In this episode I explore ideas and principles that I learned over the years to manage time more effectively.
Any questions please contact me on richdevinesocialwork@gmail.com
Connect with me on: https://twitter.com/RichardDevineSW
Follow my blog, where you can be sent fortnightly blogs on topics covered on this podcast: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/
If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your friends, and leave a review - positive, or negative, all feedback welcome.
In this episode I explore ideas and principles that I learned over the years to manage time more effectively.
Any questions please contact me on richdevinesocialwork@gmail.com
Connect with me on: https://twitter.com/RichardDevineSW
Follow my blog, where you can be sent fortnightly blogs on topics covered on this podcast: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/
If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your friends, and leave a review - positive, or negative, all feedback welcome.
Welcome to rich Divine's social work, practice podcast. I am rich and I am a social worker. This podcast is about practice related issues. Self-development and transformation. It will give you the knowledge, ideas, and practical tools for being an effective social worker. Supporting you with assessment skills, direct work, dealing with conflict. And importantly, helping you make a positive difference in the lives of children and families. So. I just wanted to begin by acknowledging that the last couple of episodes. I have realized the sound has been really dodgy. And for some reason, the certain words that are being clipped and missing. In the, in the recording and that might have to do with something with the way that I'm editing. And I I'm trying to resolve this at the moment. So apologies for that because when I listened back, it really is quite unbearable to listen to. And I just wanted to. Say thank you to Georgia Collins. Who emailed me about. This problem. Because I don't think I would have noticed it otherwise, or I would have noticed it much later. And, um, so I was really grateful that she, um, got in contact and highlight that to me. Thank you, Georgia. Today. We, uh, I'm going to be looking at. Um, Eight eight top tips for becoming an efficient and effective and organized and resilient social worker. I impart one last. Episode explored time management. The role of presence. Roofless pragmatism and reframing stress. In this. Part two of the eight top tips for being an efficient, effective, and organized social worker. We're going to look at. You're only as good as those around you. Reframing how we support parents. The idea of principles and humility. And so. Before I just jump into the first setup. The first principle, one thing I would like to say. Is I'm definitely not. Present in these principles. As if they were always available to me or that I'm even now always able to execute them on a consistent basis. Much of these principles. I've been kind of hard earned as a result of not having them available to me when I first started. And I'm a big believer that if you have the passion to want to help children and families, there's almost very little in children's social work that can't be learned. So with that in mind, let's move on to the first principle. You are only as good as those around you. And there's a quote here by, I thought totally. You cannot receive what you don't give outflow determined in flow. So making the most of those around you is aided in two ways. Firstly by bringing out the best in those that surround you. Secondly, actively elicit in feedback so that you can improve. So in relation to the first one, bringing out the best of those around you. I think our job in social work is to position ourselves and our relationships in such a way that emphasizes and brings forth preexistent strengths and abilities. I think that the underlying principles governing our interaction with children and families. Need to be no different with our colleagues. Whether that be your manager, the Arab man, or a head teacher of a school that a child that you're working with attends. In other words. You want to be. Strengths-based with your colleagues as much as you do with children and families. And I think one way to do this is to. Praise and express gratitude as much as possible. Whenever you observe good practice. Whatever someone is positioned. Um, profession positive feedback is surprisingly quite rare and often delightfully received. That can be. An asymmetry. That we can experience in terms of giving feedback. In that often. We expect our manager to be given the feedback to us. And so, um, or that we can give feedback to somebody that's, you know, Below us hierarchically. But actually, I think there's a lot of value. In acknowledging and praising, for example, your manager, if you feel like they've given you a particularly effective supervision or you've. Being supervised with buy, buy them for a year now. And so a year is a good opportunity to maybe write them a card. And to acknowledge and appreciate the support and guidance that they've given you during that year. Or even if your social worker and as a service leader, Who you really appreciate how they come around and speak to people, whatever it might be. Give him feedback to those above and below you. I think, um, can, can, can be really powerful. So if your manager has some positive qualities, How will it. If you're admin work