Aline is an assistant team manager in one of East Hampshire’s family help teams. She loves the countryside and had always wanted a home with a garden. But these were not viable options when she lived and worked in London.

“I grew up in the country and always wanted to eventually live somewhere where there was open space and a chance to be close to nature,” she says.

Aline lived in a London flat with her cat. Her job – then as a private maternity nurse – meant late-night hours travelling to support expectant mothers and their families, something that would be difficult to replicate in a rural setting, especially since she did not drive.

She had studied psychology for her degree and was interested in pursuing a career in psychotherapy or social work. She opted for social work and initially worked in London before exploring ways to fulfil her desire of working in a more rural setting.

“I soon realised that a move out of London would mean I would have to drive,” says Aline. So, she learnt how to drive and passed her test in 2022.

Greenery, traffic and office blocks in the centre of Basingstoke, Hampshire/ AdobeStock

From agency to perm

Aline joined Hampshire as a locum in January 2023 after a brief role at another local authority. She initially rented out her flat in London and rented a room in Hampshire.

Within three months of starting the role, Aline took up a permanent role and credits her community of peers and supportive working culture in Hampshire as reasons why she made the commitment to stay permanently.

“I was looking for a place to make roots,” she says. “Hampshire is such a great place to work. There is a good level of management, and decision making is very much in line with social work values, with all decisions focused on the children.”

Thatched cottage on the banks of the river Test at Chilbolton Cow Common in Hampshire/ AdobeStock

A love of Jane Austen!

Megan, who works in the same Hampshire district as Aline but in a different family help team, relocated from West London to Basingstoke. She wanted to get on the property ladder – something that was out of her and her husband’s reach in London.

Unlike Aline, Megan made the move to live in Hampshire almost three years before she started working there. She continued to work in London – commuting between London and Basingstoke – until she secured her role in October 2024, managing a team of about 14 family practitioners and social workers in the family help team.

“I think in a lot of ways, it meant that I could settle and get to know the area in my own way,” says Megan, who works in Alton, a market town in East Hampshire, near where author Jane Austen used to live. Megan is a self-confessed Jane Austen fan!

“I was able to move jobs with my eyes open in terms of knowing the area and the locality, but I’m still learning and that’s the beauty of social work – I feel like I learn every day in this job, and I find that there’s always somebody who can give me support.”

Jane Austen’s House Museum in Chawton, England/ AdobeStock

Having more time for hobbies

Since moving to Hampshire, Megan’s average commute has dropped from almost three hours a day, while working in London, to just 30 minutes.

“I wanted to re-shift that balance a little more by having a shorter commute so that, even if I was working late, I would still get home at a decent time and have some hours in the evening to enjoy myself,” she says.

“Living closer to home means that I can focus more time on my hobbies. I am in quite a few different social groups; I like reading and not commuting for two-and-a-half, sometimes three, hours of the day – it just gives me a little bit of time back.”

Finding community

Aline agrees. She now has two cats, who get to play in her garden, and she benefits from a community of support around her from her neighbours.

“We take care of each other,” she says. “It’s these little things – linked to community – that, in big cities like London, can get lost because everyone is so busy.”

“My life has really changed on a personal level because I’m closer to nature. Now I have a garden, I spend most of spring and summer sticking my hands in the dirt and building flower beds and I really enjoy country walks.”

Enjoying the region

Social work teams are also able to take advantage of this closer connection to their environment, as Megan explains.

“Some of the practitioners in my team had to organise some transport for a little person, and it was on the coast. There was a lot of driving for the team to do and it was a period where there were quite a few workers having to go.

Coastline in Hampshire/ Pexels

“Some of our team made a point almost every morning of stopping at the beach and watching the sunrise. They would take pictures and share them with the wider team. So there would be these moments where you’d receive a message of a beautiful setting, a rural spot or a seafront.”

Building local connections

Aline and Megan have also found that, while the size of the areas they cover is far larger, they are able to build much more local connections.

“In my previous role [in London], we occupied a much smaller space,” Megan says. “But in terms of population, it was a lot denser, so it was quite easy to get lost in the crowd, and there was a lot more diversity in language and culture.

“What I noticed when I lived in London was that, because house prices were so expensive, it often meant that people [social workers] were coming from far to work because they could not live locally, which meant you didn’t have that same community.

“But in Hampshire, people often live where they work or close by. As a result, you’re more likely to come across people that you’ve met, or know, so there’s more of a community feel.”

Strengthening community links

This community feel also impacts on how they work. Megan believes that social workers being more visible within communities helps to improve the wider public’s perceptions of the profession.

“There is more scope for us to get to know the schools, GPs and other partner agencies that we work with and have those real links within the communities. And I think that’s a positive thing because it means social workers are more visible in the community.

“So, for example, within my team, the family practitioners have a real working relationship with the local children’s centres, and with the local library that runs groups like wellbeing groups. And I’m very fortunate in that the area I manage is where our office is based, so there is this space that we can operate from that is in the centre of the community and that strengthens our accessibility and helps us to build those community links.”

Similarities between different settings

While it is clear there are differences between working in a rural or city environment, both practitioners believe that there is more that unites them.

Megan says: “I think there are nuances between working in the city and working in a more rural space, but the actual ‘bare bones’ of the job are very similar. I think it can only enhance practice to work in different areas and different landscapes and to be curious.”

