Social workers do a tough job. They're quick to be damned by the media whenever things go wrong, and were even caught up in riots in Leeds recently, triggered by a child protection case.
Since 2022 we’ve worked closely with hundreds of social workers across seven English local authority children’s services departments, helping them work more effectively with fathers via our ISAFE training.
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We’ve met some great people, and have seen firsthand how busy and stressful their lives are. But we’ve also been reminded that – as is also true for other family services – there’s a strong need for social services to ‘up their game’ to work better with fathers.
Giving fathers a fair hearing
Evidence reviews [note 1] find that fathers and father-figures often feel – and frequently are – shut out from social workers’ practice, including family assessments and case conferences.
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Social workers are more likely to be in touch with mothers, which can lead to an over-reliance on mothers to share information about fathers; an assumption that mothers are intrinsically safer, more knowledgeable and responsible for children’s safety; and the mother, rather than the child, becoming the ‘client’.
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Negative stereotypes about fathers being absent, difficult, disengaged, violent and aggressive – along with fear of men and discomfort with their expression of emotions – can also block father-engagement. Gaps in knowledge and understanding around men as a risk and resource in families are the result.
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These gaps can be filled, if social workers take an authoritative and empathic approach in their work with fathers – finding them, building rapport, listening to their stories, assessing their capacity as caregivers, and seeking out ways to support their safe involvement. It’s difficult but important work.
Working with all men around children
To reach a holistic understanding of a child’s family background and circumstances, social workers’ engagement with fathers and father-figures should not be contingent on whether they have Parental Responsibility, or whether they live full-time with the mother [note 2].
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Does engaging all men around a child add to social workers’ workload? Yes – especially if referring agencies haven’t already laid the groundwork by providing their names and contact details. Does it matter? Absolutely – not to be ‘nice to dads’, but because it’s an important part of keep children safe. It's worth remembering, for example, that new data collated by the For Baby’s Sake Trust shows that in 13% of police call-outs for domestic abuse a baby is present.
Making engagement with fathers systematic
ISAFE [note 3] includes a module for quality assurance staff, where we provide a case file audit tool to help them track key indicators of father-engagement:
Whether or not the birth father is named
Whether or not the birth father's contact details are included in the case file
Whether there’s a clear record of the birth father having been invited to case conferences
Whether or not the birth father attended case conferences
On their own, such records don’t equate to a father having been appropriately engaged, assessed and supported. But they are a useful step towards these important elements of good practice.
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In the ISAFE trial, case file audits before and after the training found that six of the seven local authorities had improved on at least one father-engagement measure, and three had improved on four or more measures.
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Across the local authorities, the gender gap in engagement narrowed for all indicators, but it remained above 20% on all but one. To reach parity, local authorities need to commit to sustained focus on embedding father-inclusive practice and systems.
Recruiting more social workers
Which brings us to our final point. With no sign of reduced demand for services [note 4], social work has a staffing crisis, with many posts lying vacant, high turnover rates, and a growing reliance on agency staff. A 2023 British Association of Social Workers survey found 50% of social workers saying they couldn’t manage their current workload, and 65% not able to complete all their work within their contracted hours.
We witnessed these pressures in our delivery of ISAFE, through frequent staff changes, and participants cancelling or being called away during training sessions. Â Â
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Community Care’s free Choose Social Work resource pack, designed to help boost recruitment, is welcome [note 5]. But more action is needed to build the workforce. Pressurised, overworked social workers are much less likely to feel like they have time to reach out to and ‘do the work’ with fathers and other men around a child.
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We look forward to working with more social work teams in future, having digested Ipsos’ evaluation of ISAFE, funded by Foundations. Whatever its findings, it’s clear there’s much work to be done.
Notes
[1] For links to relevant evidence, see the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s The Myth of Invisible Men, and our evidence review about Non-accidental injury of infants by fathers, father-figures and other male informal caregivers
[2] One of the resources we developed for ISAFE, in consultation with CASCADE, is a practice guide on Fathers and Parental Responsibility. We hope to publish this more widely later this year
[3] Find out more about the ISAFE intervention, which we developed in partnership with CASCADE, in this recent journal paper
[4] Latest ONS data shows that the national rate of children in need per 100,000 children was 342.7 in March 2023 – the second highest in a decade - while the rate of children on child protection plans per 100,000 (43.2) was slightly above average.
[5] So is Social Work England’s Change the Script toolkit, aimed at challenging negative media portrayals of social work
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