It’s difficult to see how one could replicate a system used in hospitals in social care. Eg when there’s a shift change in a hospital there’s a ward meeting between early & late shifts for handovers & it’s easier to coordinate as the care is in one institutional clinical setting. Management of the whole staff group is usually under one ward manager/nursing sister etc However social care is community based & spread across different teams dealing with different aspects, so out of hours teams deal with the whole County and are restricted to non case holding emergency input only on cases. The proposals would entail a major restructuring, implementation of a shift system and daily handovers of each shift. I can think of similar major restructuring when services moved from generic to specialised teams in the 1990s. Such major changes would need wide consultation.

That said, there’s certainly something positive to be gained from the sharing of responsibility and round the clock support for children, as their lives don’t neatly fit into services only being available 9am-5pm. The main issues would be good cooperation between case holding professionals, agreed plans/objectives and consistency in approach & handling of children’s needs. I can think of scenarios where there can be disagreement between professionals on how a child’s needs should be met and such conflicts would have to be managed carefully with a good deal of input from the Child & parents or wider family & other important people such as Foster carers for it to work. Furthermore, regular and timely Review to monitor progress of such systems, tweaking the system & how to ensure a seamless process & deal with complaints..

Also this system would also Change current keyworker systems going from one person to at least two or more. Such changes would need careful and much wider consultation with professionals on delivery and management of services.

Lauren’s article was really good. To achieve what she talks about what’s really needed is one consistent nurturing adult to be available as a constant support, to hold a child’s hand throughout his/her journey through the care system. This is essential as relationships are built on long term, consistent, positive engagement, getting to know a child, sharing their interests, supporting friendships, social activities & positive experiences. This is so important. It’s not possible when social workers are bound up in bureaucratic management systems & seriously overloaded. Direct engagement with children & their families is the bread and butter of social work. What’s urgently needed is for us to go back to a time where the admin work/pen pushing is minimised & for someone else to do the bulk of this work & realistic case loads. Social workers should have the time to do what they came into social work for. We would then be able to achieve far better outcomes for our children.

Bionic woman, you highlight a sad reality that far too many people move in and out of young Social Care Experienced lives, what would you suggest? Can we propose an end to the practice of handing children and families to a new team at various stages in their care-lives, such as assessment / reception / short term fostering / permanence / adoption? How would this work in practice?

I wonder what the problem could be?

I whole heartedly agree with what you have said Debra!

Laura you are an inspiration and trigger my passion to provide care and compassion in every interaction with a young person and their family .