Interested in a career at Hampshire County Council? Check out the authority’s employer profile, latest jobs and read more from social workers in the service here.

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council’s children’s services received a good rating from Ofsted in January 2025.

The journey from inadequate to good was underpinned by the development of a bespoke and hybrid practice framework. Focusing on restorative and trauma-informed practice, practitioners and managers have worked together to implement this model.

Principal social worker Leanne Morgan and team leader Stephanie Hutson share how they helped shape the practice model that is framing how social workers support children and families.

Leanne said: “I’d come to BCP Children’s [services] knowing that the pace of improvement was significant, the direction and trajectory of improvement was positive. So I was determined that I wanted to get in and understand where practitioners were at, and I used my new role as PSW to do that.”

Watch the webinar below:

Read the transcript here.

BCP Council’s children’s services are holding an online recruitment event on 13 February 2025 at 12pm. Click here to join the Microsoft Teams meeting.

Find out more about BCP Council’s children’s services.

Child criminal exploitation (CCE) and child sexual exploitation (CSE) are growing concerns nationally and have been described as a “hidden crisis” (Barnardo’s, 2023).

They include involvement in county lines drug dealing, gang violence, forced criminal activity, grooming and child sex trafficking.

Victims of exploitation have been neglected by different agencies for various reasons, but often due to the lack of sharing of knowledge and data.

With the addition of media interest in CSE country-wide, not only are victims forced to re-visit their trauma, but practitioners are also put under further pressure to ensure risk outside the home is minimised for the children in their area.

Most parts of England and Wales are affected by child exploitation and Northamptonshire is no exception.

The need for a change in the approach to exploitation in the county was identified by the Northamptonshire Safeguarding Children’s Partnership.

In 2024, Northamptonshire Children’s Trust (NCT), together with Northamptonshire Police, developed a collaborative initiative to safeguard children and young people from exploitation – a new multi-agency hub.

The hub, based in the Criminal Justice Centre in Northampton, focuses on child exploitation across North and West Northamptonshire.

This initiative ensures a multi-agency approach is taken, as the police, health and other services across the safeguarding partnership are often involved in interventions to support children and young people at risk.

Laura Isherwood, team manager of the multi-agency exploitation hub

Laura Isherwood, who has many years of experience working in child exploitation, heads up a social work team that currently consists of six advanced practitioners.

The team shares the space at the hub with police officers and support workers from police teams involved in diverting young people at risk away from criminality and investigating missing episodes, with these staff having all had training in child exploitation and trauma-informed practice.

Different approaches

Laura and her team have a slightly different approach to traditional social work.

“A real focus of our work is developing resilience, supporting young people to develop strategies, critical thinking skills and harm minimisation,” says Laura.

“This is so we can support positive risk-taking at a stage in their life where independence is increasing and they’re spending less time with their families and more outside of the home.”

The practitioners in the exploitation team take a mindful approach, striving to make sure children are not criminalised. “We see the exploitation and vulnerability as opposed to just seeing children committing crimes in the community,” says Laura.

Working alongside police teams enables the social workers to collaborate and step in when needed.

Morgan, an advanced practitioner at the hub

Morgan and Rhian, both advanced practitioners, have been at the hub since its inception. They usually support other practitioners from NCT who have identified children at medium or high risk of child exploitation.

“The purpose of [the hub] is to be multi-agency and work alongside everyone to best support and safeguard the children and look at what’s happening in the community rather than just focusing on the child and trying to keep that child safe,” says Rhian.

“We can try and keep the child safe, but then other children can be impacted by the exploiters, and it’s just not going to end that harm really.”

Morgan’s previous training in systemic practice helps her to build trust with the children and families she works with. Often, parents can be overwhelmed and confused, so the team support them even if the child is out of a high-risk situation.

“Another positive of the hub is that we can be quite dynamic with how we offer support,” says Morgan. “Maybe it’s to the young person, but also it could be to parents, maybe it’s to grandparents, aunties, uncles or family friends who are an area of stability and a positive influence on them.”

Assessing risk

A multi-agency daily exploitation (MADE) meeting is held, and the advanced practitioner on duty that day will attend. Representatives from all the different teams participate and highlight any new incidents or concerns, as well as giving updates on existing children supported by the hub.

One of the main advantages of physically co-working in this way is that the exploitation team is alerted to children at risk before they are officially referred to them. This helps them to organise the appropriate type of intervention much faster.

The child exploitation and risk assessment framework (CERAF) was adopted by NCT and its partners before the hub went live.

The CERAF form is completed when there is an exploitation concern and ensures there is consistency across the different agencies. When the score is ‘medium’ or ‘high’, the child exploitation team at the hub will receive the referral.

Sometimes, practitioners in other social work teams might not always recognise when a child is being criminally or sexually exploited. The team can advise their multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH) colleagues, who are also based at the hub, on recognising potential risks.

The child exploitation team also created a safety plan template to help practitioners. This was praised by children’s charity Barnardo’s, which requested that it be shared with local authorities.

The creation of the hub

Debbie Lloyd, the assistant director of children and family support services and youth justice service at NCT, says agencies have taken their time in creating the hub to ensure best practice and that all relevant partners are involved.

The social work resource in the hub was commissioned by both North and West Northamptonshire councils as NCT serves both, highlighting support and buy-in from all.

