Changing Policy, Practice and Culture

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Changing Policy, Practice and Culture

• Andy Couldrick,
• Mark Gurrey,
• Paul Nixon

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Insanity is doing the same thing over and over
again and expecting different resultsAlbert
Einstein
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Achieving Organisational Change
Leadership Management
Research Evaluation
Organisational Culture
Strategy Resources
Practice
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Leaders Managers

• Implementation
• Operational
• Transactions
• Means
• Systems
• Doing things right

• Vision
• Strategic
• Transformation
• Outcomes
• People
• Doing the right thing

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Leadership

• When the best leaders work is done, the people
  say we did it ourselves.
• Lao Tzu
• It's not hard to make decisions when you know
  what your values are
• Roy Disney

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Values underpinning the new Leadership

• Childrens rights to maintain kinship and
  cultural connections
• Children and parents are nested in a wider family
  system
• Families are experts on themselves

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Values underpinning the new Leadership

• Family participation is essential for good
  outcomes
• Respecting family rights does not come at any
  cost to childrens rights
• Sustained, shared inter-agency accountability

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Domestic violence Substance misuse Mental
health Crime Mobility and Instability Disability
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Strategy Resources

• A strategy with a purpose enables agency and
  political buy-in
• Builds on family strengths
• Pulls together previously separate strategies
• Maximises resources money and people in the
  system
• Keeps more children lower down the tiers

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Practice challenges

• Orthodoxy of professionals in control
• Risk averse practice
• Procedural and managerial annexation of practice
• Legal and Bureaucratic colonisation

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3 Models of Assessment

• Questioning (expert professional)
• Procedural (agency prescribed)
• Exchange (partnership based)

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Assessment models

• 
  

STRUCTURAL/POLITICAL
FAMILY
DECISION MAKING
ATTITUDES
PARTNERSHIPS
PROCEDURAL
FOCUS
CITIZEN
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Assessment - Questioning / Procedural Models

• 
  

DOWNPLAYING
STRUCTURAL/POLITICAL
FAMILY
PATHOLOGY
DECISION MAKING
PROFESSIONAL
CORRECTNESS
PROCEDURAL
ATTITUDES
PARTNERSHIPS
PRESERVING
CORRODING
PROBLEM/INCIDENT
FOCUS
CITIZEN
EXCLUDED
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Assessment Exchange and Action model
RECOGNISING

• 
  

STRUCTURAL/POLITICAL
FAMILY
STRENGTHS
DECISION MAKING
SHARED
FLEXIBILITY
CHALLENGING
PROCEDURAL
ATTITUDES
BUILDING
PARTNERSHIPS
CONTEXT
FOCUS
CITIZEN
INVOLVED
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Practitioners need to

• Think family stay child focused
• Make assessments collaborative
• Have questions, not answers
• Develop skills in partnership
• Enable families to agree outcomes
• Jointly evaluate

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MANAGING CHANGE
He that complies againsthis will is of the same
opinion still

• Samuel Butler (1612-1680)

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• If you want to build a ship, then dont drum up
  men to gather wood, give orders and divide the
  work. Rather teach them to yearn for the far and
  endless sea.
• 
  
• 
  
  Antonine de Saint-Exupery

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A Canadian Perspective on Changing Child Welfare
Culture Through Family Group Conferencing

• By Mark Sieben
• Ministry of Children
• and Family Development

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Case Specific Structural
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Consciousness of Practiceamong aCollective of
Professionals
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Child Welfares Dominant Case Management Path
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Dominant Child Welfare Path
2008
05
Risk Assessment
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Dominant Child Welfare Path(Redefined)
2008
05
Investigation/Court/CiCs
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2010 Winter Olympics - Vancouver/Whistler
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There were approximately 73,397 children in care
in Canada in 2004.
This is just over 1 of the child population.
BC 9,086 CIC (0-18)
Ont 18,490 CIC (0-15)
NB 1,502 CIC (0-18)
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Family Conferencing in Canada

• Newfoundland pilot project in 1995
• BC includes FGC provision in Act 1996
• (brought into force in 2002)
• Ontario adds FGC provision in 2005
• New Brunswick adds FGC provision in 2008
• Yukon adds FGC provision in 2008

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FGC in Canada

• Why has FGC not been adopted more broadly?
• What has impacted efforts to introduce and
  develop FGC?
• What has led development in provinces where FGC
  is established?

