Liz Hoggarth: Outcome evaluation – help is on the way

“Many of us react instinctively against further demands to produce evidence, especially quantitative information – we know all too well that progress with clients is made up of tiny, often faltering, steps forward that are extremely difficult to demonstrate or quantify. There are downsides to the outcomes approach as there are to other systems of planning and evaluation. But the question of outcomes is a perfectly legitimate one. The number of visits made to a family is beside the point if the risks are not picked up and appropriate interventions are not identified to begin to help people deal with the problems. The number of counselling sessions provided is hardly important if in the end they made no difference for the person seeking help. We must address outcomes in order to improve services.”

February 26, 2010May 8, 2017Counselling

Jenny Weinstein on Service User Involvement in Mental Health Care

“Working with service users has taught me that professionals like me, however experienced or well trained we think we are, often miss the most important issues from a user’s perspective. I believe that hearing service users’ views and having service users involved centrally in all aspects of planning, developing and evaluating services is absolutely vital to ensure high quality services that are fit for purpose.”

February 15, 2010Autism

Ilona Roth: Some thoughts on International Aspergers Day 2010

“…just when the concept of Asperger has become so firmly established in both clinical practice and public understanding, the latest report from the DSM-V Neurodevelopmental Disorders Work Group signals the likelihood that Asperger syndrome, and other diagnostic ‘sub-types’ within the spectrum will be replaced by a single label, ‘autism spectrum disorder’ […] to those for whom the label ‘Asperger syndrome’ is a badge of identity, the change may be unwelcome. For others, it may bring greater recognition of the difficulties experienced even at the ‘high-functioning’ end of the spectrum…”

January 15, 2010Social work

Kieran O’Hagan on Competence in Social Work Practice

“…why is it that a very small number of social workers who have striven so hard to qualify and who have demonstrably proven their competence at the end of their training fail to maintain it in practice? […] It certainly cannot happen overnight. The reports often expose terrible working conditions, e.g., inadequate supervision and resources, and unrealistic caseloads (and that’s even without mention of exceedingly difficult and often intimidating clients). All of these factors may adversely affect the worker’s level of performance, and in some cases, make it virtually impossible to maintain the level of competence already achieved in practice placements, and amply recorded and demonstrated in workers’ portfolio. Therein I believe, lies both the problem and the solution…”

January 15, 2010Autism

Article by Phoebe Caldwell: Using Intensive Interaction to turn ‘aloneness’ into shared interest

“Contrary to what is normally understood, children on the autistic spectrum do recognise when we use their own body language to communicate, provided we respond using the repertoire of their personal behaviours. We are shifting their attention from solitary self-stimulation to shared activity, remembering that what is important is not just what they do – but how they do it, since this tells us how they feel.”

December 15, 2009Counselling

Christiane Sanderson on Counselling Survivors of Interpersonal Trauma

“…practitioners need to ensure they do not hide behind protocols and prescriptive techniques in order to create an authentic human relationship in which to truly understand their client and undo the dehumanisation inherent in interpersonal abuse.”

November 15, 2009Social work

Mary Wilkinson honours nine great disabled leaders

“Much had been written about disability from a medical, academic or social science stand point, but no one had looked at disabled leaders as a group, told their stories, shown how they came to achieve what they did and how the modern history of disability has been played out in their lives…”

October 15, 2009Social work

Fergus McNeill and Monica Barry on Youth Offending and Youth Justice

“…the preoccupation with ‘youth’ is at the expense of ‘justice’. Too readily such systems exist or at least function so as to punish and to challenge individual young people rather than to question the extent to which the wider society is as much, if not more, to blame for the disadvantages they face.”

September 15, 2009Social work

David Carson: What can Social Workers do to avoid being criticised – or sued?

“I had asked my social work students what additional topics they would like me to lecture upon. As a law lecturer I had explained how they could be sued for negligence and how easily they, and their evidence, could be misrepresented in court. So I should not have been surprised when they said they wanted to know how to take decisions that would avoid liability…”

July 15, 2009Adoption and Fostering

Linda Goldman: Children Living with Fear – Recognizing and Healing the Trauma

“Traumatized children tend to re-create their trauma, often experiencing bad dreams, waking fears, and reoccurring flashbacks.. Young children have a very hard time putting these behaviours into any context of safety. Many withdraw and isolate themselves, regress and appear anxious, and develop sleeping and eating disorders as a mask for the deep interpretations of their trauma.”