Training & events programme

This session will look at the relationship-based practice model in family justice pioneered by social workers and lawyers in Sussex. We will explore its impact on local practice and its role in fostering a culture of respect and inclusion within the family justice system.

FREE FOR MEMBERS
Children and Families Across Borders (CFAB), a leading charity specialising in cross-border social work cases and the UK representative of the International Social Service network. In this sessions we will be exploring some of their inter-country Child Protection Work and the interactions between UK local authorities and foreign authorities.

This open course aims to give new and recently appointed fostering and adoption panel members an opportunity to develop their role as effective panel members and to consider the tasks and responsibilities involved. This will be within the context of the current legislative framework and emerging messages from research. Fostering and adoption/permanency panel work is challenging to all concerned in the process. This course is intended to share issues, dilemmas and best practice.

OPEN TO ALL
As the UK’s leading membership organisation for professionals working across adoption, fostering and kinship care we want to equip professionals like you with the knowledge, best practices, and resources needed to improve the lives of children and young people. This is why we are launching a breakfast webinar series to help you “get started in adoption, fostering and kinship care.

Cultural competence involves ensuring our attitudes, communication and behaviours recognise and respect cultural differences. As social workers, in whatever our role, it’s essential we are continually working towards cultural competence in our practice. In this open course, you will be supported to explore some of the key concepts within cultural competence and anti-oppressive practice, and then apply this learning to your practice. It will include exploration of how personal and professional identities can impact on the decisions we make in our professional roles.

This course is an opportunity to explore the legal and practice framework of private fostering, including thinking about how to identify and work with this often unseen group of children. It will include explanation of the respective responsibilities of parents, private foster carers and local authorities, when private fostering arrangements are made. Since the war in Ukraine, some Ukrainian children who have travelled to the UK for safety, are living in private fostering arrangements, and this introductory course will also briefly explore their needs.

The Good Practice Guide, Safeguarding Children living with Foster Carers, Adopters and Special Guardians: Learning from case reviews 2007–2019, is based on a UK wide study of 52 case reviews concerning 98 children who had experienced serious harm while living with foster carers, adopters or special guardians. The study spans 12 years and is the first to focus exclusively on reviews of cases of children in alternative family care. It shines a spotlight on those issues particular to these children – selection and assessment of carers; support for children and carers; and the supervision and management of arrangements.

FREE FOR MEMBERS
The objects around us are intertwined with our feelings and experiences. Exploring our relationship with objects can help us tell our stories and give us a greater understanding of other people and ourselves. This free taster session is an introduction to some of the concepts we will be looking at in full training session.

The responsibilities of a Chair can be considerable. Whereas some duties may be clearly outlined in related practice guidance along with the qualities that ensure effective chairing, not all Chair responsibilities are so helpfully detailed or provided. This workshop will explore general planning for and facilitation of panels and complex meetings in the children’s sector. It will explore time management and group facilitation whilst holding the child at the centre of thinking, recommendations and decision making. It will enable Chairs of meetings to consider good practice and approaches to effectively managing the flow of information, summarising and the formation of key action plans.

This two hour training is aimed at local authority professionals – both social workers and lawyers - who are involved in the placement of children currently living in the UK to kinship carers overseas on a Special Guardianship Order. It will provide an overview of the legal and practice issues regarding special guardianship for children being placed abroad. There will then be ample time to discuss issues in overseas cases during the case study and group discussion.