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Evolution of Collaborative Practices in BC
2008
05
1992
07
93
94
96
97
98
99
00
01
02
95
03
06
04
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Evolution of Collaborative Practices in BC
2008
05
1992
07
93
94
96
97
98
99
00
01
02
95
03
06
04
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Family Group Conferences
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2004/05
310
40
69
82
83
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Family Group Conferences
21
2005/06
444
2004/05
129
88
107
99
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Family Group Conferences
2006/07
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473
2005/06
2004/05
118
111
79
124
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Family Group Conferences
2007/08
735
2006/07
94
2005/06
2004/05
77
162
121
235
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Culture Eats Process Best Practice for
Breakfast
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Recipe for Changing Culture

• 1 part research
• 2 parts training, support awareness
• 1 part best practice
• At least 2 parts mandatoriness
• legislation helps
• redefine dominant case management path

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Child welfare culture and Family Group
ConferencingFGC and ME
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Change Paradigm 1Its all about the child
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Change Paradigm 2Skill setsNew
RolesTraining and Hiring
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Change Paradigm 3Re-ordering the Dominant
Child WelfareCase Management Path
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Change Paradigm 4

• Societal and community based change
• FGC influenced planning and ADR processes
  skill seepage
• Youth transitioning conferences
• Local community dispute resolution
• Formal mediation

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Practice with Mindfulness Consciousness
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Principles for a Creative Collective

• Openness
• Peering
• Sharing
• Acting Globally
• Tapscott and Williams, Wikinomics How Mass
  Collaboration Changes Everything
• Friedman, The World is Flat

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Practice with cognizance of a social change agent
Part of a broader FGC community committed to
social change
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• Mark Sieben
• Chief Operating Officer
• Ministry of Children and Family Development
• British Columbia, Canada
• Email mark.sieben_at_gov.bc.ca

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Beyond Family Group Conferences Re-designing
Decision-making to be Family Centred

• Sharon Inglis
• Andy Couldrick

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Some modern day problems of social work.

• Bureaucratic and managerial control
• Driven by fear of mistakes
• Reactive and narrow focus
• Lack of political support
• Performance do we measure whats important, or
  make important the things we can measure?
• Legal and bureaucratic colonisation of decision
  making

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Group Exercise

• In groups of 6, you have 10 minutes to consider
  and record
• What are the types of meetings where key
  decisions are made about children and families,
  in child welfare?

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Decision-making

• Most discussions of decision making assume that
  only senior executives make decisions or that
  only senior executives decisions matter. This is
  a dangerous mistake.
• Making good decisions is a crucial skill at every
  level.
  Peter Drucker
• It's not hard to make decisions when you know
  what your values are Roy Disney

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Experts and decision-making
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1. Individual Decision-making.

• The individual makes the decision based on the
  knowledge he can gather. He then must explain the
  decision to the group and gain their acceptance
  of it.
• Time spent Make decision, 5 min. explain
  decision, 30 min. gain acceptance, 30 min.
• Introduction to Decision Making
• Robert Harris

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2. Group Decision-making

• The individual and the group shares ideas and
  analyse, and agree upon a decision to implement.
• Studies show that the group often has values,
  feelings, and reactions quite different from
  those the professional supposes they have. No one
  knows the group and its tastes and preferences as
  well as the group itself.
• Time spent group makes decision, 30 min.
  explain decision, 0 min. gain acceptance, 0 min.
• Introduction to Decision Making
• Robert Harris

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1. Professional Decision- making.

• The professional makes the decision based on
  the knowledge he can gather. He then must explain
  the decision to the family group and gain their
  acceptance of it.
• Time spent Make decision, 5 min. explain
  decision, 30 min. gain acceptance, 30 min.
• Introduction to Decision Making
• Robert Harris

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2. Family Group Decision-making

• The professional and the family group shares
  ideas and analyse, and agree upon a decision to
  implement.
• Studies show that the group often has values,
  feelings, and reactions quite different from
  those the professional supposes they have. No one
  knows the group and its tastes and preferences as
  well as the group itself.
• Time spent group makes decision, 30 min.
  explain decision, 0 min. gain acceptance, 0 min.
• Introduction to Decision Making
• Robert Harris

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History

• 1985 Working Together
• 1989 Children Act Partnership
• Parents allowed to attend, then speak at, some,
  then all, of a Child Protection Conference
• The growth of the Involving Children, Childrens
  Rights agenda, gt Making a Positive Contribution
• But families rights?

