Staying True to Practice

Discussion Group Questions

Where are we now?

-Have you experienced pressure to shift away from your practice model?

  • Confidentiality/ Data Sharing issues
  • Worried about SOA/ Employability changes but hasn’t changes practice too much
  • (yes, but) It’s a frame of mind. Make it clear to other partners what your boundaries are
  • Getting involved in mandatory work – e.g. work with offenders
  • Changing relationships with other providers such as Jobcentre Plus
  • Social work issues – learners forced to get involved
  • Yes – absolutely!
  • Third sector feedback – more flexibility – adapt to key agendas i.e. employability – how it is done
  • Constantly having to juggle/ internal battles. Sometimes we can’t say no
  • Employability agenda
  • Not always starting at a Social Practice Model position
  • Management who want to use deficit model rather than social practice
  • Partner expectations – employability – politically led, politically expedient
  • Lack of understanding of what we are about

-What were the key drivers for this?

  • External pressures from partners
  • Increased demand for services – economic climate
  • Internal pressures. Financial pressures. Best value.
  • Re-designing work/ courses around new priorities
  • Responding to changing needs of learners (e.g. employability skills)
  • Feeling that CLD can ‘do everything’
  • Targeting of resources
  • Re-organisation
  • Budgets
  • Different way of working – partnerships
  • Development of trusts
  • Funding issues – influencing practice
  • Qualifications – should be to improve ‘learner journey’
  • Targets – leads to compromise on service delivery – output drivers
  • Cuts
  • Partners
  • Political – elected members – diversionary work
  • Pressure
  • Political expediency
  • Fear

-How did you/ other practitioners respond?

  • Changes team structures – area based/ function based?
  • Re-assess needs
  • What are we actually doing?
  • Need to focus on outcomes
  • Use of staff
  • Support services
  • Change to survive
  • Proving that the outcomes of social practice is better ( more effective) than other approaches
  • Confidence issues i.e. staff delivering face to face – CPD?
  • We had to refer to our Code of Ethics
  • Being clear about what we do - use Code of ethics
  • Tell the story to others – get your foot in the door

-What worked?

  • Training
  • CPD
  • Discussion with other staff
  • Being clear with others about our core values/ principles
  • Stick to ethics
  • Awareness raising
  • Focussed projects
  • Early years work and family learning processes
  • Lifelong learning
  • Targeted provision
  • Change to survive worked to a certain extent
  • Evidence impact of social practice – sustainability
  • Prevention agenda
  • Unique Selling Point – explain CLD – Link to CfE?
  • Recognition of the work that front-line staff do
  • Developed better ways of articulating impacts
  • SROI – academically robust way
  • Use restructures and contracting out to reference effective models