‘Thoughtful’ practice: child care social work and the role of case discussion

Abstract

Since the publication of Lord Laming’s inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbé there have been a number of insightful and thoughtful papers into the professional context and circumstances that surrounded this tragedy. Those papers highlight the insufficient thought given to the psychosocial dimensions of Victoria’s situation, their impact on professional practice and the support needs of practitioners. This paper explores the tensions between ‘doing’ and ‘thinking’ in contemporary practice and draws on psychodynamic concepts to inform our understanding of why individuals and organizations behave in repetitiously compulsive ways. A case discussion model is outlined and its potential for addressing the psychodynamic demands facing practitioners and front‐line managers is considered.

Embedding the Notion of Child- and Family-Centered Care into Organizational Practice: Learning from Organizational Visioning

“…Ruch (2007) confirms the importance of case discussions in, what she calls, "thoughtful" child welfare practice. She calls for a case discussion model to overcome external and internal obstacles to thinking to create "safe spaces" in which practitioners can share uncertainties and think creatively.…”

Refocusing Child Protection Supervision: An Innovative Approach to Supporting Practitioners

“…Thus, it retains a technicalÁrational element (because arguably this is needed), but this is tempered by other foci that encourage critical views of practice. Ruch (2007b) offers support to the views of other scholars such as Cooper (2005) and Ferguson (2005), who argue that child protection practitioners need to be nurtured, supported and emotionally protected in their work. But Ruch (2007b) argues that these authors do not make explicit suggestions for how these needs are to be met.…”

What makes it so hard to look and to listen? Exploring the use of the Cognitive and Affective Supervisory Approach with children’s social work managers

“…The reflective groups worked to a broadly similar agenda for each meeting, with one member in each of the groups presenting an experience of using the CASA; the person presenting was invited to talk about the supervision example (without interruption from the rest of the group), highlighting whatever seemed pertinent to them; they then withdrew from the group and listened as the other participants reflected on what they had heard. Underpinning this reflective discussion model (Ruch, 2007) is the intention that taking the presenter out of the group avoids the group falling into a default 'problem solving interrogation' approach, a phenomenon all too common in such groups (and also in supervision sessions, we would suggest). Rather, by creating a reflective space participants are invited to engage more deeply and inclusively with the case material presented: more deeply in terms of their affective as well as their cognitive responses and more inclusively in terms of their curiosity, 'noticing what they notice' and noticing too what might be getting overlooked or whose voices might be marginalised.…”