Rehabilitation in a secure women's unit

The Guardian recently published an article on The Orchard, a medium-security mental health unit in London, which is currently piloting WEMSS (Women's Enhanced Medium Secure Service), which attempts to offer greater access to rehabilitation for women offenders with mental health problems who have previously been treated in the secure hospitals Broadmoor, Ashworth and Rampton.

Picture poverty

The Our Lives exhibition, commissioned by Save The Children, illustrates the lives of UK children living in poverty, though photographs, film and interviews with the families who took part. Some of the material is available to view via the Save the Children Website. A shocking 1 in 5 children in Scotland, 1 in 3 in Wales and 1 in 4 in South West England are living in poverty. Save The Children is fronting a campaign for the UK government to give more childcare suport to low and middle income earners and so lift children out of poverty.

Parental Substance Misuse

SCIE have created a free interactive e-learning resource on parental substance misuse, it's affects on children and parenting capacity and the implications for social work practitioners.

Tips on APA referencing style

I came across this very handy page of advice on APA referencing style, provided by the Social Work Library at Boston College, Mass. We get lots of enquiries at Jordanhill Library about referencing in APA and have our own referencing guide, but it doesn't hurt to have more information! I particularily like this advice:

"Finally, always keep in mind that the work you put into your research and writing is just as important as mastering APA Style. As you tackle your first assignments, we recommend that you devote the majority of your time to finding high-quality research and writing a well-crafted paper."
SWLLibrarian (2011). Tips for demystifying APA style. Retrieved from Social Work Library @ Boston College http://socialworklib.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/tips-for-demystifying-apa-style/

BASW Child Sexual Abuse Conference

The presentations from the BASW conference on Child Sexual Abuse, held 8th July 2011 in London, have been made available to view on the BASW site. Presentations include;
Street Safe
Understanding male and female sex offenders
Child Sexual Abuse - Intersections of complexity
The role of critically reflective practice in working with child sexual abuse, and
The Derby Experience

Prison or restorative justice?

There's been a lot of discussion in this weeks media about the efficacy of long versus short sentences and community justice versus prison. Todays Guardian carries an interview with a victim of burglary and the perpetrator and their experiences of restorative justice. Guardian, May 21.

Poverty researchers need YOU

The 21st Century Poverty project is looking for social workers' input into their project. The project, funded by the Webb Memorial Trust, is looking to develop a model for the policies the UK must adopt in order to meet the demands placed by the Child Poverty Act, which places a binding obligation on the UK government to end child poverty by 2020. The researchers will be hosting a teleconference on 9th June and looking for written contributions by 10th June 2011, with a final paper to be published by the end of September 2011. Register you interest at 21st Century Poverty Project.

Final report of the Munro Review published

This week saw the publication of the final report of Professor Eileen Munro's review of child protection. The review concludes that local authority social workers should be freed from national prescribed targets, methods of working and IT systems and be allowed to redesign services based on research and feedback from children and families.

Telecare - supporting carers in Scotland

A study commissioned by Carers Scotland in 2009 examined the impact of telecare not only on those with long term care needs but on family members struggling to provide care in combination with other work and family commitments. This study, Jarrold, K. & Yeandle, S. (2009). A weight off my mind. University of Leeds, is also reported on in Begley, P. (2010). 360 degrees of care. Quality in Aging and Older Adults, 11 (4), pp. 47-50

Domestic Violence

This recent issue of Community Care journal carries a special report on domestic violence with articles on the implications of intervention thresholds for child protection, and engaging more with fathers to improve child protection and prevent domestic violence:

Valios, N. (2011). Fatal consequences of service cuts. Community Care. April 21, 2011, pp16-17.
Carson, G. (2011). Challenging anti-men bias. Community Care.April 21, 2011, pp 18-19.

You can find Community Care at Jordanhill Serials 362 or online via the Suprimo catalogue.

Integration of Roma people under threat?

Efforts to integrate Roma people into the community in Manchester are detailed in the Guardian, in an article which may be of interest to those working with Roma people in Glasgow. Unfortunately funding cuts may jeopardise the progress made so far.

Munro, case recording and ICT

Careknowledge have published the second of their special reports in relation to the Munro Review of Child Protection in England. This one focuses on case recording:
Freeman, I. (2011). Munro and ICT: challenge and opportunity.

