Social work in education – Putting the ‘social’ back in social work

Care to chat? Hello, and welcome to our podcast from the Northern Ireland Social Care Council. Social care and social workers, such enormously important parts of life here. They really came to the fore during the pandemic. And now with the crisis in the health service, they're in the news again. So what are these jobs? Who are the people who work in them? What are the roots into social care and social work? How can staff progress and develop their careers? Care of themselves, as well as their clients. And what reforms and changes are on the way. Well, one of those changes involves social work and schools. A number of schools here now have a social worker on their staff or at the least as a regular part of the team. So let's find out more around the table with me, our Colin Reed, whose head of safeguarding at the education authority. Maria Quinn, principal of Abbey College, who has a social worker working in her school. And that would be Dylan Sloan, who's here as well, who's a social worker at Abbey College. He's a PhD student on his topic, conveniently, is social work in education. So really good to have all of you here with me today. It sounds like a brilliant idea, actually Colin, a bit of a no-brainer in some ways. But tell us about the whole idea of social worker in education. They sort of who, what, why, when, how? Briefly. Okay. Well, school social work is a small but growing discipline of social work, particularly prevalent in other parts of the world, other than this is the UK, America, many other companies have employed school-based social workers. And really I suppose what the concept is really that it's staff who breach, who work with schools. And schools are where children get their education, and they have relationships with teachers. It's where they feel comfortable and teachers plan a really important part in children, their education, keeping them safe, helping them be educated, learn, develop. But we also need to support teachers in this very important task. And school social work is a discipline that works between education and the wider world, often bringing the skills of social work into schools, to work with teaching colleagues in very difficult circumstances, but helping, helping principals, teachers negotiate some of the complex system, bringing their multidisciplinary skills, their networks, their professional abilities to try and help children. And we're saying the growth across many parts of the UK of this discipline. So in a way, Maria, it sounds like having social worker in a school allows the teachers to teach, and to do the things that they are trained for, and that the children and parents perhaps expect of them. And then there's somebody else who's doing the other things that, quite often, we hear government ministers or politicians say, "Oh, well, you know, we're expecting teachers to do that now." Is that the way it works for you? Very, very much, very much. So Wendy and you'll understand that, as a school leader, my core business is about optimizing teaching and learning, high quality pastoral care, making sure that each individual, young person has the opportunity to achieve their full potential. And one of the things that has become particularly widespread, I believe, in schools since COVID, is that our young people are bringing and presenting much more complex needs. In school, wide-ranging mental health and well-being issues, issues to do with child protection and safeguarding, self-harm issues about even attendance at school when through lockdown, young people were at home for such a long time and they really struggled to come back into school. For me, we were the second school in Northern Ireland to bring in a school social worker, and I firmly believe now that we won't be able to do without that role as we go into the future, because Dylan, in his social work role, brings a wide range of skills and expertise, just as you've said, that teachers actually don't have, and he is enabled us and he himself is able to navigate a whole range of multi-agency, multi-disciplinary support and access to services very effectively, and he's absolutely invaluable in, as you've just said, supporting teachers in order to be able to do what they do best, with him bringing all of his portfolio of skills and knowledge to the four as well. So it's very much a multi-disciplinary approach with the skills of the teacher, working hand-in-hand with the skills of the social worker in order to optimise the learning and the development of each individual child. It sounds like a fantastic idea, I must say. And Dylan, you were nodding furiously while Maria was speaking there. Give us a bit of an example if you could of the kind of situations that you have been able to deal with at Abbey College, just a kind of brief snapshot. So just on the back of what both Colin and Maria said, their collaboration is really key, and I just want to acknowledge that. School social worker is really about bridging the home, school and community environments. And within my role as a school social worker practicing in Abbey Community College, I've had the privileged opportunity to work alongside fantastic young people and all walks of life. And that includes young people that are engaged in statutory services already, such as Care Experience Young Folk, alongside young people that unfortunately are not their needs aren't being met, are present by statutory services. And it's about the early intervention and prevention model, as well as, you know, post-intervention. And I've had the opportunity, as I said, to work alongside some fantastic young people. But just to give you a flavour of some of the very current topics at the minute that I would interface in my role, it's the cost of living crisis. In Northern Ireland, it's no secret that our young people are facing budget cuts at financial times are very, very difficult for parents. And it's about navigating both statutory and voluntary sectors to really utilise what is right there and to try and bring new services to the young people within the environment, that they attend every day, that consistency approach, and again, just working alongside those young people and families to ensure that their wellbeing needs are being met, because if their wellbeing needs aren't being met, how are they supposed to thrive in an educational setting? How does it work? I mean, I remember years ago interviewing, I think it was Sister Genovi from St. Louis, who was talking about the way that they had a member of staff, under whose door pupils who were in need, slid a note, and magically then something happened to help their situation. I'm guessing that's not exactly how it works with you. So how does it work in your situation? It's a multi-fast approach, because I suppose it's about raising the profile of what social work is and school social work has a unique opportunity of being a shopfront. As I