A letter from a children's services practice lead

In this guest blog Shelley Gill, practice lead for Durham county council’s children’s services, takes time to reflect during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shelley shares a letter to her ASYE cohort and colleagues, highlighting the ups and downs of the unique challenge that newly qualified social workers and the whole profession face, both personally and professionally.

Now more than ever the values of social work highlight its importance, with social workers continuing to put people at the heart whilst staying true to the standards of the profession.

These are truly unprecedented times. Amid the uncertainty and worry, there is also the passion, care and a fabulous opportunity for creativity. Embracing technology and innovation in direct work and ways of engaging with and maintaining contact with our vulnerable children, young people and families. Our social work values keep us strong and rooted.  

These experiences can be captured in your critical reflection log and may help you process some of this stuff and regulate your emotions. I know in recent weeks I have days when I feel OK and days when I don’t. I have heard about some beautiful relational practice in the last few days which has made my heart sing. 

You (we) are dealing with the impact of COVID-19 at home in our personal lives as well as at work – thinking of our own loved ones as well as those we work with. Boundaries are blurred with no emotional respite and no safe haven amid lots of uncertainties. Our homes, once our emotional refuge, are now where we have challenging conversations and talk about risk and safety. We have fewer multi agency eyes we had in our children’s lives and homes, and this can leave us feeling uncertain. Some of us a juggling home schooling and looking after elderly relatives too. I am exhausted in new ways. 

Remote working can be great, but it can also be isolating so get creative with technology to bring teams together – voice and video contact are very reassuring and grounding. Ramp up the self-care, reflection and supervision, havening, peer support – let it out, process it. Bottling it up and pushing it down will make it worse. Team is important – connect, share, journal, doodle, reflect, talk, cry, laugh, dance. 

Regarding face to face contact with families follow the social distancing and public health guidelines, don’t take chances – think and plan. We have some mega challenging times coming up and we will no doubt see spikes in neglect, domestic abuse, parental stressors and risk-taking behaviour impacting on children as the lockdown continues. Poverty for our most vulnerable will become so much more acute. Be curious, be tenacious, be gentle, use the tools and technology we have creatively. 

These are scary times, but they also present you with a fantastic opportunity for relational practice – a unique ASYE cohort that started with a full Ofsted inspection and now face the personal and professional challenges of the coronavirus. We are seeing realignment of services, rapid national and international social and political change, and recognition that less visible key workers are essential. National guidance and legislative changes are being updated daily as knowledge deepens.

Supervision and reflective space are now more important than ever – make it happen. We have a collective wisdom that we want to build on and, in that regard, we want to share good practice. We will be making reflective opportunities available to all individuals, teams in Children’s services, as well as the academy, to help us connect, share, process and plan. We are also considering some kind of summer school to help us catch up and heal after this passes – and it will pass. 

What a first year you are having – it WILL be the making of you and I hope that the changing narrative around community will benefit the most vulnerable in the long term.

You are all awesome! You got this!