Insights

The focus of this Insight is pre-birth child protection assessment and care planning, and more specifically, the lead social work role within this work.

A summary of the history and evidence around relationship-based practice in social work.

The emergence of new electronic monitoring (EM) technologies opens up new monitoring and surveillance possibilities to authorities, but proportionality and balancing the rights and interests of different people involved are integral to effective and ethical uses of EM. This Insight introduces the ways in which EM is currently used in Scotland, alongside international evidence and experience, to identify key issues and implications for use.

The value of participation by service users in shaping and improving practice and services is well recognised in much existing guidance and practice, but less so in relation to contact with families of children referred on child protection grounds.

How we think about and understand fathering has changed. Active ‘fathering’ is now an accepted role for men at home and fathers are visible outside the school gates, in parks and playgrounds and in the streets and shopping centres. Fathers’ involvement in child care increased from less than 15 minutes a day in the mid-1970s to three hours a day during the week by the late 1990s, with more at the weekend. This trend of increasing involvement has continued…

This Insight aims to bring together the key research findings on supporting parents with learning disabilities to aid practitioners in considering approaches for working with this group of vulnerable parents.

Examines how women’s narratives of their experience of domestic abuse and social work intervention in cases of child protection could inform practice in Scotland.

Gypsy Travellers have an important place in modern day Scotland with a heritage and culture that should be celebrated and valued. The fact that they are often not, points to deep seated prejudices that should be positively challenged.

This insight presents what research tells us about social workers’ communication with children and young people in everyday practice. It also introduces key findings from a UK-wide study of social workers’ communication with children and young people.

Appreciative inquiry is an action research approach that offers a powerful contribution to meeting the appetite for real change that is evident across public services in Scotland.