the typed up your names. Thank them. If a teacher of the child offers you really helpful information. Express gratitude to them that they've done that in the context of what will be an insane workload. Teachers are incredibly busy and often their safeguarding responsibilities. Come in addition to. Pre-existing responsibilities in terms of education. I know that most schools now have a safeguard and lead. But nevertheless, I still think it's important that we. Express gratitude. When that often information that's helpful to us. And in my experience, you really are only as successful as those around you. So you have a vested interest in. Bringing out the best in, in your colleagues. The other thing. I would say about this. Is. If you already really, as good as those around, do you really want to try and surround yourself by people that kind of inspire you? And so if there is a social worker in the office who you find particularly. Good at writing reports or, um, seems to have a really brilliant way of in relating to parents or children. Try and spend as much time as possible with them. And seek out people who are. Yeah, inspiring or encouraging. The second. Element. Of this principle is around eliciting feedback. In my experience. Regular and honest feedback is the fastest, most effective way to improve as a social worker. And as a person. For the first three years of being a social worker. My manager and I do believe this is probably one of the greatest. Gifts that, that my manager, Tony Keaton afforded me. She would. Read every assessment care plan, report, and chronology that I ever wrote. And I was always given feedback and advice on how to improve it. And. At first I farmed receive in the feedback. Really painful. There just seems to be this innate defensive response to receiving feedback. But eventually. This feeling was overridden by a positive association that was made between receiving feedback and in, and having improved a piece of work. And so I could. Tolerate the feelings of discomfort. Because I knew that they were in service of being able to produce a better rapport, which would then improve the way I help the family or the way that the family read them, receive the rapport. Even now after like 12 years, my work is read by my supervisor. And comes back, absolutely filled with red pen. And I really wouldn't want it to have. It it to be any other way. Providing high quality constructive feedback is really time expensive. And so I think it's important to try and be grateful to anybody. Who is invested enough in the quality of work to do that for you? When you were writing about children and families lives. Then you want to be right in. To be as clear. Coherent and compassionate, uh, as you can make it. And anybody that's willing to support you in that Devore. Is somebody that's going to, you want to be grateful and appreciate. My, my manager at Tanya used to say, no matter how good you get, you can always improve. And I think that's so true. The second principle. Or this. principle in total. Is reframing how to support parents. In working with tonight. Child abuse. Bye. Andrea to now. And Susie Essex. They in Australia, it's an idea. That really changed my approach to working with patents. I realized or learned that there are two ways that I can help a parent and increase safety for a child. Firstly, we can support the individual. Secondly, we can create safety that lessens the risk that derived from a parent's behavior. For example. If a parent is misused in drugs and or alcohol. We encourage them to access treatment for that addiction. That's an individual approach. We want to change the individual. This is where I think our relationship or social workers can be vitally important. Our job I think, is to engage in conversations that maximize the chance that parents will want to change. Then function as a bridge between the parent and the surfaces that will facilitate their endeavor. And making those changes. I don't think we can tell parents what to do. Tell them that they need to change. Or at least. We can do that. And in my experience, it is incredibly ineffective and often creates more. Resistance not blast. So we can support them individually. By having conversations that encourage them to think about and reflect upon the reasons for change. And then ensure that they have access to the right support and that they can access the support. However, we should also support the family. And a social network. To mitigate the risk that stems from the parents issues. Especially if the parents are unwilling to change. This might include, for example. Having a family conference to look at the support the wider family could provide or arrange of for the school to access after school clubs or extra curricular activities. It is surprising how many problems that children encounter can be resolved or at least. Considerably ameliorate, ameliorated by improving the quality and the quantity of relationships. And I think that's probably a good. Masha to. Take into consideration when we're offering support for children and for families. Are we improving the quality and the quantity of relationships within this family? From this, I changed my. View of what it meant to help children and families. My role was to encourage and support the parent to make the changes required. But also recognize that there are severe limits on my capacity to make someone else change. In instances where the power for whatever