Reflective practice groups in a children’s social work setting - what are the outcomes, how do they work and under what circumstances? A new theoretical model based on empirical findings

ABSTRACT

Despite widespread acceptance of the importance of reflection and reflective practice groups (RPGs) in children’s social work, almost no evidence exists as to the outcomes of RPGs in this context. This is a serious limitation because such evidence is crucial for funders and policy-makers and to establish RPGs as an evidence-based practice. There is also an absence of theoretical models to inform thinking about how RPGs might ‘work’ as an intervention to support workers and improve practice. Contributing new evidence to bridge these gaps, this paper reports a mixed-methods, longitudinal evaluation of RPGs within one local authority children’s social work services department. The study advances the methods that have been used to investigate RPGs in the social work context and considers outcomes beyond that of the individual practitioner. The paper also presents a new theoretical model, based on these empirical findings, of how RPGs ‘worked’ and under what circumstances.

KEYWORDS:

• Reflective practice groups
• evaluation
• children’s social work
• relationship-based social work

Acknowledgements

This evaluation was supported by the Centre for Social Work Practice and undertaken by the corresponding author, Dr Amanda Lees, with supervision from Prof Andrew Cooper. We are grateful to the evaluation site, for the opportunity to undertake this evaluation. Many staff at all levels facilitated and contributed to the evaluation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amanda Lees

Amanda Lees is a Senior Researcher at the University of Winchester’s Faculty of Health and Wellbeing. [email: [email protected]]

Andrew Cooper

Andrew Cooper is Professor of Social Work at the Tavistock Centre and the University of East London.