SOLUTION FOCUSED

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SOLUTION FOCUSED PRACTICE IN GATESHEAD
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THE RAW MATERIALS

• John Wheeler
• Viv Hogg
• Some trained staff
• Many enthusiastic staff
• Regional group
• Growing national interest

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CREATING A SOLUTION FOCUSED DUTY TEAM

• Started from scratch
• Workers involved in the development
• Training
• Supporting workers to use it

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DISCOVERING SIGNS OF SAFETY

• A solution and safety orientated approach to
  child protection casework
• Characteristics of the approach
• How it has been incorporated into practice

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FINDING SOLUTIONS(An early intervention service)

• Families request help directly or via
  professionals
• Work to the families agenda
• Two workers
• Using Solution Focused techniques to identify and
  develop family strengths
• Maximum of three hour-long sessions
• The vision (which is becoming a reality)

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BEYOND THE TEAM

• Opportunities via Passport to Services

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IMPACT

• On recruitment and retention
• On service users
• On multi-agency working

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IN SUMMARY

• Practice approach that makes sense to all
  professionals and is easy to train
• Used in early intervention child
  protection
• Has positive impact on workforce and upon service
  users

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Passport to Services
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PASSPORT TO SERVICES

• National Project
• DFeS led
• Newcastle and Gateshead given Trailblazer
  status
• Childrens Bill
• Part of the overall sea change in Childrens
  Services
• Local pilots are in a unique position to
  influence the national agenda

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WHAT ARE WE TRYING TO ACHIEVE?

• Move from protection to prevention
• Improve information sharing and working together
• Improve the well-being of children and try to
  prevent children falling through the cracks.

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Resource Model
Family Resources
Solution Focused Practice
Professional Resources
Events
Consultation
Action Plan
Specialist
Professional
Children
Universal
Specialist
Review
Assessment
Resources
living
Service
Services
Increasing
elsewhere
Solution Finder
Signs of Well
-
being
Main Contact
Universal
Universal Plus
Services
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TRAINING WITH A DIFFERENCE
260 Practitioners from Social Care, Health,
Education, Youth Offending, Voluntary
Organisations.
30 Managers trained
Solution Talk on-line discussion forum
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CONSEQUENCES OF SOLUTION FOCUSED TRAINING
Strengths based practice
Strategic use of SF tools
Solution Focused Practice
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SIGNS OF WELLBEING

• A common assessment tool for use in early
  intervention
• The means by which workers can log events on the
  Child Index in Gateshead and Newcastle
• A tool to help build engagement with families and
  start the process of change
• A way of helping workers to organise their
  thinking

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WHERE HAS IT COME FROM?

• Developed from SIGNS OF SAFETY a risk
  assessment tool devised by Andrew Turnell and
  Steve Edwards
• Grew out of practice in Western Australia
• Used extensively in Gateshead and in many other
  places around the world

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WHAT CHANGES HAVE WE MADE?

• The name
• The language
• The look
• Inclusion of child/young persons goals
• Service user evaluation

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CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TOOL

• Designed to be used with young people and their
  families
• Focuses on the key current issues
• Highlights what is already working well
• Can trigger immediate progress
• No risk lists
• Developed from practice
• Only one page

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Worries Kahnemann and Tversky (1979)
Practitioners thinking skews towards whats
going wrong Thomas (1995) Practitioners tend to
be preoccupied by the 5 that is going
wrong Dartington Social Research Unit Study on
Early Intervention (2004) collecting minimal but
focused and versatile information on children and
families may help practitioners to fashion
appropriate interventions and intervene
quickly. Attride-Stirling and colleagues (2004)
CAMHS. Families were more likely to work with the
service to achieve good outcomes when both family
and service kept their focus on the presenting
problems, as opposed to being overwhelmed by a
multiplicity of problems.
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Strengths and resources   ONeil and McCashen
(1991) When practitioners acknowledged family
strengths, services users reported that they felt
they were viewed more holistically. Blundo
(2001) Strengths based Social Work. Most
professional practice has been based on the
assumption that the professionals have the
answers. So it typically takes extra effort to be
so.
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Children/Young Persons Goals RBA Research,
2002 found that children and young people still
tend to rate statutory services as being poor at
listening to them. The CYPU (2001) the
government wants children and young people to
have more opportunities to get involved in the
design, provision and evaluation of policies and
services that affect them, or which they use.
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Carers Goals Watkin, (2001) Carers tended to
feel overpowered by experts who reckoned that
they knew best. Insufficient attempts were made
to elicit their ideas. Thoburn and colleagues
(1995) Service users critical of professionals
for not listening and having made their minds up.
Becker et al, (2002) Multi-dimensional Family
Prevention programme in the US. Families
reluctant to engage in services were more likely
to do so when practitioners asked about their
goals for change. Boushel and colleagues (2002),
18 out 21 families referred to Social Services
were already trying to resolve the problems
themselves, and eight felt that what they were
doing was working. A number were critical of
workers for imposing their own ideas and not
being open to carers views. the qualities
respondents regarded most highly were an ability
to listen and an openness both to the service
users perceptions of events and their view of
the help needed. Dartington Social Research
Unit (2004) Services were very often able to help
families to help themselves. Marsh (1996) In 85
of Family Group Conferences statutory services
have been able to work with the families own
plans without reservation.
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Professionals Goals   Connexions worker. Personal
communication. Turnell Edwards (1999) Service
users more likely to engage productively with
workers who are honest about both their concerns
and their goals for change. MacKinnon (1992)
Service users reported that whilst workers were
usually clear about what was going wrong they
were not clear about their expectations, so
carers were often unclear about what they were
supposed to doing more of.
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Well-being scale   Scaling questions are used
widely in Solution Focused Practice (deShazer
1988), where they have been found to be
intelligible to a diverse range of service users
and a useful tool for focussing thinking in
complex situations
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Service User Evaluation   Boushel and colleagues
(2002) Families were often not consulted about
referral to the service they were studying, and a
significant proportion did not agree with the
referrers reasons for referral when these were
explained to them. Too often practitioners have
identified problems in families, identified a
relevant resource and then been surprised to find
that families have subsequently not used
resources recommended to them.
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WHERE IS IT BEING USED?
Gateshead Pilot Childrens Centre CWD panel
referral form NECA youth workers assessment
form BIP/BEST referral form Replacement for
Family Record in Childrens Centre Replacement
for Health Visitors Family record
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Newcastle Pilot childrens centre YIP
assessment for 5o young people most at risk BIP
referral form