A Time to be Heard.

The Scottish Government this week published its response to the recommendations in the Shaw Report, A Time to be Heard, which was a report on the pilot forum to hear the views and experiences of people who had been resident in Quarriers as children. CareKnowledge provides links to both the original report and the government's response.

Social work intervention for recovery

Evidence of the effectiveness of social work interventions for people with alcohol or drug misuse problems is assessed in a new study from the Scottish Government:
Galvani, S., et al. (2011). Social work services and recovery from substance misuse: a review of the evidence. Scottish Government.

Resilient or burned out?

This months issue of the British Journal of Social Work carries an article which should be of interest to those preparing for a career in social work:
Kinman, G. & Grant, L. (2011). Exploring stress resilience in trainee social workers: the role of emotional and social competencies. British Journal of Social Work, 41 (2), pp. 261-275.

For the Record

CareKnowledge are producing a special series of reports on case recording in social work. The first one is a discussion paper looking at case recording from the practitioner's perspective. See Brackenridge, M. (2011). case recording: the essential task on CareKnowledge.

Getting it right for looked after children

Today Ofsted (inspecting in England & Wales) published a report on 12 Outstanding childrens' homes, drawing on the views of young people, staff and management as to what makes these homes so successful.

Food for thought - looked after children

Looked after young people's views are heard in McManus, K. & Morrison, E. (2011). "It's no like one of those cafe places where you can order anything you want": children and young people's views and experiences of food and nutrition in residential care. Scottish Government. This is published in tandem with Scottish government. (2011). Health promotion guidance: nutritional guidance for children and young people in residential care settings.
The Scottish Children looked after statistics 2009-2010 have also been recently published.

Social Work at the Movies

Here is a link to the trailer for Jim Loach's film Oranges and Sunshine, about a Nottingham social worker's investigation of the forced migration of UK childen to Australia, and her work to release information leading to the reuniting of separated families. The film opens in the UK on 1st April.

Munro Interim Report pulished

The second report to come out of the Munro review of child protection, Interim report : Munro, E. (2011)the child's journey, set up in the wake of the Baby P serious case reviews, was published yesterday. In this report Professor Munro's report outlines where the child protection system needs reform and calls for children's needs to be in the forefront of consideration rather than meeting managerial targets and compliance with bureaucracy which have hindered social workers in using their professional judgement. The report also recommends making it easier for other agancies to access social workers for advice and improving the system of serious case review to enable greater information sharing and learning nationally in such cases.
Also reported on in the Guardian, 1 January 2011.

Avoiding mistakes in child protection

The NSPCC have released a a new guide on risk assessment in child protection:
Broadhurst, K.et al. (2011). Ten pitfall and how to avoid them: what research tells us. NSPCC. The authors state that no amount of micro managing procedural guidelines can substitute for the decision making processes professional social workers engage in every day, but hope in this document to help professionals avoid the more common mistakes identified by research. This document is an update of an original included in the 1998 NSPCC report Assessing Risk in Child Protection.

Sexual expolitation of children in Britain

This weeks news has seen much coverage and opinion on the nature and causes of child sexual exploitation, following Jack Straws remarks typifying young Asian men as perpetrators and white girls as victims. The charity Barnardo's has for many years been running projects in Britain to help young people who find themselves victims of this type of crime. Anne Marie Carrie, chief executive of Barnardo's stated in the Guardian, 17 January that such stereotyping is unhelpful, and that what is actually required is for sexual exploitation to be addressed as a child protection issue, with a national action plan, earlier identification and more robust evidence gathering and prosecution procedures to help protect children and punish offenders. Barnardo's published their report Puppet on a string: the urgent need to cut children free from sexual exploitation this week.

How can self funders find good care services?

This month SCIE published People who pay for care: quantitative and qualitative analysis of self-funders in the social care market. This report found that people who have to fund their own care often lack good quality information to enable them to make an informed choice, particularily when their need arise due to a rapid change in circumstances. People who self fund will often not have access to an independent assessment of their needs and the only advice they receive from their local council can be a list of care homes in the area.
More comment on this is available from Melanie Henwood, author of one of the studies in the above report, in the Guardian 18 January.

Human rights in adult care

THe Scottish Human Rights Commision has produced an interactive training resource for people working in elder care. This package can be accessed via this link to the library subscribed CareKnowledge .