reason is unwilling or not ready to change. I can therefore consider what aspect of the system can be changed in a way that would ameliorate the harm for the child. We have to remind ourselves. I think that it's not our doctor to eradicate risk. That's an unattainable. Though that will place. Unrealistic. Burdens upon ourselves. Instead, our job is to reduce. The level of risk or alternatively to increase the protective factors so that the child is sufficiently protected and shielded from undue significant harm. And I think recognizing this, or at least this was my experience can release us from having unrealistic expectations about what can be achieved. And the self-incrimination often proceeds when we have these high expectations that we're unable to fulfill. And there's a quote here by Eileen Monroe. She has a book called. Effective top protection, which is probably. It's in the top five of the most important books I've read. I would say, as a practitioner. Child protection workers have a duty to promote children's welfare, as well as protect them from maltreatment. They cannot just work to avoid risk. They never face a choice between a safe and a risky option. All the possible avenues, hold some dangerous and they involve making complex assessments. Balancing risks and deciding on the safest path. So I like that quote because it just reflects that. That, although we have a duty to promote their wealth children's welfare and protect them from maltreatment. This isn't about around a kn or completely remove and risk. It's about. How can we support the parent? To address some of the behavior. That might be causing a degree of harm. And in, in the absence of being able to do that or in alongside that, can we try and. Adjust the system. Such that. The children's experiences are improved. I actually have a personal example of this. When. I was growing up. We had a social worker who came to visit us. And. I have no idea at the time why the social worker was visiting. And we only saw them once, but looking back, I now. No. That it was because my cat had relapsed and was misused and drugs and alcohol. Quite heavily. And my mum was experiencing depression. And had chronic fatigue syndrome. And. The social worker came around and visited us. And then I never saw them again. And a couple of months later, I ended up going to an organization called young carers. And young carers. It's a really brilliant organization. And a charity for young people who have grown up with a parent or a sibling who has a disability and they might have to take on some care and responsibilities. And. I access young carers from the age of 11 up until I was 60. During that time I went to. Uh, fortnightly group. Well, we do games and exercises. I accessed one-to-one counseling. I spent. Time going on trips during the school holidays and residentials during the summer holidays. And. As a result of being able to access. Young carers. My. Life experiences were very different. I was able to access all of the support and it made. Uh, a significant and dramatic difference in terms of my Lyft experience. And yet that social worker. Would have had no idea of the profound effect that she had on my life. And yet she did nothing in the way of change in my home life. My dad still continued to misuse drugs and alcohol. My mum was still on. Wow. But the access to this support made a significant and profound difference. And so that is an example where. There was no change to my home life, but there was change in terms of the support that could be put around that made a profound difference. The seven-five day is, uh, principles. A key idea. I learned when I read the seven habits of highly successful people by Stephen Covey. Was learning to be responsible for my reactions, irrespective of the conditions I faced. In the book. Stephen Covey breaks down the word responsibility to response. Ability. That is the ability to choose a response. And he makes a distinction. Between proactive and reactive people. And he writes. Highly proactive people recognize responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. That behavior is a product of their own conscious choice. Based on values rather than a product of your conditions. Based on feeling. One of the things that is recommended. In this book is that you do the kind of personal mission statement. Which is where you. Articulate in written form. The kind of values and the kind of person that you want to be. And I did this for a few years. And some of the values include being considerate and compassionate and understanding. Having humility admitting when you're wrong. And the thing with those kinds of principles and values is that they're relatively easy to uphold when you have favorable conditions, the challenge. And I think this is what social work offers us. Is when new or. Overwhelmed because of the amount of work that you have, and you've done 30 hours in two days. And then you come up against a really difficult or resistant parent. How can you show up then? Or you've got some conflict or difficulty going on in the words space for various different reasons. Can you uphold your principles and your values? In those kinds of situations and predicaments. And he's just a really, um, Helpful way to think about. Your values and your principles, because often there's a lot of talk about values and in social work. But to me. A lot of that, I find quite abstract and. Challenging to connect with. Whereas writing