what's new - june 2008

what's new on the research in practice website

Working Together on the Front Line: How to make multiprofessional teams and partnerships work

Performance Pointers: tell us what you think!

We would like to know what you think. A comprehensive evaluation will be conducted over the next couple of months, and the results will be published on the research in practice website at the end of August. Your views will also be used to inform the subject matter, content and presentation of the next Performance Pointer.

Evaluation forms can be downloaded from the top right-hand corner of the Performance Pointers page and shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes to complete. Please return your completed form to s.judd@sheffield.ac.uk 

emailXchange gathers pace

Look in our emailXchange forum on the website to follow discussion threads that have been causing interest in the Link Officer email group last month. Link Officers get email queries and questions in their inbox, but Partner agency staff can follow the conversations in the emailXchange forum on our website. Here is a random selection of topics/discussions/questions covered: The use of audio recording in child Protection Cases; reviewing policies and procedures in relation to unaccompanied asylum seeking children; how to monitor and evaluate the outcomes of the services commissioned for children and their families; and 'Has any authority developed an easy, straightforward guide for “mapping across” from NVQ3 to the new CWDC Foster Carer Standards?' See what you think.

the latest Research and Policy Update for June No 89

Research and Policy Updates (RPUs) are intended to help agencies keep up to date with national research and policy developments. They provide monthly signposts to useful material that you might otherwise miss. The RPU will be useful for anyone working in children and family service agencies and Children’s Trusts in local authorities and voluntary organisations. It is likely to be of particular interest to people with lead operational and policy responsibility for children and family services and those with a special interest in Evidence-Informed Practice.

The headline articles summarised for this month:

• Adoption, Resilience and the Importance of Stories: The making of a film about teenage adoptees (2008) Helen Fitzhardinge - this is not a substantial piece of research but it is work that deserves to be developed further. The method provides a window to material that, for very understandable reasons, often remains out of sight and out of reach.
• Balancing Parents’ and Very Young Children’s Rights in Care Proceedings: Decision-making in the context of the Human Rights Act 1998 (2008) Emily R Munro and Harriet Ward - This article explores whether the Human Rights Act has influenced the approach that a range of professionals adopt when they examine and seek to balance the potentially competing rights of parents and children involved in care proceedings.
• Changes in the Form of Knowledge in Social Work: From the ‘social’ to the ‘informational’? (2008) Nigel Parton - This article addresses the discernible shift over the last 30 years from the previous social work ‘given’ of clients as subjects of their own stories, to their reduction to items of information in accounts written by others.
• Community Leadership Approaches to Tackling Street Crime (2008) Jenny Lynn - This is an eminently practical contribution to the continuing debates about how to reduce levels of antisocial behaviour.
• Markets in the Public Sector: When do they work, and what do we do when they don’t? (2008) Ian Greener - a reminder that our understanding of how real change in complex systems can be brought about and how it needs to be more subtle and more grounded in the evidence of what works.

If you read on you will find some parliamentary business, plenty of current consultations and a long descriptive list of new structures, initiatives and guidance. Go to the current RPU to read the detail. You will also find reference to RiPfA's RPU which sometimes has articles or summaries of interest to those working in Children's Services.

To read all the summaries and access the actual reports visit the RiPfA RPU

what's new in the research in practice network

Directors meet at Dartington this month

This month the annual Directors’ Forum explores the concept of Progressive Universalism which promotes support for everybody, with more support for those who need it most. The discussion will be set within the government policy and improvement context and delegates will consider promising approaches that are being evaluated across England. Ann Gross (DCSF) will talk about Extended Schools and Children's Centres and Christine Davies will explain how the Centre for Excellence and Outcomes (which she will lead) will work.

Development Groups in Wales

The aim of the Development Groups, which are in full swing now, is to improve the quality of assessments, planned interventions and direct work undertaken by front-line teams in children and family services. This will be achieved by working with front-line leaders to promote their team’s level of awareness and use of messages from research on key topics. The Development Groups will build the skills and confidence of these front-line leaders to champion a culture of learning and of challenging the evidence base for current practice in their teams. Together they will explore the leadership behaviours and actions required to deliver such a change in the knowledge base and professional standards of teams.

diary - june 2008