Fit Like Social Work Teams

What is social work?

Social workers in Scotland work hard to achieve good outcomes for people experiencing difficulty, we understand that there are lots of reasons a person/s, family may experience difficulty.
In Children’s social work, we work in partnership with families to explore wellbeing, understand need, think about different ways we might support you to improve family wellbeing.

Where do the Fit Like Social Work Teams sit within social work?

We are an early intervention social work team. This means we work hard with families to try and address any risks/needs at as early a stage as possible. We hope that by doing this, we can prevent any escalation to other social work teams.
We sit within Children and Families Social Work (CSW) in an area called ‘Intake’. This is the area of CSW where families might first become involved with social work; the other part of intake is the Children’s Reception Team (CRT), the Joint Child Protection Team (JCPT) and the Maternity Team.
If for any reason we have been working with you and the risks/needs continue to escalate despite the hard work from you, we may need to escalate this through our social work channels. In practice this means writing a Child’s Plan to capture where we are, where we’ve been, an assessment of wellbeing and a recommendation about what might need to happen next (like an escalation to another social work team). You should be involved at every stage of this process where possible.

How do we work?

We take a strengths-based approach, which means we will look for positives within the family and think about how to use these to improve overall wellbeing.
We follow a wellbeing process, which your allocated worker will explain in more depth.
We listen to you, and try to be flexible and dependable.
We will be honest with you about what we are worried about so that you have the chance to reflect and think about what might need to change.
We might work with you and your child together, we might work with you individually and we might see your child in school (probably a combination of all of these).

Why the Education Social Work (ESW) Team?

We work with families where there is a child/children of school age and where school may be a cause for concern. Before placing a Request For Assistance (RFA), school should have already explored all the supports available to them within school, these are sometimes known as ‘universal supports.’ The concerns could be anything from your child finding it hard to leave home and get to school in the morning, where your child finds it hard to settle into the school day or where they are struggling to attend at all.
We understand that when a child is struggling with some aspect of school, this can be for a variety of reasons; sometimes related to the school environment but sometimes not. In order to assess the overall wellbeing of a child, we look to parents/carers to work with us to help us understand what might be going on. We take a whole-family approach which just means we don’t work with a child in isolation. This is because evidence tells us that the people who have most influence over the wellbeing of children are their parents/carers. Working alongside you increases the chance to improve and sustain wellbeing for your child.

Why the Social Work Team?

The social work team work with children and their families up to the age of 18yrs. We work alongside families who have tried supports from universal services such as health and education yet require additional help. We aim to help families make sense of their time together and build on strengths to empower families to cope when home life can feel stressful. By working together with a whole-family approach we work in partnership with parents and carers to improve outcomes for children and the overall family wellbeing.
We work with families where there may be worries for their child(ren)'s wellbeing or where they may have had difficult life experiences. We aim to work together to keep children safe and help children and families make sense of their situation, understand emotions and heal from traumatic experiences.
We help families identify their own priorities and to find solutions to help navigate the challenges of being a parent, tailoring support to individual families needs.

Wellbeing Meetings

Purpose

The Family Wellbeing Meeting aims to:

Bring significant people together to measure wellbeing: Understanding each other's perspectives can lead to better outcomes for all.
Ensure transparency: Families and professionals should understand expectations without hidden agendas.
Give families a voice: Families should feel listened to and respected.
Explore strengths and areas of concern: Honest discussions about worries help target areas for improving wellbeing.
Compile a Wellbeing Overview: Gathering everyone's views helps create a comprehensive support document.

Family Wellbeing Meetings

Preparation:

Your views are important to us. The worker allocated to support you and your family will meet with you and talk you through the wellbeing process. This can happen over a number of sessions until you feel comfortable about participating.
Alongside you, we will arrange and facilitate the meeting at a location and time that suits you.

What can you expect within the meeting:

Recording: Notes will be taken to form the basis of a Wellbeing Overview, which will be shared with everyone present.
Summarising: We will try and summarise the current situation and what brought us to the meeting
Measuring Wellbeing: We will ask you and the rest if the Team Around the Child (TAC) to scale wellbeing (see wellbeing toolkit below) and gives us reasons for your scale

What we expect within the meeting:

Participation: This helps us to understand your views and get an accurate picture of your situation, the more we understand the better placed we are to think about support.

After the meeting:

Write up: We will use the information shared within the meeting to populate a Wellbeing Overview. This will identify strengths, risks, and possible interventions.
Family Review: Sharing the overview with the family first for their input before sharing with professionals.

Wellbeing Tool

Key:

1. Stuck

2. Getting Started

3. Making Changes

4. Settled and Doing Well

5. Confident and Moving Forward

Safe

· Growing up in an environment where you feel secure, nurtured, listened to.

· Where you are supported with and given opportunities to develop.

· Where you are looked after and safe from harm (physical and emotional).

Healthy

· Being in good physical and mental health.

· Support to access suitable healthcare

· Support in learning to make healthy and safe choices.

Achieving

· Being supported to develop your learning, personality, talents, and abilities to the full.

· Being supported and guided in the development of your confidence and self-esteem, at home, in school and in the community.

Nurtured

· Being loved and cared for.

· Being in an environment where relationships provide connection, compassion, security and warmth.

· Having the support to develop resilience and a positive identity.

Active

· Having the opportunity to relax, play and take part in a wide range of physical, cultural and artistic activities.

· Taking part in activities that contribute to healthy growth and development, at home, in school and in the community.

Respected

· Being involved in and having your voice heard in decisions that affect your life, with support where appropriate.

· Encourage your respect for human rights, as well as respect for your parents, your own and other cultures, and the environment.

Responsible

· Having opportunities and encouragement to play active and responsible roles at home, in school and in the community.

· Being dependable and understanding the impact of decisions on others and ourselves.

· Being provided with and able to accept help when needed.

Included

· Feeling a sense of belonging; within your family, your school and your community.

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