down a mission statement about the type of person that you want to be. The type of values that are important to you and your commitment to uphold in them is a really good way of grounding. The idea of. Uh, your values and your ethics. So. The key challenge in social work. Is to remain calm, measured, and compassionate. Even in the face of a parent who might be hostile, upset. Aggressive or behaving in a way. That might be causing harm to themselves or others. It's quite a sophisticated and professional. Material position to adopt. It involves acknowledging the feelings derived from the diff difficult interactions without suppressing them. All Latin them unduly influential response to the Pam's distress or anger. In a really good paper by Harry Ferguson. He noted that there is an organization. Organizational investment in not fully acknowledging negative feelings in vote by child. Child protection. Practice. So he writes feelings were suppressed and suspended. Self-preservation practice. Due to the need to keep going to ensure the work got done. And it was psychological, unconscious and defensive arising from the need for organizations as well as individuals to defend the cell from unbearable feelings. However, he goes on to say, And acknowledged and suspended feelings remain repressed. And can easily be unconsciously acted out against surface shoes as in retaliatory ways. And the ultimately traumatized workers and burn them out. So there's a, there's a tight rope that in terms of. When parents would be in difficult. Or perhaps aggressive. About not completely closing yourself off from the feelings that are generated, but also not allowing yourself to be unduly influenced. Such that you react or respond negatively, both the suppression. And the quick to react. Can compromise. The relationship with the parent, but also it could compromise your own values about the type of person that you want it to be. And I think this kind of points to a key challenge in social work. Which is. To separate the response from parents resolving from our interpersonal approach, with the response from parents directed towards us because of our role. As a representative of a start to tree organization. If we fail to make this distinction. It means that we will interpret strong negative feelings towards us. As a statutory agent personally. In other words, we will mistakenly believe that the parent's anger is directed towards us personally. When in fact it would be directed at whoever was stood in front of them as a representative of the agency at that point. Whoever the child protection social worker was stood in front of them. At that point would receive the same response. And at the same time. We should not confuse the anger and frustrated frustration directed towards our personal floors. Poor communication. Or lack of empathy. With. Anger towards us as a representative of a statutory organization. In other words. It might have nothing to do with the fact that we're representative of a child protection. Service and everything to do with our interpersonal approach. In which case we need to take some responsibility. Receive the feedback and adopt a more conducive way of building relationships. In response to this challenge. I have always worked on the presupposition that the parents' behavior include in that dissatisfaction and negative feelings towards me, a justified. And reasonable from the context. Which they are situated. Therefore, whenever a parent is frustrated, angry with me because of my role as a sad. She's the social worker or because of my interpersonal inadequacies. Then I attempt not to me at. Defensively. Rather recognize that their reaction is understandable from that perspective. Secondly. Uh, I convey empathy for their frustration, which usually lessens it. And then I attempt to develop a further understanding of that dissatisfaction. And I think attempted to understand how they formed that view is just as important as what their view is. The final. Tip. Top tip. Is humility. And. There's a couple of ways in which humility shows up. Or is it important to try and cultivate. Firstly. Just in terms of the complexity of the job. There has been countless times when I felt like I wasn't able to do this job. It's too difficult. I keep messing up. It's too complex. Is too stressful, et cetera, et cetera. And one of my all time favorite quotes, which I have in a frame on my wall. In my house. It's by Mary Kay Ash. And. It says aerodynamically, the bumblebee. Shouldn't be able to fly. But the bumblebee doesn't know it. So it goes on flying anyway. And I just think that's a really beautiful. Quite. The second area in which humility I think is important is around. Some of the decisions that social workers make are in ordinarily complex. An extremely difficult. And often you might be faced with two options where both have significant dangers or risks. There's no kind of risk-free option often. You're just having to think about what's the least worst option. And that does create a kind of. A level of moral distress. So. It's going to be. Impossible. I think to be able to make. Accurate decisions a hundred percent of the time. And part of. Haven't humidity within social work practice is to admit when you've been wrong. In something. Fifth decisions. And to reflect that back to whoever you need to reflect that back to. One of the things that I need Mambo. Rights is the single most important factor in minimizing error in child