Question: how do you make it relationship-based?

Published by Professional Social Work magazine - 12 April, 2019

Four-and-a-half years ago Brighton and Hove’s children’s services took a look at itself and didn’t like what it saw. Families were saying they were fed up with frequently changing social workers and having to constantly retell their story. Social workers said they didn’t have time for direct work, were working in a system that was too bureaucratic and didn’t feel valued and supported.

“We also knew from our own quality assurances we weren’t performing well," said Tom Stibbs, principal social worker for children and families at Brighton and Hove Council, speaking at BASW England's 80:20 conference.

“So we developed a vision of what good social work might look like. That vision was relationship-based practice.”

Turning this into reality was not just about “sending our social workers on a training course” but implementing a “whole system change” informed by guiding principles.

These principles were:

• Continuity – between practitioners and families rather than constant change
• Consistency – families knowing there is always someone they can contact in a team
• Collaboration – between professionals rather than working in silos
• Culture shift – from one of blame to a learning culture that inspires “trust and confidence”

To make this happen, the authority recognised a service redesign was required. Teams were restructured into pods consisting of a team manager, two full-time equivalent senior social workers and up to five social workers, a newly qualified worker and a business support worker.

Greater focus was put on supervision, both on a one-to-one basis and within groups to aid collaborative “reflective decision-making”.

A “one story” model of assessment and recording information was introduced so families no longer had to keep repeating themselves and workers spent less time form filling.

Social workers were expected to do direct parenting work with families themselves rather than referring this out to ‘social work resource officers’ as previously happened.

Stibbs says: “It was a contentious decision not to have that anymore because we want social workers to do direct work - to pick up children in care and transport them and have those conversations you have in cars, to do the direct parenting work with parents because that is how you build relationships. Having social workers working with the whole family not just being the child’s social workers.”

As well as structural changes, creating the cultural shift was critical to success, says Stibbs. The theory being a less punitive, blaming and data collecting approach with families wouldn’t work if it didn’t also exist organisationally.

 “What we were aspiring to do was build an idea of relationship-based management and leadership. We wanted a culture that is based on trust and openness. We wanted a culture that prioritises relationships, containment and direct work.”

Stibbs stresses containment against the pressures of being a social worker is “the most important thing an organisation can do”.

“It’s containment of working in stressful situations but also around organisational anxiety. Worrying about deadlines, timescales or being on the front page of a tabloid. A really important part for us as an organisation is to support workers with that.

“If organisationally we can help social workers be the best practitioner they can be that might mean they can go off and help families be the best that they can be.”

One innovative way of achieving this was the introduction of ‘reflective practice groups’. Once a month all staff meet for an hour 15 minutes to explore the “felt aspect” of their work. Brighton and Hove was the first local authority to work with charity The Centre for Social Work Practice to introduce the groups. To ensure the culture shift is embedded, they run through the whole service, with managers at every level also taking part.

So has it made a difference? Brighton and Hove say compliments from service users have gone up from 14 in 2015/16 to 108 in 2017/18. Complaints have gone down from 112 to 44.

The number of children on child protection plans has reduced 17 per cent from October 2015 to January 2019, those in care by 21 per cent and children subject to care applications went from 26 per quarter in 2016-17 to 15 in 2018-19. The authority, however, cautions that the reductions are from a previously high starting point.

Social workers seem to like the new way of working too. Ofsted notes “social work morale is high and they enjoy working for Brighton and Hove”. Asked whether they feel safe and supported, 64 per cent said yes in October 2016 rising to 89 per cent earlier this year.

Perhaps most tellingly, at a time where nearly half of social workers at some local authorities are agency employed, Brighton and Hove has none.

“When people join us I ask them why they want to work for us and the most common reason is the relationship model,” says Stibbs.

BASW England's 80:20 campaign aims to shift the balance of time social workers spend in favour of direct work with people rather than administrative tasks. As part of the campaign, it seeks to highlight good practice where relationship-based work is happening across the country.

This article is published by Professional Social work magazine which provides a platform for a range of perspectives across the social work sector. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the British Association of Social Workers