This is not a child exploitation single service. This is a collection of officers, within the trust and outside of the trust, and practitioners that come together to support this initiative. It’s all built on trust and working relationships”, says Debbie.

Positive impact

Although the hub is in its infancy, the child exploitation team has had many successes already.

One example is Chloe* who was already in care and was referred to the team after having repeated missing episodes. While the team were working with Chloe, who was a victim of exploitation, she expressed an interest in a career in security.

The exploitation team facilitated work experience and CCTV training for her. This ‘disruption and diversion’ technique gave Chloe aspiration to look to the future more positively, and through this support she has had a reduction in missing episodes.

Another example of the positive impact the hub has had is Miles*.

Miles was also having missing episodes, including kidnapping, and had an allocated social worker from the safeguarding team. He was referred to the exploitation team, and when his advanced practitioner met him, he was very open about being exploited to sell drugs.

After conversations about safety, risk and consequences, it was clear that Miles wanted to break free and move away. Police teams were also involved in investigating the perpetrators.

The team helped to move Miles out of his home town, which kept him physically away from the exploiters, in line with what he wanted. A safety plan was put in place and currently his social worker visits him weekly to support him. Miles is settled and focused on joining the army, and will return to his family when he is ready, and it is safe to do so.

Colin Foster, chief executive of NCT, says: “The hub is a really positive step forward in improving how agencies across Northamptonshire work together to safeguard and support children and young people who might be coerced or exploited.

“We are already seeing the huge benefits of having partners co-located together, making it more effective to create a team of support around that child or young person, and the impact that this is having. I feel privileged to work with such an incredible group of professionals who are driving this forward.”

*name changed for anonymity

Are you interested in a career at NCT? Check out the latest vacancies.

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One of the factors that attracted Lucy to North East Lincolnshire Council was being able to build long-lasting relationships with children and young people.

“At my previous local authority, my experience was predominately assessment, but I wanted to build on my professional development and case-holding and remain their [the children and family’s] social worker longer term,” she said.

This is something she is able to achieve at North East Lincolnshire Council as a social worker in the children and assessment service (CASS). Unlike her previous local authority, the social worker follows the child’s journey from assessment to the point that they go to the children in care team.

Following the child’s journey and being involved in court work, children in need, child protection, Public Law Outline and children in care work has definite benefits, says Lucy.

“We know that when a child’s social worker changes all the time, they are not going to be as open and trusting. Continuity of social worker is important because it helps to build those trusting relationships with the child.

“From my experience, the young people seem a lot less anxious, knowing that they are going to have the same social worker. And what I see here at North East Lincolnshire Council is that families quite like the fact that you are staying with them. They don’t have to retell their story, and the children have already built those relationships with you.”

Amplifying the child’s voice

Keeping children and young people’s needs is at the centre of the work North East Lincolnshire does

Lucy’s experience reflects North East Lincolnshire Council’s commitment to keep children and young people’s needs at the centre of the work the council does.

Ensuring that the needs of children and young people are acknowledged and addressed underpins the council’s commitments and is one of seven key areas that North East Lincolnshire Council is prioritising over the next five years.

The local authority’s report: ‘North East Lincolnshire Our Children, Our Future’ aims to ensure the area is a place children can grow up happy and healthy, safe in their homes and communities, with people that love them.

And North East Lincolnshire Council’s plan outlines efforts to enhance “the opportunities for children and families to share their views and experiences and to have a voice in order for them to shape and influence the local offer.” Through groups such as: ‘Our Voice Listen Up’, young people in care have the space to discuss issues that are important to them.

Ann-Marie Matson, the director of children’s services at North East Lincolnshire Council, and other senior leaders have met with many children in care personally to gather their views.

“I’ve directly met with children to understand how their voice can influence and shape practice, building the child’s voice and experience into induction, in training and recruitment programmes and in the recruitment of our foster carers,” she says.

“We’ve embedded a: ‘you said, we did’ approach, and we’ve introduced conversation cards, giving children and young people the opportunity to share their views and experiences about the questions on the cards, which are set by them. The aim is to identify children’s needs and act on them.  We’ve also introduced creative conversations which are focussed around a particular topic, and where corporate parents join children and young people to discuss issues that matter to them, in order to influence partnership action and to help improve their experiences and outcomes”

Building on the person-centred approach

North East Lincolnshire Council’s practice approach, which is focussed around being relational, strengths based and solutions-focused , ensures that social workers like Lucy remain person-centred in their approach to supporting children and their families.

“It’s about empowering the family to use the strengths that they have,” says Lucy. “And the voice of the child runs throughout all of our work and is pivotal to what we do.

“It is about being consistent for that person and doing what you say you will do. And if you don’t do what you say, it is about explaining the reasons why you haven’t followed through with something.”

Social workers work with children to understand their thoughts and feelings – their lived experience, how they see their lives, their behaviour and what their concerns are. Lucy has seen the benefits of doing just that.

“I’ve been working with a child for four months – supervising contact between him and his dad. A recent conversation was a turning point for me, as he was really chatty.

“He normally covers his eyes and is really shy. Typically, when I am trying to gather his wishes and feelings, he doesn’t answer, and I would have to tell through his behaviour. But when we spoke recently, he asked me about 20 questions.

“It felt good and made me appreciate how long it can take for a child to build those relationships and develop that trust,” says Lucy.

