Approaches to Working with Children and Families: A Review of the Evidence for Practice

Abstract

This article explores a range of approaches to working with children and families within Children’s Services and Children’s Social Care, in a UK local authority context. There are a variety of established approaches, supported by different concepts and theories. Given the substantial recent and developing changes in the political, social and economic context for supporting families in need, collating academic and practical evidence to inform both theory and decision-making are vital. The article has a practice focus for Children’s Services, but it is also relevant and has implications for a much wider readership. Evidence was gathered through a purposive and rapid review and aggregated with practice evidence from various sources. An array of issues is considered relating to the context, theory, application, implementation and evaluation of taking one or several approaches. Overall, there is a very limited evidentiary basis, either from research or local authority practice, for adopting any one, wholesale approach to working with children and families in a local authority context over another, but there is emerging evidence of the benefits that certain models and approaches could have, and anecdotally the decision to adopt one formal model appears to be increasing.

Keywords:

• approach
• children
• families
• social work
• local authority
• policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Catherine Goodall

Catherine Goodall is the lead associate on a 30-month KTP project with Nottingham Trent University and Nottinghamshire County Council to review, evaluate and innovate children’s services. Catherine has an MA in International Relations and a BA (Hons) in Social and Cultural Studies and a varied employment history in Administration, Project Management and Research. This project has a specific interest in the approach taken to working with children and families and in parenting support and will employ Participatory Action Research (PAR) with children and families. Correspondence to: Catherine Goodall, Social Work and Professional Practice, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham NG1 4BU, UK. Email: [email protected]

Adam Barnard

Adam Barnard has been employed in higher education since 1996. His career to date spans the range of social sciences, and he has worked with a variety of student groups in Higher Education. He is co-programme leader on the professional doctorate programme at Nottingham Trent. He was programme leader for BA (Hons) Health and Social Care. He teaches on level one, two and three of this programme and teaches Values and Interpersonal Skills on BA (Hons) Social Work. He is engaged in doctoral supervision. He is a member of the school’s ethics committee.