Themes of Interpersonal Conflict and danger with Service-users in Safeguarding Work

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Themes of Interpersonal Conflict and danger with
Service-users in Safeguarding Work
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The front line..Stress and constant pressure

• Vacancy rates 12-40 (Unison March 2010)
• Child deaths and media scapegoat
• Historical neglect
• No national framework for preparatory skills
• Section 47 work seen as temporary part of career
  development
• New workers claim university degree does not
  prepare them
• The 5th in league of dangerous professions

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The Satirists
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Khyra Ishaq
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Khyra Ishaq

• Professionals "lost sight of the child and
  focused instead upon the rights of the adults,
  the adults' behaviour and the potential impact
  for themselves as professionals".

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Khyra Ishaq

• "The mother's hostile and aggressive approach
  influenced professional actions.." "Dealing
  with safeguarding inquiries and assessments can
  be a stressful process for workers particularly
  when attempting to undertake work with aggressive
  and highly resistant adults.."

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Khyra Ishaq

• "The mother's hostile and aggressive approach
  influenced professional actions.." "Dealing
  with safeguarding inquiries and assessments can
  be a stressful process for workers particularly
  when attempting to undertake work with aggressive
  and highly resistant adults.."

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Difficult, Dangerous Evasive

• Threats and verbal abuse are regarded as part of
  the job.
• staff think they themselves are to blame
• staff think they will be seen as incompetent and
  unsupported by managers.
• Staff anxious to let managers know about their
  failure
• dysfunctional side effects when staff are faced
  with severely challenging service-users

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WHY ARE OUR OWN VALUES IN SAFEGUARDING SO
IMPORTANT?

• When we are challenged or under fire, our values
  can help us survivebut can become fragmented
• We need to develop strategies to hold on to our
  values and affirm the importance of our values
  particularly when we face danger....
• We need to affirm them, celebrate and hold on to
  themso how do you all do that?

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VALUES IN OUR WORK
SPECIFIC TO SAFEGUARDING

• GENERAL

• Challenge Violence Abuse
• Safeguarding
• Courage
• Legitimate challenge
• Structured interviews
• Mandate
• Legal Context
• Assess Risk Danger

• Anti-oppressive
• Equality
• Empowerment
• Support
• Collaboration
• Empathy
• Positive regard
• Emancipation

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Reflective Practice

• Three fundamental processes
• Retrospection thinking back to situations
• Self-evaluation critically analysing and
  evaluating the actions and feelings associated
  with the experience
• Re-orientation using results of self-evaluation
  to influence future approaches to similar
  situations or experiences.

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A CHALLENGING SENARIO

• FOR THIS YOU NEED TO
• Accept the hypothetical nature of the
  situation which requires you to imagine
  yourself in the scenario and then to react with
  the skills and knowledge you haveIN THE INSTANT

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Meeting a challenging situation.....Reflection
in Action

• The practitioner allows him/her self to
  experience surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in
  a situation which he/she finds uncertain or
  unique. He/she reflects on the phenomenon before
  him/her, and on the prior understandings which
  have been implicit in his behaviour. He/she
  carries out an experiment which serves to
  generate both a new understanding of the
  phenomenon and a change in the situation. (Schön
  1983)

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Difficult, Dangerous Evasive

• Danger of hostile interviews which go
  unchecked
• Hostage theory PTSD theory
• exacerbation of stress through
  denial.powerlessness, helplessness
• ..the deliberate use of violence or threat of
  violence to evoke a state of fear (or terror).by
  which the allegiance or compliance is
  maintained.
• ..induce extreme fright or terror in victims, so
  that they will be rendered helpless, powerless
  and totally submissive
• Stanley Goddard
• In the Firing Line Violence Power in Child
  Protection Work(2007)

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COMMUNICATION SKILLS
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Communication Skills

• Do you have a model or method?
• Particularly when dealing with challenging
• service users

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Critical Interview Skills

• THE INTERVIEW
• Common Pitfalls
• Forgetting your value base
• Forgetting your theory
• Too much too soon..
• Splitting..
• Collusion
• False promises
• Too oppressive
• Too supportive ..
• Immobilisation..
• No rapport
• Their world....what is it like ?

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Critical factors in communication artistry
AOP, the users own circumstances and your
mandate..

• Sentence Completion Exercise
• AFFIRMING SENSITIVITY EMPATHIC
  SUPPORTIVE RAPPORT
• CLARIFICATION LISTENING ACKNOWLEDGING
  INTEREST
• INTEGRATED WITH
• MANDATE SAFEGUARDING KNOWLEDGE LEGITIMATE
  CHALLENGE
• SUPPORTED BY
• COMMUNICATION SKILLS (JOHNSTON) WHICH ARE
• AUTHENTIC AND GENUINE
• KEY MOMENTS OF TENSION
• PREPARING USER
• HONEST IN A WAY THAT IS SUPPORTIVE

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• INFLUENCES ON OUTCOMES
• Engagement
• Respect and willingness to listen
• Agenda flexibility (but always remain focused on
  mandate)
• The use of communication model
• Evidence Staff fall back on untested but more
  comfortable ways of working when under pressure

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The Critical Balance Engagement v Your Mandate
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THE ACTOR......
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A CHILD ALONE SCREAMS SCEAMING SCREAMING?

• Range of calls from community
• Mother leaving the child alone?
• Fighting, shouting, screaming?
• Called 3 times
• A letter sent asking her to come in
• Today at 10.00

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A WORD ABOUT LIFELINES...
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FOUR SEQUENCES

• What would you do say in each ?
• Reflection in Action
• Go with what you think in the immediacy of the
  moment...

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Contact JIM WILDjimwilde_at_hotmail.com