Note of the Children and Families PSW Network event on 24 January 2023

Your chairs (Clare Poyner, Paul McGee and Rob Tyrrell) welcomed everyone to the network event and set out the day’s key purpose:

• We focussed on our priorities on taking up the co-chair role in September 2023 and how this has developed, while maintaining a distributive and collaborative focus.
• We remain committed to connecting principal children and families social workers across the regions and through increasing connections and dialogue, building practice confidence across social work and highlighting learning and information sharing on key areas highlighted by member of the network.

Talk by Brid Featherstone on ‘Poverty Aware Practice - Hopeful and Helpful Conversations’

• Identifying an evidence base for why understanding poverty matters in protecting children and supporting families.
• What helps or hinders conversations within and between organisations on this topic.
• Available resources that can support these increasingly important hopeful and helpful conversations.

Catch-up with Felicity Allen/Department for Education

• Felicity looked ahead to the government’s responses to the Independent Care Review.

Anti-Racist Practice in Action by Brighton & Hove (Tom Stibbs, Millie Kerr and Lore Riedel)

• The network had identified as a key priority the need to build on opportunities for anti-racist social work practice, following the lead and challenge set by the previous network chairs. Brighton & Hove demonstrate a growing model for dialogue and action.
• Tom talked about how Brighton & Hove has put anti-racist practice into action, including the challenges and learning from this.
• Millie discussed her role as Lead Practitioner.
• Lore looked at the many aspects of allyship and how we support each other, including how we can provide a more inclusive space for Black and global majority workers.
• Principal social workers were encouraged to consider what they could take away and put into action.

Professor Eileen Munro discussed proposals and questions for a National Practice Framework consultation

• This highlighted the crucial role and influence of the principal social worker in informing and influencing development and application of a National Practice Framework within a crowded and contested environment.

Presentation by Anna Glinski from the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse on ‘Working with children and families where there are concerns of child sexual abuse’

• The scale and nature of child sexual abuse.
• The challenges in practice.
• Resources to support practice.