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What Works? (1)

• The most important condition for success was
  found always to be the quality of the
  relationship between the childs family and the
  responsible professional
• (DoH 1995)

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What Works? (2)

• Protection is best achieved by building on the
  existing strengths of a childs living
  environment, rather than expecting miracles from
  isolated and spasmodic interventions
• (DoH 1995)

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Because

• Family members know more about their family
  than any professional can possibly know. They
  have a unique knowledge and understanding
• (DoH 1995)

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Good Decisions Require Listening
Emphasis on the phrase common language
implies that the skill is in the agencies
talking, but inquiry reports and research
demonstrate that to the contrary the skill is in
the listening


(Raynes 2004)
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Im afraid you misunderstood I said Id like a
mango
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Values Underpinning Family Centred Decision-making

• All families are entitled to respect from the
  State
• Active family participation is essential
• Families are experts of themselves
• Children and parents are nested in a wider family
  system
• Wider family is the context for resolution

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Values (Contd)

• Family groups are capable of self-agency
• Service mix should reflect what works for
  families
• Children have a right to maintain kinship and
  cultural connections
• Worker continuity is essential to building
  supportive relationships with family groups

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The Organising Idea
High
TO
WITH
Punitive
Restorative Collaborative
Control (limit-setting, discipline)
Neglectful
Permissive
NOT
FOR
Support (encouragement, nurture)
Low
High
Based on Wachtel McCold
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Collaborative Decision-making

• Clear principles and values
• Negotiation engagement
• Collaboration and consensus-building
• Responsibility and power
• Open and accountable
• Transforms relationships.

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Supports Practice that needs to

• Stay child focused
• Think widely about family
• Engage families and communities
• Build on culture and strengths
• Collaborate with different agencies
• Change behaviour

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Some barriers.

• Orthodoxy of professionals in control
• Decision making models
• Narrow focus of interventions
• Emphasis on procedural correctness
• Legal colonisation and the Courts
• Fear something will go wrong.

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• Every statement made in an assessment report is
  at least as much a statement about that
  particular social worker, in the wider context of
  her/his role and agency. as it is a statement
  about those who are being assessed
• 
  
• 
  The myth of assessment - Ryburn (1991)

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3 Models of Assessment

• Questioning (expert professional)
• Procedural (agency prescribed)
• Exchange (partnership based)

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Assessment models

• 
  

STRUCTURAL/POLITICAL
FAMILY
DECISION MAKING
ATTITUDES
PARTNERSHIPS
PROCEDURAL
FOCUS
CITIZEN
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Assessment - Questioning / Procedural Models

• 
  

DOWNPLAYING
STRUCTURAL/POLITICAL
FAMILY
PATHOLOGY
DECISION MAKING
PROFESSIONAL
CORRECTNESS
PROCEDURAL
ATTITUDES
PARTNERSHIPS
PRESERVING
CORRODING
PROBLEM/INCIDENT
FOCUS
CITIZEN
EXCLUDED
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Assessment Exchange and action model
RECOGNISING

• 
  

STRUCTURAL/POLITICAL
FAMILY
STRENGTHS
DECISION MAKING
SHARED
FLEXIBILITY
CHALLENGING
PROCEDURAL
ATTITUDES
PARTNERSHIPS
BUILDING
CONTEXT
FOCUS
CITIZEN
INVOLVED
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Where do decisions get made?

• In my head
• In supervision
• In a team meeting
• In a consultation
• In a CP conference
• In a LAC review
• In a planning meeting

• In a FGC
• In a legal panel
• In a placement panel
• In a pre-proceedings meeting
• In a Court
• In a Fostering panel?
• In an Adoption panel?

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So

• What can you change about the way decisions
  get taken in your
• Role
• Team
• Agency
• Real, practical changes that will make a
  difference?

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Contact Details

• Andy Couldrick
• Oxfordshire County Council
• andy.couldrick_at_oxfordshire.gov.uk
• Sharon Inglis, Circles Training Consultancy
• Enquiries_at_circlesuk.com
• Tel [phone]

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