North East Lincolnshire Council encourages collaborative working between professionals as a way to ensure consistency in the relationship and build trust. Lucy was able to demonstrate the value of collaborative working when supporting a young person who was at risk of child exploitation.

“Working alongside a student social worker and a family support worker, we collectively built up trust and were really consistent, open and honest with her.”

“We explained what our concerns were. It took a few months but being there regardless of what was happening, supporting her was an intense process. But I think being consistent and everybody sharing the same message, to capture her views, helped. We got her home.”

“She had embedded that work that we had done with her, and what really worked is we were able to do the work with the parents too.”

Listening to young people

Working to gather the views of children

A key goal in North East Lincolnshire Council is ensuring that children remain in the area and stay with their families wherever possible too.

Julie Poole, assistant director, Children’s Assurance Evaluation and Partnerships, says: “We have high numbers of children in our care” but through working together, and with a focus on our children and young people, we are successfully reducing the numbers of children that need to be in our care, enabling them to live with their families and in their communities, which is our ultimate overarching ambition.”

Where that is not possible, Lucy has seen, firsthand, the effort involved in ensuring that the needs and wishes of the child are considered in decisions about where they live and how they are cared for.

In one particular highly complex situation, Lucy worked intensively with the child to gather her views, and then worked with the family support service and the adoptive parents to find a solution.

“I did some creative direct work – listening to spa music to calm her down and went for a drive. She likes to write down her thoughts, so, we unpicked them to gather what her triggers were, and how she feels. She would communicate with me through written notes – that is how she would share her views.

“She had a period in foster care but wanted to go into supported living. We had regular meetings – legal tracking meetings and panel meetings, to listen to her views and understand what she wanted and ensure that all options had been explored. We also did some assessments with her to go into supported living – and that’s what happened in the end.”

Lucy cites other examples where a child needed a foster home and through collaborative work with other members of the service and wider colleagues, regular meetings and planning sessions, she was able to find a foster carer within North East Lincolnshire Council.

“Just the passion that workers have for our children and young people – it is phenomenal. Everybody is working together for them,” says Lucy.

“I didn’t really know what an occupational therapist was,” says Hannah, an experienced social worker in the south adult community team at Wiltshire Council, recalling her early days of being a newly qualified social worker.

There are over 44,000 occupational therapists (OTs) in the UK, but in England only 3,800 work in adult social care. Some local authorities outsource part or all of their occupational therapy provision to external agencies.

However, Wiltshire Council has a large occupational therapy workforce in-house, much like its social work workforce, with collaborative working between the two professions being at the heart of practice.

Occupational therapists hold a variety of senior leadership roles in Wiltshire Council.

For example, Emma Legg, who is the corporate director for care and wellbeing and in the designated statutory post of director of adult social services, is a registered OT.

Having Emma moving up the service, and now taking the reins of adult social care as director, has helped develop understanding of the value of occupational therapy in working alongside social work to promote strengths-based outcomes.

“It’s great for our professional identity, it’s great for morale and helping us feel supported and connected, and really a key part of social care,” says Mary Harvey, the principal OT in adult social care at Wiltshire Council.

Principal occupational therapist

Although councils are expected to have a principal social worker (PSW) for adults’ services by the statutory guidance under the Care Act, there is no such expectation to have a principal OT in place.

This means not all councils have recognised the potential for principal OTs to transform services and significantly contribute to meeting Care Act duties by investing in the role.

Former chief social worker for adults, Lyn Romeo, emphasised the importance of having a principal OT in the foreword to a 2021 report on the role by the Royal College of Occupational Therapists, where she said:

“Occupational therapy and social work are the key professions that provide support to service users across both health and social care, working with and across all care groups, age ranges and conditions.

“Collaborative and shared leadership from principal occupational therapists and principal social workers in adult social care contributes to people, families and communities experiencing support that improves their life opportunities and wellbeing.”

In 2023, Mary won the newcomer award for innovation at the council’s Winners of Wiltshire awards. It was in recognition of the impact the principal OT role has had on service improvement and also demonstrated how much the role is valued.

The benefits of collaboration

The PSW and principal OT in Wiltshire work closely and alongside each other. As both OT and social work roles are valued equally, there are similar numbers of each profession in the social care teams.

“The benefit [of collaboration] is having a joined-up approach, having that joint support of the two professions which, although they are different, complement one another and come together nicely to support individuals in a person-centred and strengths-based way,” says Kaylie Chapman, PSW for adult social care.

Collaboration between social workers and OTs means that vulnerable adults are often able to access what they need, quicker.

“I feel we’ve got a very free-flowing and open relationship here between social workers and occupational therapists. We support and recognise the value that each provides to achieving strengths-based outcomes for the individuals we work with in a timely manner,” Kaylie says.

Reflecting on her social work career across multidisciplinary teams, Kaylie recognises that referrals to other professionals and conflicting agendas can at times cause delays for individuals or frustration between professionals.

However, she says this is not the case at Wiltshire because of the culture of collaborative working. Where there are concerns about a person’s mobility or the level of assistance they need, being able to speak to an OT colleague in your team for peer reflection and guidance as to whether a referral is needed, makes practice more efficient, she adds.

Collective leadership

Mary and Kaylie

“Collective leadership is about shared and distributed leadership,” says Kaylie. “We all have responsibility to take ownership and leadership for situations and see the possibility to get involved and be part of the solution.”

Citing research from Bosch, B and Mansell, H (2015), Mary says trust and confidence are very important when it comes to real collaboration.

