Agenda item

Young people from LINX (Lancashire's Children in Care Council), April Rankin and Adam Riley, Participation Team, Child and Family Wellbeing Service, LCC

To receive a piece of work conducted by young people about:

i)  Supporting the recruitment and retention process for social workers in Children's Social Care.

ii)  Why it is good for a social worker to work with young people in Lancashire.

Young people from LINX (Lancashire's Children in Care Council) and April Rankin and Adam Riley, Participation Team, Child and Family Wellbeing Service, Lancashire County Council presented to the Board a piece of work on what makes a good social worker. 

The Board were requested to participate in an activity using Mentimeter and to answer the following question:

What do you think makes a good social worker?

The results were presented to the Board in the form of a word cloud and is attached to the minutes.

The young people then presented to the Board what they felt made a good social worker and again the responses can be found in the presentation attached to the minutes, with the following responses being highlighted:

Engaging – young people felt that this was important to them as it can help create a bond with their social worker and to help build trust.  The felt that engaging and fun are also important to when planning to have meetings outside as this gets them out of the house.

They also felt that being honest with was important as social workers make decisions about their future and young people would like to know the truth about things - the good and the bad.

Other words that stood out from the results from the question asked of young people what they thought made a good social worker was:

·  Understanding

·  Inclusive

·  Consistent

·  Caring

·  Non-judgmental

·  Reliable

The young people then spoke about how the topic of transition between workers could be approached, how to effectively implement a positive transition and gave they ideas for the future.  Young people felt that:

·  If a new worker was being introduced to them, eg a social worker or a personal advisor, they should be mindful to inform the young people of this change at an appropriate time. 

·  This could be in either an informal or formal setting, dependent on the relationship and the young people, however it was felt that getting the setting right, could affect how the young people are feeling before they are told and if they are already anxious in the environment, news of getting a new worker could make them more anxious and upset.

·  Giving children and young people enough notice of the transition was also important so they did not feel like they had not been taken into consideration and that this would make them feel valued and able to feel prepared.

·  A good guide for the time frame is 4 to 8 weeks, ensuring that in this period of time young people get the chance to meet and get to know both their new worker.  There has also been positive feedback that it helps young people, if both the new and old worker are there when we meet young people.

·  An idea that young people proposed would be to share with them a 'pen profile' of workers so young people could read about them on paper before they meet in person.

·  Another idea was that if a worker was to change, the young person could be given a few profiles to look at and see who they felt would be best get on with to support transition and handle situations.

Young people had also discussed how they could make being a social worker appealing to new recruits.  They felt that:

·  Lancashire County Council Children's Services staff could attend career events at high schools/colleges to give young people at an earlier age when choosing their options, an insight into what jobs are available and what qualifications they will need.

·  Attend universities to share current jobs available within the service.

·  Use social media to share videos developed from young people on Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok.

·  Share videos of a 'Day in the life of a social worker' and other workers so people get to see the real day to day role of different jobs.

·  Videos from young people about why social workers are important to them to help promote the work that is being done.

·  Using real people on adverts to reinforce 'real people real impact'.

The Board were then asked to use the slider on Mentimeter to let the young people know if the information they had shared with the Board was new and useful to members and also how they felt the level of importance was for the following areas:

·  Knowing what makes a good social worker

·  Knowing information about a positive transition

·  Using social media

·  Attending career/job events 

The results for both questions are shown in the presentation attached to the minutes.

Resolved:  That the young people were thanked for their item and that a link will be made with Georgine Lee, Lancashire Family Safeguarding Transformation, Lancashire County Council re young people getting involved with social worker recruitment.