protection is to admit that you may be wrong. And so it mitten that you're wrong. Isn't a sign of weakness. Necessarily. But rather. You reflect in on. The decision that was made. And being able to accept or admit that you got it wrong based on the available. Looking at inflammation at the time. So. There is the eight top tips. So being an effective. Efficient organized and resilient social worker. I have. For about a critique of the approach. I've. Proposed in terms of these eight top tips. And if I was a bit to think of why on it's probably that I placed too much responsibility on the self. And so by sharing. Some of these ideas. I have wondered whether I'm encouraging others to adopt slightly. Hyper individualistic approach. And that runs the risk of leading to self-blame when we're not being resilient, instead of recognizing the intensely. Relational contextual nature of what it means to be resilient. And. There are things that we can do in order to cultivate heart wellbeing now, resilience. But there are also organizational conditions that make that extremely difficult. So I just kind of wanted to acknowledge that. Really. And if there's any ideas that I haven't considered or. Any criticisms. Criticisms about some of these ideas, I really would be open and welcome them. And. There's a couple of things I wanted to mention. An hour finished. The eight top tips. One is that later on in this shit, I'm going to be. Delivering a series of webinars with Basware. Which I'm super excited about. And. It's going to be a masterclass series on child protection. And it. It's come about because I feel like, well, there, there's lots of really good training and, um, Resources available. I felt like from a practitioner's point of view, there were certain. Day-to-day expectations. That. Uh, I didn't feel like there was enough support or enough guidance around. And so I've kind of identified eight different areas that I think are critical in terms of what social workers are being asked to do. And drew and upon 12 years of experience, plus read extensively about manage these issues. I've tried to bring together an integrated approach. That is a kind of bottom up rather than a research. Uh, developing ideas about how to do direct work or how to do an assessment. And. Um, um, promoting that from above, um, I've come from the bottom up and fought about it from that point of view. So. Um, keeping your eye out for them and, um, yeah, it'd be great to, to have you on board. And, and the reason why I mentioned in that is one of the. Average I'm going to be looking at is about. Time management within the child protection context. And then the second thing and probably. Final thing I want to conclude on, or actually there's two more things. One more, the first one is that recently. There has been a report published by. The what works center for children's social care and the perceived impact of. Uh, peer parental advocacy on child protection practice. I am really excited about the prospect of peer prone to advocacy within child protection services. Because I think it has the potential to resolve. What has it been otherwise quite a long standing and stubborn problem. In respect of. The difficulties that parents have in building trusting relationships with statutory social workers. And so I see peer parent advocacy is functioning as a bridge between social workers and. Parent. And so this study. Uh, which was led by Dr. Clive Diaz. Uh, In relation to paper and rapids, seeing Camden. Is really worth exploring and taking a look at. And then the final thing. Is I shot at something kill on. Twitter, which was sent to me by, um, our assistant director, Lisa, I work. That just really, uh, I really appreciate it and found really lovely. So I thought I would share it here. And it's called how to be ordinary. And it's on a. And it's from the school of life. If you haven't. Checked out the school of life. I'd really recommend. They've got loads of online resources and articles. And I really love that right in. And their approach to a lot. Life's challenges and problems. And so this little piece is called Harold to be ordinary. And I'm just going to read it out. The term ordinary is typically applied as an insult. It's a byword for mundanity, a failure to merit, the world's attention. We are taught in this view to aspire, to be the opposite. Uh, special, exceptional, extraordinary. Yeah, to reclaim ordinary as a compliment to accept and even celebrate our very ordinariness would be a wise and Supreme achievement. Uh, life that views those a bits peers with contempt is navigating to be a happy one. Whereas one that finds pleasure and dignity in the smaller tasks of life. We did in the garden, doing the washing up is a life to be Embiid. Ordinary. Isn't a name for failure. Understood more carefully. And seen with a more generous and perceptive eye, it contains the best of life. And ordinary life does not presume the life lies elsewhere. Rather it is fully and properly here. And now. So it seems like a good note to end it on. Many thanks for listening to this episode. If you haven't already, then please consider subscribing sharing with your colleagues. And please, please do leave a comment. Positive or negative. All feedback is very welcome. And again, apologies for the quality of the sound I am working to get that rectified. And hopefully the previous episodes would be sorted and I won't have that problem with this episode. Thank you.