“Practitioners need to have confidence in their own abilities in order for other people to know that they can trust them and in order for other people to know that they’ve got confidence in their work,” she adds.

The research states one of the essential things for team success is the importance of role clarity, meaning each member of a team is trusted to execute their unique role. It also emphasises collective leadership.

“We’re in a really fortunate position that we have assistant team managers and experienced practitioners across our co-located teams who are OTs,” says Kaylie.

“This supports us to have their professional specialism influencing, advising and supporting from the different management levels across adult social care.”

Practical solutions

Social worker Hannah finds the multidisciplinary approach has helped her practice.

Hannah, senior social worker

“Our OT colleagues are really helpful in terms of exploring all options and helping people to maintain their independence,” she says.

Hannah shares one story about an older adult she was supporting named Gail*. Gail suddenly became ill, and her care and support needs changed almost overnight, which resulted in an emergency increase in her care package.

The care agency could not sustain the level of support as double-handed care (two carers) was now needed four times a day.

The optimising care team, which is made up of OTs, helped by implementing special slide sheets that did not require two carers.

With training and support from the OT, the need for double-handed visits reduced to once a day, with a single carer carrying out the other three visits. Gail was able to stay in her home and the care agency was able to sustain the lower level of care.

“The OT had the expertise around the equipment and what was available to use, which we don’t have as social workers,” says Hannah. “She also had the manual handling training, so she was able to train others in that manual handling which again, we don’t have. So that was really helpful.”

Hannah started her career in Wiltshire Council on a student placement. She did her assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) there and since then has stayed, despite not living locally.

“I was really grateful for the stability of Wiltshire [..] I work in a fantastic team.

I think the team can make or break this kind of work.

“And, I think, particularly in a multidisciplinary team, having both occupational therapists and social workers in management means that we have a broad wealth of knowledge. And there’s always someone to go to for support, and we have an incredibly supportive management team.”

*Name changed for anonymity

Are you interested in a career with Wiltshire Council?

Find out more here or check out the latest vacancies.

Hampshire County Council is working to ensure that older adults avoid unnecessary trips to hospital thanks to a collaboration with the South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS).

Through the collaboration, the Social Work Line was created – a dedicated phone number that ambulance crew can use to contact a social worker directly.

In this episode, you will hear from Matt Hutchinson, head of service for South Hampshire older adults’ team, and senior social worker Maria Kneller, who talk about how this service is helping to give older adults greater independence within their homes if a trip to hospital is not essential.

Listen to “Workforce Insights: Helping older adults avoid unnecessary journeys to the hospital” on Spreaker.

You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Spreaker or wherever you normally listen to podcasts.

Here is the transcript.

Did you know podcasts can count towards your CPD?

Learn more about Hampshire County Council and see what opportunities are available.

Other articles and learning from Hampshire

Podcast: using new approaches to promote ‘old school’ social work for older adults

Community social work: supporting vulnerable adults to reconnect with their communities

Joint working and learning new things: social work in a transition team

From busking to horse-riding: using strengths-based practice to transform lives

It is no secret that there is a shortage of foster carers and residential placements across the country, meaning children are often placed too far away from their families, networks and communities.

Norfolk County Council has been working hard to recruit, support and retain foster carers, while also revamping some of its in-house residential provision to make sure far more children remain in Norfolk, either with their families or within family-based care, wherever possible.

Using the Mockingbird fostering approach

The Mockingbird approach aims to provide foster families with support and create a community for them through different social activities.

Often children in care do not know other children with similar backgrounds and, likewise, foster carers do not always know other foster families, and this model is designed to change that.

It also aims to help overcome potential problems before they escalate or lead to placement breakdown.

It does this by developing a cluster of seven to 10 families, referred to as ‘satellite families’, where one foster carer is the ‘hub carer’.

The hub carer will offer their home or another venue for ‘get togethers’ and organise a WhatsApp group for all the foster families to communicate with each other. Social activities such as sleepovers, laser tag or picnics can be organised for the families to get to know each other.

Rachel, Mockingbird liaison practitioner

Rachel, Mockingbird liaison practitioner in Norfolk County Council, points out that children in care may not have an extended family network they can lean on, and the Mockingbird model provides a community for them.

“There are like-minded children [there],” she says. “They don’t ever have to have that conversation that their family isn’t quite built like other people’s families, like I suspect they would encounter at school. So it’s building a big family network.”

Rachel has noticed that new foster carers may often begin with a support network, but it can often fall away when a child comes into the family.

“I think, in terms of [extended] family members, not that they don’t want to support, but sometimes the family members do not have the skills to give the children the support they need,” she adds. “Knowing other foster carers enables them to get that support with people who just get it, and they can be in an environment where people understand what they’re going through.”

Families are matched carefully, making sure there is a diverse range of foster families.

“If we’ve had a carer who’s been in crisis with one of their children, they’ve just popped something on the group chat and said, ‘I’ve had a really bad day, this has happened’,” Rachel adds. “And other carers will say, ‘I feel you, I hear you’.”

Clinical support for foster families

As well as this, a specialist fostering clinician and a clinical psychologist are available for social workers to refer foster carers or children to.

Kevin, a senior social worker who has worked in Norfolk’s children services for 36 years, says having this service in-house helps speed up the support he can offer his foster families.

