WillisPalmer
News & Blog

WillisPalmer are seeking to recruit experienced adoption assessors to undertake Prospective Adopter Reports (BAAF Form PAR) for local authority adoption agencies. If you have a minimum of 3 years experience working in an adoption team contact WillisPalmer today to register with us.

WillisPalmer recently held a training day for Form F assessors provided by Roger Chapman. Roger is the author of “Undertaking A Fostering Assessment” a book published by BAAF which is considered to be the template for high quality fostering assessments. Although on the day there was still heavy snow covering most of the east of England, all our assessors made it to our Colchester offices to undertake the training with Roger. The feedback from the attendees was that the training was extremely useful and particularly the small groupwork tasks which gave them all the chance to discuss the case studies fully.

We are going to ask Roger to return later on in the year to hold another training day due to the success of the last session. Once a date has been set we will contact our assessors to advise.

On 6^th February the government published it’s response to the Family Justice Review.  The 92 page document accepts almost all the recommendations of the Norgrove report, although predictably, some are accepted with the caveat “subject to funding being available”.  

The controversial proposal for setting a limit of six months for the completion of all care cases has been accepted dependent upon “parliamentary time being made available”, raising the prospect of significant delays before the reforms can be implemented.

Noteworthy is the government’s agreement that more research is needed into the role and value of experts working in public law cases. This is timely given the research commissioned last year by the Confederation of Independent Social Work Agencies (CISWA) currently being undertaken by Dr Julia Brophy from Oxford University.

The research study is evaluating the work of independent social workers from three organisations over a 12 month period. The first stage is due for completion this month and the findings will be published in April*.

In the past year Independent Social Workers have been criticized for causing delay, duplicating the work of local authorities and for being “an expensive part of the landscape”.  In May 2011 ISWs had their fees capped by the Legal Services Commission at a rate far beneath all other comparable professionals.  

Despite this CISWA has continued to reiterate that there has been no research into the role and effectiveness of ISWs and that much of the criticism is anecdotal and lacking an evidence base.  This means the Oxford research assumes even greater significance.  

The Family Justice Review, which published it’s report in November last year, recommended that ISWs be used only in exceptional circumstances and yet they had little or no evidence available to them about the work of ISWs, the cost of commissioning them in comparison to other experts, or about the profile of those undertaking the work, many of whom have over 25 years post qualifying experience in child protection.

Those working as Independent Social Workers and those who commission their services, understand their value and the expertise they can bring to a complex case.  As the role of the Children’s Guardian has diminished post-Cafcass, and with 40% of cases coming to court with no core assessment, the importance of an experienced ISW has become ever more important in safeguarding the welfare of children in public law cases.

At a time when the government states it’s commitment to retaining the most experienced social workers in the system, there must now be a serious and informed debate about the role of ISWs and their contribution to the safety of children throughout the UK.

It is essential that policy makers and those working in the family justice system take heed of the Oxford findings and that further decisions about the future of this experienced and highly skilled workforce are based on evidence and not ill-informed anecdotes or prejudice. 

*CISWA-UK will be organising a dissemination event in London in April where the Oxford findings will be unveiled for the first time.

Mark Willis

Director, WillisPalmer

WillisPalmer can provide Risk Assessment Experts who are highly experienced in providing Risk Assessments of Parents.

Most Expert Risk Assessment reports can be filed 6 weeks from receipt of letter of instruction and papers.

WillisPalmer will be holding our first training sessions for the Incredible Years programme in October. The training will be provided through the Ministry of Parenting who have a proven track record in providing training to professionals.

If you are interested in attending future training sessions please contact Steve to discuss further.

WillisPalmer are always happy to register new practitioners. If you or a colleague are interested and have 3 years post qualification experience please contact us. We hold regular recruitment days for our independent social workers at our offices in Colchester, Essex.

WillisPalmer are currently reviewing our training programme for our contractors for the coming year. We are launching new services such as the Incredible Years programme which will form part of our early intervention strategy which will see us offering home based parenting programmes to local authorities.

We are also providing training sessions directly to local authorities and have recently provided Merton Age Assessment training to a local authority who have provided feedback that this was an excellent course provided by a knowledgable trainer.

We are in the process of launching our latest service providing expert Psychiatric assessments by:-

Consultant Psychiatrists

Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists

Forensic Psychiatrists

We are keen to speak to Consultant Psychiatrists that have experience in the following:-

• Child and family assessments for public and private law proceedings

• Adult psychiatric assessments e.g. mental illness, personality disorder etc

• Substance misuse assessments

• Assessments of violent individuals

• Psychiatric assessments of children and young people

All consultants work for WillisPalmer on a self-employed basis and can take as much or as little work as required.

We offer guaranteed payment on 42 days and the chance to be part of a network of experienced professionals. If you are interested in being a consultant please forward your CV to enquiry@willispalmer.com or call and ask to speak to Julia Wood

The inaugural conference of CISWA-UK, the Confederation of Independent Social Workers, which took place on 24^th June in Birmingham, heard from a range of prominent speakers, all of whom extolled the virtues of independent social work.  It was an up-beat occasion attended by ISWs, legal professionals and representatives from the voluntary sector. 

Dame Gillian Pugh from the Family Justice Review team, expressed regret that the team’s report, published last month, had unfairly singled out ISWs for criticism when discussing the issues of delay and cost of independent experts. 

This was heartening to hear, for the absence of any evidence based data regarding the role of ISWs in the family court system is entirely lacking.  In it’s place anecdote and in some cases prejudice has dominated the debate.  Dame Gillian made it clear that the Family Justice Review team were in no way suggesting this was the end for independent social workers and they had a valuable role to play in the future. 

In her speech, Dr Julia Brophy, Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University, made it clear that the lack of objective evidence about the role and value of ISWs in the family courts made some criticisms about their use unreliable.  Conversely Dr Brophy made the point that evidence regarding the lack of a core assessment in 40% of s31 care applications was well established. 

Dr Brophy, who has been commissioned by CISWA to undertake research into the role and function of ISWs in the family courts, urged policy makers to await the findings of her evaluation before implementing changes to the family justice system.

Judith Timms spoke eloquently about the issues affecting children in the family courts and how their rights risked being eroded further as a result of Cafcass’s policy of so called proportionality. 

Indeed, a theme frequently repeated during the conference was the incremental erosion of the role of the Children’s Guardian since the inception of Cafcass.  Indeed, many of the experienced and skilled Guardians previously working for Cafcass are now practicing as ISWs. 

Professor Eileen Munro provided a fascinating presentation setting out her vision for the future of child protection social work.  In it she advocated for the removal of bureaucracy and meaningless timescales so social workers could be set free to undertake work with families rather than sitting in front of computers. 

It was noted from the floor that this is the way in which independent social work practitioners have been operating for many years and if this opportunity could be opened up to local authority workers then this has to be good for the children they are working with.

Mark Willis CISWA-UK Chair

WillisPalmer is pleased to confirm the inclusion of our expert domestic violence assessors on the Respect Expert directory.

Our domestic violence risk assessments use a validated assessment approach, (DV:RAF) together with psychometric evaluation.

We are able to complete a domestic violence risk assessment in six weeks.

Contact WillisPalmer today to discuss this further