Addressing domestic abuse can be stressful and challenging, but it’s Danielle English’s passion. She wakes up most mornings eager to join her team in Surrey county council’s children’s services because she knows she’s in a position to make a tangible difference to the lives of families in her care. She also has the support of a multidisciplinary team around her to do it.
It was not always the case. In the past she’s had times when she’s felt powerless to help protect a family because of a lack of support. All that has changed now, since the introduction of the new service model to Surrey children’s services, which has transformed the way social work teams approach families.
“There is total transparency,” says English. “I feel much more supported and I get to concentrate on an area I feel very passionately about. I’m working with the survivor, but I am also working with the child as well to make sure that children have the chance to grow up in families without the threat of violence.”
The success of the Family Safeguarding model, introduced to Surrey in January 2020, is at the heart of a major recruitment drive. It aims to attract social workers to a service that in less than six months has halved the number of children on child protection plans, and at the same time increased the job satisfaction of people like English.
The Family Safeguarding model is a radical approach pioneered by Hertfordshire county council, focusing on keeping families together with a team of specialist workers to help find solutions. In Hertfordshire’s case it reduced the number of children on child protection plans by 55% in 30 months, cut adult A&E admissions by 53% and domestic abuse call outs by 66%.
It works by tackling the adult problems that cause children to be in need or at risk, for example drug or alcohol use and mental health problems. Domestic abuse and adult mental health and substance misuse workers are embedded into multidisciplinary teams alongside children’s social workers, who are trained in motivational interviewing. In this way, adult specialist workers can intervene in a way that really creates change. Social workers, for example, can do the work they were trained to do, working hand-in-hand with families to resolve problems and improve parenting.
The model has also been adopted by a number of councils including Peterborough and Oxfordshire. Teams work closely with GPs, probation services, schools and police to identify potential problems early, to support parents and carers.
Surrey children’s services needed something of a revolution, after two consecutive Ofsted ratings of “inadequate”. It received a grant from the Department for Education of £4.2m over three years to support the implementation of the Family Safeguarding model. The grant is now funding 33 specialist posts (including co-located drug and alcohol workers and psychologists) to join multidisciplinary teams, but to complete the process they need to recruit approximately 60 experienced social workers. They will work in one of four quadrants based at Redhill, Walton-on-Thames, Woking and Guildford.
“If you want to improve the life of a child, you have to improve the life of the whole family,” says the executive director of Surrey children’s service, Dave Hill. He is clear that Surrey is part-way on a trajectory and needs experienced social workers to complete the transformation.
“We’re not there yet but we have come a huge distance in two years,” he says. “The first phase was the introduction of a dramatic remedy, and now we’re at the end of the second stage of getting it embedded. If you want to come on a journey to see it completed, this is a good time to join us.
“We need people who are solid and decent but who have new ideas and are prepared to work differently. The moment you stop questioning you are sunk.”
Social workers joining Surrey can expect to spend 75% of their time with families and 25% on report writing, rather than the reverse when Hill arrived. Caseloads have come down in two years from 39 to 22 per social worker and the aim is to reach 15 as soon as possible. Language too has changed to reflect the new philosophy – instead of making referrals, families make “a request for support”.
The council is in the process of reviewing its current salary package with the view to being able to offer a new competitive salary package that reflects the value placed on staff at a time of transformation. Both social workers and senior social workers have a bespoke programme of professional development developed by the Children’s Service Academy, and will be supported to become practice educators with a clear professional development pathway.
Opportunities beckon to apply for the new role of advanced social worker, with a significantly lower caseload of complex cases, in the assessment, looked-after children or safeguarding teams, supporting the team manager to develop social workers who have less experience in the field.
English has a strong feeling of being on an adventure. She says: “This is just the beginning. I have the opportunity to shape what the service is going to look like in the future. It is something I find really exciting.”
*Since this interview was recorded, Dave Hill, the executive director of children’s services at Surrey county council, sadly died. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