Kevin, social worker in Norfolk

He can just make a Microsoft Teams call and set up an appointment with the psychologist, whereas previously a referral to child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) or another team would have been required.

“Having two people that we can go to for advice and support issues around trauma, and supporting foster carers to manage challenging behaviour or anything they’re struggling with, is a radical change from where we have been over the last few years.

“We’re very fortunate to have that kind of clinical and psychological support, embedded within our service.

“Sometimes what we need as social workers is the opportunity to say, ‘This is what we’re seeing, this is what we’re experiencing and I need to know how best to manage that’, or [know] what advice to give so we can support our foster carers and, ultimately, the children,” he says.

Another way of supporting and training foster carers has been through the use of virtual reality headsets, to show them the abusive experiences children may have faced and demonstrate what they can do in response.

Reducing the number of children in care

Two of the residential homes in Norfolk were converted into New Roads hubs. The New Roads service aims to reduce the number of children in care by providing dedicated multi-agency support, family outreach and short residential stays to keep young people at home, reunify them with their family or step them down to foster care, where safe and sustainable to do so.

One of the features of the hubs, which are for 12 to 25-year-olds, is that people who have applied to be foster carers can volunteer to support the children there. The volunteers have an opportunity to gain experience and build relationships before fostering any children.

In addition to supporting foster care recruitment and retention, this means less reliance on private placements, fostering or residential, therefore a cost saving for the council.

Emma, who organises respite and emergency care at one of the hubs, says it is really valuable for potential foster carers to volunteer in this way.

“We have a lady who has been volunteering with us for over two years and she’s now a respite carer,” Emma says. “She fosters other young people because of the support that we’ve given her and the experience we’ve given her by being able to relate to other young people in the same situation,” she says.

How Emma became a foster carer

Emma met Lizzy* (aged 16) in June 2021 and built a good relationship with her as her key worker. Lizzy had been in foster placements since she was 10 and, because of many placement breakdowns, it was hard for her to trust anybody.

The plan was for Lizzy to move to semi-independent accommodation, but she wanted to be with a family. Emma knew Lizzy was not happy with the plan and was frustrated that Lizzy’s wishes could not be carried out.

Lizzy had no family that she was in contact with and one of the biggest fears she had about living alone was being alone on her birthday or at Christmas.

Coincidentally, Emma had a spare room (her eldest son had recently moved out) and, after a casual comment from a colleague, and many conversations with her own family, Emma decided to become Lizzy’s foster carer.

“They talked about having foster carers work alongside us within the hub so they could get to know the young people and if there was a connection, take them home,” she says. “I just never thought of it as me, because I wasn’t the foster carer coming in, I was the practitioner!

“The management within New Roads gave me the support and even the idea of [fostering] being a possibility, because I didn’t even know that that was a possibility.”

Lizzy is now 19 and still lives with Emma and the family despite having the option to move out. She has recently bought a car and is in a stable job, looking to gain further qualifications.

“We’ve taken her in as our daughter, as our sibling, like adoption, but not adoption. We’ve even got matching tattoos, mother-daughter tattoos!”

*name changed for anonymity

Are you interested in a career at Norfolk County Council? Check out the latest vacancies.

If you are considering becoming a foster carer, you can find more information on Fostering East.

Patricia has been working as a practice educator in a secondment role in a safeguarding team in South Gloucestershire Council’s children’s services since July 2023. This is her fourth promotion since starting her social work career at the council in 2016.

“I like the sense of belonging that I get in South Gloucestershire,” she says. “The work environment is very friendly, open, you feel like you can be yourself – and there is always someone you can talk to.”

In June, South Gloucestershire was rated good overall by Ofsted with the report saying: ‘Staff share a culture of high support balanced with an appropriate degree of challenge and a strong sense of being cared for by managers and leaders alike.’

Feeling safe, supported and part of a ‘family’ are some of the reasons why Patricia enjoys working for South Gloucestershire Council. Another key reason is how managers have helped her to develop in her career.

Having worked across a variety of teams, including access and response, disability  and, most recently, on secondment in a safeguarding team, her confidence has grown – thanks to supportive managers.

“I had a very ambitious manager who would encourage us to learn as much as possible – and I have embraced that,” she says.

“I would go to supervision after having a bad day and would finish feeling like I can change the world.

Patricia adds that when she didn’t feel confident taking on a promotion or felt frustrated about a situation with a family, her manager would listen, she would empathise and she would even be open about times she’d made mistakes or felt scared, which helped to make her relatable to Patricia and build trust.

When Patricia was supporting a child who had particularly complex physical and cognitive needs, her manager supported her to be able to separate her emotions about the child from the work she needed to do to help the child and family.

Being reminded that she was capable and had “management material” were boosts to her confidence that she now passes on to the five students she is supporting through their placements.

“I would not be able to do what I am doing now if I hadn’t had those managers,” she says.

Nurturing manager

Chloe agrees.  Working in the central locality team with a nurturing manager has allowed her to progress from social work assistant to a senior social worker in five years.

“I’ve had a stable one-to-one leadership experience, which means I feel more comfortable to share how I feel about a situation and there’s a lot of individual trust between me and my manager,” she says.

“I really like the nature of the work we do in locality. I love building long-term relationships with families, I like going into family’s homes, I love being able to see the change from the beginning when we worked with a family to the end to when the family has made the changes. I feel happy and proud to be a part of that. It is super rewarding.”

