The views of social workers and special guardians on planning contact for special guardianship children
| Published date | 28 November 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JCS-09-2018-0021 |
| Pages | 237-250 |
| Date | 28 November 2019 |
| Author | Nicholas Thompson |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Vulnerable groups,Children's services,Sociology,Sociology of the family,Children/youth,Parents,Education,Early childhood education,Home culture,Social/physical development |
The views of social workers and special
guardians on planning contact for special
guardianship children
Nicholas Thompson
Abstract
Purpose –Special guardianship order (SGO) assessments require social workers to make plans and
recommendations for ongoing post-SGO contact between the child and the parents. However, there is very
little policy to inform and guide practitioners on how these duties should be undertaken, and no studies that
describe current practice. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the recommending of contact in
special guardianship cases is currently working, by holding focus groups with social workers and special
guardians. This paper reports on the results of a study to examine what contact plans social workers are
recommending, the thinking behind their decisions and the views of the specialguardians who have to make
those plans work.
Design/methodology/approach –The research involved a mixed methods approach comprising
of an online questionnai re, two focus groups for social worker s and two focus groups for special guardi ans.
This paper describes the se cond part of the study and rep orts on the qualitative resu lts from the
four focus groups. The met hodology was based on a prag matist theoretical pos ition, and used an
interpretivist approach and elements of the analytical procedure of grounded theory in order
to generate inductive research. The focus group method was chosen as the best way to gather rich
information on the opinions and ideas of practitioners who are recommending contact and the carers who
are managing it.
Findings –Participants provided a wide range of views on the issues, with practitioners describing the
challenges of planning contact, and special guardians explaining the problems they faced with the parents.
Involving special guardians in the study gave a chance to include the different perspectives of the people who
have to make the contact recommendations work, and contrast their views on contact planning with those of
the professionals. The study makes recommendations for practice, which recognise the difficulty of preparing
an initial contact plan that will remain relevant for years ahead.
Research limitations/implications –The number of focus groups the author held was limited by the
author’s own personal resources and the time the author had available, and one group only had three social
workers on the day. The author’s involvement affected the responses, and the author’s questions dictated
the issues that were commented on, but the answers were the opinions that the participants wanted to
express. The nature of the approach means that no two sets of focus group results would ever be the same.
And as the direction of the discussions was largely dictated by the participants, the coverage of all aspects of
contact was probably inconsistent.
Practical implications –This research sheds light on a crucial area of social work permanency planning,
that has suffered from a lack of previous research, in order to better inform future practice. The paper reports
on what contact plans social workers are recommending, the thinking behind their decisions and the views of
the special guardians who have to make those plans work. It concludes with recommendations for improving
future special guardianship policy and practice.
Social implications –The research clearly raises a number of specific difficulties faced by special
guardians and problems with current policy and practice. These include the special guardians’lack of
understanding about co ntact, the difficulty for socia l workers of long-term planning , the challenge posed by
uncooperative parents who behave badly, the view of carers for the need for a greater emphasis on the
quality and reliability of contact, and the challenge to careful contact planning posed by the adversarial
court process.
Originality/value –Special guardianship has had a major impact on permanency planning since its
introduction 12 years ago. However, apart from one DfE study in 2014, very little research has been
produced to inform policy and practice. There have been no studies specifically on contact in special
Received 26 September 2018
Revised 12 May 2019
Accepted 10 September 2019
Nicholas Thompson is a Senior
Practitioner working on special
guardianship for a local authority
in the South East.
DOI 10.1108/JCS-09-2018-0021 VOL. 14 NO. 4 2019, pp. 237-250, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1746-6660
j
JOURNAL OF CHILDREN'S SERVICES
j
PAG E 23 7
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