Research and policy: Never the twain shall meet?

Jo Moriarty, a Research Fellow at the Social Care Workforce Research Unit at King’s College London and SSCR Fellow, spoke at the Greenwich Pensioners Forum at Woolwich Town Hall on 26 October 2012. She talked about some of the issues relating to the government’s plans for care and support services and how research must be used to inform these plans

Tweeting evidence in social care

Many people have been discussing the use of Twitter in social care looking at the perspectives of the wide variety of groups involved in social care, including people who use social care services, practitioners, carers and researchers, and everyone concludes that it is in fact a, if not the most effective way of starting conversation and sharing knowledge in the sector. However many people are still reluctant to jump on the Twitter bandwagon, here Jo Moriarty a researcher in social care tells us how she started her Twitter journey and the effect it has had on her work to date

Social workers' workload survey: messages from the frontline: findings from the 2009 survey and interviews with senior managers

"The research findings which have been reported emerged from work commissioned to inform the Social Work Task Force but they also make a contribution to issues discussed in this section and to other social work debates. It is important to recognise that this was the most comprehensive diary exercise conducted with social workers in this country. The findings generated from the analysis of the diaries have provided the first systematic examination of how social workers use their time. Yet for the reasons examined in the report there are provisos regarding the representativeness of data which leads to the recommendation that the exercise should be repeated with an instrument which is redesigned to reflect lessons from this survey and with a larger negotiated sample, along the lines of the Teachers’ Workload Survey." - Page 138

Change and Continuity:A Quantitative Investigation of Trends and Characteristics of International Social Workers in England

The UK has long experienced a shortage of social workers and has recruited internationally to meet demand. There have been few specific data quantifying the scale of social work mobility to the UK through which such experiences can be set in context. The analysis reported in this article uses data from October 2008, relating to registered social workers working in England. As part of a wider study of migrant social care workers in England, the article reports analysis of data records of over 7,000 non-UK social workers registered to work in England and compares their characteristics to UK-qualified social workers. These analyses are supplemented by analysis of more recent application and registration data from the General Social Care Council pertaining to social workers qualified within and outside the European Union during 2008 and 2009. The findings highlight several important observations in terms of non-UK-qualified social workers' profile as well as some possible trends in migration and variations in rates of qualification verification. Over half of all international social workers in England were trained in four countries: Australia, South Africa, India and the USA. Findings are contextualised with qualitative data obtained from the wider study and policy debates.</p

Young carers’ experiences of services and support: what is helpful and how can support be improved?

Globally, many children and young people provide support to family members who have poor physical or mental health, are disabled, or misuse drugs and alcohol. These young carers are at higher risk of poorer education, employment, health, and social participation outcomes compared to their peers without caring responsibilities. In the UK, awareness of the challenges faced by young carers, and a framework of their legal rights, are relatively well-developed. However, it is unclear how support can most effectively be provided. Taking a qualitative approach we explored experiences and views of young carers (aged 9–25), conducting focus groups or interviews with 133 young carers and 17 parent care recipients. We explored what aspects of services and support are seen as helpful, valued, and acceptable to young people, and what could be improved. A reflexive, thematic analysis was conducted. Valued support came from: young carers groups (including peer support), school-based and mental health support, and support for the care recipient. Helpful aspects of support included someone who listens and understands, and can be trusted not to break confidentiality; involving the young person in information, decision-making and planning (sometimes including regarding the care recipient); and finding and linking to other services. There was a difficult balance for practitioners between being perceived as proactive, persistent or intrusive when offering support to a young carer, but it was important to allow opportunities for young carers, and those they care for, to change their minds about when and whether to access support. Many interactions were perceived as unhelpful or threatening to the family, and there was often not enough of the type of support that was valued. Sharing of positive experiences can be beneficial for both people seeking support and those delivering it; key messages on what is helpful from the perspective of young carers can help support and shape practice approaches

Media reactions to the Panorama programme ‘Behind Closed Doors:Social Care Exposed’ and care staff reflections on publicity of poor practice in the care sector

