Move From The 'What' To The 'Why' - SCIE's Response To Lord Laming's Report, UK

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 13 Mar 2009 - 4:00 PDT

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The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) has responded to yesterday's report from Lord Laming by calling on local authority children's services to adopt new ways of learning from case reviews.

Responding to the report, Deputy Chief Executive of SCIE, Amanda Edwards, said: "What's evident from this review of progress is that learning from practice still focuses on what and who went wrong, rather than addressing why workers acted as they did. The questions now must move beyond 'why did they do that?' to 'what factors influenced that decision?

"It's really important to us that existing and prospective front-line social workers should feel confident that work is being done to improve how we learn from good and poor practice."

SCIE's report and guidance Learning together to safeguard children: developing a multi-agency systems approach for case reviews, which was written by leading academics including Professor Eileen Munro, offers a systems approach to learning that has been adapted from other fields including engineering, airlines and patient safety in healthcare. This approach has been recommended by the Association of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS).

Professor Munro explains: "The research behind our approach found that an interaction of factors from policy and practice can lead to unintended and harmful consequences. This also applies to the children's services reforms made in 2003. Certain recommendations, such as electronic case records, had huge potential to support good practice, but have not had the desired effect. As we move forward, we must take a real in-depth look at the relationship between the intention of a reform and how it works in practice. The systems model for case reviews helps you do to this."

SCIE has also welcomed the emphasis on leadership in Lord Laming's report. Chair of SCIE, Allan Bowman, said:

"Directors of children's services departments have a very difficult job in supporting their managers and front-line workers to manage risk and promote family stability. Any moves to strengthen leadership and knowledge will be of great benefit.

"We're also pleased to see that children's services have started to be more proactive in celebrating their successes and sharing their good stories. It is high time that we hear more about the positive outcomes that come from high quality and dedicated social work."

Visit http://www.scie.org.uk for more information

Notes

- World Social Work Day takes place on 17 March. See http://www.scie.org.uk/news/wswd.asp for more information

SCIE published Learning together to safeguard children: developing a multi-agency systems approach for case reviews, in October 2008. The report presents a systems' model of organisational learning that can be used across agencies involved in safeguarding and child protection work. The model has been adapted from accident investigation methods used in aviation, engineering and, more recently, health.

The report and accompanying guidance outline how directors, managers and front-line practitioners can use the systems approach to identify why particular routines of thought and action take root in multi-agency practice. It does this by taking account of the many factors that interact and influence individual worker's practice. Agencies can use this learning to find solutions to problems. The report is available to view or download at http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/reports/report19.asp

About SCIE

- The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) was established by Government in 2001. It aims to improve the experiences of social care service users by advancing and promoting knowledge about good practice. SCIE's resources bring together policy and research with the opinions of practitioners, service users and carers.

- SCIE is a registered charity that works in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It covers the whole of social care including services for adults, children and families, stakeholder participation, people management, social work education, e-learning and the use of knowledge in social care.

- SCIE also runs Social Care Online - the most comprehensive database of social care information. For more information visit http://www.scie.org.uk

Social Care Institute for Excellence

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