Reimagining Social Work: Insights Inspired by Daphne McKenna | BASW Kent Branch Event
We warmly invite you to join us for an engaging online event exploring learning from the BASW film Daphne McKenna – A Life in Social Work. Created following Daphne’s death in 2020 and made during lockdown, the film celebrates her life and the profound impact of her long, values driven and inspiring career. Daphne’s story illustrates how social work values, skills and knowledge can evolve with changing times while remaining timeless in their core principles—across work with adults, children, families and communities. The event will feature a panel discussion with Daphne’s partner David Morris and two of her colleagues who were closely involved in the making of the film. Together, they will reflect on Daphne’s legacy and open a wider conversation about the future of community social work. The session will explore key questions shaping contemporary practice, including: • How can social work practice best draw on the history of professional practice innovation as well as on current developments in the profession; what can earlier practice models teach us about shaping the future?
• To what extent is current social work practice holistic in the sense of operating within local communities and:
• how should we think about the potential for a SW practice that actively utilises and integrates the value of community assets; does SW have a role in mobilising this?
• How are statutory social work roles and responsibilities to be navigated when working alongside communities in a way that also supports prevention; what is the proper role for professional supervision in supporting or enabling such innovation?
• Is it time to re-imagine what social work could be? First 30 minutes: Panel reflections from David Morris and colleagues involved in the film. Following discussion: Open floor for questions, debate and shared reflection with attendees. To support a vibrant and meaningful discussion, we ask that all attendees watch the film in advance. It is available here: https://basw.co.uk/articles/basw-marks-world-mental-health-day
David Morris - David is Emeritus Professor at the University of Lancashire where he established and led the Centre for Citizenship and Community. This grew out of Connected Communities, an earlier collaboration between the University and the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and was concerned with practical research on change through networks, developing social value and models of inter-dependence. Previously, David founded and led the cross -government National Programme for Social Inclusion and Mental Health, established within the National Institute for Mental Health in England (NIMHE) to implement the findings of the Social Exclusion Unit’s report of 2005. David’s earlier career was in social work and social work management in London boroughs and across Surrey; in the NHS, as lead for Mental Health in South Thames Regional Health Authority and in the MH team at the Department of Health. As Senior Social Worker in South Lewisham, with Daphne McKenna he developed the Northover MH Centre in the 1980’s. He has been interested in community engagement and social networks as a route to inclusion in mental health ever since; an interest that has led to many national and international research and service development collaborations.
Alan Fisher - Alan has been a social worker for all his working life, working mainly with children and families. Establishing in the late 1980s a community social work office in the area of Lewisham in which the Northover Centre was established remains the most vivid, challenging and fulfilling experience of his career. He is currently a consultant and practitioner in the independent not-for-profit fostering sector.
Lynn Baxter - I have always enjoyed working with children, young people and their families. I started as a primary school teacher, then a social worker and child care coordinator in Southwark and Lewisham and as a freelance trainer and for the Family Rights Group. I’d always wanted to know what type of practices work best for children and families and particularly for those children and young people at risk of coming into care, those in care and about to leave. While in Lewisham I involved the borough in research by the University of East Anglia on Parental involvement in Care and Child protection reviews and later as part of my MA at Kings ColIege, I undertook research on Looked After children’s experiences of LAC reviews.
All these experiences have convinced me that best practice and planning for children and families is achieved only if all relevant people and community agencies are involved in working towards the same goals, with and not just for the children and young people and their families. However, to involve everyone in such planning demands developed communication skills and honesty as to one’s professional authority and its limits. These skills can be effectively developed through reflective practice and supervision. I hope to have contributed to this learning in my role as Social Care lecturer at Sussex, East London and Greenwich Universities.