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of media reactions to the BBC Television Panorama programme, Behind Closed Doors’ and to set this in the context of interviews with care staff about their reflections on publicity about poor practice in the care sector. Design/methodology/approach This paper reports on an analysis of media reactions to recent exposé of abuse in social care in England and data from an interview-based study of care workers. The interviews were analysed to consider the impact of such media reports on staff and to explore their views of action that might be need to be taken about care failings. Findings There are mixed reactions to exposé of poor care on television and to the debates that precede and follow their broadcast. Debates occur in print and on television, but also in social media. The particular exposé of care home practices by the Panorama programme, Behind Closed Doors, led to debate in England about the potential role of covert cameras in care homes. The interviews revealed that while care staff are affected by scandals in the media about social care, they do not necessarily focus on themes that the media stories subsequently highlight. Overall some are disenchanted while others have ideas of what needs to change to improve practice. Care staff consider that there remain problems in raising concerns about practices and some staff feel unable to stay in workplaces where they have made complaints. Research limitations/implications The care workers interviewed may not be representative of the sector and they may have wished to provide socially acceptable answers to the researchers. Practice was not observed. Practical implications Local Safeguarding Adult Boards may wish to develop a communications strategy to deal with requests for reactions to media reports locally and nationally. Safeguarding practitioners may wish to prepare for increased referrals following media coverage of poor care in their areas. They may later be able to use media reports to discuss any local differences of interpretation over matters such as prosecutions for abuse. Trainers and educationalists may wish to clarify the importance given by care providers to raising concerns, the ways in which difficult conversations can be held, and the protections available to whistle-blowers or those raising concerns – with local examples to provide assurance that this is not mere rhetoric. Originality/value Television reports of problems with social care attract wide media interest but the authors know very little about how care workers respond to depictions of their work and their occupational grouping. This paper links media and expert commentator reactions to television exposé with data acquired from interviews with those on the frontline of care. </jats:sec

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Models of Organising Adult Safeguarding

Professionals express divergent views about whether adults at risk are best served by safeguarding work being incorporated into social workers’ casework or being undertaken by specialist workers within local area or centralised teams. This paper draws on findings from the final two phases of a three-phase study which aimed to identify a typology of different models of organising adult safeguarding and compare the advantages and disadvantages of these. We used mixed-methods to investigate four different models of organising adult safeguarding which we termed: A) Dispersed-Generic, B) Dispersed-Specialist, C) Partly-Centralised-Specialist and D) Fully-Centralised-Specialist. In each model, we analysed staff interviews (n = 38), staff survey responses (n = 206), feedback interviews (with care home managers, solicitors and Independent Mental Capacity Advocates) (n = 28), Abuse of Vulnerable Adults (AVA) Returns, Adult Social Care User Survey Returns (ASCS) and service costs. This paper focuses on qualitative data from staff and feedback interviews and the staff survey. Our findings focus on safeguarding as a specialism, safeguarding practice (including multi-agency working, prioritisation, tensions, handover, staff confidence and deskilling) and managing safeguarding. Local authority (LA) participants described and commented on the advantages and disadvantages of their organisational model. Feedback interviews offered different perspectives on safeguarding services and implications of different models

'My expectations remain the same. The student has to be competent to practise' : practice assessor perspectives on the new social work degree qualification in England

Research has emphasized the importance of practice learning to social work qualifying education but has tended to feature social work educator and student perspectives more strongly than the views of those responsible for assessing students' practice in the field. This article draws on 195 responses to a postal questionnaire sent at two points in time to practice assessors working with students from nine social work qualifying programmes run in six higher education institutions collected as part of the evaluation of the new social work degree qualification in England. While practice assessors described changes in their role and in the opportunities available to students, they also emphasized continuities, particularly in the skills that they expected students to possess. The key difficulty they identified was the heavy workload resulting from combining their role as practice assessors with their other responsibilities at work. Increases in the number of social work students and changes to the organization of services are likely to create further pressures on practice assessors. Given that these issues are faced by a number of different professions, the article concludes that there is potential for future studies to look at the experiences of practice educators across different professional qualifying programmes