said, that consistency approach, which is so key for children to thrive. I'm in the school, I'm walking alongside the children in the corridors, I'm hearing what they have to say, I'm meeting their needs and they're bringing things to my attention. So they'll come and talk to you and they trust you to that extent, no? Yeah, very, very much so. You're now getting alongside the teaching staff referrals, the senior leadership team referrals, pupil referrals, so children that are looking out for other children, and they know that there's a safe person in the school that they can go to and approach, and they will get support and help, whereas at times, if it has to be, for example, take a young person with a mental health issue, within the school setting, the typical routine for that is, you know, the teacher will call the parent, the parent will then have to get in contact with the GP, and we know at the minute in Northern Ireland it's very, very difficult to get a GP appointment, I think everybody can agree on that, and then they get the GP appointment, the GP has the meeting, the appointment with the young person, then they have to make the onward referral to statutory service, such as camps. Having a social worker in the school, the children know if they come and present themselves and their needs, that those needs will be met without all of those parts in the middle, so it's really emphasising that Article 3, no delay principle within the children's order, you know, it's able to meet those children's needs and cut out the middle man so that their needs are being met and it's being met at a higher and faster pace so they can get the support they need to thrive. That must make a massive difference in your school. Absolutely. Absolutely. Wendy, it's phenomenal the way in which the skills and the access to services that Dylan brings to the whole pastoral dimension within the school is, as he's mentioned, it enables earlier intervention, it means that we can try and access services and support for our young people, and indeed their families, because we also, as Dylan alluded to, we have many families who are in need of support as well, but it's very much, as we've mentioned, a partnership approach between our pastoral members of staff who take a pastoral lead, our earheads, for instance, the class tutors, everybody working together in order to make sure that we can intervene as quickly as we possibly can, as effectively as we possibly can, and support that young persons, their health and well-being, because if they are well and they are in school, then they're able to learn, they're able to achieve, and that then opens doors for them into the future. From an education authority point of view, Colin, this has got to be a really good thing, hasn't it? And why, why, in that case, are there only what about six schools here at the moment that are in this situation? Yeah, there are about six schools who've employed social workers, and some other models as well, there are some schools will have found to support people, there are some schools who employed health-related professionals, I suppose the commonality, it's kind of a place-based initiative. I mean, we've been very interested in the development of school social work, and indeed we've gone to try and support that growing network that's being developed out there, people like Dylan, so there's a support network for them. We of course have our education welfare service, which was primarily based on an attendance model, per school attendance, but we've had a chance, we've transformed that service over the last number of years, I'm removing too much more preventative model now, education welfare models, there's many overlap, probably many overlaps between some of the things Dylan does and education welfare staff and Dayton Ray will have her own education welfare staff at that school, but they have many more schools than Dylan based in one school. I suppose that's one of the things that I think we can learn, it's the relationships that exist, I mean, I suspect Dylan, you sit in the staff room and all those things happen, those conversations happen around coffees that are really, really important, there's the community development element of it because you will bring in community development, voluntary sector, third sector organisations, and just being part of a school on a full-time basis probably makes a big difference. So I think we have a lot to learn from this model as it develops and how we as an authority ensure that we provide the best support to services like Abbey College and school social work. And I think there's another there's another dimension as well Wendy which we're finding is very useful and is very supportive of Dylan and his role about I think it's four years ago now, I was just rather cheeky I suppose and I reached out to the northern health trust with regards to school nursing services and I just asked a question of somebody I knew regarding the I was interested about the way in which at that point in time education and health were almost living in two different silos and I had suggested to a senior colleague at the trust surely it would make good sense if health and education were doing a little bit more collaboration and a little bit more talking to to one another because ultimately it's young people and children who are who are at the heart of of some aspects of the service. So we were able to embark on a on a school nursing project in partnership with the with the northern trust and that was the very first of its kind in northern Ireland whereby a professionally qualified school nurse is directly linked to us in Abbey Community College. She spends most of her working week in school and that has developed and rolled out now to a number of other schools across northern Ireland but you'll understand that sense of collaboration that sense of of partnership is clearly linked in with with Dylan in his professional capacity. So we have our our teachers and our pastoral staff working in partnership with Dylan bringing all his portfolio of skills and also the other side of the triangle is our school nurse and she's bringing all of her school nursing expertise to the mix so that we're really trying to to strive for a holistic approach to looking after our children and young people in terms of all aspects of their their health and well-being so that they can ultimately do their best in school. It's very change times isn't it Colin you know and big changes in education obviously the kind of changes that Maria's managed to bring about in her school but this is all happening while the money's being cut and you know over the recent months we've we've been hearing so much about the budgetary restraints and so on will services like this be able to survive those budgetary restraints when that that must be a big worry for for for principals like Maria and for others who perhaps might be hoping that they could be as lucky as she is at Abbey College. Well