Vanisha Jassal, a Senior Lecturer in Advanced Child Protection in the School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Research, has commented on the UK Government’s announcement (22 May 2020) that it will allocate £6.5 million to put social workers in schools to support children at risk. She said:
‘Inter-agency collaboration has been a cornerstone of UK safeguarding and child protection policies and legislation over several decades, simply because bringing together professionals and services who are involved in a vulnerable child’s life, facilitates a more complete perspective of that child’s world.
‘This month’s announcement by the Government that it is to allocate £6.5 million to locate social workers within schools is an additional, seemingly quite radical step towards this continued endeavour. Most safeguarding referrals are made by schools so the working relationship between them and social care is an important one and one which can be marred by barriers related to single agency work pressures, organisational cultures and at times, misunderstandings and misinterpretations of what ought to be the best course of action for children and their families.
‘Having social workers placed within schools is no doubt seeking to address some of these barriers as well as providing the opportunity for social workers to identify at risk children earlier; a key aim of the initiative. A related strand is the importance of creating more stable and consistent relationships with families which can be a highly challenging area of social work practice. Schools are well placed to nurture and strengthen such ties and so social work professionals will undoubtedly benefit from the proximity that school life brings to the lived experiences of children and their families.
‘Pilots of the scheme have demonstrated some successful results and the policy appears to be a promising and hopeful one. That said, there have been, and will continue to be, inevitable issues arising from changing the working dynamic of these two professions and their respective institutes which will need to be carefully thought out during this roll out. Having the same objective of keeping children safe and supporting vulnerable families will, one would hope, pale these out as insignificant for the greater good. COVID-19 has certainly evidenced a strong will amongst schools and social care professionals that vulnerable children need to remain a paramount priority.’
Vanisha Jassal is Senior Lecturer and Acting Director of Studies for the MA in Advanced Child Protection programme at the University of Kent. Vanisha has several years’ experience teaching inter-professional child protection practice and is Lead Educator on her MOOC, ‘Communicating Effectively with Vulnerable Children’. She is also interested in investigating social and racial inequalities in child welfare and safeguarding practice. More information about Vanisha Jassal’s research can be accessed here: mysandtray.com
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