A Study on Senior Managers’ Views of Participation in One Local Authority… a Case of Wilful Blindness?

Abstract

Children in care are one of the most vulnerable groups in our society and senior managers should be committed towards improving their well-being. Empowerment through participation can contribute to this. This study considered the extent to which young people in care were encouraged to participate in decision making, particularly in their review meetings. The paper explores the views of seven senior managers in one local authority in this regard. It formed part of a wider study in which social workers, independent reviewing officers and young people in care were also interviewed. Findings indicate a disconnect between senior managers’ views and other participants. Senior managers were unaware of the challenges that the social workers and independent reviewing officers said they faced. Their understanding of meaningful participation appeared to be limited, their curiosity subdued and their willingness to challenge limited. Senior managers informed that care plans were not up-to-date or considered at the review and were unsure about what opportunities children had to participate and how management could support this. Senior managers reflected that little seemed to have changed in relation to children’s participation in their reviews over the last twenty-five years.

Barriers children face complaining about social work practice: A study in one English local authority

“…In the broader research, it was noted that senior managers took little responsibility for service failings, instead directing these towards individual social workers (Diaz & Aylward, ). The Munro review of child protection () argued that social workers need to assert their professional standing and develop their expertise in working with families and that this would subsequently lead to a move away from the compliance and blame culture within child protection services towards a learning culture in which professional judgement and effective relationships with service users improve services to vulnerable children and families.…”

“…The findings of this study suggest that this may be due to the existence of a "blame culture" in which social workers are fearful of being blamed when a child they are working with makes a complaint. The suggestion here, then, is that social workers, to some extent, have to keep the child on board and, as Lipsky (1980, p. 54) In the broader research, it was noted that senior managers took little responsibility for service failings, instead directing these towards individual social workers (Diaz & Aylward, 2019). The Munro review of child protection (2011) argued that social workers need to assert their professional standing and develop their expertise in working with families and that this would subsequently lead to a move away from the compliance and blame culture within child protection services towards a learning culture in which professional judgement and effective relationships with service users improve services to vulnerable children and families.…”

Do performance indicators predict Ofsted ratings? An exploratory study of children’s services in England

“…And powerful arms of the state, such as local authorities, do need regulation (albeit regulation and inspection are not the same thing). Senior leaders cannot always assume they know their own organisations well (Diaz and Aylward, 2018) and we need mechanisms in place to ensure underperforming services can be identified, supported and where necessary challenged to improve.…”

How are policies implemented in children's services? Developing an initial programme theory to evaluate the implementation of the new Child Sexual Exploitation guidance in Wales

“…This raises issues in terms of effective policy implementation as it widely known that social workers have high caseloads (Diaz, 2020), so it is unlikely they will have the opportunity to read extensive policy documents in their own time (Diaz & Aylward, 2019). Because the new Welsh CSE guidance is over 100 pages long, it seems unrealistic What emerged from this finding is that while practitioners found it difficult to absorb large-scale complicated policy guidance in an undiluted form, they greatly valued the opportunity to discuss new policies as a group and with their managers.…”