Recent E-documents

Department for Children, Schools and Families (2010). Use of force guidance: short summary. This is primarily aimed at teachers but may have relivence for residential settings.
Neil, E. et al (2010). Supporting post adoption contact in complex cases. Department for Children, Schools and Families. From the research brief series. A fuller report will be published by BAAF.
Farmer, E. (2010). An investigation of family finding and matching in adoption - briefing paper. Department for Children, Schools and Families.

Facebook and post adoption contact

The Guardian, June 19 carried an interesting article on Facebook and the challenges which social networking sites present in social work in adoption and fostering. The task of tracing birth parents or birth children has been made much easier for the parties in adoption and has led to a huge increase in unmediated contact between birth parents and children. BAAF are also publishing a new guide Facing up to Facebook: a survival guide for adoptive families.

New Government - new review of social work in the England

Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education has engaged Professor Eileen Munro of the LSE to conduct an Independent Review of Child Protection in England. Michale Gove's letter outlines the scope of the review in the areas of early intervention, empowering and supporting front line social workers and maximising transparency and accountability. Following the commissioning of the review Professor Munro stated in a BBC radio interview that she favoured a team approach as modelled in Hackney, where decisions and responsibilities for an individual case were shoulderd by a group of professionals, with administrative work on cases being performed by an administrative worker on the team, leaving social workers with more time to spend on home visits. BASW have commented favourably on Professor Munro's appointment. See also Guardian, June 10.

Professor Munro recently had published the article "Learning to reduce risk in child protection", British Journal of Social Work 40(4), pp. 1135-1151.

Another reform will see the full publication of Serious Case Reviews, starting with the two Peter Connolly reviews. See BASW.

Poverty in the UK

The new UK Government has published its State of the nation report: poverty, worklessness and welfare dependency in the UK (2010), Cabinet Office.
Scottish executive have also published on poverty this week. Growing up in Scotland is a longitudinal study funded by the Scottish govenment and carried out by the Scottish Centre for Social Research:
Growing up in Scotland: the circumstances of persistently poor children summary report.
Further information on the Growing up in Scotland study and further research findings can be found at the Growing Up in Scotland website