So, when opportunities for Chloe to progress came along, she felt prepared to take them because she had been taking on more and more responsibilities already in the course of her career.

She has supported students on their 100-day placements, trained under a leadership programme and worked on a Department for Education practice working group designed to improve the experiences of children and social workers within the council.

She has also grown professionally by supporting children and families in more complex cases.

“I’ve had lots of instances where I’ve felt: ‘I’m going to lose a parent because we are going through care proceedings – and I’m finding this difficult, [so] I can’t imagine how difficult they are finding this.’

“And I think the satisfaction in being able to hold these parents through that and still have a relationship with them afterwards – that is probably one of the most motivating things in staying in this role.”

Supporting the next generation

She has been able to pass on these skills in developing confidence, trust and self-assurance to the students and social workers in their assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) year whom she is supporting and is keen for them to understand that they are supported.

“I work with social workers that are really passionate and dedicated to the young people they are working with,” she adds. “We’ve all got the same vision and value of what we want to achieve for the families. If we had worries, needed advice, needed a pick me up – there’s always someone there to support you if you were on a visit or to unpick a dilemma that you had with a family.”

South Gloucestershire Council’s 0-25 service receiving a VIP (Values in Practice) Award

Young ambassadors

Shaping how social workers support children and families through the input of care experienced individuals is a key commitment South Gloucestershire Council has embraced.

Ofsted’s inspection in June found that the recruitment of three young ambassadors, and a proactive youth board, are “helping lay the foundations for children and young people to play an increased role in the coproduction and shaping of services.”

David is one of these young ambassadors. Inspired by his own challenging journey through the care system, he is passionate about making the experience the best it can be for others.

Ensuring that the voice of the child is recorded in the best possible way is how David is helping to share practice.

He believes that being able to listen to young people and capture thoughts are key attributes of being a good social worker.

“It proves that you’ve listened to that young person and understood them,” he says.

These records are written by social workers from the young person’s perspective. They are informative and detailed and can include direct quotes from the young person, which David says are vital for giving young people an insight into their journey in care.

What he hopes his work will do is ensure that these examples of good practice, which include adding more context to information shared, are the benchmark for all written records produced by social workers.

Although only six months into his ambassadorial role, David has had years of experience being a member the South Gloucestershire’s Teen Care Council (TCC) and Experienced Panel in Care (EPIC). He has been involved in recruiting social workers and has been able to channel concerns from young people to senior managers. One of those was minimising the impact that an abrupt departure of a social worker has on a young person.

“They feel upset when someone has to leave and they have to re explain their story to the new social worker all over again,” he says.

South Gloucestershire has listened. Now, if a social worker has to leave abruptly, the young person is informed in person within 24 hours by either the manager or someone else on the team whom they already know.

David adds: “I am where I am because of those things that have happened to me, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. Now I’m having a direct impact on how social workers do their jobs and this is incredible.”

Zafer Yilkan, interim service director for children’s social care and preventative services, said: “Here in South Gloucestershire Council we are committed to creating supportive and nurturing work culture for our social workers to grow and develop their career progression.  Our inclusive and collaborative leadership style is at the heart of supporting our social workers to use high degree of autonomy and trust in their professional decision making with support and guidance from their line managers.”

Hampshire County Council’s two refugee teams were launched in February 2023 to meet the needs of an increasing number of unaccompanied children seeking asylum.

While the local authority supported 106 unaccompanied children and young people in March 2022, as of November 2024, it supports 293 unaccompanied children and 306 unaccompanied care leavers.

This has created increased need for foster carers, and also more opportunities for social workers to specialise.

This is what drew Harriet, a social worker in one of Hampshire’s refugee teams, to the outstanding-rated authority.

“I wanted to come and work in Hampshire because it enabled me to work in a specialist team, whereas other places I have worked in before didn’t offer that specialism,” says Harriet, who has also worked with adult refugees in Uganda.

The benefits of specialist teams

The advantages of having a dedicated team for unaccompanied children seeking asylum and care leavers are clear for Harriet. Children and young people benefit from having a team of practitioners focused on their care, with knowledge of the asylum process and legislative changes.

“What also helps is that within the teams, social workers work alongside family practitioners and personal advisers and this mix means there are opportunities to share ideas and ways of working,” says Harriet.

Debbie Dunne, who manages one of the two teams, agrees.

“We have practitioners who have the specialist knowledge base and understanding around culture, communication and languages,” she says.

The two teams each have around six social workers, two family practitioners and six care leaver personal advisers (PAs).

When children are assigned a PA, before they turn 18 and leave care, that practitioner follows them through the rest of their social care journey, promoting continuity of support and helping them feel safe and supported.

Practitioners aim to provide continuity and support to children and young people. Photo: Studio Romantic/AdobeStock

Wide range of skills

Within the teams, there is a mix of experience, with some members having language skills, one having completed a master’s degree in international development, others having skills teaching English as a foreign language and some having lived overseas.

There are also two trained foster carers in the team – one who is training to become a social worker and the other a PA.

“It seems that the teams attract people that want to do something different,” says Debbie.

Hampshire also gives its workforce five continuing professional development (CPD) days a year, which allows practitioners in other teams to come and see first-hand how the refugee teams work.

Debbie adds: “I’ve had one colleague from one of the frontline court holding teams (safeguarding), who heard about the team, spent a day with Harriet and met some of the children. She is now moving ahead with her application [to join the team].”

