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This paper explores the design and delivery of an interdisciplinary approach to the delivery of court work skills to final year social work students. Using fictional case material, social workers complete a court report. The court reports are made available to trainee barristers who develop questions from the reports for cross examination. In sessions hosted by fully qualified barristers, social workers practice their oral skills in giving evidence to trainee barristers practising their skills in cross examination. Detailed formative feedback is provided to both trainee social workers and trainee barristers in small group, mock court settings.

In a context where doctoral level qualifications have not been professionally accredited in Northern Ireland, this paper outlines the progress made in this area. The paper highlights the importance of collaborative engagement with multiple stakeholders including employers, regulatory authorities and the university to align aims and objectives regarding doctoral level qualifications. The paper highlights ongoing areas for development including emphasising to employers the benefits of social workers acquiring doctoral level qualifications.

Reports into incidents of child death and serious injury have highlighted consistently that a cause for concern has been the capacity of social workers to communicate skilfully with children. In response, there has been a growing emphasis on training social workers in their communication skills. While a welcome development, training can often be perceived and experienced in terms of obtaining practical tips to aid the verbal and non-verbal communication process. We argue that more fundamental to ‘connected’ communicative encounters are intrinsic qualities that are difficult to identify, define and ‘package’. Using a social pedagogical approach and drawing on data collected as part of an Economic and Social Research Council funded UK-wide, four nations, qualitative study exploring social workers’ communicative practices with children, this paper will consider how social workers manage to connect, or not, with children. The social pedagogical concepts of ‘haltung’ (attitude), ‘head, heart and hands’ and ‘the common third’ are outlined as potentially helpful approaches for understanding the intimacies of inter-personal connections and enhancing social workers’ capacity to establish and sustain meaningful communication and connections with children in the face of austere organisational contexts.

Reports into incidents of child death and serious injury have highlighted consistently concern about the capacity of social workers to communicate skilfully with children. Drawing on data collected as part of an Economic and Social Research Council funded UK-wide research project exploring social workers' communicative practices with children, this paper explores how approaches informed by social pedagogy can assist social workers in connecting and communicating with with children. The qualitative research included data generated from 82 observations of social workers' everyday encounters with children. Social pedagogical concepts of ‘haltung’ (attitude), ‘head, heart and hands’ and ‘the common third’ are outlined as potentially helpful approaches for facilitating the intimacies of inter-personal connections and enhancing social workers' capacity to establish and sustain meaningful communication and relationships with children in the face of austere social, political and organisational contexts.

Reports into incidents of child death and serious injury have highlighted consistently concern about the capacity of social workers to communicate skilfully with children. Drawing on data collected as part of an Economic and Social Research Council funded UK-wide research project exploring social workers’ communicative practices with children, this paper explores how approaches informed by social pedagogy can assist social workers in connecting and communicating children. The qualitative research included data generated from 82 observations of social workers’ everyday encounters with children. Social pedagogical concepts of ‘haltung’ (attitude), ‘head, heart and hands’ and ‘the common third’ are outlined as potentially helpful approaches for facilitating the intimacies of inter-personal connections and enhancing social workers’ capacity to establish and sustain meaningful communication and relationships with children in the face of austere social, political and organisational contexts.

Communication with children is fundamental to the social worker role of protecting and promoting the wellbeing of vulnerable children. It enables social workers to form and maintain relationships with a child, learn about the child’s situation and understand the child’s perspective. Existing knowledge about how children and social workers communicate with each other is fragmented, partial and… Little is known about how children and social workers, in their everyday encounters, experience the same interaction. This paper focuses on the second phase of a UK research council funded project – Talking and Listening to Children – in which children who are looked after and their social workers reflect on their experiences of a professional encounter. Utilising video stimulated recall techniques child-social worker dyads were videoed taking part in an everyday interaction, e.g an informal preparatory meeting for a formal review meeting. Each of the participants then had the opportunity to review the video footage of the encounter and to discuss with the researcher where they felt both parties in the exchange were in agreement, or not, with what was happening in the communication process.The paper will present key findings from the research, make recommendations for how the findings can enhance good communication practices with children and young people and consider how the use of video stimulated recall as a research methodology can empower both children and professionals in the interest of practice improvement.

This paper explores dominant discourses underpinning the social worker visit to children and families and their impact on their purpose, content and focus.

This report covers the rights of the most vulnerable children in Northern Ireland who cannot be cared for within their own family. The purpose of the report is to review the current provision and circumstances facing such children and young people and how international human rights standards can offer protection and support.

This paper considers the provisions of the UNCRC and applies them to the field of child protection suggesting new ways of working that are rights compliant.

This paper reviews the recent policy developments designed to improve social workers' relationships with children and the barriers to establishing these.