Friday morning saw the second roundtable discussion on Safeguarding2.0 held at the offices of Local Government Information Unit in Central London. thinkpublic were joined at the breakfast meeting by some of the other partners of the project including FutureGov, Barnardo’s, Headshift and NESTA who are funding the research stage of the project, as announced in January. The Safeguarding2.0 project was conceived as a way to improve children’s social services by joining some of the dots between agencies operating in the area. Since the first roundtable discussion in August 2009, the partners have organised themselves as a task force, facilitating an ongoing dialogue around scoping innovative solutions to empower social workers and the way in which they communicate with their service users.
The conversation on Friday was incredibly interesting and full of enthusiasm, although it was indicated that early attempts at engagement with council workers have been met with reluctance from social workers understandably worried about compromising client relationships and confidentiality. Ian Drysdale explained how thinkpublic have faced many obstacles in trying to produce meaningful ethnographic research as service users have consistently declined to participate. However, we are now in a good position to record some good material with a willing social professional, eager to tell his story. So far the project proposal has outlined several areas of work, but it was noted at the meeting that the scope needs to be re-examined and the possibilities for both low-tech and high-tech solutions looked at.
To date the research has shown that while there are dangers in generalising the barriers to improving public services, there is a culture of fear and a low level of trust among agencies and professionals working in public services. This fear in addition to a defined hierarchy within the civil service can provide for further bureaucracy which impedes the development of openness and data sharing among various agencies such as Police, educators and youth workers. The importance of conducting real ethnographic research on the ground with civil servants and understanding “a day in the life” of the social worker in this context is imperative. This would help define the touch points at where an application or services proposed by the project, could provide real assistance to social workers and benefit the safeguarding of children greatly.
It was proposed by many partners that the tool which may be designed could take the form of a mobile web-application, helping social workers to add to the story of their clients case as it unfolds. This application would need to be flexible, recognise the tension of formal data capture, yet simultaneously engage with existing systems in use by local authorities and agencies already. The research has shown already how networked communication between agencies, puts the service-user at the centre of a case and is the most beneficial way to coordinate a multi-agency response in safeguarding the child at risk. This type of practice is already been trialled in Scotland with the Multi-Agency Resource Service, MARS. As the serviceusers, in this case young people, increasingly use social media to communicate with each other it would be logical to explore the possibilities offered by web technology which may help them tell their story and receive better care and attention. Other areas of exploration look at data visualisation and the tagging of cases and incidents in order to better understand the context in which social agencies operate.
All of the ideas discussed at the meeting serve to empower the public servant, giving them a chance to operate on an intuitive level, further empowering and helping their clients, children at risk. Another project, on which thinkpublic worked with the NHS Institute for Innovation was cited as a model solution. “Releasing time to Care” encouraged NHS staff to network and share expertise and advise on best practice allowing them to improve ward efficiency, resulting in more time available for nurses to spend caring for patients. As the Safeguarding2.0 project progresses it is hoped that a similar innovative solution can be designed which allows for radical efficiency in line with NESTA’s vision for the project.