school has been very imaginative for the ones that have employed social workers in terms of how they've funded that and there's some interesting funding model there I suppose everyone is very concerned about our current funding crises and we've got to make sure that our most vulnerable children are protected. I suppose there are opportunities in this three the adversity that we're all experiencing and that we can be imaginative imaginative creative and maybe use this as an opportunity to to do things smarter better and in a different sort of way I think what is key is we've got to work with our front-line colleagues I have must have learned that greatly in my time at the education third we've got fantastic principals head teachers senior leadership teams working as part of area learning communities trying to do their their their very best and I think when we all bring something to the table and work on partnership collectively using our relationships we can we can do what is best for children so there are maybe some opportunities to come out in terms of the learning from from the models that that schools have evolved around school social work particularly as we transform our own education welfare service. I suppose sometimes it's difficult to persuade those who hold the purse string still and but prevention is not only better than cure but it's often cheaper as well and you know you've been studying all of this for for your PhD so you're the man with the knowledge and I'm very glad to say I mean how would you persuade them that this is the right road to go down. Well we have frameworks neither have been established such as the emotional framework children's emotional needs in Northern Ireland and the children young people's the 2020-2030 policies and within it are Northern Ireland executive have promised to support the well-being and increase life chances and like opportunities for our young people however as you've rightly alluded to it's it's very difficult in terms of the financial situation at the minute and I just want to bring in to reality you know with the Northern Ireland consumer council expenditure income tracker reported in September 2022 that the lowest earning households in Northern Ireland are earning an average income of 12,200 pounds and they've been left with 29 pounds per week after paying bills and as you rightly have said it's very difficult because we are in a situation where budgets are being caught for example the likes of the extended school budget is currently you know being caught at the minute and being then that's going to have a direct impact on the most vulnerable children in our society those children that are coming from those households with 29 pounds per week left that budget allied for schools to provide breakfast clubs so they will children are going to come to school hungry and when we also look at destitution households you know the national institute of economic and social research has reported that there's 25,000 homes in Northern Ireland that are facing destitution at the moment so as cost of living should definitely be on the agenda and we need a functioning Northern Ireland executive to be discussing these things and to be fighting for our young young people and our children in Northern Ireland and providing the school social work model it's a learning and it's it's actually meeting the needs of children it's when we look at the executive documentation it's it's actually following the principles within it so it makes sense as you've said at the start of this it makes logical sense for this model to be ruled right across the region Maria I just wanted to comment I guess that the the partnership with the voluntary sector is also absolutely absolutely crucial and and we're very privileged at the moment to be able to provide breakfast and a free school meal for all of our young people at at this minute and time and we've been doing it since January and that's thanks to funding that's been made available to us through the Belfast Charitable Society in partnership with the James Kane Foundation and most recently Ulster Garden Villages and those relatively small amounts of money are enabling us to to make an impact on our young people and their families as people continue to face the the financial crisis at at the minute and you know we we're very clear that if young people can have access to something to eat in the morning they're likely to have brains that function better and therefore be able to learn better and I think one many of our families have found that the removing the the pressure of having to perhaps pay for breakfast perhaps pay for a school lunch or something to eat over the course of the day is helping them navigate through those very difficult times that we've we've all alluded to already in the conversation just to go back to to the history for a moment if I could I read a bit of your thesis still and which was was very impressive thank you and the part of the United States where they've had social workers in schools since the 19th century I know that we tend to be a bit behind the curve sometimes but this is this is kind of silly territory they they've done this all along haven't they it's been kind of inbuilt into their education system has the way that you've studied it to what degree has that had a made a real difference do we know and so there's been numerous studies into school social worker in the United States as that seems to be the leading country at the minute the school social work association of America recommend one school social worker to 250 pupils so they really value this model and studies are showing that attendance rates for children are increasing we have studies in America that illustrate that children are completing schools that the whole school journey whereas before they might not have been so it's really valuable they're alongside the preventative and safeguarding elements America is very much focused their model on that dual approach of prevention and safeguarding whereas the very much recent studies in England are very much looking at child protection and that type of thing but apart from America school social workers growing internationally you know it's now recognised in 48 different countries and the last study published by Callie in 2008 had stated that there's around 50,000 school social workers employed internationally and it seems to be growing more and more which is fantastic to see but there's there's evidence out there to show a clear impact of implementing social workers in school both for children and also for teaching staff that collaborative framework. Well that's fine I mean one of the bits that I thought was interesting and I know you want to come in there Maria but what was the fact that there's a visiting teacher part in the United States as well so that's a part of the way that the whole social work thing works the social worker and the visiting teacher go and visit the child at home