The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the response to the pandemic are combining to produce a tidal wave of need for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation will be needed for survivors of COVID-19, many of whom are older, with underlying health problems. In addition, rehabilitation will be needed for those who have become deconditioned as a result of movement restrictions, social isolation, and inability to access healthcare for pre-existing or new non-COVID-19 illnesses. Delivering rehabilitation in the same way as before the pandemic will not be practical, nor will this approach meet the likely scale of need for rehabilitation. This commentary reviews the likely rehabilitation needs of older people both with and without COVID-19 and discusses how strategies to deliver effective rehabilitation at scale can be designed and implemented in a world living with COVID-19.

The home visit is a key aspect of child and family social work. Following the announcement of lockdown in England, all but the most urgent of home visits 'went virtual' overnight. During lockdown, we spoke to 31 child and family social workers across nine local authorities in England as they began to undertake virtual home visits. Here, we focus on social workers' reflections on virtual practice and consider the possibilities, limitations and future implications of virtual home visiting.

This paper outlines research findings on the relevance of the Secure Base model (Schofield & Beek, 2014) for developing supportive teams in child and family social work. When the social work team functions as a secure base, this can help workers cope with the emotional demands of the role. The concept of the secure base comes from attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969) in which our relationships with significant others, who are available, sensitive to our needs and reliable, provide us with a secure base to return to when life is stressful and provide us with comforting internal mental models when we are physically away from them. This ‘secure base for exploration’ reduces anxiety and enables us to engage with the world, consider the internal world of others (empathy) and remain resilient when life is stressful. Using data from 52 phone interviews with child and family social workers across eight local authorities in the UK, we show how the Secure Base model has relevance for emotion regulation and resilience for child and family social workers. Data were analysed using Theoretical Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In the context of the emotional demands of social work, our data indicate that the supervisors and teams provide a work related secure base across five dimensions by behaving in ways which instil these beliefs: Availability -‘People are there for me’; Sensitivity - ‘My feelings are manageable’; Acceptance - I don't always have to be strong’; Cooperation - ‘I can work with others to find a solution’; Team belonging - ‘I am valued and I belong’. Implications for practice are proposed to help supervisors and team members reflect on beliefs and behaviours which can help provide a secure base for their teams

Purpose Social work teams can provide a secure base for social workers, supporting them to manage the emotional demands of child and family social work (Biggart et al., 2017). As the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated increased remote working, social workers have needed to maximise their use of virtual networks and navigate new ways of connecting with colleagues. This study aims to examine the extent to which social work teams can function as a secure base in the context of remote working. Design/methodology/approach Between 19th March and 13th June, the authors undertook 31 in-depth, qualitative interviews with child and family social workers across 9 local authorities in England. this research captured social workers’ perspectives on remote working and team support throughout lockdown in England. Findings In this study, the authors report findings in three key areas: how social workers experienced the sudden shift to increased remote working; how social work teams provided a secure base for remote working; and the challenges for sustaining the team as a secure base when working remotely. Originality/value These findings will be of interest to social workers, managers and local authorities as they adapt to the challenges of increased remote working in child and family social work.

In the current economic climate and considering changes in guidelines there is a need to evaluate current service provision and enhance services. However, attention needs to be paid to the practical and realistic application of the suggested guidance.

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This article conceptualises the role of intuition in professional judgement. It draws on findings from an empirical study of home visiting in child and family social work. The study used a psychosocial analysis of narrative interviews (n = 18) to investigate how workers constructed a professional judgement in relation to an initial home visit. In contrast to deliberative or analytic reasoning, intuition is defined as a non-conscious mode of reasoning, allowing the individual to reach a rapid judgement about a situation or person, often with striking accuracy. In this study, CFSWs' intuitions during their first encounter with the family were an important source of information for their assessment of risk -their emotional responses, 'niggles' and 'gut feelings' sensitised them to potentially salient information before it was rationally accessible. The study identifies five patterns used by CFSWs (CFSWs) to assess risk during the initial encounter with parents: openness, coherence, emotional congruence, child focus and personal responsibility. It is argued that intuition is a product of experience, and is an important part of CFSWs' decision-making toolkit. However, when accepted uncritically, intuitive reasoning can represent a risk for professional judgement through the creation of bias. The article identifies specific biases relevant to judgements made on the basis of an initial visit.

This article offers a new conceptualisation of sensemaking in social work assessment. During assessment, social workers are required to make sense of a wide range of information. This may include written reports, behavioural cues, verbal, sensory and emotional data. In this article, the term 'sensemaking' is used to refer to the processes through which social workers gather, select and interpret this varied, and often incomplete, information during assessment. Sensemaking is defined as a psychosocial process which precedes and underpins professional judgement and decision-making. While there has been interest in how social workers assess risk to children, the sensemaking process that occurs before a decision is made has received less attention, and sensemaking lacks a clear definition. Drawing on existing research on assessment and theoretical literature from the fields of psychology and organisational studies, this article offers a view of sensemaking through three lenses: sensemaking as intuitive process, sensemaking as social storytelling and sensemaking as an emotionally-informed process. Drawing together key features from these three perspectives, we advance six propositions about sensemaking in child and family assessment: 1) sensemaking is a process of formulation; 2) sensemaking involves movement between conscious and non-conscious processes; 3) sensemaking can be developed through experience and learning through reflection; 4) sensemaking is inseparable from the environment in which it takes place 5) sensemaking is a dialogic process; 6) sensemaking is an emotionally-informed as well as cognitive process. The article concludes with the implications of this conceptualisation of sensemaking for assessment in child and family social work.