Training & events programme

This half day course is aimed at professionals who work with children and families who may benefit from a therapeutic intervention and would like to increase their understanding of different therapeutic approaches. Foster carers, kinship carers and adoptive parents who are considering different options for therapeutic support may also benefit from this training.

This course is designed to support those who have previously attended “The role of the supervising social worker in supervising and supporting foster carers” and now looking to develop their practice further.
On this course you will explore how good quality, challenging supervision can contribute to a high quality of care provided by foster and kinship carers and to establishing and maintaining effective working relationships. We will explore the balancing the potentially conflicting role of the supervising social worker, who needs to balance providing support with the need to sometimes have difficult conversations too.

FREE FOR MEMBERS

This session will explore how AI can support social work practice without weakening professional judgement, and the support, guidance and training required to accompany the use of these tools.

Foster carers are increasingly being asked to care for a parent and their child during care proceedings, and to contribute towards the assessment of parenting capacity. This type of arrangement is complex, involving different tasks and responsibilities.

FREE FOR MEMBERS
The Reflective Fostering Programme is a group intervention for carers looking after children aged between 4 and 12 years. It increases carers’ ability to mentalise about the feelings and thoughts of themselves and the child leading to lower levels of stress and burnout and a better relationship with the child. In this session, we unpack the latest research studies on the effectiveness of the reflective fostering programme in supporting foster carers.

This course is an opportunity to consider what we know about staying in touch from research, including what works well, the voices of those with lived experience, and aspects that may present challenges or need more support.

This course is an opportunity to explore the unique context of kinship care and assessment of prospective kinship carers. Participants will explore professional and personal values and gain knowledge of what constitutes a robust kinship assessment within the legal and regulatory framework. The course will consider different assessment tools that can be used in kinship assessment practice, triangulation of information and effective support planning.

FREE FOR MEMBERS
Our social work practice must be guided by the values and principles of anti-racist practice and cultural humility. This means embedding them into all aspects of our work with families, bringing self-awareness of our own biases, assumptions and privileges, and centering families’ lived experience. 

This course is an opportunity to understand key concepts and consider why anti-racist practice and cultural humility matter. You will be supported to explore how you can build relationships with families that honour diverse perspectives and recognise unique needs, and explore tools to enable you to better understand the identities of children and their families. You will then consider how this understanding can be applied to your practice to develop culturally appropriate assessments and interventions that reflect the lived realities of children and families and take account of their intersecting identities.

Accurate and succinct minutes are an essential part of many meeting processes. They provide a formal record of the discussions and recommendations, and are used for a variety of purposes following the meeting including to inform decision-making, to contribute to child and carer files, and to provide an account of decision-made when children or adults access their files in the future. This course will help you learn the statutory and good practice requirements around minute-taking across various meeting contexts, including fostering and adoption panels, disruption meetings, carer reviews and professionals meetings. You will have the opportunity to practice skills to ensure your minutes are accurate, informative and of high quality.

Panel advisers have a complex role in managing the relationship between the agency and the panel, quality assuring and feeding back to all involved in panel work. This open course will enable panel advisors to examine this role in detail and build on effective practice as they carry out their role and responsibilities including: quality assurance; inducting new panel members; contributing to the appraisals of panel members; feeding back issues to the agency and working with the agency decision maker. Case scenarios, group work and practice application will provide opportunities for panel advisors to address shared dilemmas and good practice.