Understanding the lived experience of children and families - One-minute guide for middle leaders
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Practice
Tool
One-minute guide
for middle leaders:
Understanding the
lived experience of
children and families
Funded by the Department for Education www.psdp.rip.org.ukIntroduction
The briefing for senior managers on ‘Understanding the lived experience of
children and families’ covers three distinct and important areas.
You might need a minute for each one:
> T he importance of consulting with children, young people and families at all levels
of service delivery and planning in children’s social care organisations.
> T he impact of poverty and social inequality on the lived experience of children,
young people and families.
> T he need to ensure culturally capable practice that takes account of the
intersectional nature of diversity, identity and inequality.
Meaningful consultation with children and families at a micro as well as a macro level
is a huge challenge. The families we work with are often marginalised, and can appear
difficult to engage, vexatious and inarticulate. Many of them have an inherent mistrust of
social workers, seeing us as agents of state rather than as enablers of positive change.
This can lead us in to an avoidant and / or defensive response which hinders our ability
to understand their perspective.
Social workers with high caseloads can find it difficult to get their heads up and think
about what might be the impact of poverty and inequality on parenting capacity. In the
current social and political climate, senior and middle leaders have a responsibility
to create a culture in which feedback is sought and acted upon, and to ensure that
supervisory relationships enable social workers to work collaboratively with children and
families, offering the space to consider the impact of austerity and to develop confidence
in working with diversity.
2 One-minute guide for middle leaders: Understanding the lived experience of children and familiesHearing the voices of children and families
- some challenge questions:
> Is feedback from children and families considered regularly in supervision /
appraisal?
> How is such feedback collected?
> Is it meaningful, i.e. do we just send a form out or actually listen to people’s
stories?
> Are we collating data from feedback and looking for themes?
> o we use feedback to celebrate or challenge the quality of practice in our social
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work teams?
> re complaints responded to promptly and are we being defensive in our
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responses? There’s no shame in acknowledging and apologising for mistakes, and
then learning from them!
> oes my organisation have a robust Quality Assurance Framework that includes
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feedback from children and families?
> Do we have child and parent reference groups?
Yes No
Am I ensuring that I and my Am I making my voice heard with
supervisees are using and senior leaders to ensure such
contributing effectively to frameworks and representative
frameworks and forums? groups are developed?
Funded by the Department for Education www.practice-supervisors.rip.org.uk 3Why is this important?
Seeking regular and meaningful feedback should be a foundational element of ethical
social work practice with children and families. When families feel heard and their
experiences are understood, they are more able to accept challenges, work towards
positive change and enact their own solutions (Forrester et al, 2012).
Poverty and social inequality
‘Over the course of the last twelve years, austerity measures have had a significant impact
on the most vulnerable members of local communities, with increasing social inequality
being reported.’ (Guardian online, 2018)
‘Poverty has become the wallpaper of practice, “too big to tackle and too familiar to
notice.”’ (Morris et al, 2018).
‘The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 has brought difficult and stressful times. Financial
hardship, loss of employment, isolation and close family proximity have all put extra
pressure on families who were already struggling... Every week, we are seeing
notifications from local authorities about babies that have died or been seriously harmed
through abuse or neglect.’ (Ofsted, 2020)
‘Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on black, Asian and ethnic minority communities
– they are over-represented in severe illnesses and deaths because of long-standing
racial and socio-economic inequalities.’ (Runnymede Trust, 2020)
We need to promote an effective and humane response from social work practitioners
and managers.
4 One-minute guide for middle leaders: Understanding the lived experience of children and familiesSome questions for team or peer group meetings:
> o our social work staff have a good understanding of the local landscape in
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relation to housing issues and welfare benefits, and their impact on families and
communities?
> re we asking children and families basic questions about money, food and
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heating?
> Do we understand the needs of our black, Asian and minority ethnic communities?
> o we need to strengthen our partnerships with other agencies (housing, health,
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benefits agencies, citizen’s advice bureaus) to ensure we are all kept up to date
and can practice more effectively as a result?
> re we liaising closely with adult social care colleagues to help take the
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temperature of issues affecting disadvantaged adults?
Funded by the Department for Education www.practice-supervisors.rip.org.uk 5Culturally competent practice and intersectionality
– resources to support you and your teams
The issue of diversity is too complex to cover in a one-minute guide. This section points
you to some further reading you and your supervisees can access in order to:
> Improve understanding of equality, inclusion and diversity (particularly as they apply
to race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexuality), and confidence
in talking about diversity, inequality and the dangers of cultural insensitivity in
supervision.
> S et clear expectations about anti-discriminatory practice linked to a service-wide
statement on equality, inclusion and diversity.
The social GGRRAAACCEEESSS are a model which describe aspects of personal and social
identity which include gender, geography, race, religion, age, ability, appearance, class,
culture, education, ethnicity, employment, sexuality, sexual orientation and spirituality
(Burnham, 2013).
The tool ‘Developing cultural competence’ supports practice supervisors’ learning and
development in working with people from a range of cultural groups and includes some
critical reflection questions for practice.
Remember: Children need to be protected irrespective of cultural sensitivities. Different
practices are no excuse for child abuse taking place in this country and the law doesn’t
make that distinction. (NSPCC, 2015)
This illustrates the need for effective, reflective supervision that takes place in a safe
space to enable open dialogue about feelings and fears.
6 One-minute guide for middle leaders: Understanding the lived experience of children and familiesTips for developing culturally competent practice
> S pend some time getting to know the person: do not rush meetings and
interventions.
> e continually aware of the social work values you have signed up to as a social
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worker.
> Be self-aware – remember your personal cultural values and beliefs.
> emember the person you are talking to is the expert of their experience, adopt a
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position of ‘not knowing’ and be ready to learn.
> eflect on the power of language. Language empowers and can also leave a
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person wounded.
> o not make assumptions about others because you perceive that they come from
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a similar background to you, or someone else you know or work with.
> esist tokenism or simple ‘box ticking’ as a means of evidencing your cultural
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competence.
> Be flexible, not rigid, particularly when using existing frameworks and tools.
(Adapted from Hardy in Community Care, 2018)
Funded by the Department for Education www.practice-supervisors.rip.org.uk 7References
Burnham, J. (2013) Developments in Morris, K., Mason, W., Bywaters, P.,
Social GGRRAAACCEEESSS: visible- Featherstone, B., Daniel, B., Brady, G.,
invisible, voiced-unvoiced. In I. Krause Hooper, J., Nughmana, M., Scourfield,
(Ed) Cultural Reflexivity. Karnac. J. and Webb, C. (2018). Social work,
poverty, and child welfare interventions.
Forrester, D., Westlake, D. and Glynn, Child & Family Social Work, 23, 364–72.
G. (2012) Parental Resistance and
Social Worker Skills: Towards a Theory NSPCC (2015) Child abuse: our response
of Motivational Social Work. Child and to judge’s remark on ‘cultural context’.
Family Social Work 17 (2) 118-129. Press statement. Family Law Week.
Haque, Z., Becares, L. and Treloar,
N. (2020) Over-Exposed and Under-
Protected The Devastating Impact
of COVID-19 on Black and Minority
Ethnic Communities in Great Britain.
Runnymede Trust and ICM.
Research in Practice is a programme of
Supervising the Supervisor Author: Valerie Canon The Dartington Hall Trust which is a company
Practice Supervisor Development Programme Independent Social Worker limited by guarantee and a registered charity.
The Granary Dartington Hall Company No. 1485560 Charity No. 279756
VAT No. 402196875
Totnes Devon TQ9 6EE
Registered Office:
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email ask@researchinpractice.org.uk
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