so that they then see the home circumstances of that child and can put perhaps their behaviour or whatever into a kind of context which I thought must be an enormously valuable tool actually for a teacher to have Colin desperate to come in here and come back to you in a second period. Only to say you've just highlighted the importance of relationships and the relationship between Dylan and Maria, between teaching staff and that partnership is what actually makes the difference. I mean I met Maria some time ago and once you meet someone in form relationship she'll phone me and I should send me an email or if I need somebody I'll speak and that works so much better so the part of relationship working together to help put our shoulders the way to help children and families is enormous and what Dylan has described is something that works really really well in primary prevention and early intervention and I'm really glad to say the teacher's going out in America with social workers to do to do homefaces I think that's very helpful. Maria you want to come in. I think it's quite prevalent also the social work in other European countries. I was part of an international study visit to Finland in Estonia back in November and we found on our visits there that there was a social worker in most of the schools or if not perhaps in one school certainly shared between a couple of schools in a close local area equally doctor services school nurse services educational psychology services all centered around the school environment so that it was about as Colin has alluded those very important professional relationships but that whole sense of services clustered around where young people spend a lot of time and it meant that there was ease of access effective communication and once as we've mentioned many times already early intervention so that young people got the support that they needed. What about Maria that whole interaction between statutory services and schools health and social care obviously supportive of the interface between health and education and you've talked about your school nurse as well I mean all fantastic ideas and interventions you've seemed to have had a positive experience but I can't be bit of a smile there you know nothing things are very rarely it's completely smooth sure they're not so but it's overall has it has it worked well for you. Overall yes it has been a positive experience and I think it's it's needed a different approach I suppose I've kind of taken the thinking outside the box kind of approach and fundamental to all of this work and the word has come up time and time again in our conversation is the power of relationships and it's that relationship the the building of those communication networks it's I suppose having the taking the time to knock on a door and not being afraid to ask can we can you help can we do something together it doesn't always have to be done this way there are other ways of turning things on their heads and being creative so relationships and positive relationships are very much to the fore and but I think it's also the the willingness to take a little bit of a risk because sometimes if you don't dip your toe into the water then nothing changes and we continue to operate in those silos whereas if we start to talk to one another we can we can learn from each other you know I've learned loads from the work with with with Dylan and and colleagues and and equally into into health and I think it enables us all to do our own jobs that bit better together in that collaboration those relationships and interaction column between statutory services and schools I mean you know when you're breaking you grind it can be difficult sometimes but it's it seems so that it's completely worth it well our colleagues and social services have very much the same types of issue that we have with with an education in terms of complexity complexive cases demand increased demand and for them fewer staff around to do more more complicated cases I mean it's it's very challenging for for for colleagues in health in health and social care but I think school social work cannot really help support the work that goes on within within with interests in terms of a partnership we deal with maybe different parts of the the Venn diagram maybe early intervention prevention but if if we can do our job it will help support them in terms of cases that are referred on to social service and they did one cases go to social services they rule the Dylan and and and and colleagues can play to support families to deal with their their problem is uninsured children's involvement and integration and future learning and school is is really important it's really interesting we have at the moment most people listening will know about Ray Jones professor Ray Jones is carrying out a review into child care on behalf of the Department of Health and I know he's been very interested in the issue of school social work I think he's he's been out in over schools and had sessions with with with young people in in school so it'll be interesting to see what Ray says about that in in in this report we also have a white other wider driver such as fair start and reducing educational disabilities at the Department of Education so people are very interested and then a thing imaginative creative that makes a difference supports families enables children to learn is good for schools and I think we've a lot to learn from from the various models that operate across Northern Ireland and high-best we can integrate our services with with the development of social work where it takes place. Just a final word from you Dylan if I if I could looking to the future since you're a part of it it's exciting I think to see a focus on this I mean you're doing your PhD at the minute presumably you're hopeful that you might persuade maybe not have to persuade but encourage other young social workers like yourself to go into this field yeah I think that for me I have a I'm very lucky to be in the position I'm in and developing school social work in Northern Ireland starting my PhD in it for me it's putting the social back in social work there's something great about being able to go into a school and walk alongside the young people and having the time to do that understand obviously and reports are saying about the bureaucracy of social work I have a fantastic opportunity to walk alongside these young people to support them in their highest achievements and hold them up in their lowest times and for me that that's what school social work really is about and that's what I'd like the future of Northern Ireland to bring to our young people and children here well we'll watch it with interest thanks all of you very much indeed for joining me today thanks to Colin to Maria and Dylan this is Care to Chat a podcast from the Northern Ireland Social Care Council don't forget to subscribe and rate us and of course tell all your friends and colleagues