequitable treatment of parents with learning disabilities and their children, drawing on policy and practice examples from Australia and the United Kingdom. Bacchi’s “What is the problem represented to be?” approach to social policy issues was used to answer the question: if we know what works to support parents with learning disabilities, why aren’t we doing it? This commentary contends that the pervasive representation of parents with learning disabilities as inherently deficient in the requisite skills (‘parenting capacity’) needed for safe caregiving has been difficult to shift due to systematic ableism. Neoliberal policies stigmatise a need for support (‘dependence’) as an individual failing and recast assessments of long-term support needs as an unsustainable burden on support services/systems. We conclude that a social model of child protection that is accessible to all involved returns to principles of interdependence, relationality and ethics of care

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Who cares? The role of mothers in cases of child neglect

Neglect is now recognized as leading to significantly poor outcomes for children in the short and long term. It is a matter of concern for all professionals who work with children. Children who are neglected are not likely to seek help in their own right and are highly dependent on professionals such as health visitors and schoolteachers identifying and responding to their needs for support and protection. In order to carry out the key tasks of prevention, recognition and response to neglect, practitioners require up-to-date evidence-based information about the aetiology and signs of neglect and what works in prevention and response. This book addresses the key themes in child neglect, draws on current research and practice knowledge and sets out the implications for practice. With a joint health and social work focus, this interdisciplinary book is in keeping with policy for closer working

Therapeutic interventions for children who have experienced neglect and their families in the UK

Services for families and children are rightfully the focus of intense scrutiny and debate, and there is a clear need to establish a knowledge of which services work well. This volume provides a comprehensive overview of research evidence from the UK and USA on the effectiveness of selected child welfare interventions. It addresses the challenges of measuring effectiveness in child welfare and explains the policy context for child welfare service delivery. Leading international contributors summarize the evidence of effectiveness in each core area, and consider the impact on children's development, parenting capacity and the wider community. Critically, the book also draws out the implications of the evidence for policy, practice and service delivery, as well as for future research. This book is essential reading for policy makers, practitioners and commissioners of services in child welfare, as well as students and researchers