New Zealander Caitlin Hanley has been working for Wandsworth children’s services since July 2018. Having spent time at two other London boroughs as an agency locum worker, she then transferred to Wandsworth, which took on her visa sponsorship and offered her a permanent job.
Hanley is a member of a five-strong referral and assessment team, one of six in the borough (recently expanded from four). Each team is on duty for four days, followed by four weeks working with referred families. Wandsworth uses a multi-agency safeguarding hub (Mash) model, which means that practitioners from the police, health, probation and the local authority form a single team to share information and decision-making when a child is identified as potentially being at risk. During the duty week, Hanley and her colleagues take referrals from the Mash team, and in the succeeding weeks they identify what support the families need, complete assessments and liaise with other professionals working with those families.
It’s a job she finds very rewarding: “I love social work – I will never do anything else. No two cases are ever the same, so I love the variety that we see. We work on everything from child protection to families with no recourse to public funds. You interact with people who face a variety of challenges in their lives and you get to make really positive change.”
One court case in particular, which involved reuniting a 12-year-old girl with her father, has stayed with her: “It’s still a lengthy piece of work for the longer-term team, but that was a very heartwarming, satisfying and rewarding process.”
Wandsworth has a strong commitment to encouraging its staff to develop professionally and to progress their careers. Luke Fitzgerald, Hanley’s team manager, joined as a social worker in 2015, rose quickly to senior social worker, and then to assistant team manager before taking on his current role. The emphasis on nurturing professional skills is something Hanley has benefited from. “Wandsworth was willing to invest in me even when I was an agency worker, and that hasn’t stopped. Training is a priority for them. And that’s not something I felt in my other boroughs – they said to me: ‘You’re too busy, you can’t go to that training.’ Whereas I’ve never experienced that in Wandsworth.”
Hanley has also found Wandsworth a “welcoming” place to work: “It’s very friendly, people smile, say hello to each other, ask how people are.”
Like all social work roles, however, the job can be challenging at times. Dealing with families in crisis can have an emotional impact, says Fitzgerald, but members of the team watch out for each other: “We try to support each other, try to check in with each other, make sure people are OK, that they’re coping. If they’re working with a particularly complex family, we give them time and space to think about how that work is making them feel, and encourage people to take leave regularly even though they’re working from home.”
Hanley agrees that the backing is there: “I could not do this job without the support I have – my team is incredible.”
In spring 2021, Wandsworth’s children’s services will adopt the family safeguarding model pioneered by Hertfordshire council. This model recognises that many families face the combined problems of domestic abuse, parental substance misuse and parental mental ill health. It tackles them by creating multidisciplinary teams that bring together different agencies, including police, mental health, probation and substance misuse services. Social workers will be trained in motivational interviewing, which means listening to parents sympathetically and working together to create a plan of how they would like to change.
Fitzgerald is looking forward to adopting the model: “What I like about it is it seems very multi-agency. Rather than having to work with outside organisations or services, you have an internal worker who has that specialty so you can seek their advice and guidance or even involve them in joint work.”
Working in an inner-London borough isn’t for everyone, but Wandsworth – which takes in Battersea, Putney, Tooting, Roehampton and Wandsworth Town – has a lot to recommend it. “I think it’s a beautiful borough,” says Hanley. “I love how green it is and I love walking to home visits – there are so many green parks to walk through. When I can take public transport, I love that it’s well-connected.”
Fitzgerald, who cycles to work, enjoys the borough’s diversity: “There are a lot of different nationalities and cultures. We work across the borough with different families with different needs and issues, and each area of the borough is unique and different in terms of its own culture.” It’s also “very cosmopolitan”, he adds, with “lots of good places to go out to lunch”, as well as a theatre and cinemas.
For Hanley, working in Wandsworth has been “hugely positive” and “exactly what I need”, particularly when she is so far from home: “I have felt so hugely supported in Wandsworth and the people I work with are amazing – like my family really.”
