Practice guidance for social workers
The following guidance is for social workers to assist them in preparing for the conference and enhancing the family’s participation. It is really important to prepare the family and child if age appropriate to enable them to feed into the conference and represent their views.
Preparation is the key
- Social worker prepares conference report and shares with family in advance of conference (two days for initials and five days for reviews) including geneogram
- Social worker prepares families for conference using the consultation form for parent/carer and consultation form for child if age appropriate. This helps them to think through issues and record information under the Strengthening Families Framework in preparation for the conference which assist the family to participate
- Social worker completes geneogram and makes available to chair in advance of conference to discuss/ confirm with the family
- Social
worker uses strengthening families framework to formulate analysis,
clearly map the information under headings (danger/harm; risk;
complicating factors; safety strengths; grey areas) in analysis section
of new conference report on Frameworki (database of social care cases)
- Following all information being shared the social worker is asked for their risk statement i.e. what might be the outcome of the child if things don’t change.