The social care landscape is changing from a focus on needs and deficits towards an approach that promotes independence and well-being, with collaborative conversations between social work practitioners and carers’ more muted around what can we do to help promote well-being and quality of life? and how can we work with you to try and reach goals/ outcomes that are important to you?
The social work profession in Wales has long been trending towards more of a partnership approach to care and this work has been developed to support social workers and related professionals to create a step-change in the culture of their approach and work towards more collaboration with carers’, families and other key stakeholders.
The new resources will be available online and the content has been co-shaped by the carer sector in Wales, with the work involving carers’ themselves, social workers, related professionals and relevant voluntary organisations.
Tammy Abarno, commented “The amount of and level of detailed feedback from the sector has been impressive and fundamental in shaping the resources. Social Care Wales have been excellent partners in helping us develop these resources”.
Resources include:
- a training manual to help managers run formal training sessions on carers’ assessments,
- training presentation slides that support the training manual,
- a practitioner reflective workbook of reflective practice for social workers and relevant practitioners to carry out quality, carer assessments
- a practical toolkit that provides tools and theories that can be applied by practitioners when working with carers’ to improve assessments.
The 5 month project began in October and the resources, which will be written in English and Welsh, are being published in early 2019. The IPC at Oxford Brookes won the work through a competitive tender process, based on its strong track record of consultancy and research around social and health care. For example, IPC delivers the Team Manager Development Programme, aimed at mangers of social worker teams in Wales, which develops leadership and management skills with a real understanding of managing practice. This year-long programme is specifically aimed at social care team managers and senior practitioners across Wales.