Understanding young people’s experiences

Young people who arrive in the UK are normally referred to the National Transfer Scheme, which is designed to ensure that responsibility for children and young people is shared between local authorities.

The young people supported by the teams range in age from about 12 to 25 years old, although younger children have been supported by them too, says Sarah Marston, area director for Hampshire south east.

Children are supported right from the point of referral, with practitioners conducting a detailed assessment that looks for indicators of trafficking and checks their health and welfare. The teams use strengths-based tools, including motivational interviewing, and trauma-informed strategies to promote communication.

“The aim is to focus on understanding the young person’s experiences and risks and establish whether they’ve got any contact with their family,” says Debbie.

Children are supported right from the point of referral. Photo: Africa Studio/ AdobeStock

Trauma-informed practice

Children are likely to have experienced some form of trauma along the journey to the UK and, over the first six weeks, practitioners are tasked with supporting the children to manage that.

“We recognise that the children have been working on adrenaline for a very long time in very difficult circumstances that they have lived through, in terms of street homelessness, [lack of] access to basic food and shelter – all those very critical things,” says Debbie. “So, it is a huge shock for them to come into the home of the foster family.

“Part of what we do is ask our children about sleep – if they are having nightmares or flashbacks. We offer them sleep packs, lavender, a night light and squidgy balls and we talk about getting into a good sleep routine because we know that at night when you’re still, that’s when everything catches up with you,” she adds.

Tools such as the trauma triangle, tree of life work and the distress screening tool are part of the range of approaches that practitioners use to support the young person to feel safe. They also help to build up trust between the practitioner and the young person, according to Harriet.

The tree of life work helps the young people to connect with their home country and is a way for social workers to learn more about their families in a way that limits secondary trauma.

“We get the young person to draw a tree trunk and work with them to reflect on the skills and interests they have, where they got them from, or who gave them the skills,” says Harriet. “The branches represent hopes and wishes, the leaves the important people in their life and the fruits represent the gifts that these people have given to them.”

Opportunities to deepen relationships

Hannah Leat, peripatetic district manager at Hampshire, suggests that engaging young people in conversations about their favourite foods from home and assisting them in preparing these dishes can be a valuable method for practitioners to help them process trauma.

She explains: “Engaging children’s senses can be a useful tool in trauma-informed practice. Not just preparing food, but any activity that supports children to revisit sensory experiences in a positive, support environment can help them process some of their trauma, while engaging with their social worker in something fun and enjoyable.”

Along with social activities, such as bowling, or things as simple as going for a drive, it also helps social workers forge relationships with young people.

There are also opportunities for young people to socialise with each other through organised events, such as football coaching sessions. These provide the opportunity for young people who were trafficked together, and then separated during the placement process, to reconnect.

Involving parents in care planning

Working with the young people’s families, if possible, is useful in improving outcomes for the child. “We want to have contact with parents, which helps us to have a better understanding of the children’s formative years and any history and information,” says Debbie.

Even in situations where the parents cannot be with their children, the team makes every effort to include them in their child’s progress, such as how they are developing in their education.

Hampshire has been able to achieve some family reunifications, with Harriet involved in one in which three children were reunited with their father and three other siblings.

Children seeking asylum are children first. Photo: Africa Studio/ AdobeStock

Children seeking asylum are children first

Such moments where children and parents, or children trafficked with friends, can be reunited are an important reminder that children seeking asylum are children first.

“The trauma they have experienced is similar in some respects to the trauma that the mainstream UK cohort of Hampshire children have experienced,” says Sarah.

“They have experienced sexual abuse, and violence, they are separated from their carers or family. I think sometimes the labels take us away from that – the fact that these are children that have been traumatised and have had adverse experiences.”

To learn more about the Hampshire Approach and how motivational interviewing is implemented at the authority, take a look at the following articles:

Celebrating a mindset, not a model of social work

Motivational interviewing: what is it and how can you use it in social work

And to find out more about working in Hampshire County Council, check out the authority’s Employer Profile.

This episode of the Social Work Community podcast was produced in collaboration with Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council.
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In early 2022, BCP Council’s children’s services were rated inadequate by Ofsted following an inspection in late 2021.

Since then, there have been five monitoring visits, which found improvements in many areas.

In this episode of the Social Work Community Podcast, BCP Council social workers tell careers editor Sharmeen Ziauddin that morale is up and increased permanency of staff is making a real difference, not only to them, but to children and young people too.

There are five guests on this podcast. Firstly, Steph, an assistant team manager in a children and families first team, explains what made her switch from agency to a permanent position at BCP Council. Ruairi, a team manager, talks about what has made him stay with BCP Council for a number of years.

Monique shares what brought her back to BCP Council after a stint in London, while Cyra explains why practitioners are leaving locum work to take up permanent roles within BCP Council.

And Jamie, who joined the authority’s children’s services on the assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) programme after a career change, shares why doing social work within BCP Council has exceeded his expectations.

Listen now:
Listen to “Would you work for an inadequate-rated children’s services?” on Spreaker.
Read the transcription here.

About the podcast

The Social Work Community Podcast explores the issues that matter to social work practitioners in their working lives. You will hear direct from social workers in your community about their successes and their challenges.

Our first season was nominated in this year’s British Association of Social Workers (BASW) Social Work Journalism Awards.

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